Naruto landed on the mat softly, with his cute smile still locked in place. 'Her' hands held at her sides- balled up as she bathed in the feeling of victory over the young Sasuke. He knew it was petty, but it reminded him of his younger days. He finally paid that smug bastard back for all the hell he put him through in the academy.

He shook with unknown emotion as he moved his gaze to his feet.

=====****=====

Menma stared at his younger sister in disbelief, he felt a swirl of emotions ranging from shock, pride, to even a tinge of fear after having seen this scenario. Three days ago, his sister didn't seem capable of opening doors by herself without demanding someone to do it for her. Now, she had just defeated Sasuke Uchiha- one of his students with the greatest potential and maybe even be one of the only candidates able to learn chakara techniques AND magical ones. Those that could do this made up one percent of the world, they were so powerful in fact that if discovered they were immediately taken from their homes for training. Naruto had just demonstrated she not only could use chakara already, but that she had an ABUNDANCE of it.

But Menma wasn't sure what was more frightening, her chakara ability, her dangerous speed and power, or the fact that she might have come into contact with the Kyuubi if these abilities were anything to go by. And from the looks of it, she didn't rely on it either, that was her own power. Since when did she which from magic to chakara? She had the magic of the Uzumaki clan, that's what he had expected her to use. But she didn't, she blew his expectations clean out the water and into orbit.

Sasuke may have talked a lot of trash, but the truth is he could back it up. Out of all of the people in the whole school, Sasuke was one of the least likely to be even touched, let alone demolished in hand to hand combat. Though, the element of surprise had been on her side so it could be forgiven that he had lost so terribly. He grew concerned as Naruto remained still, her eyes locked onto the floor, shaking-

"YATTA!" The blonde haired tiny girl cheered with enthusiasm, jumping upward and thrusting her balled fist heavenward= deeply surprising Menma at the childish act. "I DID IT! Did you see that, Menma? Neh? Neh?- Uh, is he okay in there? I didn't mean to him that hard.."

Menma stared at his excitable sister, giving a nod. 'Liar.' He thought.

Naruto rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly, and immediately Menma realized his error as Sasuke could have been hurt if him plummeting through the hard floor boards were anything to go by.

"Sasuke!" Menma blurred over to the hole, peering into it worriedly. "Are you alright Sasuke? Can you hear me?"

"Took you long enough." Sasuke grimaced. "Ugh... Remind me not to piss her off again, Sensei..." Sasuke grumbled, pulling himself out the floor boards with the help of the relieved Menma whom of which heaved him onto his feet and out of the hole. "She really packed a punch... I shouldn't have underestimated her so much... Yet, still..." Sasuke winced as he felt a bump beginning to swell up from the well aimed axe kick to his noggin- he raised his hand to cradle the sensitive swollen wound. Sasuke grunted, giving a tired glance as he realized they'd have replace the floorboards now from such a devastating blow to it. "I didn't break that." He said simply, stepping away from said hole. He then made his way over to the Naruto, who wasn't too far away from her mess she'd created- though she seem to be a good distance away from where she was previously.

Naruto stared at the approaching duck haired child with careful apprehension, but he knew that the Uchiha was an ally- not an enemy, and Sasuke had good control, and he knew it. There were few things at this age that could set off the boy off, one was a mention to his Clan, two was in anyway realizing he was inferior to someone else, and three was Naruto poking at him non stop, and even then he'd simply stoop down to his level and throw insults, which was annoying to Naruto because he'd refuse to fight him, and when he did it ultimately ended with Naruto being the one knocked down on his butt. Both the result, and the aforementioned emotional bombs didn't appear to be the same way here.

Sasuke stood across from Naruto, he could see that the students around him were waiting with baited breath to see what would happen next. Konohamaru had a humorous expression of impatience, sweating as he waited to see the result. Hinata had her hands cupped over her mouth with some clear discomfort at the showdown. Neji was impassive as ever, however the indication of his curiosity was his inclined left brow. He could not see the rest, as they were lost to the sea of unfamiliar faces. Refocusing his attention, he looked at the blonde powerhouse.

Naruto looked into the Sasuke's eyes.

Sasuke looked into Naruto's eyes.

There was a long moment of silence where everyone waited for the results, the crowd- all whom of which were expecting fists to fly at any given moment were surprised by what happened next.

Simultaneously, they gave each other mutual friendly smiles and shook hands- though the difference between night and day, almost literally, they were both comrades, and at the end of the day, had no hard feelings over the fight, the smack talk was different though, but Naruto already paid him back in full for that- if the painful looking knot on his head was anything to go by.

"You're good, I shouldn't have underestimated you. I should say I'm sory, but you've made yourself a large reputation. What I AM sorry about is not seeing if this was true myself. I'm glad I got to dispel them first hand, you really are the Princess. I'm glad that I get to be your body guard in the future after all, though it looks like you won't need much guarding." Naruto looked surprised at that. Body guard? Naruto was a body guard, he wasn't the one to GET body guarded, but then again he was a small cute looking girl at the moment. "Next time, I'll be prepared. I won't let you get off that easy, so I hope you'll give me that rematch sometime." Naruto gave a wide sunny, yet challenging grin.

