Disclaimer: Kishimoto-sensei didn't notice me, so I don't own Naruto. *sad face*
A/N: Hey! Welcome to the second installment of my story. There will be a time skip in this chapter as I don't want to describe everyday action for the whole year at the academy. Anyway, enjoy!
[Teet teet teet…]
An alerting clock signaled the start of a new day. 5am was the daily wake up time for Naruto and all of the ANBU squads. Stretching his body a bit, he plopped down his bed and went to take a shower. "The academy won't start until 7, so I have about 2 hours to kill. Might as well say goodbye to my weird colleagues." he said before putting on a white T-shirt with a swirl symbol on his chest, paired with grey ANBU pants and a pair of blue shinobi sandals. Ready to go, he fixed himself a toast and a glass of milk before walking to the Hokage tower where ANBU HQ was located at. Along the street, the blond noticed that only a few stores had opened this early in the morning. As usual, the people greeted him 'good morning' and he waved back politely. This led to the second train of thought in Naruto's mind already for the past weeks.
Since the Sandaime Hokage took him in after just hours he was born, Naruto's identity had been well kept-hidden; otherwise he wouldn't have received such kindness. The villagers would have shunned him away, or maybe even tried to ruin his life in any way possible if they had known that Kyuubi was sealed inside Naruto. His thought was cut short when he bumped into Hatake Kakashi, his former ANBU captain and his niisan. The fact that he didn't sense the silver haired man coming, he could never know. ANBU were always excellent in stealth, plus the young blond was even paying attention to his surrounding at the moment too. He still got some improvement to do.
"Ohayou (Good morning), Naruto. You seemed to be contemplating about something. What is it about?" asked Kakashi as he had rarely seen his little brother like that.
"Ah, ohayou niisan. It was nothing concerning. I got lost on the road of life, I guess." Naruto replied sheepishly while scratching his head. Suddenly, he was pulled into the death-gripped hug from the older man in front of him. Kakashi was crying anime tears while muttering something about Minato sensei's son made him proud. Naruto tried to escape the grip, but failed horribly. "Ugh! Why did I say that?!"
A minute later, both ANBU arrived at their HQ and walked in to see several ANBU looking at them. Then one Boar masked exploded at the two's tardiness, "Why are you late again, Kakashi-senpai? Now you've brought Naruto down with you too!"
"Mah, mah, Tenzo. We saw a black cat ran across our path while we were on our way here."
"So we decided to take the long way around the village to escape bad luck."
"Yes, then we met an old lady having difficulty carrying her groceries."
"-so we helped her get to her home and came here after that."
Then out of nowhere, there was a gentle breeze, followed by a complete silence in the room. Everyone was shocked to hear the two shared their part of their explanation with no sign of stuttering and excellent teamwork.
"Alright, that's it! Mokuton: -!" A small earthquake occurred in the HQ as branches of tree grew out from the ground destroying everything within the small area.
"I guess you guys already knew about my retirement then." said Naruto after the whole little incident was over and other ANBUs went back to get ready for their own missions.
A cat-masked ANBU stood in front of him, then put her hands on his shoulders. "Yes we were informed from Hokage-sama. And I think you make the right decision. Truthfully, you should have friends, especially those around your age, Naruto-kun. Maybe you can find a girl you like as well." giggled the cat ANBU after she saw the blond blushed at the last sentence.
"Yes, Naruto! Then you and her can…" Kakashi giggled perversely as he remembered a scene from his orange book before getting smacked in the back of his head, courtesy of the purple haired Kunoichi.
"I hope so, Yuugao-neechan." laughed Naruto amusedly at his sibling figures' interaction. "I'm so gonna miss this." Even though ANBU are supposed to be elite ninjas who did a stressful amount of dangerous missions, they still found their unique way on how to relax. For example, Kakashi would read his porn book in public while Yuugao would spend her free time with her best friends, Mitarashi Anko and Yuuhi Kurenai, and her long-time boyfriend, Gekko Hayate. Some played dress-up with their pets. Wait what?
