Chapter 4
Halcyon Days
Music
Confrontment; Naruto OST, Head in the Clouds; Bleach OST, Survival Examination; Naruto OST
Once his meeting was over he was presented with his school uniform, a white male hakama with blue pants, all of his text books and a training sword. He looked incredulously at Unohana at this, only for her to smile and tell him that a trainee Shinigami didn't receive a Zanpakuto until graduation.
He was then shepherded back to the 4th Division barracks where it was originally intended that he stay the night, as his quarters at the Academy dormitory was not yet ready. However Yoruichi was waiting for him, and she offered for him to stay in her Seireitei residence. Something which Naruto accepted, thinking she was trying to apologise for putting him through the ringer.
It was also decided that the child he was with, Rangiku Matsumoto would remain in the Shihoin residence until she was old enough to decide whether she wanted to become a Shinigami herself or not. This meant that once the academy started up they wouldn't be able to see each other, but Naruto was happy that she was safe.
He spent most of the rest of the day and night studying the Shinigami academy's layout, as well as reading the handout he had received from Unohana Nee-san. He paled at what he saw, there was an examination on the first day to set the classes into higher and lower tiers, he groaned, he never did well in written examinations, never!
He looked out the window of one of the waiting classrooms, noticing from his reflection that he had deep set bags under his eyes. He didn't sleep a wink last night. He yawned tiredly before catching himself. He had been the object of scrutiny since he entered the classroom. Everyone here seemed to know each other. Almost all were members of noble or Shinigami families, snobby brats the lot of them. Some looked at him and whispered, but he could hear them.
"Did you hear" a girl muttered "This boy is from the slums"
"Yeah the Howling Dog district" another girl said, shivering "It's said that only murderers and thieves live there"
"I wonder if he ever killed anyone"
"Why don't you go and ask him?"
"No way" she laughed.
"I hear that the Shihoin clan is backing him though" a new voice, this one male spoke up.
"What would a powerful family like the Shihoin want with a slum dog?"
"A pet"
More laughter
Laughter which abruptly halted as Naruto rose from his seat. He gave them a withering look before walking out of the classroom to the hallway. His departure was met with nervous stares. He chuckled sadly, even without the fox he was an outcast. He had to admit that at that moment he felt pretty lonely, and unconsciously remembered his days at the Ninja academy in Konoha.
He used to hang out with Shikamaru, Chouji and Kiba back then. They were always the class clowns, always getting into trouble with Iruka-sensei. All came from Ninja families, although Naruto didn't know his ancestry back then, he didn't know until he was in his late teens. Shikimaru, the slacker, was from the Nara clan, a clan specialising in shadow Jutsu. Chouji was from the Akimichi clan, a family known for being able to use they're own calories and body fat to fight. Finally there was Kiba from the Inuzuka, who were renowned for their abilities to form battle relationships with dogs.
Then there were his own teammates when he became a Genin. Sakura, his childhood crush, Sasuke whom he considered his greatest rival, and Kakashi-sensei, who he looked up to as both a friend and a mentor. He remembered the times they shared and smiled at the memory, a smile which soon turned into a scowl. Sasuke had betrayed them, turned against the village, and Naruto didn't realise until much later, after the death of the woman he loved that the Sasuke Uchiha he knew was dead.
The woman he loved. He never thought he would say that about Hinata Hyuga. A shy girl from the powerful Hyuga clan, when he first met her he thought that she was shy, and weird. But he realised his feelings for her when the Akatsuki leader, Pein, attacked their village, and she jumped in to try and save him, nearly dying in the process.
She had told him her feelings then, when she was starring down one of the most powerful Ninja in history. But after the battle was over he didn't see her until much later, and he returned her feelings. He touched his lips, remembering the surprise kiss he stole from her, and nearly laughed when he remembered her feinting.
Look at me he thought sadly, leaning against a banister and looking out one of the corridor windows I'm standing here reminiscing like an old man
He suddenly made a sour face God help me, I'm starting to act like Shikamaru, before you know it I'll be looking at clouds and adding the words 'Such a drag' to the end of my sentences
This time he couldn't help but laugh
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"Ahh" a male, bored sounding voice growled "These uniforms are such a drag"
"Stop, I don't want to hear it" a female voice replied "Quite complaining and move it!"
