Notes:

I thought I would get two chapters out this week but I probably won't. I ended up mostly just taking the break, but I will try to upload this one on Sunday, we'll see.

—-

Today was my birthday. Before today, any of my birthday celebrations were limited to just my family. Today was the first time where I would invite friends, also it would be my first birthday that Izumi would witness, considering she'd just been born recently. I was pretty excited for today.

I told Gai and Hayate that they didn't have to bother bringing me any presents, but Gai insisted, saying how it was "nonsense" to not bring a gift and that he could never "mock a celebration of one's Youth". Hayate also insisted on bringing a gift, though it probably had to do with the fact that we weren't friends for too long and he felt bad for appearing empty-handed.

Before the birthday party, we had go attend our academy classes and then go train. Today was the first day of bukijutsu class, which is basically weapons class. We didn't have anything too special, nothing like learning kenjutsu or how to use ninja wire.

According to the academy curriculum, we only had to have a grasp on using kunai and shuriken. Further weapons training would only be done in our free times and after graduation.

My parents had already taught me the basics of using kunai, like how to properly wield it and basic technique for throwing, but it wasn't something that we focused on. On top of that, I had no experience in shurikenjutsu at all.

I may have been very solid in chakra control and taijutsu for my age, but my bukijutsu was on the level of the civilian-born children who hadn't had any practice for it.

The academy graduation ceremony wasn't always the same. That's what I theorized, at least. Naruto tried to graduate and failed, andon the third time, he was surprised to hear that the graduation test was using the clone jutsu, meaning that the graduation test could be anything and may very well be a test on our shurikenjutsu or something.

I was pretty sure that the Academy 3 weren't necessarily requirements to graduate either, especially since Rock Lee would go on to graduate without being able to do the substitution, clone or transformation jutsus.

We went outside of the academy for this lesson, close to our sparring area from before. Hayashi-sensei gave us wooden shuriken and kunai. "Everyone! I'm giving you all some practice shuriken and kunai. I will show you a presentation of proper throwing form for each weapon, then you will all be given time to practice before throwing them at those targets." he explained to his whining students, pointing to the targets. The targets looked the same as the ones in the anime

Most of the students weren't very happy about being given "lame and childish" weapons, but I was thankful that Hayashi-sensei felt hesitant about giving a group of impatient 6 and 7 year olds real weapons.

I wasn't complaining about using practice weapons. I probably needed to practice. I think that my only advantage was that practice in hand seals meant that I had fairly good hand-eye coordination.

Hayate shoulder-bumped me. I turned to him to see his face with a slight mischievous grin painted over it. "I bet I could hit the bull's eye more than you, birthday boy." He flashed a smirk at me. He was probably trained in more than just kenjutsu at home, considering his confidence.

But I wasn't gonna have it, though. I didn't have much practice with shuriken, but damn it, I couldn't refuse a bet. "What's on the table?" I whispered to him, eying everyone else. I looked like the world's youngest drug dealer, hiding some kind of deal from those around me.

"The loser buys the winner some dango. Deal?" he told me with an air of supremacy. He was so on. I didn't have much practice, but I noticed that even without the sharingan, my eyesight was really good. It was probably an Uchiha thing. I could see much farther than in my fast life, and also I had an easier time with hand-eye coordination and spotting things like openings.

I bet I could bullshit a victory out of this, I thought. "You're on!" I told him with a nasty smile.

—-

I was wrong. About a possible victory, that is. Maybe the Uchiha side took over with some kind of clan kid arrogance, but damn, my accuracy in throwing was not that much better than in my first life. Where it was terrible.

It was true that I had greater eyesight and hand-eye coordination than before, but it really looked like my accuracy would need a lot of work. I wasn't some sort of idiot who would think that I could survive in the shinobi world with restricted use of shuriken and kunai.

Utterly missing the bull's eye for the final time and with only about 6 of my 10 projectiles actually hitting the target, my head fell in embarrassment. Even many of the civilian kids were better than me.

Hayate looked downright evil at that moment, wearing a shit-eating grin looking as if he'd just found a $100 bill on the road. Damn it, I got in over my head. Hayate stepped up next and he hit the target with every throw, landing 6 bull's eyes.

I took some time to wallow in my misery at the unnecessary expense, Hayate mockingly apologized to me for winning.