Tenzo also joined in for Naruto's support in his decision to spend time his childhood the way normal children would. "Just don't forget about us, little brother. Come visit, ok?"
"Sure I will drop by sometimes! Looks like I should get going now. Bye guys!" said Naruto after noticing it was nearly time for the class to start.
After receiving good luck wishes from his former colleagues and a hug from his sister, Naruto continued his way to the place where he would be spending one year with the young ninjas-in-training. And hopefully, he could build up some friendship as well. A short walk, he arrived at the building. It was quite large and was comprised of several buildings which were erected over time. The building could be identified by the tree in front of it which had a swing on it and more so, by the giant sign with the kanji for Fire (火) on it. "Ok here we go!" mumbled to himself before entering. He walked up to the second floor, and to his right he saw a sign 'Fourth year' indicating that he would take his class in that room. He knocked the door thrice, then entered the classroom after hearing 'Enter' as an answer. The room was huge. There were 3 long rows of tables and a wide black board. In front of the blackboard was a podium, situated far from the students' desks and put in a position where the teacher could view everyone at once.
The blond shinobi greeted his Chuunin instructor. "Good morning, sir. I'm Uzumaki Naruto. I was told that I would be participating in this class this year." bowing at his soon-to-be instructor.
The said man looked up from his board after hearing someone addressing him, "Ah, yes. I've been expecting you. Hokage-sama informed me that there will be a new student joining my class. I'm Umino Iruka. You were right on time." Iruka was a man of average height and build. He had black hair that he kept in a ponytail, dark eyes and a scar that ran across the bridge of his nose. "I hope you aren't the type to slack off as I won't tolerate laziness from my students." said the scarred Chuunin, showing that he was serious with his job.
"You need not worry, Iruka-sensei. I can assure you that I respect punctuality as much as you do." making Iruka smiled at the statement. He was quite strict about the subject.
"Okay then. Why don't you introduce yourself to the class?" Both walked up to the middle of the room to see the already filled room was full of chit-chatting noise between the students. After gaining attention of the thirty something young ones, Iruka began to give an announcement. "Class, I would like to inform you all that there is a new student will be joining us this year. If you may, Naruto." Received a nod the said blond before making way for him.
"Hi, my name is Uzumaki Naruto. Pleased to meet you all. I hope we will enjoy each other's presence" He gave a big smile to those in front of him, earning quite a few blushes from the girls' side. After that his instructor told him to find a seat, so he made his way to the third table on the right row near a window.
Surprisingly, he chose to sit next to the class' most popular boy among the girls. That boy had onyx eyes and a black colored duck-ass like hair. His name was Uchiha Sasuke, the last loyal Uchiha after the clan's massacre a couple years ago. He seemed to look intensely at something outside through the window.
"Hi, can I sit next to you?" asked Naruto.
He took a glance at the person asking him. "Hn" was his answer before turning back to the thing that somehow got his attention. Naruto sat down at his chosen seat.
While Iruka was calling out names for daily attendance, the blonde decided to take a look around his room, checking out people who looked interesting enough for him to befriend. He noticed that most of the students were from civilian families. However, there were also a few who came from some of the most prominent clans in Konoha. On his left side, there were two girls, or more like fan girls, as he noticed they had stars in their eyes when they looked at the boy next to him.
The first one was a pink hair girl with large green eyes and fair skin. She wore a red qipao dress with white circular design and a zipper, tight dark green bike shorts. Her name was Haruno Sakura.
The second was a long pale blonde hair girl with blue eyes. Her hair was pulled in a high ponytail with bangs covering the right side of her face. She wore a short purple vest like blouse, a purple apron skirt and a pair of purple and white elbow warmers on both hands. Her name was Yamanaka Ino from Yamanaka clan. Both girl were muttering something about how cool their Sasuke-kun was. Naruto ignored it as he continued looking around.
Sitting in front of him were two boys with completely different personalities from each other. That was so obvious as one was bragging loudly about him being an alpha and beating a certain duck-ass haired boy in a spar soon while the other one was sitting silently in a stoic manner.