"Easy for you to say" the male shot back nonchalantly "You're probably used to wearing these dresses by now"
"They're not dresses" another female added calmly "They're hakama"
"Yeah whatever"
The three of them were walking down the corridors, ignoring the questioning stares they got from other students. Two were wearing the female attire of the academy, a white kimono with a red skirt. The male was wearing the male version, a white one with a blue pair of pants. All three were holding an armful of books.
Most of the stares they were getting were drooling gazes from the male students and slightly jealous glances from the females. The two women of this little group were beautiful.
One was tall and slim, with long blonde hair tied into four ponytails on the back of her head. She carried herself with an air of confidence, showing off her unblemished pale skin. The other was slightly shorter, with shoulder length messy pink hair, her fringe tied back with a crimson bow, showing her forehead, like her friend she was slim and fit, and her exotic green eyes and pale skin also gained a lot of attention, she seemed to carry herself nervously.
The male was an incredibly bored looking individual with dark eyes and black hair tied in a ponytail. He seemed to stoop as he walked, one hand stuck in a pocket while the other was haphazardly carrying his books. He looked like he wouldn't care if the mass of paper in his hand spontaneously combusted.
"And to top it off we got a written exam" the male sighed "What a drag, I'll just sleep through it"
"No you won't" the blonde female yelled "You will go into this examination and get great marks, like we will"
"Yeah, yeah" he moaned "Unlike you two I'm not much of a teachers pet"
Both gave him murderous stares at this, to which he quickened his pace. They rounded the corner, the blonde girl pulling out a piece of paper and looking at the directions it contained. She frowned, a frown which did not go unnoticed by the other two.
The male grinned "Look's like I won't have to worry about this exam after all"
The other girl peered over the taller girls shoulder, she groaned "Don't tell me we're lost again, this is the third time"
"We're not lost" the blonde snapped "I never get lost!"
"Until now" the male intoned with a smile.
"Shove it"
As the two were verbally jousting the pink haired girl grabbed the scrap of paper off her blonde friend and looked at it, a few moments was all she needed "Second corridor to our left, fifth classroom on the right"
She started leading the way down the corridor, her two friends following her, the male smirked "At least someone knows where we're going"
In response the blonde smacked him on the back of the head, followed by a very audible Ouch. The girl rounded the corner, and stopped, not noticing her two friends bump into her and look at her questionably.
"Sakura" the blonde asked "What are you doing?"
She didn't answer, just starred ahead like she had seen a ghost. The two followed her gaze. A familiar boy was standing in the corridor, looking longingly out the window. They recognised him. The messy dark blonde hair, the oceanic blue eyes, the fox like whisker markings on his visible cheek. There was no mistaking it.
Sakura Haruno felt tears of joy well up and whispered the name of a boy she thought she'd never see again "Naruto"
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Naruto subconsciously heard his name being called and turned to look up the corridor. Running towards him was a girl with shoulder length pink hair, her emerald eyes spilling over with tears. He looked at her like he had seen a ghost, a very welcome ghost from his past.
"Sakura-chan"
He was enveloped in a tight hug before he knew it, Sakura was shaking from sobs, softly hitting his chest with her fist "We looked everywhere for you Naruto" she cried into his hakama, leaving wet patches with her tears "We thought we'd never see you again!"
He smiled, feeling tears of his own trickle down his cheeks and enveloped her in a hug "Sakura-chan, is it you? Is it really you?"
"Of course it's me idiot" she laughed as she pulled back, reaching up to wipe away tears from her eyes. Two other figures flanked her, and Naruto looked up to see two more faces he thought he would never see again.
"Shikamaru? Temari?"
Temari was also crying, even though she was trying so hard not too. She moved forward, enveloped him in a hug and kissed him softly on the cheek. A hug which this time he was ready for, the kiss was unexpected though, and a bit of colour flowed into his face "We thought we'd never see you again Naruto-kun" she said, her voice not breaking as bad as Sakura's was "Glad we were wrong"
Then Shikamaru took a step forward, the two old friends smirked.
"Yo" he greeted.
"Yo" Naruto returned.
They spent most of their free time up to the examination not studying like some of the other students but talking. Naruto told them of how he ended up in the outer ring of the Soul Society, and had spent the better part of a year trying to make it to civilisation. He spoke of some of the hardships he had endured, how he met and saved a little girl, was then saved by Urahara-Senpai and finally his fight with Yoruichi Shihoin.
"You met the Captain of the 2nd Division" Temari asked, her eyebrow rose disbelievingly.
"Yep" Naruto replied.
"What was she like?"
