Ohayo minna-san! ^_^ Thank you for all your kind words and reviews, and here I am, uploading the 2nd chapter! :D
I would really like more REVIEWS just to know how people are liking the story so far, what they think will happen, or should happen, etc.
Thanks for everything!
I don't know if I need a disclaimer every chapter, so here I go! I do not own Naruto.
ENJOY!
Chapter II- I WILL Become a Genin!
"Kushina…wake up."
She grumbled as she opened her eyes for a little, only to be met by the bright sunlight reflecting off her walls.
"Maybe painting my room yellow wasn't such a great idea afterall…"
"Five more minutes…" she muttered, flipping to put her face on the cool pillow.
"KUSHINA! YOUR EXAMINATION TO LEAVE THE ACADEMY IS TODAY. GET YOUR BUTT OUT OF BED!"
With this reminder ringing through her ears, she flung off her blanket and jumped up, adrenaline coursing through her veins as the idea of finally receiving that forehead protector gave her the inspiration to blaze to the restroom and quickly get ready.
She slipped on her standard outfit—a white kimono-like top with a red obi, and a pair of black shorts.
Quickly brushing her red hair and checking herself in the mirror, she flew down the stairs, across the kitchen, grabbing a piece of toast, flung open the door, and launched herself out, running straight toward the academy.
"KUSHINA, BE CAREFUL! DON'T RUN INTO ANYONE!" her mother called after her, smiling a bit as she watched her daughter.
"Do you think she'll pass?" she asked as she turned toward her husband with a small smile on her face.
"Definitely. She's our daughter, afterall." He replied, putting his arm around his wife and giving her a hug as he turned toward the back of his daughter, smiling.
Riiiing.
Riiiiiiiing.
Minato groggily opened his eyes, shifting his cerulean orbs away from the light that was shining from his window. He turned his head toward the source of the noise, and turned off the alarm clock.
7:15 AM.
His eyes widened as he jumped out of bed and hurried to get ready.
"I'm late!"
He thought about this for a moment—he's NEVER woken up late before, what made today any different?
"That's right, tou-san went on his mission."
He frowned a bit at this thought. His father had went on missions before, and he had woken up the same time he always had—early. Then it hit him; he was quite tired from helping Kushina out with her room yesterday, so tired, that he pretty much knocked out after showering.
He quickly put on his t shirt and jacket and his pants while brushing his teeth and washing his face. His hair was always going to be perpetually spiky and messy, so he didn't bother dealing with it.
"Besides, maybe it'll be better if I get my forehead protector today!"
He smiled at this happy thought, before making himself some breakfast and sprinting toward the academy. He raced through the entrance, and through the halls before turning at the door of his classroom.
Without himself noticing, he had bumped into a flash of red. He backed off quickly and bowed, repeatedly apologizing before the redhead had turned around, looking down at him with a smile.
"Minato? It's no big deal! You were probably in as much of a rush as I was!" She giggled as she watched him, flustered and obviously in a rush.
"K-Kushina-san? Gomen!" He uttered back, before slowly calming down and giving her a smile.
"Let's go in now, shall we? I'd like to introduce you to some of my friends!" He gave her a little push and they walked through the door, extracting a gasp from the young girls in the room. The bullies that had picked on Kushina yesterday made snide comments as she passed them
"So she got Namikaze to protect her, that little weakling."
"I bet she begged him."
"And she wanted to be Hokage."
A vein throbbed in her head as she heard these comments, but then Minato had steered her straight toward a group of people on the far right of the room.
"Ohayo, minna-san! I'd like you to meet Kushina-san!"
Kushina looked meekly around the group, a bit scared, until she found that she had received warm smiles from most of them, except for the stoic boys, of course.
"Ohayo, I'm Kushina Uzumaki! It's nice to meet you all!" She flashed them a brilliant smile and eyes widened as a young girl with brown hair and paintings down her cheeks walked up to her and offered her hand out to shake.
"Nice to meet you! I'm Tsume Inuzuka!"
Kushina's smile widened as the rest of the group followed behind Tsume to shake her hand.
"Inoichi Yamanaka!"
"Shikaku Nara."
"Chouza Akimichi!"
"We're the INO-SHIKA-CHO combination…GENERATION 2!" The three of them exclaimed in unison, giving her a bright smile.
She laughed as she shook their hands, surprised that the seemingly quiet Shikaku would join in on his two friends' strange antics.
