Things haven't changed one bit.

It was the same as each day passing by.

There were many people who liked him, from random civilians in the village to the girls in the academy, and it looked like he could grow his own fan club like his one broody classmate, but that's a story for another time.

He had brown eyes, accompanying long black hair with bangs that framed the sides of his face and a high ponytail that reached his nape. He stood at 5'3 and weighed 46 kg, as well as an the X-shaped scar on his right cheek. His outfit consisted of a white shirt and matching black hoodie, going along with his tan-colored shorts and standard shinobi sandals.

Juzo Kakei walked through the streets with one thing on his mind: To graduate from the academy and to be a genin. As he neared his destination, he sensed what seemed to be a familiar chakra signature approaching him from the right.

"Good morning, Juzo-kun!"

He turned his head to the right, seeing a fair-skinned girl with platinum blonde hair and a purple outfit consisting of a high-collared blouse and matching apron skirt. She wore bandages on her abdomen and legs, a pair of hoop earrings, and white arm warmers. Her bangs were framing the right side of her face while the rest of her hair were held up by a ponytail that reached down to her waist.

"Likewise," he replied coolly.

"You're heading to the academy to attend the graduation, right? It's happening today!" said Ino Yamanaka, excitement and determination filling her voice.

Juzo nodded.

"Then… can we go there together? It seems like you need some company going there." she asked with a blush, turning shyly to the side before looking back at him.

Juzo shrugged his shoulders carelessly and continued on his way.

"I CAN'T BELIEVE IT! I got his attention on my first try! Beat this, Forehead! HA!" she thought, immediately catching up to Juzo and walking by his side as they headed for the academy.

"Look at those two…"

"They look like they're in love."

"I mean, aren't they a couple already?"

"Juzo-kun seems like the perfect boy for someone like her…"

Turning his head again, the boy scowled at the sight of the villagers eyeing both him and Ino as they walked, with their number increasing more and more by the second.

"Tch. Don't these fuckers have anything better to do than watch us walk?" he muttered out, almost becoming tempted to run the rest of the way with his hood covering his face.

"Well, I mean… it's not that bad… t-them watching us…" Ino stuttered out, her gaze focusing on Juzo's free right hand. Her hand was shaking, as she was trying to reach out to grab his, in an attempt to calm down her fangirl self, and to possibly annoy her friend/rival even more.

"Woah, stop right there!" a voice rang out in her head, stopping her in her move, and causing her to pull her hand back. "You're being way too fast, girl! You don't want to make him hate you like what Forehead does with Sasuke-kun, right?"

"Yeah…" she told herself, remembering how her friend/rival, Sakura Haruno and half of the girls in their classroom try to hopelessly chase and fight for Sasuke's feelings, which only resulted in the boy himself avoiding them most of the time. She wouldn't want the same to happen with Juzo, not when she looked like she had a chance with him.

"I don't want Juzo-kun to hate me too." she continued muttering to herself, which drew the boy's attention as he looked towards her.

"Did you say something?" he asked, furrowing his eyebrows.

"N-Nothing!" she threw her hands up and quickly shut her mouth, trying to look innocent in front of her crush. Luckily for the blonde, Juzo only threw her a disinterested look before turning his back on her. Ino let out a sigh of relief at that and continued on following the boy to the academy.

"That was close…" she breathed out silently.

Juzo and Ino eventually arrived at the academy as they saw that only about half of the class have shown up yet.

There was Kiba Inuzuka, a boy wearing a grey jacket with black fur lining around his hood and sleeves while a small white dog was resting on his head. Then there was Shino Aburame, a young man with black hair and sunglasses, and wearing a large white coat that covered half of his face. Next to him was Hinata Hyuuga, a girl with short blue hair with bangs going past her face with pupiless eyes and wearing a large overcoat.

Another person in the class was Shikamaru Nara, a very lazy guy with hair looking somewhat like a pineapple. Beside him was a slightly fat boy with brown hair who was eating chips, his best friend Choji Akimichi.

However, they did spot a spiky raven-haired Sasuke on the first row gazing out the window while surrounded by his horde of horny fangirls.

"Juzo-kun is here!"

Another girl screamed and almost on instinct, the other half of the girls that were present so far had surrounded the person mentioned, similar to Sasuke's situation. However, Juzo paid it no heed and simply made his way to the back of the room as if he was completely alone.

