Immortal Phoenix

Author: The Phoenix is Immortal

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto nor am I making any profit from this work. I do own my own original character.

Chapter 10: In the Academy

The academy would start only three days from now. It was sudden, but that was fine.

Naruto was still happy from hearing the news. I was also. If Naruto went to the academy, I could go to. And since it was an academy, I could learn many things. Including how exactly those…ninja humans did all the things they did. Like breathe fire and those other techniques.

And about humans…I also needed to tell how to discern whether a human was a male or female. At this point, I could tell that some humans differed from each other, but I had noticed that there were two types of distinct humans. Male and female? But I still was not quite sure. I guessed that if I saw more people, I would soon be able to tell. The academy would be a good place for that. There would be other people, right?

The three days would pass fast though. In the meantime, I guess I could fly around the village and learn more about the place. Or I could explore with Naruto. Who was still jumping around out of joy.

I made some more plans about the academy. I would shrink myself into sparrow size and either just stay on Naruto's shoulder or his pocket. Actually…the pocket idea was a bad one. He would probably forget I was in there and accidently kill me or something by accident.

Another thing to think about was something I had noticed. Naruto liked to….what was the term he used? Prank people…I think. In other words, he liked to make trouble. Well, it did not really bother me…but would the academy change that in any way? Possibly…

What effects would the academy have on him, anyway? I hoped it would teach him how to use his head. That was what a school was for, right?

Well, it would start soon. In the meantime…I will convince Naruto to buy a very, very loud alarm of some sort. One that would make enough noise to wake him up. This may take a while…

The….alarm clock, as it was called…was a bad idea. Not only did it fail to wake up Naruto, with him sleeping right through it, it made too much noise.

Naruto had put it right next to my favorite sleeping spot, which was one of the cabinets in his room. I had expected it to ring after I was awake. But…

Somehow, he had set it to ring at the wrong time. It rang at three o' clock in the morning. I was still asleep. Of course, the alarm woke me up. On top of that, since it was so loud, I was extremely surprised. It was a little scary…I thought something really bad had happened. As in someone attacking me.

So, in my surprise, I had shrieked and then attacked the alarm clock. The only thing left of it now is the scorch mark on my…I mean Naruto's cabinet.

Naruto…had slept through the whole thing. So, sleeping through the alarm clock might be explainable…but sleeping through me shrieking and setting his alarm clock on fire was…something else.

So I woke up…in an extremely bad way. I was…understandably…in a bad mood. The alarm clock was gone, destroyed in my frigh…I mean fury, and it still could not wake Naruto up.

By now, I was deeply worried. If Naruto ever fell into a coma…no one would ever know because that was the state he was always in when he was sleeping. Naruto really is something else…

So on the day that the academy was to start…I had woken up to early. What was I supposed to do?

Then I decided that I might as well just practice my human form. That would help speed up the time.

The hours passed, until it was time for Naruto to wake up. Now for the hard task of doing what the alarm could not. For doing the impossible. Waking up the human midget Naruto.

"Naruto, wake up!" I waited. No movement. "Wake! Up!" Did not work.

Seriously? What could wake up this human? Well, he likes ramen…

"Ichiraku's has a ramen sale today!" Let us see if that worked…

"Huh? What? Where?" Oh, it worked. Though I do not think he realized what I said. He probably just woke up at the word "ramen." He also seemed to be tangled up with the sheets on his bed. Beds seemed to be quite a hassle. Nests and branches are better.

"Good morning, Naruto."

"Uh…good morning…" He looked around. His eyes fell to the scorch mark on the cabinet. "Um, what happened to the alarm clock?"

What should I tell him? "You did not wake up to it, so I got mad at it." Well…it was better than telling him what really happened. And it was the truth…well, close to it.

"The academy starts today." His eyes widened.

"Ahh! Am I late?"

"No, but you will be if you do not get ready." He ran around getting ready.

While he did that, I went into the kitchen. I was using my human form and I was trying how to figure out how to cook some of the instant ramen.

So, first you put in the hot water….But where do you get the hot water? This was so confusing…Then you pour it into the cup. Um…what do you do, pour the hot water in? What if it falls out? Then you wait three minutes…why three minutes? Why not four or five? Why even wait? It was supposed to be instant, but it was not…Human food was too confusing.

I thought this was supposed to be easy…but it was not. I just stared at it. Nothing happened. Then Naruto came in and saw the ramen. He bounded over and made it in…a little more than three minutes. He got some for me too. How come I could not do that? Naruto could do it…

Oh well, I will try again some other day.

Naruto finished eating before I did, but that was expected. I finished soon also.