The loud-mouthed boy was from Inuzuka clan if a small white dog sitting on his head and red fang markings on his cheeks were any indication. His name was Inuzuka Kiba. He had messy brown hair, sharp black eyes with vertical slit-like pupils and pronounced canine teeth. He wore dark greyish pants reaching to his calves and a grey, hooded fur-lined coat, with the hood usually placed on his head.
Next to him was the stoic fair skinned boy with dark bushy brown hair. He wore a pair of dark sunglasses and a sea-green jacket, with high upturned collar. Aburame Shino was his name, meaning he's from the Aburame clan because his appearance and attire were closely similar to those Aburame members.
Naruto turned back to see another two boys. He instantly recognized them as their behaviors were blatantly obvious that everyone would know which clan they were from. The currently sleeping boy has shoulder length black hair tied in a spiky ponytail and narrow brown eyes. He wore a green lined mesh T-shirt under a short sleeved grey jacket with green edges, adorned on both the sleeves and the back with a circle with a line through it.
And a rather large boy who was eating his chips was apparently from Akimichi clan, which was known for their big appetite and large build. He's Akimichi Choji. Chōji has spiky, brown hair, swirl marks on his cheeks, and like the rest of his clan, he has a more robust physique. He wore black shorts, a long white scarf, a short-sleeved, green haori, over a light-green shirt with his clan's obligatory kanji for "food" on it, small, hoop earrings, and his legs and forearms were wrapped in bandages.
After counting out all of the future heir and heiress of the prominent clans, except Sakura, Naruto sensed someone was staring at him, but not in a harmful way, more like a curious stare. He turned to his left side again, to a table in front of the two daydreaming girls' and saw the source of his discomfort. A girl who was looking at him had a pair of pale lavender eyes, indicating her as a Hyuuga clan's member. Her hair was in a short, levelled hime-cut style just above her forehead, with chin-length strands framing her face. She wore a cream-coloured hooded-jacket with a fire symbol on the upper right and left sleeves and fur around the cuffs and hem, with navy blue pants. When their eyes made contact, she instantly looked away with a blush on her face, and poked her forefingers together. He made a guess that the girl was the heiress of the said clan as he remembered too well of her shy personality which was quite the hot topic within her clan as well as many important clan heads. Hyuuga Hinata was her name.
Naruto knew all these information from his reading about the various clans in Konoha during his ANBU training. Plus, yesterday he heard that the mentioned above clans has sent their heir and heiress to ninja academy in the same generation. "Hmm, this is not bad at all. It might be interesting with these guys. After all, I get to see how the new generation of Shinobi will perform." He turned his attention back to his class right when Iruka was explaining the curriculum for this year study. "Alright! Time to blend in!" Naruto was sure that he would be having fun.
[Time skip]
The sun was making itself known to the world as a new day arrived once again. Sunshine laid upon Konohagakure as merchants and shopkeepers were opening their stores and businesses. People were filling the busy street, doing their own daily activities. This seemed like a normal day, but for a few young ones, this day was important and exciting for them. Today was the day that the new Genins were to be divided into teams. One certain blonde ninja was making his way to the academy building to have his final day as an academy student. He would know whom he would be teamed up with, and work together in the future. As he was walking, he reminisced all the moments he had had during the past year. To say he was happy was a bit of an understatement.
In fact, he had the fun of his life. He managed to pick up some of his newly made friends' habits, like playing pranks, sparring, and most noticeably, running away from a bunch of fangirls. He had befriended all those who were from the big clans. Naruto became best friend with Shikamaru, Chouji, Kiba, Shino, and unexpectedly Sasuke. However, in case Sasuke's case, they developed a friendly rivalry as the the black-haired Uchiha deemed Naruto as his equal in strength. During the spars and throwing projectiles exercises, both of them went toe to toe as they got equal points in those challenges. Of course, Naruto didn't go all out as he didn't want to blow his cover as a former ANBU.