"You're on Mop!" Sasuke raised a brow.

"Mop?" He inquired, but pieced together just as he said it.

"Yeah! Cuz' I'm gonna wipe the floor with you, AGAIN! Hehe." Sasuke rolled his eyes, retracting his hand and dusting off himself- causing clouds of dust and wooden splinters to come off of him, he ignored Naruto's smug smile, as he proved her point that he had been "mopped" since he had dirt all over him.

"Sensei, will that be all? If so, pardon me- I enjoyed this..." He winced, gingerly holding the knot on his head. "...Spar, but I must get back to my lesson so I can stay on schedule for the day."

"Yes Sasuke-kun, that'll be all for now." Sasuke nodded, turning to where he suspected the Rookies wee hiding and giving a wave. Spinning on his heel, he made his way to the door and turned one last time to look at Naruto specifically with veiled interest, specifically looking directly in her eyes.

"Excuse me." He said loudly, breaking the silence and slowly closing the dojo sliding door in front of him.

Silenced reigned in the empty presence of Sasuke about the room, Naruto stared blankly at the door. "I don't feel good about the way he was looking at me." He grumbled lowly. Menma heard him, being such a close distance just in case Naruto- being the unstable child she was supposed to be, had decided to deck to Uchiha child. It never came however.

"It's not often he gets defeated, and even rarer that he gets defeated in such a fashion. There aren't many children as powerful as you or him. You still both have a lot of room to grow." Menma chided. Naruto gave the young man an annoyed glance, he was confident in his ability to kick HIS ass. "...But I'm still proud of you, Imouto. This concludes the sparing evaluation on your part. You can join the rest of them, if you'd like." He signaled his hand to the assistant instructor, Hayate. The coughing man nodded, speaking up loudly.

"Everyone, welcome to your first year at Konoha's Academy for the Elite. K.A.E for short-" The man paused his speech to give a series of hacking coughs into his fist. His students looked on with apprehension for the mans obvious clear health problem.

Naruto recognized the man as an instructor from his time from the Chunin Exams. Wasn't he the one who died? Sakura told him about the confrontation about it in the war, come to think about it. That was almost certainly the man, Naruto found it amusing he was an instructor here too. That cough looked as deadly as it was the first time around. He should probably do something about that soon.

"We will now-" Hayate coughed in between sentences. "-Begin the sparing evaluation test- "Cough. "-Please take your places according to your slips given to you upon coming into your new-" Cough cough. "-Homeroom." Hayate finished weakly.

Naruto walked around the large dojo with a look of mild curiosity written on her face, hands behind her head. "This is a really large dojo..." He said to himself out loud.

"You know father, always willing to give those beneath him luxury. Isn't that right, Naruto?" Naruto immediately hated that condescending tone, it was sugary sweet, the perfect way to hide her toxic words, that were aimed at him specifically. He could practically taste the well restrained hostility of the woman who spoke. He turned behind him to see a woman in a beautiful golden flowered and crimson Kimono, twin dark blue mocking orbs attempting to pierce his person. Golden flowing long waist long curled locks, fair beautiful peachy skin with fleshy pink womanly cheek. Her lips were painted over with very little lipstick to give her lips a more full appearance. Her hands- which alarmed Naruto, were hidden in long sleeves so he could not read what she was doing with them. Most of all alarming though, was how he knew that face from seeing it in the mirror every day. "But you would know full well of that, considering all the gifts he showers you with." This woman really urked him, who did she think she is? No less, talking down to a child like that- no matter how spoiled she might be was disgusting. Naruto didn't know quite how to react, if he was supposed to be pretending to be 'herself'. So he chose the next best thing.

He didn't react at all.

He simply walked off joyfully, pretending like she wasn't even there- even giving a jaunty whistle to support her role of ignoring the rude mirror like image of himself. Apparently, she didn't like this if the subtle growl she gave was any indication. It appears she was not used to getting this kind of reaction. In Naruto's opinion, she wouldn't be getting any more reactions from himself in the near future. "Hey! I'm talking to you! Don't you walk away from me!" She huffed with ire, how was she supposed to mentally afflict her target is they ran away? And yet, Naruto did not bend to her whim. He continued to ignore her, fitting himself into a crowd of conversing students. The woman frowned with annoyance as the child got away. "Tsk."

"Looking to bother Naru again, Chasu?" Menma greeted with his ever kind expression, the aforementioned Chasu slowly- very slowly turned behind her to see her "passive" older sibling. He radiated with a cold dispassion for her actions. She began to sweat profusely, her pupils shrinking.

"Ehehe, no of course not Aniki... I came to see your class as usual, and she just happened to be here so I thought I'd say hello..." She laughed sheepishly, eyes darting around for an escape.

Menma did not believe her.

"What a jerk. Who does she think she is..." Naruto grumbled, shutting the dojo door behind him. He sighed, knowing he should have better control. He was a ninja! Screw that, he was the best ninja in all of the Ninja World! He needed better control over his ire, but that girl- or woman, demoness or whatever she was seemed to get under his skin. Shrugging it off, he figured he should get back to what he was doing before; finding a way back home.