Naruto, Heart of Sword Chapter Five
12 year old Naruto smiled with Kaoru-dono Sano, Megumi-dono and Yahiko-san as they all sat in Ramen Ichiraku (a place Naruto had stumbled upon on the way home from the academy one day after he'd forgotten his bento), treating themselves and the newly formed Team Gai.
Sanosuke listened to Yahiko speak quietly as Naruto laughed at something Tenten said while Kaoru bonked him on the head
"I don't think Naruto resents you Sano, he understands why he can't graduate early" Sano nodded at Yahiko's words "Jo-Chan wants him to graduate with his age mates, I know, but on the other hand he's as ready as he's going to get and the sooner he's out of the civilians influence the better."
To the right Kaoru swatted Naruto lightly "I don't understand how you can eat so much ramen, how do you even taste it?" Naruto gazed thoughtfully at the thirteen empty bowls before turning to the owner of Ichiraku, "Good point! Teuchi! Can you add more shichimi to the next bowl of chicken ramen?" Kaoru face faulted "That wasn't what I meant and you know it!"
Naruto merely shrugged and went back to eating, taking on odd jobs around the village market with the visiting merchants meant he was well paid enough to eat as much ramen as he wanted, without his guardians cutting him off.
Polishing of the fourteenth bowl of ramen that arrived in fount of him Naruto sighed contentedly letting the background sound wash over him, Megumi was discussing medical treatments with Tenten who while she had decided to focus on weapons instead still found medicine fascinating.
On a completely unrelated subject Naruto made a mental note to improve his kunai dodging skills when Megumi mentioned paralysis potions and Tenten got an utterly in Naruto's opinion 'unholy-sadists-gleam-of-predetermined-malice' in her eyes.
Letting his thoughts wander Naruto caught the tail end of Sanosuke and Yahiko's conversation.
The Konoha Shinobi Academy… the name brought up a lot of conflicting feelings for Naruto.
In the very beginning the teachers had tried to get him into trouble, this had ended abruptly when Sandaime had caught sight of this treatment with his scrying crystal.
That day Yahiko had turned in a mission report and lamented being on a mission when Naruto had had his first day at the academy, Sandaime had sympathetically pulled out his crystal and had been enraged at the blatant negative bias being shown to the secret son of Konoha's greatest Hokage.
After that class with the permission of the Extended Kamiya Clan / Kenshingumi, Sandaime had pulled a rather mean trick on the academy teachers.
Summoning them to his office, he'd tasked them to look over spies reports of what ill treatment had done to other Jinchuriki, the Psyche reports on Han of Iwagakure and Yagura the Mizukage, had been likened to a sledgehammer to the face. Especially when Sandaime had shown them the report about Killer Bee the protector of Kumo, attitudes had taken a swift turn from getting Naruto killed in the field to turning him into a weapon of Konoha.
Sandaime had been loathe to being seen as turning Naruto into a weapon, but this way everyone had less trouble to deal with.
So, with the teachers taken care of the only problem left to deal with were the academy children, Naruto as a general rule couldn't really stand the whining Shinobi wannabes.
The Fangirl's and the rare Fanboy's behavior fundamentally disgusted him, both as Shinobi-in-training and as human beings in general.
It was Naruto who had advised Sasuke to seek legal action when they'd broken into his compound once and stolen many miscellaneous things.
Ami had been expelled from the academy and Sasuke had found himself breathing easier when she and her family had left Konoha to curb their daughters disturbing stalking tendencies. Her replacement Fangirl or Fangirl's, Sakura and Ino were nowhere near as disturbing and at least respected his personal space.
In thanks Sasuke occasionally treated Naruto to ramen and let him use the Uchiha Private Training Ground, the relationship between Naruto and Sasuke was odd to say the least, likened by outsiders to somewhere between stoic professionalism and tentative friendship.
Naruto also played shogi frequently with Nara Shikamaru and ate lunch with Shikamaru and Choji at lunch times, Choji like Naruto purely because he was a nice person who could also cook well.
Kiba disliked Naruto because of the fact that Naruto went with the flow as it were, when Kiba knew deep down that Naruto was hiding his true strength.
Naruto would sometimes sit next to Shino and didn't mind the shiny beetles even letting some crawl onto his hands to be held to the light and examined, Naruto however was still wary of some bugs and drew the line at fork-tailed beetles which just creeped him out for some reason.
Another dislike of Naruto's was the supernatural, specifically Ghosts, this had been discovered when Hinata had accidentally snuck up on him and Naruto had turned right into her, being face to face with blank white eyes had nearly given him a heart attack.
It had taken a lot of effort to draw the mouse like Hyuuga out of her shell, Naruto had introduced her to Choji hoping to that similar kind soul could help each other. It worked to an extent, Hinata was learning how to cook from Choji's family it had been discovered that unfortunately while Hinata was ridiculously good at making nutritional food the taste however left much to be desired, the Akimichi had of course taken this as a challenge.
Hinata's father had decided to allow her lessons with the Akimichi, especially after Chousa had offered a bento full of Hinata's cooking from before her lessons and after and asked in a sugary sweet tone which type he preferred as he went slightly green at the inarizushi that tasted like popcorn covered in mustard and cola.
"What ya sniggering about, Naruto?"
Naruto looked up startled from his thoughts at Yahiko's voice, Naruto gave a spacey smile "Just remembering some stuff, nothing to worry about"
An hour later at the Kamiya-Dojo
Naruto breezed through his afternoon Kata listening to the loud yelling of the students who were in the dojo with Yahiko and Lee, Kaoru was taking the rare afternoon off and had left Yahiko as the Assistant instructor in charge to have a girls night out with Anko and Kurenai.
While half his family and the students practiced Kamiya-Kasshin apart from Sanosuke and Megumi, Naruto had found Kamiya-Kasshin ill suited to his body type. At some point Naruto had gone to Kaoru and asked how someone would go about creating their own swordstyle, he hadn't known what to make of the odd expression on her face when he said he wanted to create a fast, precision based style though he found her tips unusually helpful.