Author's Foreword:
Apparently, foxes and dogs are some sort of mythological enemies on japanese folklore.
This is enough excuse for me to pull a trope that I'm relativelly into called "Sitcom Arch-Nemesis" (or, as I like to call it in my mind, "DINKLEBERG...!").
Aaaaah, god ol' Fairly OddParents. You're pretty much shit nowadays, but I will always remember the good episodes.
Anyway, let's start today's chapter.
xxx
Chapter 3 – The First Day (Second Period)
Naruto ran around the academy with Hinata's hand firmly contained in his grasp while his other hand holded a very big bento box. She tried to mumble something to make him go slower, but the blonde wasn't listening while they traveled to the open space where the other kids where eating and playing around. He was too excited to share lunch time with someone!
Someone besides his caretakers, that is.
He spotted what seemed to be a good eating place and sit under a tree, inviting the white-eyed girl by patting the ground just by his side. She did so, while looking like she was a nervous tomato.
She started to wiggle nervously by his side. "Uhm… Naruto-kun… I forgot m-my bento box inside my p-pack… back in t-the classroom."
The boy looked at her like committed a great mistake, the kind that only a fool would commit (which was true, excited 8-year olds usually don't pay much attention). He soon recuperated, sending her an apologetic smile.
"Don't worry, Hinata-chan! You can have part of my lunch! It's big enough for us both, believe it!" He started to unwrap his box while Hinata's mind flared up at the thought of 's-sharing lunch with… with a b-b-boy she just met!'
Well, okay, it wasn't the first time she'd seen him, but she knew very little about him, so it was as good as just meeting him for the first time.
She was snapped out of her thoughts when the fox-like boy asked "Hey, Hinata-chan, how do you about ramen?"
"Huh?"
"Y'see, half my box is ramen because my Old Man wouldn't let me eat only ramen, so I have some rice, vegetables and even some strawberries for something more sweet." He shot her a questioning look with a bit of worry. "I mean, I don't know if you like ramen, I hope this other stuff is enough for you, if that's the case."
Hinata looked at his box. It was indeed half-full with ramen on a separated container inside it, with some rice and vegetables on another and a small portion of strawberries on a third one. He even had a thermos with what she determined was orange juice.
"No, I-I don't mind eating ramen, b-but…" She looked at the pair of hashi on the boy's hand, twitching a bit in anticipation to catch some food. "…but you have only one pair of hashi…"
"Oh! Well, that's not a problem." He then picked two leaves from his hair and showed to her. "Here, let me show you something cool!"
She looked at the leaves on his hand, and with a wave of his other hand passing over then, shortly covering her vision of then, a pair of unused hashi appeared on their place. "Ta-dah!"
She stared at the boy who had a smile and some expectative on his face. She was confused. "Naruto-kun, it's n-nice that you're good with genjutsu, b-but…"
"Oh, they're not genjutsu!" He said pinching the girl's cheek with them. She 'eep'd at the contact and she shot a look of awe that only child that witnessed a magic trick for the first time could produce.
"H-how did y…?"
"It's a se-e-cre-t~~~!" He chanted jovially. "I might tell you if you turn out to be a good friend!"
Hinata stared at him, then accepted the pair of hashi with a smile.
Naruto was right, the lunch box he brought was enough for both of them, but he looked like he could go for a Round 2 anytime (Hinata made a mental note to give him her forgotten bento box later, as a 'thank you' gift). Satisfied with their lunch, they went around for a while on the academy grounds, waiting for the break time to end. The boy stops, making his companion stop to look at what he was pointing.
"Hey, what's the name of this?"
She looks at the tree he was pointing to and found the target of his curiosity. "It's a-a swing, Naruto-kun."
He ran excitedly to the swing, sitting on it with enthusiasm, starting to use his legs to kick himself. "I've see other kids playing on this, but never got to myself! It fun!" He laughed while he entered a rhythm and swung with power. Hinata smiled softly at his gleeful expression, but she could not resist her curiosity about his statement.
"Why did you n-never played on s-swing, Naruto-kun?" His rhythm starts to calm a get less powerful, making it easier for her to see an estrange expression of thoughtfulness and… something she was not able point out exactly. Stopping completely, he faces Hinata square on the eyes.
"Well, I kinda live in a locked room most of the time."
"Huh? W-wait, what d-do y…"
"But that's not important!" He declared with a smile. "I'm allowed to go to the academy and that's what matters now!" He swung once more with force and after a few swings that got higher and higher, he jumped from it, barely preventing himself from falling face first on the dirt. He sticks a victorious pose to her with a goofy grim, but it doesn't alleviate her curiosity.
"But, N-Naruto-kun…" and then the bell sounded, ending the lunch break.
"Well, where going back to the classes! Can you get me there? I didn't learn how to run around this place yet."