Meanwhile, Ino was stuck in her spot by the door, looking pissed. "Damn it! There goes my one chance of sitting beside Juzo-kun! Why can't fangirls like her keep their mouth shut just for once?!" she thought to herself as she slumped down at a table on the second row, unaware of what she just said about others included her own self.

As Juzo made his way to his desired place, the fangirls that surrounded him soon found themselves butting heads with Sasuke's own, throwing insults at one another about who was the hotter guy.

"Sasuke-kun is the best and you can't change that!"

"Juzo-kun is better than Sasuke-kun and you know it!"

"Nobody even knows who he is in some parts of the village!"

"Well, Sasuke-kun doesn't even notice any of you!"

The girls' back-and-forth banter was being watched by none other than Sasuke, who turned his head from the window for the first time and Juzo, who stopped in his tracks to figure out what was happening behind him.

Both shook their heads in annoyance and tried to pry away their attention to something else, which only resulted in them locking eyes with one another.

Black met brown as they stared each other down, looking as if they were about to fight each other. At the same time, the horde of fangirls had noticed their two crushes staring dangerously at each other, causing them to stop and to surround them both again out of excitement. Perhaps this would settle it? If Sasuke and Juzo fight, they would finally know who was the better one between them!

The room became silent for the next few moments, with everyone turning their heads to the far end of the room where Juzo and Sasuke were preparing for an impending fight between them. The atmosphere was becoming tense and just when it looked like they were about to lunge at one another…

They shrugged.

"Not worth it." Sasuke breathed out, closing his eyes and staring back at the window.

"Indeed," said Juzo as he continued on his way to the last row to take his seat.

Almost out of instinct, the horde of girls had burst into anime tears, including Ino, since they didn't see their crushes duking it out in a fight. It was probably for the best though, as there's no guarantee if they would still be conscious once they see how cool the two boys would look if it happened.

Soon after that little altercation, the classroom started filling with the rest of the students and then a few minutes later, Iruka Umino walked through the door. He was a man of average height wearing black pants and a standard chuunin flak jacket. He had brown hair tied in a ponytail and a long scar across his nose.

"Good morning, class." he said, yet failing to get their attention when he noticed that it was still noisy inside the room. He then cleared his throat and used his patented Big Head Jutsu, yelling out "SILENCE!".

The classroom immediately became silent afterwards as Iruka sat down behind his desk and started calling out his students to mark their attendance. Once he finished his list, he stood back up and looked at everyone in the room.

"As you all know, today is your graduation exam. This will be the culmination of everything that you have learned throughout your days in the academy. Those who pass the exam at the end of the day will become official shinobi of the Leaf. We will start with the written exam, followed by weapons, taijutsu and lastly ninjutsu."

As Iruka finished, his assistant Mizuki walked through the door holding all of the exam papers and placed them down on the desk.

"Now lets begin. You have 45 minutes to answer everything." Iruka said and started handing out the exams to everyone with some assistance from Mizuki. After only 20 minutes, Juzo was already done and looking down, he noticed that Sasuke had finished his exam as well.

Noticing someone was staring at him from behind, Sasuke quickly turned around and locked eyes with Juzo once again. The two stared at each other for a few moments before rolling their eyes at the same time then turning their attention back to the exam.

"Okay class, time's up. I don't want to see anyone answering their papers now." Iruka announced, prompting Mizuki to get up and collect the exams. Afterwards, the whole class moved to the training field for the weapons exam.

"Alright everyone, here you have 10 kunai and 10 shuriken each. You must throw them and be able to hit all of the targets. You will be graded based on the number of targets that you hit as well as your precision." Iruka explained and started calling out each student for the evaluation.

"Uchiha Sasuke!" Iruka eventually called out and half of the girls there was cheering for their crush while the other half were doing their best to demoralize Sasuke with boos in whatever he was about to do.

Sasuke picked up the weapons and expertly threw them all at the same time like the elite he was. Every kunai hit the dummies dead center as well as the shurikens except for one that was located high in a nearby tree. "Well done Sasuke, you scored 19 out of 20." Iruka said and the boy's fangirls went wild.

Meanwhile, Sasuke seemed to be grumbling about something as he went back to his place. "Tch, I still can't get that last one…" he muttered to himself quietly.

"Kakei Juzo!" Iruka called out and as if it were a signal, a mysterious figure appeared just at the academy, hiding from everyone else while watching what was going on in the training field.

"Try not to overdo it, Juzo-kun~" the figure said.

