Naruto walked through the doors and peered in the large classsroom. He studied each of his peers, trying to see if he could find anyone he knew. He hadn't met many civilian children, but he was, however, good friends with most of the clan heirs. After a couple minuets of searching he finally found his friends in a back corner. He leapt up to the corner, adding chakra to his jump enabling him to sail over the first four rows easily.

'' Kiba! Shikamaru! Hinata-chan! I can't belive we're all in the same class!'' He grinned. '' This'll be great!''

Shikamaru blinked a few times, shrugged, and put his head down, mumbling something about being too troublesome this early in the morning. Naruto frowned a bit at his friends lack of enthusiasm, but got over it quickly enough.

'' Hey Naruto, check it out, my mom finally gave me my nindog! This is Akamaru!'' Kiba explained, holding a small puppy at arms length in front of Naruto's face. Akamaru barked, and started to paw at Naruto's face.

'' Akamaru eh?'' Naruto said, still grinning. '' Will he get bigger? He's kinda....small.'' He deadpanned. Kiba sweatdropped.

'' Of coarse moron, he's a puppy!'' Kiba ranted. '' I swear, sometimes your the biggest idiot I know.''

'' K-kiba-kun, y-you sho-ouldn't talk like that to N-naruto-kun.'' Hinata mumbled quietly. '' I-it isn't nice.''

'' Eh? What? Speak up, Hinata. I can't hear you.'' Kiba cuped his hand around his ear and leaned closer to the quiet Hyuuga. Hinata blushed a deep shade of red and retreated further into her chair.

'' N-nothing, K-kiba-kun.''

Naruto was about to say something when he felt a sharp slap across the back of his head.

'' Ow! whats the big-'' he spun around and stopped dead in the middle of his sentence when he caught a glimpse of the icey blue eyes of the Yamanaka heiress.

''Oh, uh, hi Ino-chan! I didn't see you there... haha.'' He rambled awkwardly. She crossed her arms and huffed.

'' You're so clueless Naruto.'' She said. '' And where have you been for the last three weeks? You haven't come to say hi even once since you and Hokage-sama came over for my birthday.''

'' I'm sorry Ino-chan! I had to train, I finally got water walking down, you know how long that took me! And tou-chan insisted that I learn the next kata for the senkou kabushi before I started school. I was so busy!'' he explained, desperate to get back on Ino's good side. She was his first friend, and even though she was bossy and controling, she was still his best friend. He still remembered the day they met.....

Flash Back

Naruto was three years old, and Minato had decided to take him to the park for the first time. He didn't like to take him into town often, for fear of him growing arrogant. The whole town basically worshiped him, and it really wasn't healthy. But Naruto had practically begged him to take him to the park they had passed by the other day, and Minato had given in.

He sat on the bench and watched as his son ran to the slide, excitement rolling off him in waves. After a little while, he noticed the Yamanaka's coming, led by their daughter, Ino.

Inoichi sat beside him, nodding his head in acknowledgment. '' Hokage-sama, what brings you here?''

Minato chuckled and pointed at the head of blond hair running around the park. '' He begged me to bring him here.''

Inoichi laughed. '' Same here. Ino loves this place.''

On the playground, Naruto was watching Ino very closely. He had never seen her before, and wasn't quite sure how to react to his new development. Before he could figure it out, however, the blonde enigma started walking toward him. She stopped in front of him and smiled brightly.

'' Hi! I'm Ino. Who're you?''

'' Uh, I'm Naruto. Wanna pway?''

'' Okay!'' She reached out and poked his shoulder. '' You're it!'' She ran off, laughing like a maniac.

Poor Naruto stood there, confused. '' Wait! Whats it?''

Ino stopped and turned around, crossing her arms and huffing. '' What do you mean? I tagged you, so you have to tag me back and make me it.''

'' Oh.'' Naruto said, then he grinned, '' Here I come, Ino-chan!'' he declared, then started running toward her. For the rest of the hour, the two played tag, running around, laughing and screaming until Minato scooped Naruto up.

'' Okay sport, it's time to go. You can play with Ino again tomorrow.''

Naruto nodded. '' Bye Ino-chan!'' Ino waved and the two went their seperate ways. After that, the two became fast friends and spent the better part of three years in each others company, playing, and occasionaly training, though Naruto thought Ino was kinda lazy in that respect.