Hinata shelved her questions for the moment and helped him to go back the class.
'Was he locked in a cage or something?'
It was one of the many thoughts on Hinata's head regarding her new seat neighbor and budding new friend.
The Hyuuga Clan drilled on her mind that she needed to be always observant. Being a ninja, this was an incredibly important skill. Being a Hyuuga, this was the very foundation of the use of their specialty, the Byakugan. In fact, it is demanded of them to notice the tiniest of details even when their special eyes were not active. She couldn't help herself but think about all she knew about the boy, who seemed to be as mysterious as he was weird.
At first, she thought that the leaves on his head where kind of… wild and random, she would say. Then he shows his leaf trick a couple times, first transforming a pair of leaves into hashi, then using one leaf to transform it on a small ball that he played a bit like he was a cat with wool ball over their shared desk. All that indicated that it wasn't a Genjustu, as those usually where just a visual, and sometimes audiovisual, trick (the Theoretical Genjutsu Class they were in right now served to remind her of that). She knew this because she could actually touch both the hashi and the ball he made. In fact, she was briefly distracted of her thoughts as she played some soccer-like game with their hands on the desk.
Oh, that was fun!
Where she was again? Oh, yeah. He is a bit weird, but a bit charming. Something akin to a magician or a trickster.
And… folklore usually depicts foxes as tricksters, right?
Okay, maybe it's a bit silly to think that the boy isn't human just because he did some transformation jutsu that didn't have anything to do with genjutsu… maybe it's just a bloodline limit?
It was then that, not really paying attention to the game, she accidentally "kicked" the ball with her fingers out of their desk and hit Kiba right on the point between his head and neck connected. He immediately turned at them, at first annoyed when searching from where it came and then angry when he caught Naruto snickering while Hinata had an apologetic expression on her face.
He returned his attention to his desk, picked his eraser and launched it over his shoulder with only his dog looking to them. It hit Naruto square on the nose. "Goddammit, dog-breath!"
"Naruto! Don't interrupt the class or you'll get detention!"
"Sorry, Iruka-sensei…" his apology sounded funny while he massaged his nose, which made Kiba snicker at him.
Ooooooooh, Naruto would remember that.
After the theoretical classes on Genjutsu and Ninjutsu, it finally came time for a Taijutsu session. The teachers taking care of the class where Iruka and some guy with white hair and a laid back smile.
"Attention, class! With the help of Mizuki-sensei, I will be supervising your forms for the basic academy taijutsu and later will have a sparring session!" Iruka-sensei then noded to his coworker, who assumed the class.
"Okay, as we have a new student, let me take this opportunity to review our basic katas. I'll go over them and you will repeat each step after me!"
As they started doing the moves, Naruto thought about how behind the class he was. Math was a problem to him, he could do the basic formulas, but anything with big numbers start to confuse him. History was a so-so for him, he wasn't very interested in how the village was formed as much he was interested in hearing about the great ninja feats of Hokages from the past. Genjutsu was a bust, while the blond could pull off tricks of prestidigitation (and do transformations to both himself and his leaves), he simply didn't have the chakra control necessary for executing the basic stuff, because of that, he the rest of the class couldn't even bother to pay attention to the theoretical side of it.
Ninjutsu… Well, they went over the theory of how the basic academy jutsu works and Naruto was glad that he could pull of a henge (although his thing wasn't really a henge, but so far, only Hinata noticed, it seems), but the Clone and Replacement techniques where hard fails. His clones either looked sick or just exploded for some weird reason, while the tentative of replacing himself with a log ended with him stuck in some broom closet somewhere near the class.
Thankfully, Iruka-sensei deducted where he could've ended up just before the class ended, although Dog-Boy and the rest of class laughed when they found him suspended by his clothes, stuck on some brooms, like some weird blond scarecrow.
"Maybe you want to go follow the yellow brick road to find a brain before you can try becoming a Hokage, fox-face!" Kiba really pushed his buttons when he called him that.
While he was sure that nobody didn't know about his secret, the fact that Kiba seemingly associated him with foxes by instinct made him a bit nervous.
Maybe he could get back at him at the taijutsu spar later.
After having his stances corrected a few times, he practiced until Iruka-sensei got everybody's attention. "Okay, class! That seems good enough! Now we're going to make pairs, then each of them will spar together in this circle." He pointed to a circle drawn on the floor near them. "To defeat your opponent, you just need to make them go out of the circle. When you're done, switch partners and repeat the process two more times!"
They selected their opponents picking numbers on a box, which then where written on the blackboard they brought to organize the entire thing. Naruto smiled, although his opponent declared his satisfaction in a louder way.
"YES! I get to punch autumn-boy in the face!"
They both locked glares and smirked at each other.
Kiba was going to enjoy this.
