Disclaimer, I don't own anything in Naruto, except my OCs

Chapter 4 – Academy start

*Two years later*

Having turned eight years old, it was time for Tomoe and Sasuke to join Konoha's academy. Both twins had grown over the past two years, and Tomoe now stood 130 centimetres tall, with Sasuke being 125 centimetres tall. Sasuke had come to like his royal-blue t-shirt and shorts combo, whereas Tomoe had changed her wardrobe. Tomoe now wore loose black pants, a dark-violet shirt, and a navy-blue haori closed and tied with a lilac sash around her waist.

"Are you two ready for your first day at the academy?" Mikoto asked her two youngest children at the breakfast table.

"Yes/Am I?" the twins almost yelled at the same time, "This is what we've been waiting for. Our first step to becoming real ninja," Tomoe said excitedly. "Yeah," Sasuke agreed. "Besides, I need to get stronger I want to catch up to Itachi-niisan. He had already graduated at our age," Sasuke said with a determined look on his face.

Seeing their excitement, Mikoto couldn't help but smile, "That's good to hear. But remember, today is only the first day, so don't expect too much to happen, ok? And try to make some friends while you're at it, you never know who could become your teammate in the future."

After that small conversation, a comfortable silence fell over the table until it was time for Sasuke and Tomoe to leave for the introduction at the academy. As the twins were about to leave, their father called out to them "Remember what I said when I started training you, excel and-"

"Show everyone that the Uchiha is has earned their place as the strongest clan in the village," the twins interrupted and looked at their father, finishing his sentence.

While Fugaku did not usually like being interrupted, he let it go, "Indeed. Good to know that you still remember," Fugaku said, nodding while hiding with a small smile.

With that, Tomoe and Sasuke made their way to the academy to begin their first day.

*At the entrance to the academy*

As Tomoe and Sasuke arrived at the academy, they saw a huge number of children and adults gathered outside the entrance to the academy. "Hey Sasuke, what do you think is going on over there?"

"No idea."

"Wanna go check it out?"

"Shouldn't we find out what class we're in first? I don't want to be late on our first day."

"Come on, it'll be fine," Tomoe said as she started dragging Sasuke over to the noticeboard.

However, not wanting to go along with his sister's antics, Sasuke pulled himself loose and said firmly, "I am going to find out what class I am in first. I don't want to be late and disappoint father."

"Fine, suit yourself, I'm gonna go check it out," Tomoe said as she turned around and walked towards the noticeboard.

Sasuke shook his head at his sister and thought, "Now, where should I go if I want to see what class I am in."

"New academy student?" a voice from behind him said.

The sudden voice surprised Sasuke and shook him out of his thoughts. He turned around to see a tall, white-haired man with a leaf hitai-ate wrapped around his head like a bandana. After taking a few seconds to register what the man said Sasuke replied, "Ah, yes. I am starting today."

"That explains your confused look. You looked like a lost puppy with nowhere to go. All new classes and students are listed on the noticeboard over there," the man said, pointing behind Sasuke.

Sasuke turned and saw that the man was pointing towards the group of people his sister had tried dragging him off towards. Breathing a sigh of exasperation, Sasuke thanked the man and started walking towards the noticeboard.

As Sasuke made his way over to the group, he saw his sister near the back of the group, standing on her toes trying to look over the other children's heads. "See anything important," he said as he walked up beside his sister.

"Hey you came, did you miss me?" Tomoe said.

"We live together and see each other every day, I can handle being alone for a bit." Sasuke huffed before continuing, "But you didn't answer my question."

"You're no fun," Tomoe said. "But not anything specific, I can see a noticeboard, but I can't see what it says."

"A guy with a hitai-ate told me it was this noticeboard that the class groupings, so I'm pretty sure this says what class we're in."

"Hah, I told you it would be fine to check it out," Tomoe cheered.

"Yeah, yeah," Sasuke said with an indifferent tone of voice.

While they had been talking, the crowd had thinned out enough so that they were able to walk closer to read the noticeboard and see it had a large notice that read, "Class groupings for new students" with three columns below it, each marked "Class 1-A", "Class 1-B", and "Class1-C" respectively. Each column had a long list of names below the class numbers.

"I take left column, you take right, meet on the middle?" Tomoe said turning to Sasuke.

"Loser buys the winner tomatoes on the way home?" Sasuke replied with a smirk.

"Don't just assume that you're going to win automatically," Tomoe said, returning his smirk with one of her own and with playfulness in her voice.

The twins turned their attention to the noticeboard in front of them, looking for their names and what class they were going to be in. Almost immediately after they started, Tomoe spoke up, "We're in class 1-A, you lose."

"You got lucky, we were in your column."

"Luck is a part of skill dear little brother," Tomoe said teasingly, "looking forward to you treating me on the way home.

Sasuke grumbled at his sister's antics. During the past few years, she had started to develop a more teasing and playful personality when they weren't in their father's or elder's company. It was funny at first, but now it was just irritating.

Seeing her brother's reaction Tomoe laughed, "Come on, let's get to class. We don't want to be late on our first day," she said as she walked towards the academy main entrance.

