Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

A/N: I would like to thank everyone who added this story to their favorites and follows as well as everyone who reviewed the last chapter.


Previously:

Aizawa sighed. "I'll read the next chapter."

Now:

Letting out another sigh, Naruto watched as Izuku handed the book to Aizawa. How many more chapters did they have to read? And when will they stop with the flashbacks? It's getting harder and harder to keep myself in check with those memories coming out. Those were memories that she had always pushed to the back of her mind.

"Are you okay?" Todoroki asked. Naruto blinked and looked away from Aizawa, eyes now focused on the stoic boy beside her. His eyes shone with no emotion but concern tickled out of his voice. He isn't a bad guy but the fact that my Mom and Hinata seems certain that we're going to be together…well that's annoying. She didn't want them to force her.

She wanted to make her own decision and that was why she agreed to go on that date with Kaminari. It probably didn't help that he was going to pay for her meal. Besides, I wanna have some experience in that regard. No one had ever asked her out on a date, so maybe it would be a good idea for her to experience normal teenager stuff.

"I'm fine."

At six, there was only one other person that Naruto longed to get the approval of and that was her teacher in the Academy. Hiraoka Sabura. That was his name. He was her very first teacher in the Academy and teachers were people that children should be able to trust. Teachers cared about children and listened to their problems.

Anything but that memory. She trembled and shivered as her former classmates twisted their bodies around to look at her with wide eyes. This was not a memory she wanted people to know about. It might not have been as bad as the memory with the Matron, but it would forever reminded her of her cruel reality.

"I remember Hiraoka-sensei but I don't remember you doing anything to get his approval," Sakura commented, knitting her eyebrows together. Sasuke stiffened and looked at the memory with irritated eyes while her parents and grandmother looked at her with concern eyes. "He left after our first semester even though he was a good teacher."

Kushina frowned. "Naruto-chan, did Hiraoka-san ever physically or mentally abused you?"

"He's the reason that Naruto stopped trying in school," The Third Hokage growled. Her parents blinked and swirled their heads at the old man, who had his eyes fixed on her. Aizawa frowned while Sakura, Ino and everyone else from Konoha blinked. "By the time I got him fired for his misconduct, the damage had been done."

Minato clenched his jaw. "What did he do to her?"

"If you let me read the chapter then we are going to find out," Aizawa answered. Her parents grimaced and the black-haired man eyed her for the longest time before taking a deep breath. "And Naruto, you're right about teachers but not all teachers are good. I believe that you know that, don't you?"

"I know."

Naruto saw the way their teacher comforted Sakura after Ami bullies her for having a large forehead. It isn't even that big. She thinks of several insults that can be used to describe about the bully. Sakura was pretty and she was not stupid like Ami. Of course Naruto doesn't know how to tell Sakura what she thinks. The thought of approaching Sakura makes her feel funny and she doesn't like that funny feeling.

Sakura grew quiet and turned her head to look at her. What? You're now feeling guilty because Sasuke tells you that he will never like you because of your behaviour? Or because I will admit that you look pretty. She grunted and folded her arms against her chest as the pink-haired teen looked at her with confused eyes.

"Naruto, I don't know what to say," Sakura muttered. The pink-haired teen gazed at the screen before looking back at her. "Have you been trying to be my friend since then?"

Naruto nodded. "I thought we could have been outcasts together but you know what happened. You changed from that sweet, little girl to someone that was no better than Ami."

She thinks their teacher was kind and nice, so maybe he might be nice to her. It was why Naruto spends most of the night doing the science worksheet that he assigned them to do. She spent hours doing it, checking and double checking for any errors because sometimes Hiraoka-sensei will say that her answer wasn't there. It was correct. But Sensei was really strict when it came to marking her worksheets.

"Naruto, what were your scores during our first semester?" Shikamaru asked, furrowing his eyebrows. His black eyes gleamed with curiosity as everyone turned their bodies to focus on her. Does it matter? She took several deep breaths and closed her eyes as Hinata and Sasuke exchanged glances.

Sasuke cleared his throat. "Naruto's scores were better than me or at the same level as me."

"If that was the case then wouldn't that make Team Seven unbalanced?" Shino asked, flickering his eyes to the Third Hokage. Naruto pressed her lips into a thin line and looked at her grandfather-figure. Was he going to admit that the team placement had been unbalanced when it came to them? Or was he going to deny it to maintain his image?

Hiruzen nodded. "I had to go with Naruto's scores in the last couple of years, which was why she had been placed dead last, but yes Team Seven had always been unbalanced. If Hiraoka hadn't been so biased then Naruto would have continued on with her work ethic."

"Which means Naruto wouldn't have been placed in Team Seven," Shikamaru guessed. The Third Hokage bobbed his head while Naruto clicked her tongue. She had always presumed that much but to have the old man confirmed it…well she didn't know how she felt about it. Maybe I feel nothing. That was probably it.

He never gives her full marks but Naruto thinks that maybe she didn't word it properly. She makes excuses for him because Hiraoka-sensei was nice to Sakura and all the other kids that were being bullied. It never crosses her mind that maybe he was being unjust to her…because teachers were supposed to be fair. She only understands the truth when Ami grabs her worksheet from her desk.

"Didn't Ami have a habit of stealing other people's work because she could never be bothered to do her own homework?" Ino asked. Naruto, Sakura and Hinata bobbed their heads and the blond-haired teen clenched her jaw. "That bitch was always sprouting about how smart she was when all she did was try and steal our homework."

Sakura nodded and then frowned. "Wait, do you remember that homework that Hiroaka-sensei praised her for? The one that got a 100 marks! That was a difficult homework and not even Sasuke-kun scored as high as her."

"That was Naruto's homework," Hinata said flatly. Her parents clenched their jaws and looked at the screen with irritation while Ino and Sakura exchanged glances. The blue-haired teen flickered her eyes to Naruto. "That was the first and last time that Ami was able to steal her homework and passed it off as her own."

Bakugou narrowed his eyes. "You let that little bitch steal your homework, Whiskers?"

"It was her word against mine," Naruto replied flatly. Bakugou blinked and the Third Hokage grimaced as her parents looked at her with eyes filled with disbelief. Her grandmother balled her hands into a fist while Jiraiya closed his eyes. "I have no family to support me against her and it doesn't help that her family gives a lot of money to the Academy."

Mikoto stared at her. "You could have come to me and Fugaku."

"What difference would it have made?" Naruto asked, shaking her head. "She would do it again and again because she thinks she can get away with anything. She certainly didn't stop when Ino's parents came in, so honestly there was no point of coming forward to you."

She sat right beside Sasuke and smiled happily at her worksheet. Most of their classmates didn't arrive yet and wouldn't arrive until five minutes before class starts. Only three people comes to class this early: Naruto, Sasuke and Ami. Ami always stares at Sasuke with weird eyes and her classmate either ignores her or looks at Naruto. Sometimes, she catches her classmate staring at her hair.

He was just as strange as his fangirls.

"It's probably because your hair is really unique," Todoroki observed. Naruto hummed and regarded the younger boy for a couple of seconds before bobbing her head. That would make sense, wouldn't it? My hair has always been unique but we were somewhat friends at the time. She combed through her hair and let out another sigh.

"That is always the possibility."

Hinata stared at her for the longest time before shaking her head. Her mother frowned and darted her eyes between Sasuke and her before landing her eyes on Mikoto. The black-haired woman offered a knowing smile to Sasuke. Is there something that I'm missing? She inhaled and rubbed the back of her neck.

Ami walked in through the class and instead of going to her usual spot right beside Sasuke, she makes a beeline to Naruto. I don't wanna be her friend. It had to be the only reason Ami would come to her. She wanted to become friends with her, but Naruto doesn't want it. She doesn't like bullies; they were mean to everyone and don't actually have any friends. Naruto wants to make friends. Actual friends.

She doesn't want fake friends like Ami did.

"I only have one real friend and she is worth ten times more than any fake friends," Naruto declared. Hinata smiled faintly while everyone else from Konoha stared at her with wide eyes. Gaara regarded her and she offered him a tiny smile. He is a friend too but it isn't the same kind of friendship. She nestled herself against the cushion and yawned.

Her grandmother regarded her. "Even though you were a lonely child, you never had any intentions of being friends with a bully?"

"I still wanted to keep my dignity in check," she grumbled. Her grandmother quirked her lips into a smile, looking absolutely pleased by that comment, while Bakugou clicked his tongue. Izuku gazed at her with wide eyes like he would never expected that kind of desire from her. Then again, why would he? No one would expect a child to have that kind of thoughts.