"Flirtatious, childish, shameless" he listed off, biting back a laugh at the looks on their faces "But I got to hand it to her, she is very perceptive…and she has one hell of a kick"
"You fought her!?" Sakura gawked.
"Yep" he answered "Only lasted a few minutes too"
"Then you must hold the record" Shikamaru said "I've heard that no one has beaten her in hand to hand combat, she rarely even draws her Zanpakuto"
"What do you expect from the Seventh Hokage" Sakura laughed.
"There's something I've wanted to ask you guys" Naruto said, serious "Is there anyone else?"
They were all quiet then, and he knew that the responses weren't going to be good. Finally after nearly an eternity of silence Shikamaru answered him "We were all on our own at first, it was only blind luck that I ran into these two"
"We searched for as long as we could" Sakura added, her face falling "But no matter how far we went we couldn't find anyone"
Naruto expected as much, he had been travelling on his own for a year himself before he was found by Urahara-Senpai, and in all his travels he never found anyone he knew from his past life. Every face was a stranger.
"I figured as much" Naruto said after a moment "I couldn't find anyone either, searched all over the outer ring and the most dangerous districts"
"You talk like we may never see anyone again" Temari said, determination set in her gaze "But I will never give up, not until I find my brothers"
He couldn't bring himself to tell her what he had learned from the old man, that all of the Jinchuriki except him had been overpowered by their sealed beasts and became Hollows. He just couldn't bring himself to tell her. Instead he gave her a smile "Yeah, I won't ever quit looking either"
"That goes for me too" Sakura spoke up
"It's a promise then" Shikamaru spoke up with a smirk and a nod.
"Yeah, it's a promise"
It was then that one of the Shinigami entered the classroom, and all in attendance quietened down immediately with his presence. He stood in front of the class, cleared his throat and spoke "If you will all follow me, we will begin the examination"
Both Shikamaru and Naruto groaned at the thought.
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Naruto had been worrying about this exam ever since he got wind of it. In fact he was so worried about this exam that he went to Urahara-Senpai for advice. The 3rd Seated Officer was already up, so it hadn't been a problem. He still remembered the smirk the man had when he told him.
"Oh don't worry Naruto-Kun. Sure there is a written examination, but that only counts for a quarter of the marks, you will enjoy the other three"
It turned out that he did. The written examination was a tedious, two hour long hell. It seemed to have questions on his worst school subjects. The only consolation to him was that half of them were to do with the military, hierarchy and history of the Soul Society, and he was actually thankful for the old mans boring twelve hour lecture, even though he had fazed out during half of it.
He was still positive he failed though. An aspect shared by Shikamaru, who dozed off five minutes in, woke up with five minutes left on the clock, and proceeded to go with his gut instinct, for the entire exam.
The next three exams were not written papers. He found to his delight and Sakura's disgust that they were practical assignments. The second was a fighting tournament to see the hand to hand combat skills of all the students. As expected with his Ninja training he creamed the opposition, making anyone who faced him look like a child wielding a rubber mallet.
Next was swordsmanship, a tournament which Naruto failed spectacularly. Well he believed that, but in reality making it to the semi final with a training Zanpakuto was really impressive to the examiners. The only reason he didn't make it to the final was because while executing a backward somersault he landed on the edge of the platform, lost his footing and fell on his ass.
Finally was an examination on Kido, despite his lack of use of the spells he found that he had a natural talent, able to use almost all of the Kido on the examination bar one; Hado Sanjuuichi; Shakkaho, which ended up backfiring, blowing up in his face.
Sakura and Temari passed this one without a hitch, but if anything Shikamaru faired worse than he did. While in the middle of performing a Binding spell he was somehow able to bind himself, and was carted off to the infirmary yelling "This is such a drag!!!"
Naruto didn't remember much after that moment, except that he fell onto the floor, laughing so much that his sides hurt.
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The examiners were quick to mark the results and post the class lists on the main notice board. Temari and Sakura, positive that they had passed everything with flying colors ran over to the list set for the Higher Tier class. Naruto and Shikamaru, sure that they had failed miserably shuffled over to the Lower Tier listings.
The area of the notice board holding the higher tier was surrounded by a mob of students, all pushing and shoving to try and get a good look and see who had made the grade.
The two boys looked over at the mob, saw Sakura throw several students out of the way like they were ragdolls and were glad they weren't in the crowd. They settled down and looked over the register, but after five minutes of searching they found that they're names weren't on it.