Juzo took a new batch of weapons from Mizuki and looked at all of the targets that were surrounding him, memorizing their positions in his mind while ignoring his noisy fangirls that were giving him various praises by the second. He took a deep breath and jumped high into the air as he threw all of the weapons at the same time.

As he landed back on the ground, almost everyone jaw-dropped at seeing the kunai and shuriken hitting all the targets dead center.

Iruka's eyes widened. He knew that Juzo was a quiet person like Sasuke but he never knew that he was this skilled; perhaps he was even better than the Uchiha.

"G-Good job Juzo, you got a perfect score of 20 out of 20" Iruka congratulated him, to which the young man responded with a silent nod as he went back to his place. His fangirls went wild as well, while Sasuke simply raised an eyebrow at him in both curiosity and slight interest.

As soon as Iruka finished the rest of the class with their turns, they moved to the taijutsu exam. "For this exam, you must hold your ground against Mizuki for 2 minutes or you can force him out of the circle to win. Mizuki won't go on the offensive very much but be prepared for any tricks up his sleeve."

As he went through every student in the class, most of them were able to hold their own although some students chickened out and lost their chance. When it was finally Sasuke's turn, Mizuki threw up the match and let himself be forced out of the circle to guarantee the Uchiha's victory, much to the chagrin of his fangirls.

"Kakei Juzo!" Iruke called out.

Said boy stepped forward into the circle and stood opposite to Mizuki. He eyed his opponent up and down quickly and simply kept his cool by keeping his arms behind him, not bothering to use a fighting stance.

"Don't you underestimate me, brat." Mizuki growled out, but Juzo gave him the finger to shut him up, causing most of the class to laugh. Mizuki only gritted his teeth in anger while Iruka sweat-dropped.

From afar, the mysterious figure giggled as he watched Juzo looking bored. "Just don't kill him, Juzo-kun~" he licked his lips in anticipation.

"Do you even know what you're doing? You poor dobe…" Sasuke said in a rare moment of smugness, getting laughs from his fangirls as well as a few more students in the class.

"Hajime!" Iruka said and immediately Mizuki shot forward with his left fist in rage. Juzo waited until he was mere centimetres away from him before he moved to the side and grabbed Mizuki's arm with his left one, slamming him down to the ground.

Holding him in place with his right knee, Juzo grabbed ahold of his other arm and slowly joined his hands together, locking Mizuki in a devastating double armbar. Mizuki screamed in pain as he felt his joints being manipulated that he felt like he was suffering from a fracture.

"Submit." Juzo said with narrowed eyes.

"You're gonna have to try harder than that, brat!" Mizuki said as he helplessly tried to squirm out of his current position.

Juzo calmly took a deep breath and applied more pressure to Mizuki's arms, nearly snapping his bones as he drove his knee deeper into his back, causing the man to scream louder in agony.

"ARRGHHH, I SUBMIT!" Mizuki screeched out, unable to take it anymore. Juzo let out a sigh of relief as he let go of Mizuki's arms and stood up, walking back into his place like a real badass with everyone staring at him in amazement, as he just passed the taijutsu exams by simply making his opponent give up fighting.

"HE CHEATED!" one of Sasuke's fangirls, Sakura Haruno, screeched out loudly that made nearly everyone cover their eyes. His other fangirls followed after that, but nobody was paying attention to them whatsoever.

"That was pretty cool." said Kiba in awe, with the white dog on top of his head nodding in agreement.

"You're going to be troublesome." said Shikamaru, placing his hand on his hip lazily.

"What kind of taijutsu was that? He easily made a chuunin give up in a fight? And it doesn't even look like he was trying. I need to learn how to do that as well… it will help me in my mission to kill my brother." Sasuke thought grimly, walking towards Juzo.

Juzo turned his head as soon as he noticed a presence coming his way. "Can I help you?" he asked, looking at Sasuke straight in the eye.

"That fighting style you used against that man… I want you to teach me how to do it." Sasuke stated bluntly.

"Well, isn't this surprising? The almighty Uchiha asking for help… why should I even teach you? What is your goal? Why do you want to learn it?" Juzo retorted, causing Sasuke to scowl.

"Just teach me. I need to learn it to become stronger."

Juzo placed his hands inside his pockets and raised an eyebrow. "What for? Why do you need to become stronger? From what I've seen, you're strong for someone your age. All you need to do is train, but you can do it by yourself."