Ami smirked and grabbed the worksheet from her table. Naruto froze and just watched in horror as her classmate took out her eraser and removed Naruto's name from the worksheet. She doesn't know why it took her so long to act out. All she knew was that her classmate took her work. The work she spent hours doing was taken away from her.

"Naruto-chan," her mother muttered. Tears spilled out of her mother's eyes while her father gazed at the scene with eyes filled with undisputed rage. They seem more affected by it then me. She offered them a tight smile before gazing at Bakugou and Izuku. They only stared at the screen with eyes filled with shock. "That was your hard work."

"Don't tell me that you just sit back and let that little bitch get away with it!" Bakugou snarled. Several of the students from Japan bobbed their heads in agreement. Team Ten exchanged glances while Kurenai and Asuma stared at the scene with wide eyes. Kakashi thinned his lips and Aizawa stared at her with blank eyes.

She clicked her tongue. "If you let Aizawa continue on with the story then you'll see what I tried to do."

"Give it back!" Naruto yells and charges straight at the purple-haired girl. Her blue eyes flared with anger and the purple-haired girl froze before bolting from her spot. Sasuke just kept quiet, didn't even try to stop Ami even when Naruto turned to him and silently begged him to help her with his crazy fangirl.

Ami would listen to him because she loves him, which is kind of silly when she thinks about it. Naruto doesn't know how Ami can love him. They were only six and boys were icky if you asked her.

"Till this day, I still don't understand why the fuck that you kept quiet!" Naruto snarled at Sasuke. The whole room grew quiet as eyes widened at the words spilling out of her mouth. Sasuke clenched his jaw and the blonde growled. "That was the one fucking time I needed you and you just stood there and watch that little bitch take my work!"

"I didn't think that biased man would believe that stupid girl!" He snarled back. Sakura inched away while everyone else just gazed at them with wide eyes. Mikoto and Fugaku exchanged glances as Sasuke clenched his jaw at her. "And if I came and save your ass then things would have been even more difficult for you in the long run!"

Naruto snorted. "You don't know that!"

"No, I know it!" Sasuke narrowed his eyes at Sakura and Ino before landing his eyes on her. "You think I wanted to keep our friendship a secret during our time in the Academy? The few times I publicly interacted with you and Hyuga, led to you getting harassed by those girls! If I defended you then the whole thing would have been blown out of portion!"

"The point was that you weren't there when I needed your help, you asshole!" Naruto snarled. Sasuke blinked and the blonde allowed her shoulders to tremble slightly. Blue eyes hardened and she took a deep breath. "I needed you then! We were friends at that time and friends defended each other! I needed to know you had my back and you showed me that I didn't have that!"

Sasuke grew quiet and Naruto eyed her future teacher. He gazed at them for the longest time before bobbing his head at her. I really don't want to have a continued conversation over what happened. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes.

"It is mine!" Naruto screams as the girl continued to run circles around her. Bitch. She wanted to say the word so badly but the Hokage scolded her when she called his secretary that word. We don't use foul language, Naruto. She doesn't want to be scolded by Hiraoka-sensei.

She was about to spring on the girl, only to blink when Hiraoka-sensei walks into the classroom with an irritated look. Time seemed to freeze and there was only one thought going through Naruto's mind. Ami is going to get into trouble. She opens her mouth to tell him that Ami was trying to pass off the work that Naruto worked so hard on, as hers.

"Ami didn't get into trouble, did she?" Yaoyorozu asked. Naruto shook her head and the black-haired teen clenched her jaw before flickering her eyes to the others. The future students of Yuuei offered her a frown, not looking one bit pleased at the information that she divulged to them. Well I was upset too but I learn life isn't fair. She quirked her lips slightly.

Kushina clenched her jaw. "If I ever see that little brat, you can be certain that I'll borrow that bat and give her a spanking that her mother should have given her."

"What is happening here?" Hiraoka-sensei asked. He took the science worksheet from Ami's hand and the girl hunched her back, looking almost frightful for what their sensei was going to say.

Naruto points at Ami and answered. "She stole my homework! She wants to pass it off as her own!"

Their teacher didn't scold Ami and Naruto frowned. She knitted her eyebrows together as the man looked at the worksheet and then to the purple-haired girl, who was slowly growing more and more confident as the seconds passed. Why isn't he scolding her? It is obviously my work! Ami isn't hard-working or smart enough to answer those questions. It was her handwriting on that worksheet.

"Why isn't he doing anything?" Kirishima demanded. His red eyes swirled with disbelief and the male turned his whole body around to face her. Naruto could only clench her jaw and offer him a tight smile while everyone else from Konoha avoided her gaze. Most of you don't even think Ami would do this to me because you thought I never tried in school. She clicked her tongue.

Izuku stared at her. "Because no one is born equal and also because her teacher couldn't look past her birthmarks."

"We got a winner," Naruto said bitterly, waving her hand in the air. Everyone from Konoha exchanged glances and directed their eyes at her. You think my problems ended after the Hokage gave me that apartment and that bullying from Sasuke's fangirls were my only problems. She rubbed her knuckles and took a deep breath. "Hiraoka-sensei is a biased man that should have never been a teacher. All of our teachers in the Academy shouldn't have been teachers."

Ino darted her eyes at her. "You're close to Iruka-sensei."

"If Iruka-sensei haven't been so biased towards me then I could have graduated when I was 10," Naruto said flatly. Shikamaru and the jounins blinked before exchanging glances. There is no point of me being bitter about it. She exhaled. "My only problem was the ninjutsu portion but everything else was good. He allowed Lee to pass and his grades were nowhere good as mine."

Aizawa gazed at her with unreadable eyes before shifting his eyes to the Third Hokage and then landing his eyes on Tsunade. The Fifth Hokage was quiet and gazed at the screen with irritated eyes. Naruto frowned. Why are they upset? It was all in the past. There was nothing that they could do to change it.

Anyone with a brain could see that.

"You are a liar Naruto," Hiraoka-sensei declared. "This has Ami's name on it."

"My daughter isn't a liar!" Kushina snarled. Naruto blinked and trembled as her mother clenched her hands into a fist. Minato grew quiet but Naruto couldn't help but noticed that the man was also shaking with what could only be rage. Her grandmother clicked her tongue while her aunt narrowed her eyes at the screen. "And you wouldn't even dare to say those fucking words if I was alive! No, if I was alive then I will cut your tongue out!"

Shikamaru gulped and leaned closer to Choji. "I think we know where Naruto got her temper from."

"They're definitely scary," Choji agreed. "You can definitely see that they are mother and daughter."

"Because she erased my name! That is my work! That has my handwriting!" Naruto yells at him. She wanted to cry so badly. How could he say that? Naruto didn't lie. The Hokage told her about how bad it was to lie to the adults and Naruto didn't want to be seen as a bad person. She was smart. She could answer all those questions even when their teacher sent her out of the classroom for talking in school.

"Isn't this bias going to the extreme?" Iida demanded. His shoulders trembled and the male swirled his head at the adults in the room. Her future classmate's eyes radiated with irritation and it wouldn't even surprise her if stream began pouring out of his ears. "I understand talking in class is disrespectful but sending her out for talking is too harsh!"

Sasuke grunted. "You're talking like the world is a fair place but you can clearly see that life isn't fair."

Naruto swirled her head to Sasuke and silently pleads for him to back her up. They talked sometimes and he was her friend, wasn't he? They played together and everything. So why was he keeping quiet? He knew the truth so why did he keep quiet? She hunched her back.

"You are not smart enough to make this score," Hiraoka-sensei said. "You stole the worksheet from Ami."

Everyone from Konoha grew quiet and turned their heads towards her. You just realized how damaging those words could be to me? She balled her hands into a fist and then blinked when her father walked up towards her. His eyes showed no emotion and Naruto waited for him to scold her for not fighting back. A pair of warm hands wrapped around her, hugging her like he wanted to comfort her.

"You're definitely smart," her father declared. Naruto trembled and gulped as the man continued to hug her. "And I'm definitely proud of you, Naruto because I know this wasn't easy for you to endure. If I have ever known that your future would turn out this way then I would have sent you to Mom or Mitsu-chan."

You are a liar, Hiraoka-sensei. Naruto wanted to scream those words out loud and to cry about the unfairness of the whole thing, but something stops her. If she cried then nothing would change. Crying never fixed her problems, it only make things worse. So she keeps quiet and stares at the smiling teacher with a scowl on her face.

What did she do to deserve this?