"Let's go! Let's go!" In a rush, is he not?

"Fine. We can go now." I turned back into my real form and flew onto Naruto's shoulder. He ran out of the apartment. He really was in a rush.

After he ran around for a bit, taking turns here and there, we finally got to the academy. There was a bunch of human children and their parents there. So, these would be Naruto's classmates?

But…they all stayed away from him. They probably all belong in the "those who do not like Naruto" category. That cannot be too good…

Soon, everyone was let into the academy building. Naruto got assigned his class. I myself got a few strange looks, since I was still on Naruto's shoulder, but they were easy to ignore. After a while, the humans who stared stopped staring at me.

Naruto went to his classroom. There were many other children in there…but I honestly was not that interested in them.

Soon, a teacher came in. He (I will just assume that the human was male) introduced himself as Iruka-sensei. I decided to call him Iruka human. He was wearing a vest and dark pants. He had a metal and cloth…thing around the top of his head.

So he would be the teacher? Interesting. He was apparently something called a "chuunin." Whatever that was. He seemed to notice me…but like everyone else, he just gave me a strange look and then did nothing else. I seemed to be just a brightly colored bird; that was all.

Now, would it start already?

Soon he started to teach. I listened to him. I would be able to learn many things this way, so I was happy. Even though he was…not that interesting to listen to. He droned…a lot.

And I could not say the same about Naruto. He seemed to have some trouble concentrating. His gaze would wander around, seemingly unfocused. Yes, he was not paying very good attention.

Iruka human kept droning on and on. I personally thought what he was saying was interesting…but half the class of human midgets did not. Was that one human sleeping?

Then he said something that caught my attention. "What do you know about the Hokages?" At this, Naruto seemed more interested.

One human child near the middle of the classroom raised his (her?) hand. "There were four hokages so far. But right now, the Third Hokage is the current one."

So that wrinkly human was the third one?

"Now, can you tell me about the Fourth Hokage?"

The same human child spoke. Smart human child. "The Fourth Hokage gave his life to kill the Kyuubi."

…What? This "Fourth Hokage" killed the Kyuubi? That was impossible. No human would be able to kill the Kyuubi. It could not be done. It was the Kyuubi. The greatest of the nine tailed beasts. It simply could not be killed.

But then, what happened to the Kyuubi? This was the world he was in currently…but I had not felt his presence at all. I assumed that the Kyuubi was just too far…but now the humans say that the Kyuubi is dead? That cannot be right…I do not think that humans had the capabilities to kill the Kyuubi.

But if this was true…then there were even more reasons for me to be careful around humans.

I decided to keep an eye out for the tailed beasts. They were also supposed to be here…but now that I thought about it, I had not felt any of their presences. This could simply be due to distance, but could something else have happened between them and the human mortals?

I would have to keep this in mind.

The Iruka human continued to drone on. I tried to listen again…but I was distracted. Hard to listen when you hear that the greatest of demons had been killed by a mere mortal. Oh well.

After a while, I then began to wonder about something. Is this not a ninja academy? And a ninja was one of those fighting humans. If this was the case…why were we learning history? Makes no sense.

Then Iruka human began to tell us about something called "chakra." This was fascinating. Apparently, the jutsus that ninjas used needed this. It was a mixture of physical and spiritual energy. He kept talking about it. And I listened.

After I heard this…I began to wonder if I would be able to use it in my human form. I might be able to...or maybe not. It certainly was an interesting prospect.

In my phoenix form, I did not know if what I used was this "chakra." It could be, or it might not be. I was always able to generate fire and things like that…So was it chakra?

Even in my human form, generating and using fire was not hard. I found that out after I burned down one of Naruto's pieces of furniture. ( It was not a big one. It was a really small piece of furniture. I do not think Naruto even noticed. Besides, it was an accident. I did not know that I could do that, and it was not on purpose.)

After more of the day passed by, he said, "Tomorrow, we will be going outside. You will be learning Taijutsu."

Taijutsu? What was that? Well at least tomorrow, and probably the days after, would be interesting.

The class ended, along with the first day of the academy. What an interesting place. What could the days after bring?

Author's note: I am not going to chronicle every day of the academy. From now on, Naruto and Akarui will still be going…but I am not going to specifically note that. Just saying. Sorry that this chapter is sorta short. Let's just say I had a headache and could not think. So there may be some mistakes here and there.

Read: The Academy will work like this. You go to school, and after you go for a while, you have the option to take the graduation exam when it rolls around every year or so. So that is why Naruto failed more than once and is still in the same age group as his classmates. The normal time to take it is just at 12.