"Tch…" Sasuke growled out, looking to the side. The dobe was basically asking him why he wanted to learn from him, and that meant that he has to tell him about his goal to kill Itachi.

Now Sasuke was confused.

On one side, he wanted to tell him and just get this over with to be able to train and on the other hand, he wanted to keep what he preferred to be a secret solely to himself. The Uchiha didn't know what to do until he felt a hand on his shoulder.

Sasuke quickly turned his head to see Juzo just beside him, staring straight into his eyes again.

"It seems like you need time for yourself to think it over… I won't teach you until you earn some guts to tell me why you want to learn. Once you tell me your goal, then we'll talk." Juzo told him as he let go of Sasuke's shoulder, walking over to one of the trees nearby so he could lean on them and rest.

Sasuke simply narrowed his eyes, wondering what he should do now.

Iruka gave Mizuki ten minutes to recover from his match with Juzo, with the former mumbling about gaining more power the whole time. Afterwards, the taijutsu exams continued for the next hour and once Iruka had gotten over everyone in his class, they all went inside their classroom for the ninjutsu portion.

"Kakei Juzo!" Iruka called out and Juzo made his way down the stairs, standing in front of the classroom facing his sensei, a scowling Mizuki, and the Third Hokage himself, Hiruzen Sarutobi.

This time, the mysterious figure that was watching them during the taijutsu portion was just outside the window, looking at Juzo hungrily. "Show them who's the best, Juzo-kun!" he grinned.

"Juzo, please perform the Henge no Jutsu." Iruka said and with that, there was a poof of smoke and as it cleared, a man that was familiar to all of them appeared before them. The man was none other than the Fourth Hokage himself, Minato Namikaze.

Hiruzen raised his head slightly, looking genuinely impressed with this boy. He had accepted Juzo into the village years ago after an ANBU brought him back and based on Iruka's constant updates, he was one of the best that the academy had to offer with his consistently high grades. Now things were finally coming full-circle with the young man in front of him.

"W-Well done, Juzo-kun." Iruka said in slight surprise before continuing with the exam. "Now get ready for the Substitution Jutsu." Iruka picked up a blunt kunai and threw it at Juzo, who quickly acted and switched places with a nearby chair.

"So far, so good Juzo. Now do at least two bunshins to finish your exam." Iruka continued with an impressed look on his face.

Juzo's face turned serious as he quickly went through some hand signs and ended with the Tiger seal. "Bunshin no Jutsu." he said and a large poof of smoke appeared before all of them. As it begun to clear, four exact copies of Juzo stood beside him with the same serious look on all of their faces.

After everyone had gotten through the ninjutsu portion, Hiruzen took his leave as well as Mizuki, leaving Iruka with his students to make an important announcement.

"Okay class, the exams are now over so congratulations are in order to everyone that passed. You may receive your official headbands here but the one who should receive his first… is none other than our rookie of the year, Kakei Juzo!" he announced, gesturing for Juzo to come over to receive his hitai-ate.

The fangirls were all being noisy raining down praises for their crush while the rest of the class simply clapped their hands for the young man in a congratulatory way.

Meanwhile, Sasuke kept quiet in his seat, not bothering to say anything because he was just watching Juzo the whole time. Normally, he would stand up and declare that he was the better shinobi but Juzo's words from earlier haven't left the Uchiha's mind and right now, he was debating with himself if he should let someone in on his personal life.

After all, the burden should be only his to bear, he didn't need someone to interfere with his problems, much less someone whom he didn't know that well.

Despite that, he still wanted to learn what Juzo just did earlier during the taijutsu exam. If he could learn how to fight like that, there would be less people standing between him and his quest for revenge. It would make things easier for him, but this was yet a story for another time.

As Iruka handed the Konoha forehead protector to Juzo, the young man sent him a rare smile that got Iruka to widen his eyes for a brief moment.

Looking down, Juzo gazed at the hitai-ate on his right palm and slowly closed his fist tightly.

"I've taken my first step in getting my revenge…" he thought, an evil grin appearing across his face.

Not a lot of things happened but be patient. The interesting parts have yet to come. For now, we know that if Sasuke wants to learn from Juzo, he has to tell him about Itachi. Will he do it or not? Plus, a mysterious figure seems to be stalking Juzo. Who could it be?

P.S. I'm using Juzo Kakei's name and appearance from the Brave 10 anime.

Goodbye… and good night! BANG! *too sweet gesture*

-Lance