"You did nothing wrong," Aizawa stated with thinned lips. Naruto blinked and the black-haired man regarded her for the longest time before moving to the adults in the room. Anger radiated out of his eyes. "That man has absolutely no right to be a teacher and is absolutely unprofessional in regards of treatment. I have no understanding of your curriculum but if one has to cheat…then it shouldn't be that obvious."

Tsunade nodded. "He might no longer be teaching but he will suffer from the consequence of his actions."

"It is starting to become increasingly clear that her trust issues could have been avoided," Narumi grumbled, throwing a heated glare at the Third Hokage. The old man flinched and her grandmother picked up her bat, rubbing it against the palm of her hand. "You know if that man was in the room then I would whack him with this bat."

Naruto studies so hard for his tests and works so hard on his homework. She makes notes even though all Naruto wanted to do was skip class and go somewhere else. She was nothing like most of the girls in their class. They daydream about the boy right beside her. She did her work on time and studies her heart out. She saw no point of cheating on the worksheet when she knew the answer. Ami never did any of those things, so how could Hiraoka-sensei take her side?

"Because he is an ass," Aizawa declared, earning a nod from Kakashi and Minato. Her mother and grandmother bobbed their heads in agreement while Mitsuki stared at the screen with disgust and anger. Masaru only grunted and folded his arms against his chest. "To take the side of a student who is clearly cheating, is unforgivable."

Hinata grimaced. "He was the reason Naruto-chan just started doing what she wanted. You have no idea of how amazing her scores could have been if he and every other teacher in the Academy chose to give her a chance."

The only reason I tried in Middle School was because the teachers didn't seem all that bad. Naruto let out another sigh as Bakugou and Izuku exchanged glances. Her half-cousin gazed at the screen with eyes filled with disbelief and rage while Izuku tilted his head to the side. The green-haired boy pushed his bottom lip backwards and forwards.

"Hinata, you really weren't tutoring Naruto before the exams…were you?" Sakura asked. Naruto darted her eyes to her pink-haired teammate. She still seem shaken from the knowledge that Sasuke will never give her a chance. She let out a sigh. "She was the one helping you out when you were struggling with physics?"

The Hyuga heiress nodded. "Naruto-chan understood the difficult concepts and knew how to explain it even better than Iruka-sensei."

That was the day Naruto learnt that there was no point for her to try so hard in the Academy. The day where she learnt that there was no point for her to show she was smart, because what was the point? No one wanted to recognise it.

"So from that day on, you decided to skip class," Shikamaru commented. Naruto bobbed her head and slid her hands into her pockets, which only made the boy knit his eyebrows together. He poked his tongue against his cheek. "But there is something that I don't understand: even if you didn't try…why did you purposely lower your marks during the Academy?"

Naruto sighed. "Who do you think is more likely to get friends who aren't intimated by them: the idiot or the know-it-all?"

"You shouldn't make all of your judgement based on friendship," her grandmother commented. Naruto sighed and looked down at her hands. I know that now because being the idiot, didn't give me any new friends. She relaxed her shoulders. "You should be true to yourself because if you keep pretending to be something that you're not…you're going to lose sight of who you are."

Naruto sighed. "But what if you don't know who you are?"

"That is the beauty of being a teenager," her grandmother commented. The white-haired woman cracked her knuckles and offered her a little smile. "You're still trying to figure out who you are and even when you're an adult, you still don't know who you are."

The lack of dust and the clear organisation of Uzumaki's apartment worried Aizawa. The whole apartment was clean, cleaner than he would expect a fifteen-year-old girl was capable of doing when she didn't have parents to teach her about the importance of cleaning an apartment. It also showed just how much time his student spent on keeping her apartment clean, because his own reflection stared back at him.

"If you think Naruto is bad then you've never seen Kakashi's apartment," Minato commented. The members of Team Seven swirled their heads to Kakashi while Aizawa raised a single eyebrow at the Fourth Hokage. "If Naruto's apartment makes you see your own reflection then Kakashi's apartment sparkles from being clean."

"Kakashi is a neat freak," Asuma agreed. Kurenai bobbed her head in agreement alongside the Third Hokage. I should have guessed that Kakashi-sensei was like that because the few times I couldn't be bothered to clean my apartment, he did it for me. Naruto shook her head while the youngest Sarutobi son sighed. "He has a compulsive need to clean everything."

Kakashi hummed. "I wouldn't have to clean your apartment if you cleaned it in the first place."

"You aren't actually all that relax, are you?" Her grandmother commented. Kakashi blinked while the members of Team Seven exchanged curious glances between them. What does having a need to clean someone apartment have to do with being relaxed? Naruto knitted her eyebrows together as Narumi eyed the screen. "You have to clean it even though someone else is going to clean up."

"Wow, she got you figured out," Asuma commented.

He glanced at the kitchen and frowned at the sight of his student making coffee. The white-haired girl clung to Uzumaki's pants, looking almost so frightful as if his student might just disappear from her. What happened to her? This kind of behaviour worried him. It was not healthy for that little girl or for his student, because Uzumaki was not emotionally stable enough for the girl.

"I'm emotionally stable," Naruto grumbled. Aizawa regarded her for the longest time before rolling his eyes at her while Hinata let out a tiny sigh. Are you really going to take his side, Hinata-chan? She puffed her cheeks and then blinked when Todoroki regarded her for the longest time. "Just because you believe I've issues, doesn't mean I can't take care of her."

Aizawa pinched his nose. "Even if you were emotionally stable, I still won't allow you to take care of a kid, and also you are the poster child of emotional instability."

"How am I a poster child of emotional instability?" She demanded.

The male regarded her for the longest time. "You can't calm yourself down and you don't react in a normal way. There is nothing wrong and it is even expected with how your childhood was…but until you get yourself in check then you can't take care of a child."

He tore his eyes away from that little scene and looked at the shelf. There were only two photos on the shelf and it spoke volumes about the life that his student had before she came to Japan. The first photo was of a ten-year-old Uzumaki smiling widely with an elderly man for the camera. Love shone through their eyes but there was something about the posture that worried him.

He just didn't know what it was.

"It is the level of guard that she is showing in the photo," Narumi observed. Naruto blinked and the Third Hokage knitted his eyebrows together while everyone turned their head to them. The white-haired woman hummed and bobbed her head. "I believe you are doing that sub-consciously because you are still affected from your trauma."

Naruto frowned. "Why would I be showing guard? I'm over what happened to me."

"You think you are over it but the reality says differently," Narumi informed her. Naruto blinked and the white-haired woman slid her hands into her pocket. Her blue eyes inspected her before moving onto the other teens in the room. "Ignoring what happened to you isn't going to help you move forward and it will affect you and your future."

The second photo was of Naruto with two other kids and a silver-haired man. His student had her arms folded against her chest, a scowl playing on her lips and a black-haired boy also had a scowl on his face. There was also just a tiny side glance to Uzumaki. There was a pink-haired girl with a smile on her face. The silver-haired man smiled, looking faintly amused, and had both his hands on Uzumaki and the boy's head.

In both of the photos, Uzumaki seemed to be just a little bit happier than she was now.

"Are you implying that I've never been a happy child?" Naruto asked. She raised a single eyebrow at Aizawa while everyone else looked at the man with curious eyes. I know the answer to that question but I wanna see what he has to say. He was after all the one observing her throughout these books.

Aizawa sighed. "Yes and with the life that you had, it is expected. Kids like you are the kids that fall through the cracks of society…and that makes you the most dangerous person in the room."

"What do you mean, Aizawa-san?" Ino asked, knitting her eyebrows. Her eyes flickered to Naruto while everyone else turned to face the black-haired man. I have a very bad feeling of what Aizawa had to say. She licked her lips and cracked her knuckles as the black-haired man regarded her with thoughtful eyes.

Finally, the man answered. "Because she is capable of becoming a villain."

"Eri-chan, I want you to meet my teacher: Aizawa-sensei and Aizawa-sensei meet Eri-chan," his student said. She placed a tray of coffee on the table and took a seat on the couch. Eri looked at him with curious eyes but made no attempt to talk to him. Instead she just stared at him and clung even harder to Uzumaki.

"She is really attached to Naruto," Temari commented, knitting her eyebrows together. Naruto shrugged her shoulders while Sakura and Ino exchanged glances. Doesn't that make sense? I saved her life. She licked her dried lips and folded her arms against her chest. Kiba and Shino just knitted their eyebrows together.

Kiba cleared his throat. "You know you would never think that there would be a little kid that attached to her."