End Flashback

'' So you're telling me you were too busy training to come say hi?'' Ino's eyes narrowed dangerously. '' Hmph. Well, Naruto-kun, maybe next time you want to play I'll be too busy, ne?'' She said darkly.

'' No, wait, Ino-chan.. I'm sorry! We'll... I'll come over after class today! We can play, whatever you want!'' Naruto yelled out,'' I'm sorry! Really!''

Ino started laughing, unable to keep the facade up any longer. She slumped over the chair and laughed until tears came out her eyes. '' Oh Naruto-kun I was joking! haha Although your funny when your flustered.'' She punched him on the arm, still chuckling. '' But we can still play after school right?''

Naruto nodded, face flushed with embarrassment. '' Don't do that Ino-chan! I can't tell when your serious or just playing around.''

Ino laughed a bit more before regaining her composure. '' I made a new friend while you were ignoring me.'' She smiled, '' She should be here soon, she was being teased by some older kids about her forehead, and I saved her, then we became friends.'' Ino puffed her chest out. '' I'm pretty awesome, ne, Naruto-kun.''

Naruto and Kiba chuckled.

'' You brag a lot, Ino.'' Kiba laughed.

A tick mark appeared on Ino's head. '' What was that dog boy? I don't remember talking to you.'' She growled. Unfortunatly, this just made Kiba laugh harder, which, in the end, was bad for him.

Naruto struggled to hold his laughter in as he watched Kiba nursing his wounds. '' Uh, whats your friends name, Ino-chan?''

'' Sakura. She's got pink hair! Isn't that cool?!'' Ino then pointed to the door. '' There she is, Hey Sakura! over here!''

Before he knew it, Naruto had made a new friend. Haruno Sakura. Apparently, she came from a mostly ninja-clan, but her parents were both civilians. Her uncle was head of the clan because her dad never became a shinobi. Kiba seemed to find her most interesting, as soon as she had walked up he had introduced himself and offered her a seat between him and Hinata. Naruto found it odd, since Kiba wasn't usually so polite, but decided that it couldn't be a bad thing.

Before they could get better aquainted, the sensei walked in and demanded silence, using some kind of henge jutsu that Naruto found particularly intersting. Kiba had dubbed it the big scary head jutsu, which made Shikamaru snicker into his arms.

'' Good morning class. I'm Umino Iruka. for the next six years, I am going to teach you everything there is to know about becomming a shinobi. It will be difficult, and many of you will not make it, but for those of you who do, graduation will bring you into the dangerous world of the shinobi. First, however, I need to see whose here.''

He pulled a scroll out of his desk and began to call out names.

'' Aburame Shino.''

'' Hai.''

'' Akimichi Chouji.''

'' Hai.''

And so on and so fouth. Eventually he made it to the N's.

'' Namikaze Naruto.''

'' Hai.'' Naruto called out, and everyone turned to look at him, then the class erupted in chatter. Naruto groaned as he heard the whispers of his father and how he was his son. Ino snickered. She always found this particularly funny. Whenever people found out who he was, they would start whispering to each other just like this, and it always drove him crazy. She noticed the shocked look on Sakura's face and started laughed quietly.

Kiba leaned in closer to Naruto and started whispering. '' Oh my! Can you belive it! The hokages son, in our class!!'' He too snickered. Naruto shot him an annoyed look then buried his head in his hands, opting to do like Shikamaru and groan about how troubesome people were.

Iruka returned order to the class with his big scary head jutsu. Unfortunately, when he made it to Uchiha Sasuke, the whisperes started up again. Naruto focused his attention on the boy as well. He had never met him, or any other Uchiha, before. He was eager to see if they could be friends, but somehow, he didn't think they would be. The boy locked eyes with him, and the two just stared. At that moment, Naruto knew they could not be friends, not yet anyway. The boy turned away sharply, staring forward again, head resting on his hands. Naruto too turned his attention back to their sensei.

'' Okay. everyone is here. Before we begin class, I want to see where everyone is, to get an idea of where we should begin. lets go outside.''