I was a bit below average in shuriken throwing. My kunai throwing was better. It was where I hit 4 of the 6 times on the target, which I'd say was about average… for the civilian-born students.

All of the clan kids always at least hit the target, Uchiha Shodo and Hyuuga were the best out of them, hitting 8 and 10 bull's eyes respectively. Anko was also surprisingly good, too. It was surprising to see the level of skill that some people possessed already. Spoiled clan kids, I tell you.

Hayashi-sensei then told us that he recommended us to have a success rate of at least 85% rate for hitting a bull's eye on the target before becoming a genin. It made sense to me, missing vitals could cost lives on the field.

Since our bukijutsu class was the last class of the day, much like our sparring and taijutsu class, I left the classroom with Hayate tailing behind me.

"So.. listen, Hayate. Gai is a good person and he's really strong, but expect him to be a little …eccentric…" I informed Hayate hesitantly, sweat drops beading on my temple. "He takes training very seriously. He won't let you stop until you really can't go on."

Honestly I think Hayate was lucky that we would finish up training earlier today to go to my house. He wasn't in any danger, knowing Gai, but the first few sessions of training were really tough on me.

Hayate smirked at me, "He can't be that ba-" he told me before being cut short by the son of the eternal genin running towards us. "HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAISUKE-KUN!" he shouted while running towards me, arms ready to tackle me in a hug. I braced my lower body for what would be an excessively powerful hug.

I made an "oof" sound in response to the air being pushed out of me. Gai patted me on the back, tears running down his eyes and giving me an earful about Youth and congratulations.

"T-thanks, Gai… Can we head off to training now?" I told him with a bit of humoring smile. "Ah, sorry, Daisuke-kun! It seems that I got too excited!" Gai said before finally noticing the bewildered Hayate. "Who is this youthful boy?"

"A-ah. Nice to meet you, my name is Hayate. Daisuke said that I could train with the two of you." said Hayate. He looked like he may be regretting his decision, but he wouldn't be let off now that Gai knew he would train with us.

Stars filled Gai's eyes as he thrust his arm forward in a handshake. "Yosh! Another person to join us, you say?! With this, we can grow our Youth to greater heights than before!" he announced in excitement.

We'd made somewhat of a scene, so I tried to hurry Gai up a bit. I didn't necessarily care what a bunch of random people thought of me, but it was still embarrassing in the moment.

The place where Gai and I had been training changed from a playground a long time ago. There were plenty of training grounds around Konoha for shinobi to use, though civilians weren't allowed to use them. Thankfully, there were designated training grounds for people like civilians and academy students - they weren't as big, but for two 6 year olds and a 10 year old, it was more than enough.

Gai immediately got us started on our normal routine. The routine changed as I started diversifying my training more, it turned into a schedule where we would start by making laps, then we would begin strength training. Like we did before, I guess, but we started giving ourselves a more free-range training period to work on our own skills.

I normally took this time to practice my skills, like tree-walking, hand seals, elemental manipulation (to a lesser extent) and as of now shurikenjutsu. Gai believed that it was best to spar while we were already drained, so we always sparred with each other at the end of our training.

Overall, it took anywhere between 4 and 6 hours, which is why we always ate a fairly hefty lunch before training. We would cut it to only 3 hours this time, since it was my birthday today.

—-

I thought that Hayate was actually doing pretty well. He obviously had some kind of training regimen before, though he didn't look like he was enjoying himself starting about halfway through our laps.

"This… sucks.." Hayate muttered after we finally finished our laps. This time they were half as long as how we would usually do them to save some time, so me and Gai weren't really tired, just a little winded.

"This is an important part of being a shinobi." I shrugged, giving him a pat on the back. "If you can't do at least this much, then how will you deal with missions as a genin?" I sarcastically asked.

"Daisuke-kun is right! A lack of endurance will not do you well! It looks like we will have to work extra hard on your endurance so you catch up quickly, Hayate-kun!" Gai told Hayate innocently, supporting my point. Hayate looked betrayed but still nodded in agreement.

"Okay, what's next?" Hayate asked Gai and I. We discussed how we would train today already.

"Normally we would do strength training for a few hours, but we only have two hours left before we have to go home." I hummed thoughtfully, "Gai and I decided that we would work on only explosive strength today, since it's less time-consuming. After that we'll work on our own skills and move on to sparring."

