Hey guys! Sorry for posting late this time. I had my school exams going on. Anyways go on!

DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN NARUTO.

ORPHANED CHAPTER THREE

Four years later

(Reo's POV)

FINALLY! I HAVE GRADUATED! I cheered in my mind as started flinging my headband. The years of the academy had taken a toll on my...patience. I being a nerd and having too much free time, finished the portions by the beginning of the second year. Yeah, I think I deserve to brag a bit. The people in the academy were mostly unbearable.

Kiba's too noisy. He's arrogant and bratty. Constantly, he needs to keep badmouthing someone to reassure himself of his own non-existent 'superiority'. The kid's got issues.

Next, we come to Hinata. She has a massive crush on Naruto...which he's completely oblivious to, making the whole thing look like something out of a trashy teenage romance novel. She's polite and would be bearable if she didn't stutter that much. She has deep self-esteem problems and her stutter becomes illegible when she is close to Naruto. On top of all that...I think she's a stalker. I spotted her quite frequently when I was hanging out with Naruto.

Sasuke came back after the whole ordeal with his now dead clan. He came back and went on to be a brooding, dark, edgy boy sitting with a pose that would increase the estrogen production in the female demographic of the class. The dude needed some space to acknowledge the fact that nearly all the people he had known, were gone. He needed the time to grieve. Instead, he got surrounded by girls who went through early puberty.

Speaking of fangirls, even I wasn't spared. After Ayame nee-chan commenting on my cute appearance and how I'm getting a toned body-a toned body a 12 yr old can have- I had become aware of the not so bad look I had. Sometimes in the nights, my...member would get erect and I would start getting all the perverted thoughts. It looks even I went through early puberty. I had gotten quite a following in the academy seeing my good looks*wink,wink* and pretty decent ninja skills.

I even bought some pornographic literature and magazines after hengeing myself. They were pretty damn good. Icha Icha Paradise was a book which needed to be kept on a high pedestal and worshipped in temples. The story, the plot twists, the-the ILLUSTRATIONS... I stopped myself before I started drooling in public.

Getting back on track, Kiba's an annoying lil bitch. Hinata's a girl with serious confidence issues. Sasuke's an emo guy...Naruto. Things between my best friend and me have been pretty good. I hung out with him, just not that often, maybe weekly once. He is still loud and dresses in a kill me orange. His grades though were strangely low, even after all those sessions. Naruto swore that he had to get better grades than what he was getting now, even I was getting confused. Anyways he's set to be the deadlast.

There's also Shino, but we don't speak much. We have that mutual respect between us, but we aren't too close. Shikamaru I don't talk with him much. Our personalities clash. He tends to be lazy and doesn't care about his shinobi career much, while I freak out if my day was not productive.

Now the fun part. My skills. My chakra levels are around high chūnin to low jōnin. Hey! I practised my chakra exercises a lot during these four years. My control is damn good. I even made my own chakra control exercise. You basically try to write with your chakra by infusing it into ink. The finer the strokes are, the better your control. You can also level it some more by drawing an actual picture. I'd say my control is more than good enough to become a medic straight away.

My ninjutsu skills are the best in class, along with Sasuke. My taijutsu got better a little bit after increasing my strength and speed by wearing weights. I can beat everyone except Sasuke, even Kiba many times. I am the fastest and one of the strongest in class. My bukijutsu skills are impeccable. I surpassed Sasuke, hitting bullseye every time. I even learnt a neat little trick of deflecting shuriken to hit targets from behind. It just made my badass meter go up. Studies, I'm the best as usual. I'm gunning for the rookie of the year along with Sasuke.

I had thought about giving fūinjutsu a try too. I was currently mastering my strokes and kanji. The one thing I don't get about fūinjutsu is why there isn't much popularity for it. You can literally do whatever you want by understanding some science, chakra theory, chakra properties and fūinjutsu. That book by Uzumaki Sen was mind-blowing. It changed the way I looked at the world and Chakra. The amount of information referenced in that book about Chakra theory made me question the type of education Konoha gives to its ninja. Chakra was not just mix of two energies, it was a medium for us to react with nature and the universe. You could use the energies separately through fūinjutsu or some natural affinity.

