The Academy

Two weeks since Naruto first talked to Sarutobi he woke up in his new apartment. It was sparsely furnished, having a futon in one room while the other had a small table with a chair and a couch. Naruto stretched and yawned then got up. He went about his new daily routine and ate breakfast. Then picked up a bag he got ready the night before and left for his first day of the ninja academy.

As he walked in he noticed that most of the students were already in their classrooms just talking to each other waiting for class to start. Naruto grabbed his school information out of his bag and easily found the room he was supposed to be in for his classes. He sat down in the back of the class next to two guys one of them was munching on a bag of chips and the other one had his head down on the desk and looked like he was going to fall asleep any minute. Naruto settled into his seat he only had to wait a few minutes until the teacher came in.

"Alright class, settle down." He said loudly.

Naruto let his eyes wander the room for a second before he heard the teacher say, "Ok before we begin today we have a new student. Why doesn't he stand up and introduce himself to the class?"

Naruto sighed and stood up in the back making everyone turn to look at him. "Hey, my name's Uzamaki Naruto it's nice to meet you."

"It's nice to meet you too Naruto-kun. I'm Iruka and I'll be your sensei for your time at the academy." Iruka said smiling at him.

Naruto sat back down as Iruka spoke and nodded at the man. He heard the whispers of several students. He also felt several fleeting glances mixed in with more powerful glares.

"What's he doing here?"

"We're going to be taking the graduation test in only two months."

"Where did he come from?"

"Why do you think he's in this class?"

Naruto sighed again and got out a note book planning on taking notes. He looked to the front of the room where Iruka stood explaining some Konohagakure and Fire Country history. Naruto soon found himself bored with the lesson. Hitoshi had already explained this to him enough times for it to be ingrained in his mind.

Naruto put his head in his hand and started to stare outside. It was a beautiful day outside. Only a few puffy white clouds stood out against the bright blue sky. Naruto wished he were outside. He understood that knowing about politics and policies was important to be a ninja but the physical aspects were more important sometimes. Like when you were about to get rammed through with a kunai.

A while later the others started to leave the classroom heading for the academy training grounds outside. Naruto got up and fallowed them out. A few boys were paling around a little while the girls where chatting. They soon got outside and had to go to their assignments.

Iruka stood off to the side watching the groups of students. He waved Naruto over. "Well, Naruto-kun we usually don't have new students this late in the system. You can go join that group just try to keep up ok?"

Naruto practically snorted at the keeping up comment but didn't. He headed towards the group Iruka pointed out. They were working on throwing shuriken. Most were doing pretty well getting it near the center of the target. Naruto watched for a few minutes before picking up a few for him self and trying to get a feel for the new knives. They weighed a little less than the ones he had learned with.

Naruto threw one to test out how they would feel in the air. He found he didn't have to throw them as hard. He tossed a few at the target the first one hit dead center the other two impacted the first and fell to the ground near the target. He went through all his basic tosses and was starting on a few of the more advanced ones when he heard a loud whistle.

Naruto saw the other students move forward to pick up the shuriken and went forward to pick all of his off the ground. The one that was imbedded in the target he had to wrench free. He put them back where he found them; then fallowed the rest of his group to the next station.

It was just running. So for the next half hour Naruto ran albeit a little halfheartedly around the small track. The whistle blew again and they went to the next station. Naruto wasn't even breathing hard while his classmates were puffing a little.

The next station they did a bunch of calisthenics starting with basic stretches. Naruto easily completed the ones assigned and started from the beginning again once he had finished. The whistle blew again.

The next station was being directed by Iruka and everyone was sparring. 'Oh fuck. Why my first day? I was trying to stay off the radar.'

"Naruto-kun why don't you spar with Haruka-kun?" He pointed to another boy with brown hair and brown eyes. Haruka looked a little skinny to Naruto.

Haruka and Naruto bowed to each other then he let Haruka run at him. Haruka aimed a punch at his face. At the last second Naruto dodged making Haruka stumble and almost fall over. Naruto appeared behind him and gave him a little push making him fall to the ground. Naruto and Haruka continued sparring Naruto just dodging and blocking until their half hour was up.

They went back inside after that and Iruka announced it was time for lunch. Most of the kids got up to visit their friends if they weren't sitting with them. Naruto pulled out a cloth bag and took out an apple. He bit into the apple and pulled out a book from his bag. It was a tactics manual from the Konohagakure library. The second day Naruto was in Konohagakure he went to the library and got a card there.

It was good that he had too. Sarutobi hadn't been able to get him into the academy for several days. Then after that they had to determine which class he should go in and such. It had taken a while. Naruto was a little bored with just staying at his apartment.

Very soon the lunch break was over and Naruto put away his book to try and pay attention to what Iruka was saying. He was explaining something about how chakra could be implemented in many different ways or something. Naruto wondered why he had to do that. Of course chakra could be implemented in many different ways if you could use it correctly. These guys were in their last year at the academy shouldn't they know this already?