Gai's Strong Fist style of taijutsu relied on a high degree of explosive movement, so it was something we worked on a lot. It would probably also benefit Hayate's kenjutsu significantly. The speed I had from doing sprints and jumping squats with Gai was enough to make Hyuuga Momoku have some respect for me.

The rest of the training was marginally easier for Hayate. While his endurance was a bit lacking for our standards, he was actually pretty strong and didn't have much problem keeping up in strength training. Keeping up with me, that is… Gai was a monster for his age.

After that, sparring started. After some convincing, Gai agreed to allow Hayate to spar with me first. I wanted to spar with Hayate before he or I would get more tired from sparring with Gai.

"Any rules?" Hayate asked me, taking the bag he brought with him. "Yeah. No explicitly fatal strikes, like in the neck or back of the head." I replied, looking at his bag curiously. Ah, that must be where he packed his bokken.

Hayate took out his bokken and went into a kenjutsu stance, the Gekko family kenjutsu style. I took on the stance of my taijutsu style, which I hadn't named yet.

Fighting Hayate would be difficult. He had a range advantage, and it would also be harder to counter attacks from his bokken while I was still unfamiliar with it. This meant that I would probably have to get very close to him to get the advantage.

Narrowing my eyes, I shot at Hayate after Gai shouted "GO!" from a distance. I tried to slide through his guard on his left but fell short as he saw it coming and backed away, swinging his bokken when I was trying to get to.

I narrowly dodged the swing by maneuvering my slide into a roll, quickly getting up and backing off before Hayate could hit me from behind.

I would need to be less predictable. This time I slowly approached Hayate, trying to be more careful. I managed to avoid a few swings of Hayate's bokken as I slowly got closer. He got impatient and stepped in, swinging his bokken in a diagonal cross from his right.

I managed to parry it off of my left arm, leaving that arm tingly and a bit numb from the force. I punched at his solar plexus, Hayate narrowly dodging by jumping off.

Following him with my slightly superior speed, I sidestepped to his side and aimed a punch with my right at his head. He moved his bokken to block the blow but I stopped midway, kicking his arms with a jumping kick from my left leg and knocking the bokken away.

Hayate was disarmed and a bit dazed at what I'd done, so I took the opportunity and used the momentum from my kick to step in and elbow his side as hard as I could. I stopped my fist from hitting his chin in what would be a devastating uppercut after he dropped his head in pain.

Hayate put his hands up in a pained smile and gave up the spar. "Jeez, that was vicious…" he said, voice shaky from adrenaline. "I had to be aggressive to get past that bokken." I responded, thinking of advice to give him. "You need to keep me from getting close, but you should also work on offense. Your swings felt too linear"

"I know! I'm working on a special technique, but it feels like something's missing." Hayate huffed in annoyance. It looks like he had a similar problem to me when it came to offense. Gai came rushing at us at inhuman speeds.

"That was an amazing spar, Hayate-kun, Daisuke-kun! How youthful! Who would like to spar with me first, now?" Gai asked, praising us for a spar. He looked to be more interested in sparring with Hayate, judging by his pointed look at him. Gai was… passionate about anything training-related. He would get more experience out of sparring with someone new.

As soon as Hayate opened his mouth to refuse, Gai dragged him to go sparring. "Yosh, let's do this!" he exclaimed, cheering. I could only look on in pity as Hayate held his hand out, giving me a helpless look while Gai took him away. Ah… I, too, remember trying to get out of a spar with Gai. It never ended well.

He'd have to get used to this - if he wants to continue training with us, that is.

The spar between Hayate and Gai went much the same way as mine, except that Gai outperforms me in taijutsu so he actually lost faster. Hayate did make a greater effort towards offense at the start, but that was before Gai got serious and started overpowering him with sheer strength and speed. To be fair to Hayate, he did a good job defending for as long as he did.

Not only was Gai older than the two of us, but he'd also been steadily getting better as time went on. He was probably pretty strong even in genin standards when it came to taijutsu. I didn't think that he got so good from sparring with just me, though.

After the pumped up Gai and beaten up Hayate came to me after their spar, it was time to head to my house for my birthday party. We were all pretty tired. Hayate looked downright exhausted.

"I've never asked this, but Gai, do you train with anyone else?" I questioned him, glancing at his cheerful face. I guess I wanted to know if he had any special training or not, considering his skill in taijutsu.