A great deal about Chakra was still undiscovered. There was so much to still know, an urge to find answers is born in me. Alas, I can't while I'm becoming a ninja...unless I get free time and resources to research.

Shame the Uzumaki were almost driven to extinction.

That book was some high-level knowledge. It should have been kept in the Shinobi section, but someone kept it in the civilian section, thinking that no one would understand it anyways. The book was said to have gone 'missing' the day when I had to return it. I paid the fine though to feel less guilty about stealing it.

I stopped his musings when he saw Naruto sitting on the swing looking at the ground dejected. I had a bad feeling about what had happened and was about to walk over but Mizuki sensei took him off to somewhere else. I sighed. Just when I was about to...

I returned to my house, thinking about what to do. The answer was staring at me when I went to my bedroom. A set of fūinjutsu scrolls and, a paintbrush and ink. I sat down preparing myself and started on with my fūinjutsu strokes.

Fūinjutsu strokes had a special property. The ink could store chakra and release it. The way it could release chakra and use it manipulate the world was really intriguing. You can even say that it could even quantise chakra.

There were many other strokes to tune the properties of chakra like frequency at which was emitted, chakra intensity, etc. Using a combination of these strokes, one could make specific kanji, for signifying their use and use them in a combination to make seals.

Storage seals were the easiest types of seals. They used only one kanji. The kanji served four purposes; convert matter into chakra, store the chakra, increase the density and chemical properties of the ink in the strokes for increasing the number of things that could be stored and finally, take all that chakra to reconfigure it to exactly match the state the object when it was stored.

Now normally if someone were to use just the current scientific principles and procedures, they wouldn't have been able to do half the above things a storage seal could do. Chakra was very versatile and there were still many things we needed find out about it.

The Yondaime had used seals to basically teleport from one place to another; the hiraishin no jutsu( Flying Thunder God Technique). There were stories where some Uzumaki were known to be absolute nightmares. Shame they and all their knowledge were wiped out.

Right now, I just wanted to revise my strokes to make sure they were perfect. I was introduced to fūinjutsu two years ago. I had taken a lot of time to perfect my strokes. My strokes were actually good enough to start with fūinjutsu just two months later. But I held off because not only did I want to draw them properly, but also quickly. Seals are useless in battle if you can't make them under one second. Right now, I can draw them so fluidly and swiftly, I could draw them in my sleep. Yeah, once that happened. And to my credit, I hadn't really prioritised fūinjutsu in my first year.

I want to be the guy who sharpens his axe and then cuts the tree in a swift strike, rather than the guy who just starts cutting the tree right off the bat. The hard work has paid off and I believe I can start making a shit ton of storage seals tomorrow.

After practising for an hour, I went out to resupply on my weapon, medical and fūinjutsu stock. The shop I visit is this place called Higurashi ninja store. They have a wide variety of stock on various weapons from all around the elemental nations and on-duty and off-duty Shinobi attire. Jeez...that sounded like a cheesy commercial. Anyways moving on.

The shop was run by a rather large and bulky guy in his middle ages, called Higurashi. He also had a daughter called Tenten who was a kunoichi just a year older than me. During the brief times we met, she came across like a kunoichi serious about her career who just had a small fetish for weapons. Yep...a little fetish there, hell who am I kidding? I wouldn't be surprised if her wet dreams were bondage wrapped up in ninja wire.

I made my way to the shop and entered it. Tenten was behind the counter and greeted me " Welcome to Higurash- Oh! Hi Reo."

I raised my right eyebrow, "Hey! Have a break from team gathering?"

"Yeah, Gai-sensei let us off to ourselves today. We had gone on a mission outside the village for a week and we were travelling for a total of three days. Anyways how did your graduation go?"

I took my headband out of my pocket and showed it to her "I passed with flying colours!" I beamed with a proud grin.

Tenten smirked "Well done! Who am I kidding, you probably breezed through it, didn't ya?"

I pocketed the headband and folded my arms putting up an arrogant smirk "You thought it would be a challenge to the great Reo-sama. Hmph! You'll have to do better than that."