Naruto decided to write down everything he knew on the subject. Eventually he finished and looked back up to the front to see that Iruka hadn't got very far in his explanation. Naruto propped his head up on his hand and let his eyes glaze over while he waited for class to finally end. Soon enough it did and Naruto packed up his things preparing to leave the classroom. He was about to go when he heard Iruka call out to him.

"Naruto-kun can you stay for a second?" He asked over his shoulder, loudly so as to be heard.

"Sure Iruka-sensei. What do you need?" Naruto answered peeling away form the group going out the door.

Iruka motioned for him to come over. Naruto did walking up to stand in front of the teacher. "I just wanted to know how you thought your first day went." Iruka explained.

"I think it went fine Iruka-sensei." Naruto said slightly confused as to why he was asking.

Iruka contemplated for a second before saying, "What I mean is and sorry to be so blunt but do you think that this class is a good fit for you or do you think that the things we're learning about are above your comprehension?"

Naruto nearly laughed. When he responded a little amusement colored his voice. "I think that I'll be just fine Iruka-sensei. You don't have to worry about me."

"What's so funny?" Iruka asked a little startled at the amusement in Naruto's tone.

Naruto waved a hand in front of his face. "Nothing Iruka-sensei. Anyways I'll see you tomorrow."

"Ok, bye Naruto-kun." Iruka said to Naruto's retreating back.

Naruto went back to his apartment and put his stuff down taking out the homework Iruka assigned. He easily completed it then put it back into his bag. Naruto got changed repeating the process of arming himself. Then made his breakfast for the next day. He put it in the refrigerator and ate a little something before going out for a run.

Naruto ran through the village maintaining a steady speed. After about two hours he decided he had enough of that. Naruto headed over to the academy training grounds, he wanted to head over to a real training ground but only qualified ninja were allowed to practice their. For good reason it was annoying to have inexperienced kids underfoot all the time. 'I'll just have to deal with it for a little while.' Naruto thought to himself.

When he got to the training ground he was a little surprised to see so many academy students diligently working on their skills. Though when he really thought about it he really shouldn't have if they were serious about wanting to be ninja they should be out there everyday practicing. Naruto went over to a free target a little bit away from the other kids.

Naruto stood back and closed his eyes starting to throw his shuriken and kunai at the target. He then started a tumbling pattern. He somersaulted and sprang off his hands releasing kunai and shuriken when in the air. After about only twenty minutes Naruto ran out of weapons and came to a stop. He opened his eyes to see where his results. All of the weapons had made it into the target and almost all were very close to the center. A few littered the ground were they had bounced off of others that had landed on the target.

Naruto noticed quite a few of the other kids were staring at him but paid them no mind. He went up to the target and started to yank all of his shuriken out of the target and replace them in his weapons holder and elsewhere on his body. Then yanked all the kunai out and did the same.

Naruto then took out a scroll summoning a wakizashi(1) easily heading into the forest near the Academy. He no longer wanted the other students to be aware of what he was doing. Naruto didn't trust them. He didn't know who they were or if they were going to hurt him. Naruto would rather they not know how much he knew for his own good.

Naruto walked through the forest until he came upon a nice clearing. He went through his kata(2) with his wakizashi. Flowing through all of the movements Naruto flew through that part of his practice. He sent the wakizashi back into the scroll putting it back into his pocket.

Then Naruto started to do his chakra control technique. He walked up and down a tree several times. Then walked on his hands up the tree using his abdominal muscles to keep his body in place. Naruto had wanted to do some water walking but didn't know where he could do that. So he settled on doing the next thing on his list tumbling through trees. He did that for about an hour but noticed it was really dark outside.

He walked out of the forest and back into the academy training grounds. A few of the other students had left out some of the school's weapons so Naruto put them back into the storage closet easily finding where they should go. Naruto walked home from the school and got into his apartment. He made himself something to eat then fell onto his bed and slept.

A/N- The next chapter is going to be the first genin test! I'm so not writing all the time Naruto is at the academy, way too boring. It's just him getting bored out of his mind at school and training too much 'k.

A wakizashi is a companion sword to the katana. It's shorter so more suitable for close combat than a katana. I think it's a better sword for Naruto and shinobi in general because it's for close combat. And if you didn't know to use a katana you have to be able to put cuts in the right place at the exact right time. Also katana can break easily so you can't go chopping at each others swords with them, it just wouldn't work… yeah.

Kata is just basically anything choreographed, though it mostly refers to martial arts. A kata is a form or if you've never taken any martial arts a set of moves you do put together kind of like a choreographed dance… but not really.

Little explanation as to why I don't put 's'es onto the Japanese words- they don't need it all Japanese words already mean either one or more than one they don't differentiate, so I don't put 's'es onto ninja or shinobi or anything because it doesn't make sense…