"Kids adore me," Naruto declared. Kiba and Shino raised their eyebrows at her while the members of Team Ten looked at her with disbelief. I can be lovable to little kids and I know how to interact with them. I just can't stand brats. She sighed. "Is this all because of how I treat the kids in our missions? Because like I said…they need discipline."

Shino cleared his throat. "I believe we are reacting like this because we only see you with the Third Hokage's grandson and his friends or Hinata's sister."

"You should see me at my part-time job," Naruto stated. Shino and the others blinked while the whiskered-teen let out a tiny sigh. "The little kids adore me especially because I make sure that their hot drinks get special decorations."

He frowned and observed the little girl. The fear, the clinginess and those bandages around her arms and legs told Aizawa that the girl was in a similar boat to his student. Just like Uzumaki, the girl must have been abused by someone close to her. The only question was how did she come to live with his student?

"Uzumaki, please explain me why do you have a child with you?"

The blond-haired girl shrugged her shoulders and just combed her fingers against Eri's hair. She kept her blue eyes fixed on the clingy girl, not allowing Aizawa to see what was going through her young mind.

Finally, Uzumaki answered. "It is none of your business."

"Naruto-chan, I know you are upset but you can't talk like that to your teacher," Kushina scolded. Mikoto and Minato exchanged glances while Fugaku snorted. I know that snort! That is the snort of someone calling a hypocrite! Naruto snorted and her mother threw a glare at Fugaku. "You just had to make that snort, didn't you? I'm not a hypocrite."

Her father cleared his throat. "Kushina…you did swear at our Academy teacher once."

"He scolded me for fighting back against those bullies!" Her mother retorted, balling her hands into a fist. Naruto blinked while her mother's eyebrows twitched. The red-haired woman clicked her tongue. "I can't fight but it is okay for those assholes to bully me for my red-hair? No way am I going to sit still and let someone bully me!"

Aizawa pressed his lips into a thin line at the answer. None of my business? He clasped his hands together, pressing the locked hands against his chin, and frowned at his irritated student. It was his business because Uzumaki was his student. She skipped school for this girl and was clearly trying to act like a parent to the girl. He didn't want this for either of them.

He sounds like he actually care. Naruto looked down at her hands and flatten her skirt. Why did he care after just a few days? Even if she was his student, it didn't mean he had to behave like this. She balled her hands and then frowned when Todoroki gazed at her with understanding eyes. Don't give me that look. She clenched her jaw.

Why does Todoroki act like he know her?

They were never going to be close friends.

"You are my student and anything that makes you skip school, is my business."

Uzumaki folded her hands against her chest and puffed her cheeks. "You aren't my Dad!"

Don't lose your temper, Aizawa. The temptation to lash out was great because Aizawa wasn't even old enough to be her father. He doubt that if the girl had a proper father figure in her life then his student would never behave like this. If he lashed out or say anything then the girl would take it as an indication that he didn't actually care about her.

"You have Naruto-chan all figured out," Hinata commented. Everyone blinked and turned their heads at the Hyuga Heiress. The blue-haired teen tucked a strand of her hair behind her ears and cleared her throat before looking down at her hands. "Everyone thinks that Naruto-chan thrives with scolding, being ignored or being yelled…but she thrives with praise. She close herself off when people get angry with her."

Naruto groaned. "Did you have to tell him that?"

"He figured you out," Hinata explained. "And it seems like he won't be leaving you alone anytime soon, so it is better for him to know what works for you now…then for him to mess things up."

He was not going to give her that satisfaction.

"I know I'm not your Dad but I don't want you to waste your future, Uzumaki." Aizawa took a deep breath and flickered his eyes to Eri. The little girl blinked and looked almost confused at what was happening. "You have got so much potential but you will ruin your potential if you don't go to class."

Uzumaki kept quiet and balled her hands into a tight fist. Aizawa frowned even more when the girl took several deep breaths and flashed him a smile. Those blue eyes looked at him with mistrust, fake happiness but the most prominent emotion was surprise. Why was she surprised? Hasn't anyone ever tell her about her potential? It was clear from the very beginning that Uzumaki had a lot of potential.

"Nope," Naruto replied. The adults from Japan blinked and exchanged glances while her parents thinned their lips into a very thin line. Mikoto rubbed the sides of her head while the Third Hokage gave a very pointed look. "In the Academy, all of the teachers would prefer I was an idiot instead of being smart and Kakashi-sensei prefers to give the praise to Sakura and Sasuke."

Her mother narrowed her eyes at Kakashi. "Is that true, Kakashi?"

"I had a very good reason to do this," Kakashi defended. Her father narrowed his eyes while her grandmother stood up, picking up the fallen bat from the ground. Aizawa raised his eyebrows, not looking one bit convinced by the words coming out of the man's mouth. "I wanted Naruto to work harder and her relationship with Sasuke has always been competitive! The more you praise Sasuke, the harder Naruto will work to get praise!"

Her grandmother took a deep breath and slammed the bat against Kakashi's head. Her teacher yelped and rubbed the back of his head while Narumi gazed at him with icy, cold eyes. I'm actually picturing his death. Naruto licked her lips and trembled while Sakura dropped her jaw at the blue-eyed elderly woman.

"That was for making my granddaughter working like a dog to get some praise," her grandmother barked. "That is a very poor reason for not giving her the praise that she needed! Do you realize that out of the three brats that you have, Naruto is the one that never gets any praised! What the fuck were you thinking?"

Aizawa eyed Narumi. "You aren't talking like a psychologist."

"I'm a pissed-off grandmother," The blue-eyed woman growled. Naruto blinked while her father nodded his head in agreement. Her own mother nodded and balled her hands into a fist. I don't think I can watch Kakashi-sensei being beaten up. She winced and looked away as her grandmother and mother proceeded to hit Kakashi with everything they got.

May his soul rest in peace. Naruto closed her eyes as the life inside of her teacher faded away.

"You are only saying it because you will get into trouble if Yuuei High finds out that I have been skipping class."

Aizawa raised his eyebrow at the logic. "You will be the one that gets into trouble for skipping class. This doesn't affect me but I don't want you to ruin your future."

"And I'm not ruining my future!" Uzumaki declare. She took several deep breaths and looked at him with so much fury that Aizawa felt himself becoming slightly relax. He wanted some emotions coming out of the girl. Any emotion except for the fake happiness was an improvement. It showed him that Uzumaki was really capable of showing real emotions.

"I'm more than capable of showing emotions," Naruto protested. Aizawa raised his eyebrows at her while her grandmother and parents exchanged glances. Hinata and Sasuke exchanged glances while everyone else bobbed their heads alongside her. "I just don't like showing people that I can get angry or upset."

Aizawa stared at her. "You should show all of your emotions, Uzumaki."

"What is the point of showing all of my emotions?" Naruto leaned against the cushion and let out another yawn. "I get scolded if I don't act like a ball of sunshine and if I do get angry then people think I'm acting weird."

The white-haired girl kept quiet and shifted closer to Uzumaki. Her red eyes flashed with so much fear and Aizawa frowned. If he wanted to continue this conversation then Eri would need to go somewhere else. This conversation was not a conversation that a young child should hear, not with her kind of background.

"Uzumaki, can you make a clone?" His student frowned and darted her eyes to Eri. Blue eyes grew wide and the girl stiffly nodded her head, placed her fingers together and a white cloud of smoke appeared. He winced at the loudness. I don't think Eri would like it. A child with a history of abuse probably would get scared when it came to her clones.

"It is advisable that she avoided anything that could trigger her," Narumi commented. Naruto blinked and hummed as everyone else rubbed their jaw at her. The white-haired woman curled her lips into a tiny frown before tilting her head at her. "We don't know much about the kind of abuse that she went through but any screaming could trigger her."

Naruto frowned. "I didn't know that."

"I didn't expect you to know that," Narumi admitted, curling her lips into a tiny frown. The white-haired woman exhaled and leaned against the couch before letting out a sigh. "This isn't something a kid your age would know."

"Eri-chan, I want you to go and play with my clone while I talk to Aizawa-sensei." Uzumaki said softly, patting her clone and flashing a reassuring smile at the girl. The clone flashed a smile and offered her hand, but Eri stared at it with mistrust. "She is just like me."

Only more open with showing her emotions.

"That isn't completely true," Naruto grumbled under her breath. Todoroki snorted and the whiskered teen swirled her head at him. She curled her lips into a scowl and cleared her throat. "Why are you laughing? My clones are exactly like me! So I don't understand why you find the whole thing funny?"

Todoroki cleared his throat. "I wasn't laughing."