Tenten giggled and said "Yeah, yeah. You can come back to earth now. So what did you need?"

I nodded "Two packets worth of kunai and shuriken each, a battle first aid kit, two rolls of ninja wire and five bunches of fūinjutsu scrolls."

Tenten grabbed the items from behind the counter and put them all in a bag "That'll be 10,000 ryo. Anything else?"

I took the bag and said "Weelll...I was kinda looking for a cool sword. But I think I'll buy one later when I come with my sensei."

Tenten smiled "Yeah. We should hangout after you become a ninja. I'll introduce you to my teammates and sensei, but I'm warning you might be put off by their weird behaviour. They are pretty decent people even though Neji's a douche to nearly everyone he meets."

I narrowed my eyes After I become a ninja? But I'm already one... I laughed and said "Well sounds fun. We should definitely do that. Well, I'll be off and thanks for the supplies."

Tenten smiled and said, "You're welcome."

I walked out of the store in a slightly cheery mood and a slightly confused mood at what Tenten said. I walked back home, dropped my shopping bag and ran to the park for some physical training and running laps.

The next week

I entered the room took my usual seat in the back corner of the class. I was one of the earliest ones. Naruto hadn't come yet, so I took out my beloved Icha Icha paradise and continued off from where I had stopped.

I debated whether reading adult material publicly, but I decided to ignore that side of my brain. I was technically acknowledged as an adult by the government as soon as I became a ninja and all the other brats with me did so too. If they are gonna giggle and blush, they're fucking immature and ignorant about what they are getting into. Public opinion and what the society thinks doesn't even matter for someone like me, who's probably gonna die young. If I'm going to die young, I might as well enjoy life a little bit. If somebody is going to be angry, fuck them.

I broke away from my mental rant and focused on the book. Oh Tsuna, you naughty girl... I giggled perversely.

Kids started to fill in, many of them noticed me with my book. The boys noticed and some jibed "Fucking pervert." Some smirking at my balls, some flabbergasted at my attitude and the rest ignoring me for being me. The girls, a lot of em giggled. Most of them got weirded out probably with me not matching their ideal and the rest either ignored me or jibed at me for either being a perv or not as good as their Sauce-kay-kunnnnn!

I put my book down as Naruto came in. "Hey mate! Nice ta see ya made it." I playfully jibed at him

Naruto beamed at me and flicked the headband tightly bound on his forehead "Reo! how've ya been! Yeah, I graduated in the end even though I failed."

I got confused. What'd he mean by that? Guessing what I was thinking, Naruto began his wild tale from last week.

"Damn Naruto... You got into some wild shit." I said feeling something between surprise and amusement.

"Yeah! Then Iruka-sensei gave me the headband and said I graduated. Finally! I've been waiting way too long for a damn opportunity to escape his boring lectures." We laughed. Iruka-sensei's lectures were getting difficult to stay awake to.

"Yeah he's a good guy and all, but he's the most boring teacher." It was at this moment I felt it.

I felt a deep sense of dread growing slowly inside me. Seeing Naruto's face, I was sure he was feeling it too. The door banged open and in walked the two most annoying people I had ever known.

Mai Miyoko, a girl from a civilian family was a fangirl of one Sasuke Uchiha. She had no particular talent apart from her aptitude for studying, no drive to work hard on what she lacked and absolutely no fucking clue on what she was getting into by becoming a kunoichi.

Ino Yamanaka was the clan heiress of the Yamanaka clan. She, unlike Mai, was a tad bit better in Taijutsu; coming from a clan and everything. She too had no seriousness about being a ninja. The only thing going for her was her clan's mind techniques.

Both were initially best friends, but a rift grew between them after they started liking the same boy causing them to become fierce rivals. They liked and proclaimed to 'love' the boy even though they hadn't had a single conversation with him.

He was thankful for not having fangirls like him. He once had just as much crazy fangirls as he had, but it grew down drastically after he started fooling around with Naruto and acting like a perv. Another reason he liked Icha Icha Paradise.

The two girls immediately rushed to poor Sasuke's seat and seated right next to him on both sides, sandwiching him. Hmm...Threesome. Even though I hate them both, that's a situation I'd like to see play out one day.

