Hello, everybody, and welcome back to the story. As usual, A/N is at the bottom, so enjoy the chapter.

NOTE: the changes I make to Naruto's character in this chapter are probably not going to be well-received, but they're necessary to progress the story in the direction I intend on taking it.

Not sure why anybody didn't ask before, but I thought I should clarify that CCY stands for Celestial Calendar Year and is an indication of how long it's been since the Princesses first started ruling over Equestria.

Chapter 8: A Changed Man

Monday, September 2nd, CCY 3380

Naruto sat in 404, diligently taking notes on the history lesson Professor Fart was giving regarding the Equestrian Pillars' battle against the Pony of Shadows from his top-tier seat in the theater room the class was being held in. He was making absolutely sure to memorize as much of this information as possible for Hagoromo and Žiara's next exam on Saturday. By no means was he worried about Professor Fart's next test - as long as you paid attention in class, took notes, and made steps to ensure you understood the information, his tests were trivially easy - but even the ever-studious Twilight would balk at the difficulty of his senseis' test.

The gist of the exam was that Hagoromo would use an ocular genjutsu - a gift of his Sharingan as a teenager - on Naruto, whose power was amplified by the Rinnegan, and the genjutsu would place him in a trance-like state, where he would then be made to answer a list of every question given in his classes over the past week - which meant literally thousands of questions, due to the fact that, by last count, Naruto was currently attending three hundred fifty-seven classes, and the exams would last two to three Realm weeks - and Žiara would be on standby by projecting her consciousness in the Realm to ensure Naruto could not break out of the genjutsu - one already so powerful, it could be speculated whether Kurama herself would be able to break it - and being present in the real world to ensure Naruto was not woken from his slumber.

After abysmally failing the first exam the previous Saturday - he got a measly six percent on his first attempt - Hagoromo and Žiara had discovered that due to his by all means abhorrent childhood, his mental growth had been severely stunted, and the only parts that were where they needed to be were his personal skills - to an extent - and his battle instincts, a major issue which needed correction immediately.

"What country rests on the southern border of Equestria?"

"Umm... I believe it was... Saddle Arabia?"

"Wrong. Y is equivalent to eight X squared plus sixteen X plus sixty-four. Is this expression representative of a perfect square trinomial?"

"Yes."

"Wrong." Naruto was beginning to get very frustrated at constantly missing these questions, and the stress and anger was clearly visible on his face, his brow tight and a thin sheen on sweat marring his brow. "What is the largest bone in a pony's body?"

"Was it the tibia?"

"Wrong. Not only was that a trick question, because the largest bone in a pony's body depends upon the race of said pony, you specified a human bone."

Naruto's anger spilled over, and he threw a punch at the ground of the Realm with all his might in frustration. The Realm having been created by a goddess, the floor remained smooth and pristine, while Naruto was now left blowing on his now-sore hand like he we trying to relieve a burn. "Dammit, Super Gramps, I-" Naruto was interrupted harshly by the butt of Hagoromo's staff striking him upside the head.

"It is Hagoromo-sensei."

Naruto raised his hand after recalling what seemed to be a fallacy regarding the tale of the battle as Professor Fart had explained it. "Professor, if we know that the last we heard of the Pillars, they went off to fight the Pony of Shadows, and they disappeared afterward, then why, by your very own words, did you say that historians are sure they never died when nobody actually knows what happened to them, or the Pony of Shadows for that matter?"

Professor Fart had the decency to stop writing on the board for a few moments as he processed Naruto's question. "Hmm... I will admit, Mr. Uzumaki, that you have me there. I am stunned I did not come to that fact myself." The entire class turned to Naruto, who was pondering the very question he had asked, and though he heard none of it, a few appreciative whistles and some clapping could be heard, though only for a brief period before the Professor regained the class's attention.

Gyuki had hit upon the idea himself, and he chuckled at Naruto having beaten him to the punch. He had been about to raise his hand and ask the very same question. Meanwhile, everyone in the class winced as Hagoromo spoke up. "Very well spotted, Naruto. Expect that to be on your next exam." The entire class - nay, most of the university - knew to some degree Hagoromo's harsh memory retention lessons to Naruto, and felt sympathy for the young man. They had heard so much complaining about the topic the second day of class, he'd been thrown out of two periods before he got his head in the game. Though Naruto's complaining had been greatly reduced that Wednesday, and had dissipated altogether by Thursday, the class knew to a certain extent how Hagoromo's 'lessons' worked.

The bell for the next class rang before Professor Fart had a chance to continue, and he bade the class farewell as everybody got out of their seats and prepared to head to their next class. The group split off to head their own separate ways in the hallway outside the theater, Naruto heading to his Economics class, book already in hand.

On his way there, he was met by Twilight, as well as one of his newer friends, Twinkleshine. Both of them had agreed to meet in the hall right outside the theater because their classes let out ten minutes before his own and they all shared the Economics class together. "Hey, Naruto! How was your History class this morning?" Twilight asked as soon as they were within decent speaking distance.

"Pretty good, though for some reason there's a hole in the timeline right before and after the Pillars went to fight the Pony of Shadows. Weird, isn't it?"

Twilight's eyes widened in shock? "How though? That makes absolutely no sense, unless something happened to alter the records, or no rec-"

Naruto placed a finger on Twilight's lips to silence her, which was pretty effective. "Whoa now, don't get ahead of yourself there, Twilight. Remember what my sensei told you right after we signed up."