Understandably, Naruto panicked "No way…I couldn't have done that bad, I know I failed the written exam, and made a fool of myself in swordsmanship, and blew myself up, but I was sure that I at least made twenty percent!!!"
"Ah man" the Nara muttered, ignoring his friends mad ravings "I'm not going to get my ramen discount now. This is such a drag"
"Ramen" Naruto exclaimed, clawing at the Nara's hakama in panic, he actually looked like a puppy trying to scale a tree "We could've failed the entire exam, be barred from this place forever and you're worried about a discount on Ramen!!?"
Meanwhile Ino and Sakura were looking over the Higher Tier billboard, smiles on their faces when they saw their names.
"Wow Sakura you got eighty five percent" Temari exclaimed with a groan "Fifth place in the whole year"
"You didn't do too badly either" Sakura replied, pointing to her friend's name "Seventy six percent"
"Wait a second" the blonde muttered, reading over a section of the board, a smirk growing on her face at what she was seeing "You're not going to believe this"
Sakura shuffled over, carefully funneling past several other students before she was standing at her friends side, she looked over the names she was pointing too and shook her head in bemusement "Will wonders ever cease"
There, sitting near the end of the class list were two names, each making it over the sixty percentile needed to get into the Higher Tier, Shikamaru Nara with sixty eight percent, and Naruto Uzumaki with seventy percent. Both girls shared a look before calling over to the two in question.
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Naruto yawned subconsciously before looking through his daily timetable for the umpteenth time, it was all he could do not to stand up and curse at the drab old lecturer at the front of the tiered classroom who was taking far too long with his opening speech. It was so bad that Shikamaru was sound asleep beside him, and the former Hokage knew by the snoring that he was eventually going to get caught.
All he needed to say was congratulations on making it to the top class, but remind them that they still had a lot of hard work ahead of them. A minute speech, two at the most, it had dragged on for nearly a half hour now. The old fart had congratulated them, and then told them that the hard work started here…then he began reiterating a quick summary on the prestigious history of the academy and listing off some of the great men and women who had graduated, and their achievements.
This guy made Yamamoto-Ojiisan look like a master storyteller, and Naruto should know. He was stuck with him for twelve hours.
If this goes on for twelve hours I will kill
Yawning again he looked over his timetable, making sure that he would remember the classes he would have to take this year.
Block 1: Kido – The Basic Art
Block 2: Hakuda – Year 1 Hand-to-Hand
Block 3: Zanjutsu – Year 1 Swordsmanship
Block 4: History – Formation of Soul Society
Block 5: Hollow Cleansing – Know thy Enemy
As well as this there was a small cluster of pages attached, at first Naruto thought that it was further information, and at first it was. The booklet explained of practical exams and field trips to the real world to learn more about the duties of Shinigami and the layout of the living.
It all sounded pretty standard, then he read the last page and found to his surprise that it was a waver that needed signing in order for a student to go on these field trips. It wasn't the waver that caught his eye. It was how it was written that worried him, considerably.
"The Shinigami will not take responsibility for the loss of any property in the living world. This includes the loss of books, weapons, limbs or a premature end"
Holy…fuck
"You droopy eyed clown!!!"
Naruto nearly jumped out of his chair when he heard the teachers aggravated voice and looked up in time to see a book soar past him by millimetres and collide with Shikamaru's forehead. His head snapped back, and opening his eyes the lazy bastard looked over at the old man, who was now smiling venomously.
"Congratulations" he said "You are officially on my death list!"
The Nara, still reeling and with a bump on his forehead looked down "Huh?"
Naruto couldn't help himself, he laughed only to be caught by the shrewd gaze of the lecturer "And you Blondie, welcome to hell, you are the second person on my death list!"
"Wha-!" Naruto started in disbelief "What the hell did I do!!"
Beside him Sakura and Temari had their heads in their hands.
"Were they like this in your academy?" the blonde asked.
"You have no idea" Sakura replied.
Well here's the next chapter, just as promised. Sorry for the delay, this is the third rewrite. I originally planned to have Ino as one of the four, but when I thought ahead I realized that I wouldn't have had much use for her in the story, now Temari on the other hand :)
On another, completely unrelated note I bought this new game, Tales of Vesperia and I have never enjoyed an RPG like this since the last Final Fantasy, in my opinion it is really good fun to play. The animation, the story, the characters, all awesome and probably one of the best animated games I have ever seen. In fact playing it has gotten in the way of my writing lol.