Sasuke looked like he wanted to be anywhere but where he was for a second but went right back to his patented brooding pose.

I diverted my attention again to Naruto and asked: "So what happened to Mizuki?"

"Jiji said that he was gonna get sent to TI. He said that Mizuki-teme was a spy sent by Orochimaru to sabotage the Academy or something." I widened my eyes. Orochimaru was a traitor who abandoned the village after his vile experiments propped up.

In my view, I didn't know what to feel about him. Sure, I always respected someone who was a researcher and wanted to learn about chakra, but the guy experimented on the village's citizens and children even. I could understand if they were enemy shinobi; hell I wanted to experiment on enemy shinobi. They know that one day they'd die on their duty, but people who didn't even consent to that and children...I get the feeling he was being needlessly sadistic and cruel.

It was right then that Iruka-sensei entered the class filled with chaos and useless chatter. "SHUT UP, YOU BRATS!" He did his patented big head jutsu on us.

The class immediately quietened down, feeling the anticipation knowing that they would be assigned their teams. Iruka took a deep breath in and gave us a warm smile "It was a real pleasure teaching you guys. Even though you guys might have felt my lectures to be boring, it was my pleasure to teach you guys something. You all have grown beyond my expectations, you have all improved to point that is much greater than when you walked into this class.

I wish you all the very best in your future endeavours and would like to bid you all a goodbye since this may very well be the last time I see you guys" he wiped a tear from his eye. "Now for the part you've all been waiting for. Team 1 shall consist of Aika Miyamoto, Eiji Yakashiwa..."

I droned out his speech as I wished to the almighty Please. Please do not place me with Mai. Anyone but Mai. He already knew Ino would be shafted off to the Ino-Shika-Cho trio. He didn't think he could his mind straight if he was near any pf the two banshees.

"Team 7 would consist of Sasuke Uchiha-" Sasuke straightened himself. He would not be stuck behind with a deadweight. It would do well for him to be placed with someone capable.

"Reo Kawaki-" My ears perked up at that. I was going to be placed with Sasuke? I could handle that. Sasuke gave a satisfactory 'hn'. He could work with Reo. He was a worthy rival and would not drag him down. But he would eventually surpass him.

"-and Naruto Uzumaki. You jōnin sensei will be Kakashi Hatake. Reo is the rookie of the year; beating Sasuke or at least equal to him in everything except Taijutsu. Though he isn't that worse than him." Iruka flashed a proud congratulatory grin at me. I bumped Naruto's hand.

"IRUKA SENSEI! THERE HAS TO BE A MISTAKE! I HAVE TO BE PLACED WITH SASUKE-KUN, NOT SOME DEADLAST AND A PERVERT! HOW ELSE WILL I PROVE MY TRUE LOVE!" Mai and Ino screech the same words, at the same time. I winced my ear and wanted to retaliate, but I decided against it. They'll learn. Eventually.

"CAN YOU BOTH PLEASE SHUT UP AND SIT DOWN?!" Iruka shouted. He then continued on "Team 8 will consist of Shino Aburame, Hinata Hyūga and Kiba Inuzuka. Your Jōnin sensei will be Kurenai Yuhi."

"Team 9 is still on duty. Team 10 will consist of Choji Akamichi, Ino Yamanaka and Shikamaru Nara. You sensei will be Asuma Sarutobi." I heard a mutter of 'Troublesome' and 'Why am I placed with this lazy bastard?'. I snicked, I felt bad for Shikamaru and Choji.

Iruka continued on the team assignments and finished "Your sensei will be here shortly. Again, It was a pleasure teaching you all." Minutes after he walked out, the Jōnin sensei's came in to pick up their genin.

A guy who was smoking a cigarette came in and took his genin. I recognised him as Asuma Sarutobi, the son of the current Hokage and a former fire guardian. He was a powerful shinobi in his own right and if his ability to gather information was good for anything, there was a rift between the father and son for some reason.

The next lady who came in just took my breath away. She was breathtakingly hot. My perverted side decided it was the right moment to ship some ideas and mental images to my pre-frontal cortex. Ehh...She's too old for me. But damn, she's hot! She spoke "Team 8, you're with me. Meet up at training ground 8."