Naruto and the boys spent their free time hanging out and training together and even cloud watching, much to a pine-apple hair Genin's happiness. The blonde's train of thought made a stop at the graduating exam. To Naruto's correct prediction, his overall score was the lowest as he only enrolled in at the last year of his class. No matter how high the score he got from the exam, he would still be the dead last as he got barely passable results for the first three years of the academy study. He didn't care about it one bit though. He had his own goal to complete, and he did it successfully.
Finally catching the sight of his surrounding, he made it to the front of his classroom door. Opening it to see the usual sight of the same activities that had been going on for the past year, he walked up to his friends, noticing them excited as well at the idea of becoming full-fledged ninja. Some decided to show their thrill quite loudly, while some kept it to themselves, but can still be seen if u looked closely.
"Yo guys! What's up?" asked the blonde.
"Hey, Naruto! We are gonna be a full time Shinobi now. I get to kick asses and come to princesses' rescue! Then we will fall for each other and-" Kiba boasted loudly as he couldn't contain his excitement while pumping his hand in the air, posing some kind of weird stance that reminded Naruto of a certain green spandex wearing Jounin.
"As if a loud-mouthed like you can do such things! Only Sasuke-kun will be able to kick asses." screeched the self-proclaimed Sasuke's number one fan, Sakura. She never threw that habit away.
"I'll show you, pinky!" Both of them started to throw retorts at each other, without thinking about their subject of argument covering his ears as he was sitting between them.
Meanwhile, the others just showed amusement at the scene in their own way. Shikamaru just scoffed and muttered 'Troublesome' while Ino smacked Shikamaru in his head after hearing the same word from the boy again and again. Chouji was chomping down his snacks as usual. Hinata just giggled at the whole situation while Shino was being the same stoic person he was, but you can hear he let out a silent laugh. Naruto shook his head and smiled at his friends' reactions. That was why he loved his friends so much. They seemed to make him smile and happy around them. "Hehe I guess my decision was worth it. I wouldn't trade this for anything." thought Naruto before they heard the door opened to see their instructor walking in the room holding his forever existing board in his hand.
"Quiet down, guys! First of all, I'd like say that I'm so proud of you guys at this moment. You managed to prove yourself ready to be a ninja of this village. I wish the best of luck to you all in the future. Protect and fight back to back with your comrades on the field and you will succeed in whatever duties you are assigned to. Now let's get on with the team assessment, shall we? Team one will consist of…"
Iruka continued on giving out information on the newly assigned Genin team. The first six teams were all formed with civilian kids. "Team seven will consist of Uchiha Sasuke, Haruno Sakura, and Uzumaki Naruto. Your Jounin sensei will be Hatake Kakashi." Suddenly, the pink hair kunoichi screeched something about 'true love prevails' while Ino hung her head down as both Sasuke and Naruto were not on her team. Hinata was disappointed as well because she couldn't be together with her crush now that they were on different team.
"Team eight will be Inuzuka Kiba, Aburame Shino, and Hyuuga Hinata. Jounin sensei will be Yuuhi Kurenai. Team nine is still active. Team ten will be Nara Shikamaru, Akimichi Chouji, and Yamanaka Ino. Jounin sensei will be Sarutobi Asuma. That is all. Your Jounin will come to pick you up soon. Alright, guys. From this moment on, you are the full-fledged ninja of the Leaf village. Take care and good luck on your career." said the scarred Chuunin before he left the room.
A small trickle of tear and a smile on his face was not missed by Naruto. Iruka was a nice man who had been taking good care of his students and teaching them as best as he could.
Several minutes later, several assigned Jounins came to pick up their teams one by one. All that was left was team seven. To say Sakura was fine having to wait an hour later than her friends was like saying that Shikamaru hated cloud watching. She was complaining loudly the whole time about a Jounin being lazy at his job, much to her two teammates' chagrin. Sasuke normally didn't care about it, as long as he got to get training with his sensei to become stronger, but this indeed frustrated him a little bit at how tardy his sensei was being. Meanwhile, Naruto was cursing his former captain as he was forced to listen to the loud complain from the girl.