Twilight had the decency to look abashed at Naruto's comment. "Sorry, sorry. It just doesn't make any sense."

"Well, now that you two are done fretting about that history lesson, listen to this new piece I wrote!" Twinkleshine produced a magic box that she used to project the sound funneled into it, and used her horn to take the lute she had in her case out and start playing. Naruto and Twilight stopped and listened to Twinkleshine's new piece as it was played. The both of them were very impressed with how it sounded, especially considering Twinkleshine's cutie mark wasn't related to music.

"Nice job, Twinkleshine. I like how you plateaued the rhythm near the end and finished with a rising crescendo. You don't hear lute players do it that often." Naruto complimented her, and some students passing by in the hallway clapped at the performance. Twinkleshine blushed at the praise and thanked Naruto, then turned to Twilight.

"Well, what do you think of it?"

"Come on, Twinkleshine, you know Twilight isn't much for music unless it's a heartsong."

Twinkleshine sighed at once again not being able to get Twilight to compliment her music, and Naruto silently chuckled. In the last week since he had introduced Twilight to Twinkleshine, the latter, for whatever reason, had made it her mission to get a compliment out of the studious young woman regarding her music. "Well, I'll get a compliment out of her yet! I'll just have to wait a little longer!"

"You call the school burning down a little longer?" Naruto snarked in response.

Twinkleshine turned on her heel and slapped Naruto's forearm. "Oh, look at Mr. Overachiever making jokes over here! I bet you think you're a riot!" She mockingly glared at Naruto in a faux show of intimidation.

Naruto glared right back. "No, but if a riot's what you want, a riot's what you'll get." The two glared each other down for a few more seconds before Naruto smiled and chuckled and Twinkleshine busted out laughing.

"Hah, that never gets old. You know it's hard for me to match your stares, right?" Twinkleshine remarked after calming down somewhat.

"Yeah, I've been told I have a mean stare once or twice before." What went unsaid was that both of said instances had happened in the last week. "Anyway, let's get to class or we might end up late."

"Yeah, I guess you've got a point. Come on, Twilight." Twinkleshine moved to walk alongside Naruto as Twilight caught up to the two of them, reading the Economics book in advance like she was wont to do before every class period, as the trio went into their class and took their seats.

Evening, Realm of the Six Paths

"Now, demonstrate your fire nature."

"Fire Style: Phoenix Sage Fire!" Naruto called out upon Hagoromo's command, unleashing a series of small fireballs at the target that Hagoromo conjured with is chakra. Only half of the targets hit bullseyes, the rest either hitting randomly or missing entirely. It was a testament to Naruto's developed patience and Hagoromo and Žiara's teaching that he managed to hit any bullseyes with Fire Style at all.

"Acceptable. Now demonstrate wind. And no, Rasenshuriken is not allowed."

"Wind Style: Wind Scythe!" Naruto unleashed a scythe of wind at the next target, and it was cleanly bisected right at the mark that Hagoromo had placed, the target dissipating into thin air a moment later.

"Excellent. That will be our stopping point for now. We will resume your chakra training inside Tsukuyomi tomorrow. You have performed admirably thus far." Hagoromo willed away the targets Naruto had failed to destroy, and they faded into thin air, the same as the Wind target did. As Hagoromo as expected, even with the equivalent of four years of training inside Tsukuyomi. Naruto was still progressing slowly in any element that was not Wind. Of course, that was also to be expected, given the first ninety percent of that time training was spent perfecting Naruto's chakra control in every way possible. Naruto could now cast many of his jutsu at a twentieth of their normal cost, and his knowledge gained through studies at the Academy and through Hagoromo's teachings had completely corrected the mental issues that had plagued Naruto when they began.

Naruto wiped a bead of sweat off his brow, taking off the white T-shirt he'd been wearing and cooling off as Hagoromo faded out of the realm. Naruto had learned from Hagoromo and Žiara how to enter the Realm at will, as well as to bring others inside, so that he could use the privacy and security to train and de-stress. Still asleep, Naruto left the Realm and allowed himself to be overtaken by dreams.

Naruto Uzumaki-Namikaze

STR: 46 (+2)
STA: 85 (+20)
INT: 43 (+16)
DUR: 62
CHA: 100
Score/Rank: 336 [+38] (C Rank)

Hagoromo Otsutsuki

STR: 85
STA: 93
INT: 100
DUR: 79
CHA: 69 (+1)
Score/Rank: 416 [+1] (B Rank)

Žiara

STR: 82
STA: 78
INT: 92 (+1)
DUR: 85
CHA: 62 (+9)
Score/Rank: 399 [+10] (B Rank)

Princess Celestia

STR: 52
STA: 18
INT: 69 (+2)
DUR: 35
CHA: 86
Score/Rank: 260 [+2] (High D Rank)

Twilight Sparkle

STR: 31
STA: 41
INT: 55 (+6)
DUR: 29
CHA: 38 (+3)
Score/Rank: 194 [+9] (D Rank)

And that about wraps the chapter up here. It would have been longer, but I didn't want to force a scene out and have it result in the chapter being of lower quality than what I usually write, not to mention I couldn't really think of anything else to add for the first timeskip. Kept it short and sweet, and added a little bit of character development and interaction to show how Naruto and some of the group is progressing over time. These timeskips will occur, and skip random intervals of time, once per chapter until we get to the MLP canon timeline.

That having been said, there's really nothing needed for the QA, especially since because this is a double update, I only got two reviews before posting this, and class is getting ready to start, so I'm out.