"Your snort tells me that you were laughing," she stated. The heterochromatic boy looked away from her but the twitching of his lips told her that he was fighting back a smile. Yaoyorozu glanced at them and shook her head while her mother bit back a smile. Minato took a deep breath and narrowed his eyes.

He is overreacting with everything.

She shook her head.

Aizawa kept that information to himself and watched as the little girl took the clone's offered hand. They waited till the two of them were in the bedroom and the doors were firmly closed, before resuming their conversation. It would do neither of them any good if Eri became upset.

"You are going to be overworking yourself to make sure that you can provide for her," Aizawa said. He was going to paint a very clear picture to the stubborn girl about what her future would be. "You won't be able to have a life if you spend your whole time taking care of her. You won't be able to focus on your schoolwork if you take care of her. This isn't the life that you deserve."

"You know that won't be enough to convince me to give on her, do you?" Naruto asked. Her parents frowned while Aizawa looked at her with unimpressed eyes. Kakashi nodded alongside Hinata and Sasuke. Anyone who knows me knows that I won't give up that easily. She leaned against the couch. "Honestly you think I'm that easy?"

Aizawa regarded her. "And I can even be more stubborn and I have an idea of how to deal with you."

"If you know how to handle Naruto then I'll call you a miracle worker," the Third Hokage declared. Naruto dropped her jaw while Hinata chuckled and bobbed her head in agreement. Narumi just stared at her before shaking her head at her. Her blue eyes gleamed with amusement and understanding as if she had some idea of the hellion that she might have been.

"And what about Eri-chan? You think she deserves to be taken away from me and be put in some crappy orphanage! That is even worse!" Naruto snarled, slamming her hands on the coffee table. The coffee table cracked under the pressure, splitting neatly in half and crashing down on the floor.

"That is all Mom," Mitsuki commented. Masaru nodded and inched further away from her couch while Bakugou just gazed at her with wide eyes. Tsunade looked at her grandmother like she found a lifelong companion. Jiraiya only gazed at Narumi with horror and her mother coughed. Everyone turned to look at the red-haired woman.

Kushina only let out a nervous laugh. "She might have gotten that from me."

"Dear god, she inherited the violent nature from both sides of her family," Kankuro cried. Naruto shrugged her shoulders while her mother and grandmother rolled their eyes at the male. Temari shook her head and darted her eyes at her, Kushina and Narumi. The blond-haired woman snorted and shook her head.

He kept his expression completely blank as Uzumaki glared at him. So much anger and resentment poured out of her eyes, speaking volumes of how much she hated the idea of an orphanage. If he didn't choose his words wisely then Uzumaki might just close up. She would never open up if he said the wrong thing. He decided to ask her just one question:

"What is wrong with orphanages? Give me an argument on why you think Eri shouldn't go to an orphanage."

"Aizawa-san, do you truly believe you can reason with Naruto?" Kurenai asked. Naruto raised an eyebrow while Asuma and Kakashi exchanged glances. Her parents furrowed their eyebrows together while her grandmother thinned her lips. "Reasoning with her had never stopped her from pulling her pranks and it certainly never stopped her from acting out."

Aizawa regarded her. "If you never treat her like her thoughts and opinions mattered then how do you expect her to do the same for you? If you treat her like a child then she acts like a child but you wouldn't know that, considering how none of you gave her a chance."

Naruto frowned. Why the hell is he defending me? He doesn't know me all that well. She curled her lips into a frown and leaned against the chair before darting her eyes to Aizawa. Her future teacher gazed at her with knowing eyes and Naruto clenched her jaw. This whole book thing was making the man presumed that he knew everything about her.

Uzumaki chewed on her bottom lip and stared out at the window, where the sound of happy children could be heard. Is she going to give me her own experience? Or am I going to hear some logical explanation? He wanted to see if the girl was going to open up to him, just even slightly about why she doesn't like the idea of an orphanage. Aizawa had been lucky growing up. He had a loving mother and somewhat distant father, which was better than what some kids had.

"That kinda sounds like Sasuke," Naruto commented, flickering her eyes to Sasuke. Her teammate grunted and bobbed his head while Sakura blinked at this piece of information. For someone who claims to love Sasuke, how could she not know that? She paused. Right, her teammate never really bothered to get to know Sasuke.

Fugaku frowned. "I wasn't distant."

"Honey, you focused more on Itachi then Sasuke," Mikoto pointed out. Sasuke grunted while Shouto darted his eyes between the father and son. Naruto bobbed her head, letting out another sigh. "Do you know how many times I had to reassure Sasuke that you were proud of him because you are too proud to admit it?"

Fugaku sighed. "You know I don't feel comfortable of showing emotions."

"He is right," Kushina commented. Minato and Jiraiya nodded their heads as everyone else darted their eyes to the two deceased couples in the room. The violet-eyed woman curled her lips into a frown. "Remember how stiff he was when he formally proposed to you? It felt more like a business proposal then a marriage proposal!"

"Because the kids in the orphanages are bullies and the carer in the orphanage won't care about her," Uzumaki said quietly. "It is a world where she will have to constantly fight to survive. The carer would just ignore her and might even hit her if she did anything wrong. They will say hurtful things and that is the last thing she needs. The person, who took care of Eri-chan, hurt her and I know his boss wants her…I just don't know why."

"It might have to do with her Kekkei Genkei," Shikamaru commented. Naruto curled her lips into a frown while Aizawa darted his eyes to the black-haired teen. Asuma frowned and Kurenai balled her hands into a fist. "She must be important for his plans in some way or form. Why would the boss care about such a little kid?"

Naruto frowned. "She could spill his plans."

"Do you think a young kid like her would know his plans?" Shikamaru asked. Naruto paused and then shook her head as the black-haired teen inspected Eri before looking back at her. "She could talk about the abuse but that would be the fault of the caretaker, not the Boss. The boss would have nothing linking them to her, but if she was important to his plans then it would make sense."

"I might need to do an investigation when we are done," Aizawa commented with a frown.

The whole speech gave Aizawa a lot of information to work with. Eri was not just an abused child but a child that was important to some criminal, which meant that Uzumaki saved her. It made sense why Eri clung to Uzumaki since she saw her as her saviour. The argument for the orphanage told him more about Uzumaki's background. The bitterness in her words told him that the disadvantage was with her own experience.

"You know I was better at hiding my bitterness when I was young," Naruto said, shaking her head. She rubbed the back of her neck and pressed her lips into a thin line while everyone else from Konoha blinked. She raised her eyebrows at them. "What? You don't think I'm capable of being bitter? Because I'm more than capable of being bitter."

Shino cleared his throat. "We are surprised because you never sound bitter."

"If I sound bitter then all of you will tell me that I've no reason to be bitter," Naruto pointed out. She wrinkled her nose and folded her arms against her chest before letting out another sigh. "Besides would any of you ask me why I'm bitter? I have always been the outsider and joke to you. None of you even bothered to get to know me."

Everyone from Konoha winced.

He knew he had to be wise with his words and decision.

"Then how about we come to a compromise?" Uzumaki blinked and Aizawa took a deep breath. I am probably going to regret this. The things he would do to make sure that his student trusted him. "I will take care of Eri with the help of the school since her original guardian might want to take her back. We can protect her from those people and you will be able to visit her."

"Are you sure you can take care of a child?" Kurenai asked, furrowing her eyebrows together. Aizawa pursed his lips and darted his eyes at the others. Naruto tilted her head and knitted her eyebrows together. Is he really going to accept that kind of offer to help me? Naruto frowned. "It is a big responsibility."

Aizawa sighed. "Normally it is too troublesome but if I want Naruto to start trusting me then I would take on the responsibility."

Uzumaki stared at him, looked almost taken back by his offer and waited for him to say something. He just took the cup of tea and took a sip out of the cup, keeping his eyes fixated on his student. Maybe the other adults in her life would have taken back the offer on such a big responsibility, but Aizawa wanted to show her that he was serious about the whole thing.

"Why are you going this far to make sure that I am going to come to school? My clones are me."

"Because I am worried for both you and Eri-chan," Aizawa tells her. The words coming out of his mouth was the truth because Uzumaki deserved to hear this. She deserved to know that he wasn't lying to her. "I don't know what happened to you as a little girl, but we can talk about it. If you don't want to talk to me then we can find someone that you will…"

"You are trying to get me to go to therapy, aren't you?" Naruto asked flatly. Aizawa bobbed his head and Narumi chuckled while her father and mother relaxed their shoulders. She dropped her shoulders and gazed at the Underground Hero. "You aren't going to give up on the idea of therapy, right?"

Aizawa looked at her. "As long as you are under my care, I'm getting you treated for every issue that you have because your issues are going to get you killed in the field."