Then as if on cue, the silver haired poked his head inside the class and said, "Team seven? Meet me upstairs in five minutes." Then he puffed out in a smoke, revealing he was using Shunshin. The three followed their sensei up to the roof of the building. They arrived to see the said Jounin was reading an orange book. Naruto was smirking at his brother figure's unchangeable habit while Sasuke was blushing a bit at the perverted book. Sakura had the worst as she yelled 'Pervert!' at Kakashi.
The Jounin took a full look at his team, then focusing at his favorite blonde. They stared at each other for a few seconds and nodded, as if they were having a conversation through their eyes. "Alright, why don't we start with introduction of ourselves? You can go first, pinky." Kakashi finally broke the ice as his other two students seemed about to lose their patience soon.
"Umm what should we talk about sensei?" asked Sakura which the three male face-vaulted at the question.
"Talk about your likes, dislikes, and goals. I'll go first then. My name is Hatake Kakashi. My likes and dislikes aren't any of your concern. About my goals…hmm… I haven't thought much about it. You're next, pinky" eye-smiled the Jounin as he threw the jab at the girl.
There was a big tick on her head after hearing her nickname. She growled a little bit before beginning her introduction. "My name is Haruno Sakura. My likes are… *giggles*. My dislikes are perverts, tardy people, and perverts! Anyway, my goal is…*giggles*" she glanced at Sasuke between her giggling, which made the said boy felt shiver on his body while Naruto look pitifully at his friend's fate.
"Ok. You're next, duck-ass boy"
Sasuke growled at the nickname as well before continue on, "My name is Uchiha Sasuke. My likes are my friends and training. I have a lot of dislikes. And my goal was to kill a certain man, but now I think that it is pointless if I'm not strong enough, so I aim to become powerful and one day rebuild my clan." said the Uchiha with a venom at the 'certain man'part.
"Hmm he seems not to prioritize killing his brother at the top for now. Maybe he can be brought back from the darkness" thought Kakashi before addressing the last member of the team to share his own information.
The blonde nodded and did as he was told. "My name is Uzumaki Naruto. My likes are hanging out my friends, training, and reading. My dislikes are traitors, selfish people, and arrogance. My goal are to become strong to protect those are precious to me and to one day become the greatest Hokage ever." said Naruto with great passion.
"That's my otouto. Still as passionate as ever." Kakashi smiled proudly at the blonde speech.
"Okay now that the introduction was over with. Tomorrow we will have a small test to see if you are capable of becoming a ninja yet. Meet me at training ground 7 at 8am sharp-" getting cut mid-speech, Kakashi motioned at Sakura to ask her question.
"But Kakashi-sensei, we already had a test. Why do we need to do one more?"
"Well, those exams were just to sort out the weakest of the weak. Meanwhile, only the strong and capable ones can pass this test; hence the 66% failure rate. Those who failed are to be sent back to the academy." eye-smiled the silver haired Jounin as he saw the horrified look on Sakura. "If that is all, you are dismissed. Oh by the way, I suggest you don't eat breakfast tomorrow or you'll regret in doing so. Now then, off you go." Two of the team members were about go to their own places before Sakura decided to ask for Sasuke to have something to eat together. The Uchiha, of course, refused the offer and walked faster to escape from the girl.
The remaining of the team were having their discussion back on the roof.
"So you are intended to cover identity even if you are now having a team now too?"
"Yes, niisan. I don't want to reveal my identity yet, but I will if I deem the situation necessary to do so. So during the meantime, I want to lay low as much as possible."
"Hmm reasonable enough. But I think you should do it soon before things get too complicated. Anyway, I want you to know that I fully support every decision you make. I'm just glad that you are happy." putting his hands on the blonde's shoulders. Receiving a grateful nod from his brother, Kakashi led Naruto to grab some lunch while listening to what tales his young brother had to tell him. What he saw in the Hokage's office with the Hokage himself and several Jounin sensei of the interaction between the young Genin hours prior to their team's first meeting was not enough to fill his curiosity of what Naruto had been doing the past year. Tomorrow would be the day to see if team 7 could work together or not.
-Well, that is it for chapter two. I hope it was enjoyable enough. Leave comments and reviews on this one. See you guys next time! Peace!