Having his own words turned against him only further soured Sasuke's mood, but he followed Tomoe into the academy, nonetheless.

*Classroom 1-A*

As Tomoe entered the classroom labelled 1-A, she saw that 13 other children were already in the classroom. Most of them were talking to each other, some looked like they had already known each other before entering, but most seemed to be talking with the person next to them about how excited it was to finally start the academy and become ninjas. Tomoe looked around the classroom, the classroom was a decently sized room with windows on the left side of the room, a blackboard covering most of the front wall, and three rows of tables occupying most of the remaining space. Each row had three tables that each seated three people. She then noticed a note on the blackboard labelled "Seating arrangements." Deciding it would be a good idea to know where she would for the foreseeable future, she walked over to find her spot on the notice. Before finding her own name, she saw that Sasuke would be sitting at the front left table, near the windows, sharing a table with someone named Naruto Uzumaki and Toshi Imamura. Deciding to let Sasuke find his own seat, she continued looking for her own seat. When she found it, she saw she was to sit in the middle of the class, sharing a table with someone named Ino Yamanaka and Shikamaru Nara. Having found her seat, Tomoe walked towards her table she saw that it was still empty, so she walked up to the leftmost seat and waited. While she waited, she saw that Sasuke had found his own seat and had sat down next to a timid-looking boy with short brown hair, although it didn't seem like either of the two were keen on starting a conversation with the other.

Not long after she had sat down, Tomoe heard someone complaining from the hallway, "Come on Shikamaru, I am not gonna be late, just because you didn't want to get out of bed, again."

Slightly curious as to who made such a fuss, Tomoe looked towards the door and saw a girl with platinum blonde hair put up in a ponytail similar to her own just way less spiky and covering her left eye, dragging along a boy with black put up in a short, but spiky ponytail. "Relax Ino, we have plenty of time, the teacher isn't even here yet, so what's the rush?" the boy, she assumed was Shikamaru, said sounding like he woke up five minutes ago.

"If it was up to you, you would still be in bed, and I promised your mom that I would get you to class on time." The blonde, now identified as Ino, replied.

"We're here now, so it all worked out. Let's just find out where we're supposed to sit, so I can go back to sleep," the boy drawled.

"You two really shouldn't fight this much in front of everybody, you're making a scene," a rotund boy with short light-brown hair, red swirl markings on his cheeks, and a bag of chips in his hand said, trying to calm the two down. And true enough, everyone in the classroom had stopped talking at was now looking at the trio.

"Please God, don't make sit next to this lazy bum," Ino pleaded as she walked towards the seating arrangement note.

Hearing her plea, Tomoe couldn't help but chuckle. If her guess was correct, the blonde girl and the black-haired boy were her two new tablemates. After all, how many people named Shikamaru and Ino could there be in one class. And judging from how disheartened the blonde girl suddenly looked after reading the note, it would seem her guess was correct.

As Tomoe was still chuckling as the duo approached the table, she tried to stop before they got close enough to notice her chuckling. As they reached the table, Tomoe decided to make introductions first, "Hello."

"Hi/hello," Shikamaru and Ino replied with a small wave.

"My name is Tomoe Uchiha," Tomoe continued, "Pleased to make your acquaintance."

"Nice to meet you Uchiha-san, my name is Ino Yamanaka, and this," she said as she pointed over her shoulder, "is Shikamaru Nara."

"Nice to meet you Yamanaka-san, Nara-san."

After they had made introductions, Ino and Shikamaru sat down at the table and Shikamaru put his head and arms on the table and promptly began to try to sleep.

"Is he always like this?" Tomoe asked incredulously.

"Shikamaru? Oh yeah, if it was up to him, he'd never leave his bed. Despite his mother's efforts, you won't find a lazier person," Ino replied.

"Sounds like you've known each other a long time."

"Pretty much ever since birth. Shikamaru's, Chouji's, and my parents have been a team and friends since their genin days. Which in turn, was passed onto us," Ino explained.

"I see. I assume Chouji is the boy that told you two to calm down?" Tomoe asked.

"Yup, that's him. He eats a bit too much, but he's as kind as they come."

"I see. It's good that someone is looking out for you Yamanaka-san if what I heard earlier is a common occurrence."

"Ok, I get you're from the Uchiha clan and all that, but I'm not good with all this formality stuff, so please call me Ino."

At this Tomoe couldn't help but chuckle a little, "Fair enough, in that case, please call me Tomoe," Tomoe replied.

"That I can do," Ino replied with a smile.

Before they could continue talking, a man with black hair put up into a ponytail, a scar across the bridge of his nose, and a hitai-ate on his forehead cleared his throat loudly, drawing everyone's attention as no one had even noticed him coming through the door. "Hello everyone, and welcome to Konoha academy. My name is Iruka Umino, nice to meet you all," Iruka said, smiling at the class. And this," Iruka said while gesturing to a white-haired man standing beside him, "is Mizuki. We will be your instructors during your time here. I look forward to the time we shall spend together."