"Aizawa-san, you are overthinking things," Sakura protested. Naruto bobbed her head alongside the other members of Rookie Nine. The pink-haired teen shifted her gaze from Naruto to Sasuke before moving to the other members of Rookie Nine. "Naruto might have some impulsive tendency and she isn't a very good team—"

"—Same goes for you, Sakura," Naruto grumbled and Sakura threw her a glare.

"Like I was saying, she might be a bad team player but it doesn't mean that she is going to get herself killed," Sakura finished. Aizawa narrowed his eyes at the green-eyed teen before shifting his gaze to the others. I don't think it was enough to convince him. Naruto clenched her jaw and took a deep breath as black eye remained unconvinced.

He looked at Sakura. "You haven't been working long enough for you to make that kind of call and frankly I don't trust you people when it comes to mental health because all of you are shining examples of a mentally healthy people."

His student frowned. "What are you talking about?"

"Uzumaki, are you really fine?" He asked slowly. Aizawa kept his eyes locked on his student, lips pressed against his cup of tea as he waited for his student to say something. It would surprise him if she admitted that she wasn't fine. People were always in denial about the life that they had.

"You can say that again," Narumi commented, shaking her head. She shifted her gaze from Naruto to Bakugou and then shook her head. Everyone else knitted their eyebrows and the woman continued on. "At least with Naruto, I can blame the stigmatism that you put on getting help for mental illness. I wish the same can be applied for Katsuki."

Katsuki growled. "I don't have a problem."

"Of course I am fine!" His student replied with a fake smile plastered on her face. There was a slight waver in her smile and those blue eyes shone with mistrust. The girl balled her hands into a tight ball of fist, the smile was tight and Aizawa knew that his student was still hurting about her past. That she still needed to be rescue from whatever that was hurting her. He was going to be there for her. He does care for her because she was his student.

"Rescue? I'm not being kidnapped or caged in any shape or form," Naruto grumbled. Her parents exchanged glances while everyone else bobbed their heads at her. I'm not going to be moved because he actually seems to care about me. Her lips wobbled and the whiskered teen shook her head. She inhaled and exhaled. "I don't need to be rescued."

Aizawa sighed. "Uzumaki, do you really think that rescuing means a physical form? I'm trying to save you from the emotional damage and wounds that have been inflicted on you. You are still in pain and you need to be saved in a whole different manner."

She grew quiet and gulped down a lump.

He would listen to her.

"Uzumaki, you don't have to put on that smile," Aizawa said softly. "You don't have to pretend to be happy. It is okay…"

His student snorted. "You don't actually care about me. No one cares about me."

"Naruto, you know that I care about you, don't you?" Hinata asked. Naruto froze and then looked away as her throat tightened. Hinata had always been there for her but that didn't mean she didn't have her doubts. The Hyuga heiress clenched her jaw. "Naruto, I have seen you at your worse and that wasn't enough to make me stop caring about you."

Naruto inhaled. "I know that you care, Hinata-chan but I couldn't tell him that you are the only person in my life that gives a shit about me."

"We care about you too," Choji protested. He shifted his gaze at Shikamaru and the black-haired teen grunted. Hinata pressed her lips into a thin line. Hinata-chan doesn't seem to believe you. Naruto bit her tongue and darted her eyes to her best friend. "I know Shikamaru and me didn't show it but we do care."

Hinata shook her head. "If either of you cared then you would have visited her in the hospital when I asked you too! I told you that Naruto wasn't eating but you guys couldn't gather up the strength and courage to face her in that state!"

"Hinata-chan, Choji was injured."

Her best friend clenched her jaw and fixed her eyes on Shikamaru before darting her eyes to the other males in the room. We need to continue on before Hinata-chan explodes with rage. Naruto gulped and darted her eyes to Aizawa. She gestured to the book and her future teacher nodded with a frown playing on her lips.

"I came here, didn't I?" He reminded her. Aizawa felt like cursing the people that took care of Uzumaki as a child. How could they allow a child to grow up thinking like this? It was not healthy for her mental state. What if the girl cracked one day? It took only one bad day for someone to snap. "A teacher that doesn't care, wouldn't confront you about the use of your clones. If I didn't care then I wouldn't have left school early to come here. I want to be there for you, Uzumaki."

"Aizawa-sensei, you are just…"

It seemed like he needed to pull out the big guns.

"Uzumaki, do you know what is Pistanthrophobia?" He kept his voice low and eyes focused on his student. The girl frowned, tilted her head for a good couple of seconds, and furiously shook her head. He took a deep breath and focused on keeping his tone quiet and calm.

Shikamaru blinked and blinked before swirling his head at Aizawa. "Are you telling me that Naruto of all people has a phobia? Aizawa, you haven't seen Naruto but she has more guts than everyone in the room! None of us have ever seen her get scared."

"That phobia isn't based on an inantimate object or a living creature," Aizawa informed Shikamaru. The black-haired male blinked while everyone from Konoha and Suna gazed at the man with curiosity. "This is a phobia that is based on trust. It is a fear of trusting people because your parents, leaders and the adults around you had given her an experience that caused her to be scared in relying on other people."

"It's a very difficult condition to live with," Narumi confirmed. Naruto blinked while her grandmother inspected her for the longest time. "She will always have anxiety when it comes to trusting people. She will always feel that someone will either betray her or disappoint her in some way because her experience taught her that way. She believes she can only trust herself."

That does sound like me. She scowled.

"It is the fear of trust," he explained to her. "I don't know what happened to you during your developing years, but I can guess that someone or something hurt you and that experience caused you to stop trusting people and their intentions."

Uzumaki kept quiet and just stared at him with a tight smile. She did not even try to deny about her fear or offered to tell him about where it started. He didn't expect her to tell him from the very beginning, but there was an improvement. She wasn't trying to lash out or deny him. Uzumaki seemed willing to listen and Aizawa was going to take advantage of it.

"First of all, you didn't try to treat me like I'm some retard like some people," Naruto admitted. She shifted her gaze to Sakura and Kakashi, both of whom flinched, and then she pressed her lips into a very thin line. "Second of all, I was in my safe place which means that it is hard for me to deny anything."

Bakugou eyed her. "Just admit that you are warming up to him."

"Will you admit that you have an undying love and devotion to your sweet cinnamon roll that is Midoriya?" Naruto asked. Her half-cousin flushed a deep shade of red and clenched his jaw while Midoriya coughed and spluttered at the comment. Everyone else snickered and then coughed when the teen threw a glare at them.

Aizawa kept his eyes focused on her.

"You are a very strong girl, Uzumaki and we both know that you are very intelligent," he tells her. "Your scores in the Entrance Exam and your battle against Kaminari and Jirou shows it. I will help you find a good therapist and if you don't feel comfortable then I will go with you. I won't be in the actual therapy session but I will be in the waiting room to support you."

His student stared at him and quietly asked. "Why are you willing to go this far?"

Aizawa stared at the young girl. There was something about the question that made it seem like she was testing him, and he doesn't know what was the correct answer to her question. He just knew his student had been hurt. He could guess that she never had someone to show her some form of care. Those adults in her life might have ignored her silent cries for help and for a child…it was the worst thing they could ever do.

The Third Hokage and the other adults in the room flinched as Aizawa stressed the final words to them. It seems like he is blaming them for every problem in my life. Naruto tilted her head. It was strange he would blame them because anyone else would say that she deserved all those bad things happening to her.

"She is testing you," Narumi confirmed. Naruto hummed and rubbed the back of her neck as her grandmother looked at her with amused and knowing eyes. Her father grimaced and shook his head while her mother and aunt looked at her with concern. "I wouldn't be surprised if she had been doing it for years."

Naruto cleared her throat. "I should correct you and tell you that Mikoto-obaachan cared about me."

"I can see that Mikoto-san cares about you," Aizawa commented. "But it takes a village to raise a child as an African proverb once said and in that regard, whatever issues that they seem to hate about you is their fault. No one asked you to raise yourself and Mikoto-san can't be the only one responsible for you. You deserve to have people care about you because you didn't ask for any of this."

Naruto froze and then gulped down a lump as a burning sensation tickled her eyes.

"Because you deserve to have someone care for you."

This was definitely not scripted. Her throat tightened again as everyone turned around to look at her. Her future classmates gazed at her with sad eyes while the other members of Rookie Nine gazed at her like they were at loss. She rubbed her eyes and took a deep breath before looking away from them.

"You spent so many years waiting for those words," Ashido commented. Naruto sniffed and looked away as everyone continued to gaze at her. The pink-skinned teen curled her lips into a frown. "Uzumaki, you know if you want to cry then you can go right ahead and cry."