She then turned to face two identical looking boys, both with long hair and bright white orbs, wearing the exact same white robes.
"How am I going to tell these two apart? They're TWINS."
"NICE TO MEET YOU! I'M HIZASHI HYUGGA!" One exclaimed, excitedly taking her hand and shaking it with great fervor.
His twin eyed her, looking for any signs of a threat, and after nodding in approval, stuck out his hand and said in a much quieter and more polite tone, "Nice to meet you, I am Hiashi Hyuuga."
Kushina noticed the definite difference in personality, and realized that maybe, telling them apart wouldn't be so difficult after all.
Next was a girl with onyx eyes and straight raven hair, standing next to a boy sharing the same features, even though face-structure wise, they had nothing alike. She had a warm smile, unlike the boy next to her and came to shake her hand.
"Good morning, Kushina-san, I am Mikoto Uchiha."
The boy came next, and stuck out his hand and uttered,
"Fugaku Uchiha."
"This guy…needs to learn to lighten up."
"You two are siblings?" Kushina inquired, looking at the two of them but not seeing much of a resemblance other than eye and hair color.
Mikoto gave a small chuckle and replied with, "OH, no, no, no, we're just very very very very VERY distantly related. Our clan prefers to marry within the clan, to make sure our bloodline is still pure, but we're so big that most of us don't share the same genetic make up other than our Uchiha hair and eyes."
"Ohh, so you guys are…friends?"
"Yep! Fugaku here is my best friend! Even though he's a little quiet, he's not that bad."
Inoichi snickered and added a snide comment, "Because you're the only person he's actually TALKATIVE around. Good thing you two aren't that related, or else how would you get married?"
Although he intended for it to be quiet, everyone in the group heard it, and noticed when Mikoto flushed red and Fugaku smacked the loudmouth blonde upside the head and sighed in annoyance.
"I think blondie has a point. We'll see in time though."
Right after that little episode, much to the Uchihas' pleasure, the instructor busted in through and door and proceeded to exclaim with much pleasure in his voice,
"ALRIGHT, TIME FOR YOUR EXAMS! FINALLLLYYYYY!"
He cheered up and down, causing the students to sweatdrop. They weren't sure who was more excited for them to leave, themselves or their instructor.
Minato went first, producing a perfect henge, not to the surprise of anyone in the room, and walked over to the table to receive his forehead protector. The class exploded in applause and another girl walked up and repeated the process.
As more and more people went up, Kushina was sitting frozen in her seat, trying to calm herself down.
"I have to do this. I've worked too hard to give up. Too hard."
Kushina thought back to her first days in Uzu, when she had to practically beg her parents to let her begin the ninja academy in the village.
"Touuuuuuu-san, KAAAAAAA-SAN!" called out a cheery little red head.
"Yes, Kushina?" her mother responded, cocking an eyebrow at her daughter. She NEVER used formalities. This must be something important. Her husband agreed as he turned to look at his little daughter as well.
"Well, you see, it's about the time that I joined the academy, especially since everyone else is already talking about attending!"
"Kushina…we've already talked about this. You should stay home and become a housewife, a duty of a shinobi is too hard for you to handle, you'd have to deal with death and killing all of the time." Her father chided softly, slightly ruffling his daughter's hair.
"DAD! I'm old enough to know what I want, and I WANT to do this!" she exclaimed, clenching her fists before continuing on, "Our village is important for our sealing jutsus, and if the youth of the village don't continue it, how will we survive? How will I protect you two when you need it? I know you're a shinobi, dad, but mom isn't! She won't be able to protect herself. I WANT THIS."
Her parents looked at each other and sighed. She had never talked with such fervor and passion in her voice before, and they knew that they couldn't refuse her, because she would probably find her own way to get what she wanted.
"Fine. One week. If you can't make it through one week in the academy, then you will come back to us."
Kushina grinned and unclenched her fists, leaping to give her parents a huge hug, and then jumped off to bed, excited.
"You know, I think she'd make a great shinobi." Her mother smiled as she said this, watching her daughter. Her father nodded slightly, and then turned to go to sleep.