Eventually, all the genins, except Team 7 left with their sensei. I sighed He might take a while to come here. I decided to continue reading my smut while Naruto fell asleep and Sasuke kept brooding.

Three hours later

Naruto woke up a few minutes back and started to grumble about sensei's who were late. He decided to prank in the blandest way I'd seen him do. He placed a duster between the door and the edge so that it would fall as soon as it was opened. I snorted at him saying that our sensei was a Jōnin and that it wouldn't work.

Now even I was starting to get a bit irritated. He was supposed to be here hours ago. Suddenly the door opened and the jōnin walked in. To my surprise, the duster hit him, though I suspect he let it hit him.

"Yeah! See Reo, I told you it worked. Serves you right for coming late -ttebayo." Naruto held a triumphant smirk.

"My first impressions of you all is-" His eyes fell on me and then my book."-interesting. Now meet me up on the rooftop." And he popped out of existence. Naruto and Sasuke bolted out of the room while I jumped out of the window and walked the wall to get there in one second.

Kakashi-sensei looked at me. His eyebrows raised and then eye-smiled "Not bad. You have already learnt tree walking and have good speed. Your speed is impressive for a genin, maybe better than an average chūnin."

I smiled at the complement, all my previous irritation forgotten "Thanks." We waited for a whole minute until Naruto and Sasuke arrived, looking surprised to see me. Narrowing his eyes, Sasuke sat on the right of me while Naruto sat on the left. "Now that we have all arrived, we can start with the introductions. Your likes, dislikes, hobbies and goals." He looked at me "So Pretty boy, why don't you start?"

I nodded smirking at my nickname. What? I was proud of my looks. "My name is Reo Kawaki. I like reading fiction and Icha Icha Paradise, learning about chakra and science, ramen to a certain extent, training, hot ladies, Konoha and my best friend Naruto. I dislike bullies, socialising with people unless I want to, loud people and people who bitch and moan about everything in life. My hobbies are reading books, training and painting. My goals include joining ANBU and possibly becoming the ANBU commander, and continuously look for ways to improve myself."

Kakashi beamed at me for some reason. He looked unusually happy. He had a chance to make a clone of himself just like Gai. The kid was very similar to him. He also likes Icha Icha and even had the same hair, even though Reo's was white and his silver. He then turned towards Naruto "You're next, blondie."

Naruto pouted at the nickname and started "Name's Uzumaki Naruto. I like ramen, Teuchi-ojisan, Ayame nee-chan and Reo. I don't like people who look down on me for something beyond my control and the three minutes it takes to make instant ramen. My goal is to become the strongest shinobi and the greatest Hokage to ever live."

Kakashi nodded and turned to Sasuke "You next, broodie." Sasuke growled at the nickname "My name is Uchiha Sasuke. I don't have many things to like, but I dislike many things. My goal-no ambition is to re-establish the Uchiha clan and kill a certain man."

Kakashi narrowed his eyes. Seems like the Uchiha was hell-bent on his revenge. His revenge had even created a self-destroying hatred in him.

He recapped So I have a potential clone, I am obsessed with an unhealthy food and a fight risk in the form of an Uchiha. Sounds like a lot of work. He clapped his hands and eye-smiled at the team of cute little genins "Now that we have introduced ourselves, I am going to have to break some news to you all. The graduation test wasn't a real test to see if you could become a ninja. It was supposed to weed out those who didn't have any potential. The real test will be tomorrow. You have to arrive at training ground 7 at 7 am. I don't recommend eating breakfast."

He disappeared before any of us could say anything. His last advice seemed stupid. Why would I not refill my energy meter in the morning? For a test that too. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath and said "Alright I'll be off. Goodbye guys." I jumped off the building to another and roof-jumped back to my home

Ok, guys, that's it for this chapter. I replaced Sakura with an OC cuz I wanted to replace her. Reo's much better suited to the front lines than someone like Sakura. I couldn't put Sakura to any other team. Sakura simply doesn't exist in this universe. Sorry to Sakura fans.

Hope you guys liked it. Your feedback is appreciated. Thanks for reading.