Chapter II

After four years, some things in the Academy changed; Iruka was more accepting of Naruto, including her in more things and becoming less biased. Mizuki, on the other hand, had stayed the same, if not become more hostile toward her. Same thing with the other Academy students; they not only perceived Naruto as the "demon child" according to their parents, but also as an inferior; Naruto was one of the worst students in the class.

However, all of these things will be for naught since his Academy experience is coming to an end; the exams are coming up, and Naruto must pass if she wants to continue her journey to becoming Hokage.

She thought of those things as she walked to the Academy. What questions would she encounter? What trials? Sparring maybe? She entered the classroom and sat in the back corner as usual. The rest of the students came in and took their normal seats, and the two teachers followed and announced what would be happening that day. Essentially what was being said was that there would be a written exam along with sparring; one match with Mizuki, and one match with a fellow student.

Naruto was definitely nervous, but she masked it as she didn't wanna let anyone else come to that conclusion. The classroom was lead outside to a field with drawn circles; they were going to do sparring first.

"Okay children, we will be be sparring each other for the first part of this exam. For the first round, it will be student going against a fellow student, and for the second round the winners will be going against Mizuki." explained Iruka. The students nodded. "For the first match, it will be Naruto vs. Sakura. Good luck you two." Iruka continued. The two students walked into the circle, facing each other on opposite sides of the shape.

Sakura, from Naruto's perspective, seemed almost sure she was going to win. In the beginning of Naruto's days in the Academy, Sakura treated her with some sort of decency. But as the weeks and months went on, she became cold toward her. Whenever her parents were near Naruto they would sneer at her, and they would discourage Sakura from even being around Naruto.

The instructor yelled for them to start, and the two students put their guards up and started perusing each other around the perimeter of the circle. Naruto decided to attack first. She thrusted her palm toward Sakura's stomach, but since she went for that attack so early and her center of mass wasn't above her feet anymore, she overcommitted, and Sakura easily countered that by taking her wrist and violently pulling her out of the circle. Sakura won the match. All of the other children snickered, and those snickers progressed to cackling by all of them. Naruto lost in less than thirty seconds, to one of the weakest in the class. "That's really all you can do, demon?" Sakura said in a tone that feigned disappointment. Inwardly, she reveled at being able to humiliate the demon child that her parents seemed to hate so much.

Naruto lay on the ground. She looked up toward the sky for a bit, and then tried to sit up with at least some dignity after being humiliated. Her attempt was cut short however, after Sasuke Uchiha kicked her in the stomach, putting her back down. "Stay down you worthless piece of-" Sasuke's pejorative toward Naruto was interrupted by Iruka violently pulling him by the back of his shirt away from her.

Sasuke was arguably the most hateful toward Naruto. His family was affected the most by what happened on Naruto's birthday; his mother and father died that night, and he was left with his big brother, Itachi. Furthermore, Sasuke just always felt uncomfortable around Naruto, threatened almost by her presence. He didn't let that stop him from hurting her, though.

Iruka slapped Sasuke's cheek with the back of his hand, sending him to the ground. "Cut it out, now! Naruto may have lost but she did not deserve that at all! Your brother will be hearing about this!" Iruka yelled at Sasuke. He shrunk and walked back into the ambiguous group of children. Iruka walked up to Naruto and helped her up. "Are you okay?" He asked her. She simply nodded, not making eye contact with him at all.

The rest of the matches carried on with reasonable results. Everyone carried on normally without Naruto, if not being happier, and that just beat her mood down even more. Eventually, the physical matches finished; now Naruto has a mental battle to fight, which are the written exams.

大筒木

Naruto was sure she failed the exams. Every single question looked like complex theory, analysis of political relations between different, totally obscure nations that didn't even have Shinobi, and confirmation of facts so nuanced that she wasn't even sure if they were based in reality. She flipped her paper over, and lay her head on her desk. The instructor, Mizuki, took the exam from her, and spat on her hair. "Piece of shit monster." he followed after that.

Naruto launched up and gave a solid uppercut to Mizuki, launching him into the ceiling and knocked him out. The students stared at her, while she tried to explain what happened. They proceeded to try to convince her that she was just hallucinating, and Mizuki didn't actually do that. Her locks of hair began to rise, almost like tendrils that were ready to kill anyone who came near her. "You moron, Mizuki would never do such a thing. You're just a demon and you want to hurt anyone who comes in your path. You'll never become a shinobi." Shikamaru said to Naruto.

"Failure."

"Moron."

"Orphan."

"Demon."

Naruto heard these things, every day, every hour on the hour. She was tired of it. She wanted to obliterate anyone who made her feel so worthless and alienated. Suddenly, she felt a surge of power, and she stood up and walked toward Shikamaru.