As Iruka finished their introductions, Mizuki took over the explanation, "You will attend several classes during your time here. We will start this year off slowly, by teaching you how to read, write, and do basic math. For the more ninja-focused classes, we will start by teaching you about chakra, what it is and how we use it, and give you some basic chakra exercises, and then we will introduce you to the academy standard taijutsu kata and begin practicing your aim with shurikenjutsu training. These are the classes you will attend this year, with science, geography, basic trap making, ninjutsu, and genjutsu coming over the course of the next three years. Oh, and before I forget, girls will also be starting kunoichi classes this year, however, they start in August so there are about three months until then. Any questions?"

A few kids around the classroom raised their hands, Iruka pointed at a kid that had two red triangle markings on his cheeks, "Yes, um," Iruka pause before looking down at a clipboard in his hands, "Kiba Inuzuka, is that correct?"

"Yeah. What if we already have been taught clan taijutsu at home?" he asked.

"Ah that's right, we have quite a few clan kids this year," Iruka said. "Don't worry, you can just practice your clan's taijutsu. However, we won't be able to provide as much help with clan-specific taijutsu stances, as we are with the academy standard."

"When do we learn jutsus," the blonde kid who sat beside Sasuke piped up.

Iruka couldn't help but chuckle as he saw how most of the students suddenly looked a lot more interested, "Yes, yes, you'll all learn how to perform jutsus, but not until you have the proper basis and understanding of how chakra works. The current plan is to start teaching you ninjutsu during your third year."

At this several of the student moaned in disappointment, as most of them had been hoping to learn ninjutsu on day one. Tomoe noticing that Ino was seemingly indifferent to the information, "Not disappointed that we won't learn ninjutsu for a few years?" she asked in a low voice.

"Not really. Been practicing my clan's basic jutsu for a while, so not really. You?" Ino whispered back.

"Same. Been taught most of this year's subjects at home."

"You too huh? The life of a clan child sure is convenient, we learn most of the stuff for this year at home." Ino said with a bored expression.

Before Tomoe could reply, Mizuki spoke up as most of the kids complaining had died down, "As today is the first day, we are going to start off lightly and just explain some of the classes a bit more in-depth. However, tomorrow we won't be holding back so you better be prepared." Mizuki said with a smirk.

"Don't scare the kids too much Mizuki," Iruka chided. "As the more general classes are a bit more straightforward, we will shortly explain a bit more in-depth about what will happen in the taijutsu, ninjutsu, and genjutsu lessons. The taijutsu classes will mainly consist of three things: physical conditioning, kata practice, and sparring. The first few weeks the classes will be a mix of training your physical conditioning and learning and practicing the kata for the academy taijutsu style. Once you have all reached a sufficient understanding and have a decent grip on the kata, you will start sparring with each other to learn how to actually use the style we are teaching you. And as I said earlier, you are allowed to use clan styles or individual styles during sparring. For the ninjutsu lessons, we will initially focus on teaching you how to access and control your chakra. Then we'll focus on teaching you the use of handseals and how to use your chakra to use a jutsu. For genjutsu, we will be teaching you how genjutsu work, how to spot a genjutsu, and how to get out of a genjutsu once you do spot it after you are affected by one. We will go more in-depth once you start learning about genjutsu" Iruka finished explaining to the class.

"Any questions?" Mizuki asked.

When no one raised their hand, Iruka and Mizuki looked at each other for a moment before Iruka spoke up once more, "Ok, in that case, class dismissed. See you all tomorrow, and we look forward to witnessing your progress." And promptly left the classroom.

As soon as they were dismissed for the day, Ino rose from her seat turned to Tomoe, and said, "Nice meeting you Tomoe, I would like to stay and chat, but I have promised to help my parents, so I have to go. Talk to you later."

"Likewise, see you tomorrow then," Tomoe said with a small wave of her hand.

"Yup," Ino said as she returned the wave and left the classroom.

Tomoe got up from her seat and walked over to Sasuke who was still sitting at his table. "Wanna go home?" she asked.

Sasuke simply nodded and rose from his seat and left the classroom with Tomoe.

"So, what do you think?" Tomoe asked Sasuke as they walked home.

"So far sounds boring. Everything they're going to teach us this year we learned a long time ago," Sasuke answered.

"My thoughts exactly," Tomoe said putting her hands behind her head as they walked. "On the bright side, we're going to have no issues getting the top spots in the class," she said smirking.

"Would appear so," Sasuke said. After a brief pause, Sasuke smirked and asked, "Wanna see who does the best? Loser gets the winner's chores for a week?"

"Sounds fun, it's always fun to compete with you," Tomoe said. "And besides, seeing how many were disappointed about the ninjutsu thing, it's not like we'll have serious competition,"

"So we have a deal?"

"You're on. Just don't forget you still owe me from this morning," Tomoe teased.

"I know," Sasuke huffed.

At this Tomoe couldn't help but laugh, "Come on, there's a good teashop near our home that sells some pretty good dango." Seeing Sasuke grumble at the prospect of dango, and knowing her brother disliked sweets, Tomoe laughed even more, "Relax you're just buying, not eating it."