Hinata sighed. "Naruto-chan won't ever allow herself to cry."

Uzumaki gulped and forced a smile on her lips. "Okay. I will give the therapy thing a go, Aizawa-sensei."

Aizawa knew his student expected him to not be there for her but Aizawa was going to show her that he was very much different from the adults in her life.

The sentence rang in the air and Naruto gulped when her future teacher fixed his eyes. His black eyes told her that it was a promise and that he would be there for her even if she tried to push him away. Maybe that is what I'm trying to tell myself. She inhaled and looked away, only to blink when her parents stood up from their seats.

"Thank you," Kushina said. Her voice rang in the air as her parents went down on their knees and bowed their heads at her future teacher. Aizawa blinked and her parents kept their heads stuck to the ground. "Minato and me weren't there to raise her and make sure that she grew up to be a happy girl. Her step-grandmother wasn't there to correct her while she was growing up and if I had just fought a little bit harder then—"

"Kushina-san, neither you and Minato-san are at a fault for her issues and problems," Aizawa reassured them. The two parents blinked as the black-haired man offered them a little smile before darting his eyes at the other adults. "Naruto is a product of neglect and extreme abuse and the people responsible for this mess are the adults in your village."

Minato clenched his jaw. "Don't remind me. I've some words to say to Kakashi and Hiruzen about what happened."

"Pistanthrophobia.".

The word sounded strange even though Naruto repeated the words so many times after Aizawa-sensei left the apartment with her clone and Eri-chan. She disliked how the man convinced her to let Eri go, but she knew she had no right to argue against him. The fact he allowed her to visit Eri-chan and was willing to compromise had been a better option then allowing Eri-chan to go to the orphanage.

She only agreed because Aizawa-sensei had only laid out two options to her: the orphanage or he took care of Eri-chan in her place. The first option was terrible and the second option was slightly better. At least with Aizawa-sensei, she could be reassured that he could protect her and there was a chance for him to focus on Eri-chan.

"Well it seemed like she is starting to trust you just a little bit," Narumi commented. Aizawa nodded as everyone else shifted their gaze to Naruto. Izuku and Bakugou exchanged glances while Todoroki gazed at Naruto with blank eyes. "It seems like I can trust you to make sure that she starts treating herself better."

Uraraka frowned. "I don't think that is the case, Akimoto-san! I think Uzumaki is just trying to give Eri the life that she wanted for herself."

"She is trying to protect Eri from the dangers and reality that no one protected Naruto-chan from," Hinata confirmed. Naruto poked her tongue against her cheeks as everyone else shifted their gaze at her. "But the fact she accepted Aizawa-san's offer means she is warming up to you just a little bit. Naruto-chan can be really stubborn."

At least Eri-chan wouldn't be alone.

Pistanthophobia? She doesn't have a fear of trusting people. If she was afraid of trusting people then how could she work in the café? Or interact with her customers? There had to be a level of trust between them. She did trust people. She really did trust people. It just wasn't her fault that she never hangs out with her classmate. She just worked a lot. Bills had to be paid after all.

"Excuses," Hinata stated. Everyone blinked as the Hyuga Heiress looked at Naruto with knowing eyes and a frown playing on her lips. "Naruto-chan, you know as well as I do that you don't really need to work that much even if you had to pay for bills."

Naruto sighed. "Must you always call me out for it?"

"I love you Naruto and that love means I have to call you out whenever I think you are wrong," Hinata replied. Naruto groaned and shook her head while Mikoto giggled and bobbed her head. Kushina darted her eyes between them and then grinned before giving her a look of understanding. Did her mother know the pain of not having a friend enjoy her excuses?

Her mother chuckled. "Mikoto-chan was the same with me."

"It was obvious that you like Minato-kun back," Mikoto said, shaking her head. "I had to get you to admit your feelings for him because it was just painful for me to watch the both of you dance around each other."

The door to her apartment slammed open and her clone burst in with a guilty smile playing on her lips. Naruto felt her temper rise at the sight of the guilty smile. She folded her arms against her chest and glared at her guilty clone.

"You only had one job! How could you allow me to get caught by Aizawa-sensei?" She yelled at the clone.

"You know you are arguing with yourself, right?" Kirishima asked with knitted eyebrows. Naruto scowled and looked away as the other people from Japan gazed at her with curious eyes. There is nothing insane with what I did. She puffed her cheeks while Hinata and Sasuke exchanged glances before shaking their heads.

Naruto cleared her throat. "Well I can't argue with an empty wall."

"Your future boyfriend is going to be so lucky," Mineta drooled and blood leaked out of his nose as his eyes fixed on the clone on the screen. Naruto's eyebrows twitched as Jiraiya bobbed his head. The whiskered teen stood up, ready to smack him but blinked when her grandmother smacked the male on the head and Bakugou raised up his fizzling hands at the male.

Most of the males threw looks of disgust and shook their heads. Kiba flushed red and rubbed his nose while Sakura, Ino and Hinata squeaked at the comment. Her father narrowed his eyes even though his cheeks burned red, while her mother coughed. Wait a second, did they use that jutsu for…no, I'm not going to let my mind go there. She shuddered and Todoroki tilted his head.

"I don't understand," Todoroki declared and Gaara nodded his head.

Kankuro coughed. "I will explain the both of you in private but that little perv has balls of steel for saying that in front of her parents and her."

Her clone flinched, blinked and hung her head. Eri-chan was taken away because you gave a way the fact that you were a clone. She took deep breaths and wanted to scream even more. This probably would have never happened if she just went to school herself, leaving this clone with Eri. But Naruto had been afraid it would pop and Eri-chan would have gotten so scared.

"You did the right thing," her grandmother reassured her. "Giving her to Aizawa-san is a better option for the both of you and you did the right thing of being there for her. Little kids have a lot of energy and if anything happened to your clone then she would have been alone."

Her parents nodded their heads in agreement.

Now this was much worse.

"Aizawa-sensei too?" her clone finally squeaked.

Naruto swirled her head and growled. "Who else knows about you being a copy?"

"Pretty Boy." Her clone flushed red and laughed nervously as the blonde gawked at her. Who the hell was Pretty Boy? She wished that there was a way for her to know everything that her clone experienced. But shadow clones didn't work that way…she thinks. Naruto furiously shook her head at the thought.

"Actually it does work that way but I didn't realize you never noticed it," Kakashi commented with a frown. Naruto blinked and tilted her head. Why haven't I ever notice it? She scrunched her eyebrows together as everyone from Konoha swirled their heads at her. There had to be a rather good reason that she didn't notice it.

She hummed and nodded. "I think it is because I used too many clones which means I get information overload."

"Lucky," Ashido cried. "You can study everything in one day and still pass!"

Jiraiya shook his head. "Not lucky! If Naruto makes the same mistake the first time then she is repeating it again and again over a multiple period of time!"

"Pretty Boy? Who the hell…" Naruto trailed off as a face popped into her mind. There was only one classmate that she considered to be a pretty boy. Pretty Boy had to be Todoroki Shouto. Out of all the boys in her class, Todoroki was the only one she considered to be pretty. Bakugou was good-looking but there was something about him that makes her think it was wrong to think of him in that way.

"Well we now have a good reason to explain why we aren't fucking attracted to each other," Bakugou declared, clicking his tongue. He paused and then his skin turned a sickly shade of green. "I'm going to fucking murder those creeps now and Uzumaki, you won't tell anyone from our year that we're related."

Naruto rolled her eyes. "Do I look like I want to tell people I'm related to Mr. Angry?"

Todoroki was also prettier looking than Sasuke and Naruto knew all too well of how good-looking her teammate had been.

"I'm prettier looking than Sasuke?" Todoroki asked, furrowing his eyebrows together. Ashido and the other girls exchanged glances as they eyed the two males while Sakura and Ino exchanged glances. Hinata chuckled and glanced at her. She scowled as blood rushed to her cheeks. Sasuke smirked and the whiskered teen scowled.

"First of all, I'm being objective, Todoroki! It doesn't mean I find you cute or anything like that!" She grumbled. Todoroki furrowed his eyebrows and nodded. She twisted her head at the smirking black-haired teen. "And you! You don't need me to tell you that you're good-looking! Your admirers screamed that fact everyday!"

Sasuke nodded. "But you would rather die than admit that I'm good-looking, so that was a win."

"Your personality is still a piece of crap!"

"And how did Todoroki figure out that you were a clone?"