"Yes, Daisuke-kun, I do actually train with someone else. I have an eternal rival with whom I compete with regularly!" he clarified excitedly. He had a lightbulb moment mid speech. "Ah, I should bring you to one of our competitions!"

His eternal rival… Oh, Kakashi? I didn't know he'd already been challenging Kakashi at this age. He was probably pushing himself to be able to compete with that genius. If I remember correctly, Kakashi had already become a genin by age 6.

"I look forward to meeting this rival, then!" I told Gai, expressing my interest. He got excited by my agreement and went on about a youthful meeting between his rival and friend.

—-

Eventually we reached my home. Hayate looked happy enough to sit down after all the exercise we'd just done. I opened the door, giving the typical "I'm home!" yell before stepping in with my two friends.

My two soon-to-be shinobi friends bowed at kaa-san as she came to greet us. Hayate looked a bit nervous.

"Welcome home, Daisuke-chan! It's nice to see you Gai-kun, and…?" kaa-san asked Hayate for his name. "I'm Gekko Hayate, Uchiha-san." he responded politely, smiling nervously. Kaa-san gave him a welcoming smile, "It's nice to meet you, Hayate-kun. Why won't you boys sit down?"

Entering the living room, I saw that my mom went all out with decorations. There was a big sign saying "Happy birthday, Daisuke!" with balloons floating around. The smell of wonderful home cooked food hit all of us. My mouth started watering.

"You boys must be hungry! How about you sit down at the table while I get you all some food?" kaa-san suggested to us. She was already putting on an apron, knowing we wouldn't refuse.

"Your mom's nice." Hayate commented, the prospect of food curing him of his earlier fatigue. I nodded back. Kaa-san was the best second mom I could have ever had.

Tou-san came in carrying Izumi after that. I think she'd just woken up from a nap. "Hey, kiddo. Training was good?" he asked, making normal parental small talk. I nodded to him, then looked at Izumi. She still looked drowsy from waking up.

"Gai, Hayate, meet tou-san and my sister Izumi. I guess you've already met tou-san, Gai." I told them, looking between my family and my friends. My friends gave my dad a handshake in greeting.

"Good morning. Sleep well?" I whispered to Izumi after I'd gotten tou-san to let me carry her. She blinked at me tiredly. She was just so cute. I kissed her on the forehead before propping her up so she'd sit straight. "Try to wake up, okay? It's my birthday!" I told her with mock offense.

My friends looked at me weirdly. "What was that, Daisuke-kun?" Gai asked me with a confused look. Hayate had a confused look too, he also looked curious. Tou-san looked to be paying attention to what I would have to say as well.

Well, I wasn't sure what to say. Usually kaa-san or tou-san didn't question anything so I didn't expect my friends to either.

Should I tell them the truth? What if they didn't like what they hear? What if they thought I was weird? What if tou-san or kaa-san thought badly of me? I was scared to say something about it.

Sweat forming all over my face and forehead, I gave them a shabby excuse. "A-ah! Well it's just gibberish that I say to Izumi, that's all! I explained, nervously smiling. Hayate and tou-san didn't look like they bought it, but didn't ask anything else. Gai took my answer at face value.

I still wanted to tell them about where I'd come from, but I didn't know and most of all feared how they might react to that information. Thankfully kaa-san obliviously came with our food to break the silence.

The rest of my birthday party was a lot of fun. After we ate, my parents got to know Hayate and Gai. Izumi seemed to like them as well. We ate the cake kaa-san made for me - some kind of Japanese variation of sponge cake. She topped it with a similar syrup that dango is coated in, which was amazing. The only thing missing was a "Happy birthday to you" song, which was sadly missing in a world without English.

We got around to opening the presents, which included Hayate and Gai. After opening some of the first few presents, which were generic, yet appreciated clothes from kaa-san and some books from tou-san, I got to the last 3 gifts.

Looking over presents, I could tell they were special gifts based on their wrapping. I grabbed the one made by Gai that had "From Maito Gai" written on it in poor handwriting. It was heavy. "I'll open this one first." I said to my parents' and friends expectant eyes.

Gai perked up, "Happy Birthday, Daisuke-kun! I sincerely hope that you will enjoy my gift!" the eccentric boy shouted hopefully at me. I unwrapped the gift and found training weights similar to the ones I remembered Lee wore. "You have been getting stronger, Daisuke-kun! Soon you will be strong enough to train with weights, just like me! You can adjust their weight with chakra, too!" he told me, explaining his gift. He looked ecstatic to be giving me it.