Everyone was sitting below a tree near the training area. '' We're going to do an obstical coarse, and some target practice. At the end, if any of you have some special skills or jutsu you'd like to show, I'd be very happy to see them. ''

The class lined up, and one by one they made their way through the obstical coarse. It was mostly endurence, running up and down hills, jumping over hurtles, and climbing up ropes. Naruto did pretty well, as did most of his friends and Sasuke. Some of the civilian bred studends, however, took quite a while. The target practice was, once again, done fairly well by the clan heirs, and not so well by the civilians. Hinata Hyuuga did the best, hitting 7 out of 10 targets, three of those a bullseye. Naruto hit five of the targets, getting three bullseyes, as did Sasuke. Sakura, surprisingly, hit 5 of the targets as well, but she only made one bullseye. Iruka was impressed, since she was raised by civilians.

Now it was time to show any special abilities or jutsu. Naruto hadn't learned any jutsu, but his dad had taught him how to climb trees with no hands, and walk on water, so he demonstrated these abilities. Iruka seemed to be impressed, he clapped and congradulated the young man. Sasuke demonstrated a beginning shurkien jutsu, where two shuriken bounced off eachother and hit two targets simultaniously. Hinata showed the class her doujutsu, which she had activated a few months before entering the academy. Shikamaru decided to show his shadow manipulation jutsu to the class, catching the teacher and nearly making him walk into the pond. None of the other students had anything to show, so Iruka declared class over for the day, telling them to be there the next day bright and early.

Three Years Later

Half of their years at the academy had passed. They were all around 9 years old now and they hadn't learned much as far as jutsu, mostly theory and history. Naruto thought it was boring, very boring. The only jutsu they had been taught was the kawarimi, because it went with their theory classes. Naruto picked it up quickly, he could even replace himself with a few students really had a hard time with it, but after a while they were able to pick it up as well.

Now, however, Iruka had told them they would be focusing on the shinobi skills, deception, stealth, jutsu, and survival. He and Kiba had practically had a party when they heard the good news.

Over the years they had added some new friends to their ranks. Akimichi Chouji, a chubby boy from the Akimichi clan, and Aburame Shino, a bug user from the Aburame clan. As Naruto had thought, him and Sasuke were unable to become friends. They saw each other as rivals, constantly neck in neck for the title of number one in the class. They were equal in everything from taijutsu to theory, though Sasuke usually got the better test scores. Sakura and Hinata, however, had the best chakra control in the whole class. Hinata, since she as a Hyuuga, had been trained since birth in the area's of chakra control. Sakura, however, was just a natural, though she didn't have very large reserves. Iruka had pointed out to her that she would make a good medic nin. Ino, however, was the strongest kunoichi in the class, being the most well rounded.

'' We'll be going on a survival training excercise, so get your parents to sign these forms by tomorrow.'' Iruka passed out the permission slips to each student, and they all left quickly, going home to get these signed.

The next day, everyone was outside the academy, packed and ready to go. They had been split up into groups, and Naruto was with Ino, Shikamaru, and Kiba.

'' Each group has to survive for two days in the forests surrounding Konoha. Myself and a few assistant instructors will be watching each of the groups, so you're safe, but we won't intervene unless we have to, so good luck.''

'' This is so exciting!'' Naruto was practically bouncing. '' I've never left the village before!''

Shikamaru shrugged. '' All we're gonna be doing is catching food and making camp.''

Ino sighed. '' Why did we have to get stuck with this lazy bum?'' She complained loudly.

Kiba was in front of the group, him and Akamaru were looking for a good place to set up camp. '' Oi! Akamaru said he smelled a large group of animals near by, we should set up camp here so we have a close food supply.'' He called back. Shikamaru threw his pack on the ground and layed down next to it, staring though the trees at the clouds. He sighed contently and closed his eyes.

'' Get up Shikamaru! You have to set up the tent!'' Ino exploded.

Naruto laughed. '' Why don't you go get some fire wood Ino-chan? I'll help Shika put up the tent.''

Ino nodded and left to get some fire wood. Naruto and Shikamaru started putting up the tent while Kiba got his supplies ready to go hunting.

Unbeknownst to them, they weren't alone, something.. sinister was watching from the bushes.....

Hey! Sorry it took so long to update, writers block i guess you could call it. Read and reveiw! ja ne!