Months passed, and Kushina had done well in the academy, with the exception of some ninjutsu, one of which was the Henge jutsu. She could do most other jutsus with some ease, but when it came to that one and the replacement jutsu, she just had a very difficult time figuring it out. She was just about to ask her teacher for help when the village was attacked. Her and her mother fled as soon as they could, along with the other villagers, to Konoha, Uzu's strongest ally. Her father had fought off as much as he could, but after getting knocked out, he was brought to Uzu on the back of some Konoha-nin that had came to assist them.
When they had arrived at Konoha, it took the same amount of persuading to get her parents to allow her to enroll in the academy again, especially after witnessing so many of their shinobi die, despite their nature of long-lives.
Through it all, Kushina had tried exceptionally hard to be on par with the other students, a level which she had achieved, even though those jutsus still caused her some difficulty, probably because of her insane amount of chakra. Of course, she hadn't just come to the village because of Uzu's destruction. Even before that, she was going to move here…to have that thing put into her. It had happened the day after she had arrived. She was scared out of her mind, but some consolation that her predecessor gave her helped to calm her down, to help her smile even in the midst of all her pressure.
The week before the exam approached. She spent almost every single minute outside of the classroom exhausting her chakra reserves until she could finally create a clone without a lot of difficulty, though she would rather stick to something else. The only day that she had not worked on it was…the day before. When she made her first friend. When she met Minato Namikaze.
Kushina smiled at the thought, and grinned even more so at the happiness that came when she thought of the friends she had just made earlier in the morning. Tsume, Inoichi, Shikaku, Chouza, Hizashi, Hiashi, Mikoto, and Fugaku. As the butterflies in her stomach slowly melted away, she heard her name called.
"Uzumaki-san, please approach the front of the classroom."
As she took the strides to the front of the room, she heard the sneers of some of the students in the classroom, whispering rude and discouraging comments to her, and she herself felt her feet drag as she dreaded more more the moment that was about to come. Just when she was about to give up hope in her ability—before even reaching the front of the classroom, she felt a firm hand on her shoulder. She turned to see Minato give her a bright smile, and the rest of her friends giving her smiles and nods of encouragement—and in Hizashi's case, a big thumbs-up and a bright smile.
She took a deep breath and exhaled, walking up to her sensei and saw him nod in return and in approval.
She put her hands up into the familiar hand sign.
POOF.
An identical clone of Kushina appeared right next to her, fully functioning, not queasy or on the floor like the ones she used to do. She sighed a huge breath of relief as she looked up and saw the smile on her instructor's face, with his hands gesturing toward the table. She took the last forehead protector proudly, and smiled as her friends (even the stoic Uchiha and Hyuga) began clapping. However, what she had not expected was for the rest of the class to join along, some of the people who previously glared at her with dislike now gave her smiles and nods of approval, while some others remained ignorant, but she wouldn't let them bother her. She had friends, and she was now a full fledged ninja.
NOTHING was going to stand in her way.
"Alright, class, congratulations to all of you who had advanced. To those who didn't, you may make up the examination in a week, where there will be make-ups. The ones who did, you will be meeting your instructor 3 hours from now. The lists will be put on the wall along with the room number at which you will meet. But for now, you are DISMISSED!"
The bell rang and the instructor grinned, gave a cheer, and poofed away.
The group of friends looked at each other as they took in the realization that from this moment on, they were no longer academy students. They are NINJAS. They each smiled—even if it was just a small smile—at each other as they held their forehead protector in front of them and tied it on, wearing them with pride.
"Sooo…" Inoichi started, breaking the special silence that had crossed them.
"What now?" the livelier Hyuuga brother finished, looking expectantly at the rest of his group.
"RAMEN!" Chouza exclaimed, much to the surprise of her peers. Kushina smiled and cheered along with her, and then followed Hizashi, as the three started their way to the door, cheering loudly as they went along. Minato smiled in the background, eyes widening as Kushina grabbed his arm and pulled him toward the exit. She let go and with a mischievous twinkle in her eye, shouted, "RACE YOU ALL TO ICHIRAKU'S!"
The rest of the group looked at each other. They had barely known this girl for less than a day, and yet, she was already starting to find her way into their hearts. Giving nods of approval, they smirked at each other, giving each other challenging looks.
3…
2…
1…
0.
The friends took off, pushing themselves to the most of their ability as they ran, happy with the competition and glad that they are able to connect with each other in the way that they are.
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They also help to improve the story, so I can make little edits here and there.
As soon as I get good feedback on this chapter, I will continue!
Kishiko-Chan!