Very practical, I thought. This was really good. I didn't think I could wear the weights just yet, I didn't want to hurt myself yet, but it would prove very useful in the future. Didn't know Gai was already using these. "Thanks, Gai. I look forward to be using these soon enough." I said with my voice full of gratitude.

I chose Hayate's gift, which had a shape I couldn't discern yet. Sending him a glance, he nodded at me to tell me to open it. Opening the gift, it looked to be a shinobi's pouch. "I noticed that you didn't bring any shinobi gear to the academy, so I decided to get you a pouch." the kenjutsu novice stated before pausing, "Also, there are shuriken in there to practice with. I noticed you use wooden practice shuriken. Happy birthday."

"Thanks, Hayate. I appreciate it." I told him. He looked nervous, as if wondering if I liked it. This was actually really useful, I didn't have a pouch yet, nor did I have any shuriken. It would be better to train with metal ones to get used to their weight.

The last gift was from both kaa-san and tou-san, evident by the tag attached to their gift. "We actually wrapped two gifts into one!" kaa-san let me know in advance. Uh, okay?

Opening the gift(s), I found a scroll and a set of clothing. Shinobi clothes? "We got you shinobi clothes, kiddo. We don't want you going to the academy in civilian clothing forever, don't we?" tou-san said, slightly smiling. The whole set of clothes included sandals, dark blue pants, a belt, a mesh shirt and a black t-shirt to go over the mesh shirt. They honestly looked kinda cool… were my parents paying attention to what I liked?

"Come on, Daisuke-chan! Look at the scroll already!" kaa-san rushed me impatiently. I sighed, reading the text on the scroll. Fire Style? "For your birthday, I'm gonna teach you the Fireball Jutsu! It's an Uchiha tradition." Kaa-san had a nostalgic look in her eyes as she smiled at me gently.

I figured that I was too young, but kaa-san thought I could do it, so I trusted her. To be fair, both Sasuke and Itachi managed to do this jutsu at young ages, right? I could manage. Kaa-san had to rain on my parade, by telling me that she would only teach me after reaching the second year of the Academy.

The scroll apparently contained general instructions on the Fire Style nature transformation and didn't have any information on the Fireball Jutsu, Kaa-san would teach it to me as some kind of Uchiha rite of passage, I guess.

"Thank you so much, all of you! All of these gifts are amazing!" I assured everybody with joy in my tone. "I'm glad you enjoy our gifts, Daisuke-kun!" Gai said, smiling and giving a thumbs up. "It's the least I could do." Hayate said politely, looking away.

"I'm glad you enjoy your kaa-chan's gifts! I thought you may have had more friends by now, though! When I was your age, I had thiiiis many friends!" kaa-san taunted me, showing just how many friends she had by spreading her hands as far as she could. "Jeez, kaa-chan… Does it really matter?" I muttered with false embarrassment.

After celebrating some more, we eventually sent Gai and Hayate off when I would have to go to sleep.

—-

A few months had passed since my 6th birthday. Actually, the second year of the academy was gonna start soon. It was August. The first year in the academy had taught me a lot and brought me a friend, so I was satisfied with it. Also, Izumi had just turned into a 1 year old. Her first words were "tou-chan", as expected.

My body had gotten a bit stronger, my chakra control was better, I had a better grasp over all of the skills I'd set out to learn, except that I was still lacking some skill in offense. Importantly, my chakra reserves were starting to grow quickly. The results of my physical training were beginning to bear fruit.

Coming home from training one day, both tou-san and kaa-san were wearing gloomy expressions. They told me over the dinner table that a war had begun. The Third Great Shinobi War.

—-

That's the end of that chapter. It was a little bit rushed because I wanted to upload it on Monday morning (like 3 am lol). I had 1 or 2 more scenes to put here but to be honest I just wanted to go to sleep. The next chapter should be longer, especially since a lot is happening with the war.

Also, I'm not amazing at writing slice of life, so tell me if the birthday scenes lacked anything or felt repetitive or anything.

Also #2, I forgot to google Izumi's birthday before I chose it, but this AU version of Izumi is born on August 5th and Daisuke's birthday is on March 17th.