Her clone flinched and flushed a shade of red that would have put Hinata's blushing to shame. Now I know what it looks like if I blush and…why the hell is she blushing? Naruto wanted to tug her braid and slapped her clone silly for whatever she had done to make Todoroki realized that she was a clone. Her reputation was going to be ruined because of her stupid clone.

"You know you actually look really cute when you blush," Shikamaru commented. Naruto blinked and swirled her head at the Nara heir while Temari snickered at the comment. Ino scowled and nodded while everyone else gazed at her with slacked jaw. "You actually seem like a girl when you blush."

Naruto's eyebrows twitched. "Do I look like a man to you?"

"I walked into that…didn't I?" Shikamaru grumbled. Choji bobbed his head while Asuma looked at the male with amused eyes. Kaminari and Kirishima exchanged glances before shaking their heads. Kiba snorted and then coughed. Kurenai just gazed at the black-haired teen with unimpressed eyes. Hinata just sighed.

Ino sighed. "It seems like your IQ doesn't help you when it comes to girls."

"I think it is because I kept calling him Pretty Boy."

He got all that from a nickname? Naruto didn't know whether to be impressed at how he figured it out from a single clue or be furious with her clone for saying something like that. It was one thing to dub him in her mind as the Pretty Boy but for her to say those words meant a lot of things.

Todoroki tilted his head. "What does it mean? I thought it was just a simple nickname."

"Why should I tell you?" Naruto puffed her cheeks and folded her arms against her chest. Her parents exchanged glances and chuckled while Hinata shook her head. Narumi, Masaru and Mitsuki glanced at each other before shaking their heads. The whiskered teen exhaled. "If I tell you what it means then you are going to get the wrong idea—"

"—I'll explain it to you," Kirishima said, grinning.

"Why would you do that?" She snarled.

"You have the same thoughts! I am you!" Her clone yelled right back. "I am just more willing to show my nicer side to people!"

It feels weird to argue with my clone. She knew this whole conversation was weird but Naruto just didn't know what to do now. Aizawa-sensei wanted her to go for therapy which was stupid, because she was healthy. Eri-chan had been taken away because her teacher clearly thought she wasn't capable of taking care of Eri-chan. Now, her clone just told an asshole that he was the Pretty Boy.

Todoroki was going to get an even bigger head and Naruto would have to figure out how to explain to him that she didn't like him at all.

"I wouldn't have jumped to that conclusion," Todoroki informed her. Naruto blinked and slumped her shoulders while Hinata gazed at them with knowing eyes. You are jumping to conclusion, Hinata-chan! I'm never ever going to like a guy like him. The boy frowned. "I don't really care about those stuff."

"Did you tell him that you were a clone?"

If she did then that would make things easier.

"Yes," her clone admitted shamelessly. "He asked where you were."

Naruto frowned. "Why would he care about where I was? You are me."

"You bulldozed him," Gaara pointed out. Naruto groaned and rubbed the back of her neck as everyone else bobbed their heads at them. Hinata and Yaoyorozu nodded as Aizawa looked at the two of them with knowing eyes. Why do I have a feeling that he is starting to have the same insane ideas as my mom and Hinata? She shook her head.

The blonde sighed. "I know that now, Gaara."

"Well you are the one who asked," Kankuro reminded her.

I really don't understand Todoroki. He looked like an asshole with a stick up his ass and seemed like he didn't give a shit about what people thought of him. Then the next day he asked about where she was. There had to be a story behind this. The two of them weren't friends. They had only been classmates for three days now, not enough time for him to care.

No, there had to be a reason that Todoroki asked about her.

"Aizawa-sensei assigned us as partners for a history project," her clone admitted and she wiggled her eyebrows. "You know I think we can make some history with him."

"She is definitely your child," Mikoto giggled. Kushina flushed red and smacked her cheeks while her father just looked at Naruto with absolute horror in his eyes. He acts like I destroyed his very image of me. Naruto dropped her shoulders as Mikoto shifted her eyes to Minato. "If Kenji-san was here, he would say that you deserve this."

Todoroki frowned. "I don't get it."

"I envy you," Mineta grumbled, looking at the younger boy with eyes filled with envy. Kaminari coughed and shook his head while Jirou and the other girls shook their heads. Ino and Sakura exchanged glances and looked at her with eyes filled with delight. This doesn't mean a thing! I'm not like you two! She clenched her jaw.

Her clone was shameless or was Naruto shameless?

"You are shameless," Jiraiya answered, shaking his head and rubbing his hands together. "And if you're anything like your parents then I'm going to have more material—"

"Finish that sentence and I'll end you," her father barked. Jiraiya zipped his mouth while Tsunade shook her head at the Toad Sannin. Naruto's eyebrows twitched as heat rushed to her cheeks. Why the hell did Ero-Sennin have to say those stuff? She covered her face while Shouto blinked before shaking his head at them.

"Is there anything else that I need to know?"

"I might have told Todoroki that our parents are dead." Her clone admitted. Naruto shrugged and just rubbed the sides of her head. I don't care that he knows I am an orphan. It had never been a secret in Konoha and Naruto would never lie about having parents if anyone asked about them. As long as Todoroki didn't look at her with pity or taunt her about her lack of parents, then Naruto was fine with this knowledge.

"Who would be so cruel to taunt an orphan about not having parents?" Uraraka asked, furrowing her eyebrows together. Everyone from Japan bobbed their heads while Ino flinched and looked away from them. Naruto rolled her eyes and leaned against her seat, legs sprawled outside as Sasuke narrowed his eyes at Ino.

Hinata sighed. "You will be surprised how mean little kids can be."

"Parents mustn't have raised them right," Mitsuki declared, shaking her head. Ino flinched again alongside Sakura and the blond-haired woman thinned her lips before darting her eyes at Katsuki. "I know I'm no position to say that with how Katsuki is, but god how could you not teach kids to have empathy?"

"And anything else?"

Her clone smiled hesitantly. "I think Todoroki might want to talk to you about where you guys should do the project since the project is due on Monday. You guys have to do a poster presentation and well we spent more time talking about where you were, instead of getting any work done."

"We can't do it in his house?"

"Considering the fact that your father sounds like an asshole, I don't blame you," Naruto commented. Todoroki snorted and bobbed his head while the Suna Siblings snorted. The heterochromatic-haired boy blinked and tilted his head before shaking his head. "Honestly if you just tell me that you don't want to be around him, then I can understand."

Todoroki looked at her with unimpressed eyes. "We don't know each other."

"I thought you wanted to be friends with me and being friends means opening up a little bit," Naruto retorted. Todoroki blinked and his lips twitched and the whiskered teen scowled. "That doesn't mean a single thing, Todoroki! Don't give me that look! You aren't right about anything!"

He hummed. "I didn't say a single thing, Uzumaki but it sounds like you want to be friends with me."

"You aren't right!"

Her clone frowned. "He refused."

In the back of her mind, Naruto wondered why Todoroki refused to let her see his house for them to do their work. But then she asked herself why did she even care? He wasn't the first person to not invite her to his house. If she continued to wonder then it meant she cared. It meant that she wanted to get to know him and Naruto didn't have the time to get to know her classmates.

"You really make us seem like assholes," Kiba muttered, shaking his head. Naruto gave them a pointed look. Sasuke rolled his eyes as everyone else curled their lips into a thin line. He blinked and turned his head to Hinata, who rolled her eyes. "Hinata! Do you actually believe that we're assholes?"

Hinata sighed. "I don't need to give you an answer to the obvious question."

Kiba winced.

She was not going to get to know an asshole that wanted to hide her from his family even though the two of them was just going to do a project.

Todoroki was just like every asshole that she knew.

"You are actually nicer than every other asshole that I know," Naruto commented. The jounins and chunins winced and Todoroki looked at her for the longest time before shaking his head. She pursed her lips and tilted her head to the side. "What? You don't like the fact that I'm admitting that I'm wrong."

Todoroki grimaced. "Your bar is too low for me to be happy about the comment."

Aizawa shook his head and looked at them for the longest time before shaking his head. He darted his eyes to the book and exhaled before rubbing the back of his neck. He cleared his throat and everyone looked away from them. Their eyes fixated on the dark-haired male and the man finally let out a sigh. "It's the end of the chapter. Who wants to read the next chapter?"

"I'll read the next chapter!" Mikoto declared.


A/N: Please do drop a review and tell me what you think of the reactions. What do you think of their interactions? For anyone who doesn't know, Part 5 of the Guardian Chronicles series is out. After the next chapter, there will be an interlude and the Todoroki family and members of the Uzumaki Clan are going to come in.