_._

The Story of Us

'For those who never gave up'

Naruto x OC

Friendship, Adventure, Romance

Chapter 4: Training

Life is easy, fight like Hell and you might get results.

"Colours"- Halsey

Training sucks.

Don't ever let me tell you otherwise from this moment onward. Training was murderous and exhausting. Obviously, but I had to do it.

Each morning when Naruto went to school I went to the training grounds for several hours to try and train a bit harder. The mid-day was the best time to go since others often broke for lunch and gave me a lot more room.

So I would warm up by jogging the clearing until I got tired, then yoga, meditation, and I would also review the jutsu I needed to work on.

Which, frankly, was all of them.

When it came to things like speed and accuracy, I was growing quick in those departments. However, trying to do any jutsu? Yeah it wasn't happening. It was frustrating, and I probably spent more time kicking a tree in frustration than actually trying to get the jutsu done.

It was day 7, I had 23 more before test day, and I had minimal- if any- progress to show for it.

It was going to be a long long road to success.

I decided to kick it up a notch on my physical training on day 10. Rumour has it there was a jonin in the village that was a taijutsu specialist that never needed to use ninjutsu or genjutsu. Perhaps that meant I could skip the other arts and just work on taijutsu to get in.

My criteria to enter would be based on an evaluation. All I had to do was perform at least one E-ranked jutsu- list provided- and meet a certain level of physical fitness to enter Naruto's year along with a small written exam.

But I was already completely exhausted and it had only been half an hour of trying to do a clone jutsu. It was simple, just make an image of yourself beside you. Simple, but completely beyond me. I was trying to focus my chakra, but how the heck was I supposed to do that? How was I supposed to focus this invisible thing that apparently was part of my physical and spiritual prowess?

Beyond me, that was for sure.

I think I cracked my toe kicking the tree this time.

Day 14

Running got a little bit easier. I was starting to run two laps around the clearing now, and it was progressively going better.

Still couldn't do a single jutsu.

I had more important things to deal with though, namely Naruto. He was…. Acting a bit strange. He looked a lot more sad recently, and I couldn't figure out why. Whenever I asked, he muttered under his breath about a new teacher, but would insist I didn't need to worry about him. Even though I was always worrying about him.

When I was done at the training grounds, I decided to go through the town today and take a longer walk back home. This brought me to the main shopping district. In the back of my head I wondered if I could afford new clothing someday. The ones I did have were way too big, and were starting to have holes. Naruto was on a living expense, so sometimes he did buy new clothing. I mooched off of him a lot, considering he was about the same scrawny size as me.

Going through town, I noticed a commotion in the street. Somehow it didn't surprise me that it was Naruto. He sometimes played pranks on people, albeit most of them were completely harmless. However, Naruto was on the ground and a man was standing over him looking pissed off.

"I was just looking at the masks!" Naruto shouted, but the man took another step forward. My shoulders tensed as I picked up a rock.

"I don't care! I don't want you here. You bring nothing but trouble-"

THWACK

With surprising accuracy, I managed to toss that stone to hit the inside of one of the masks. Said mask bounced off it's holder and landed on the man's head. He winced, before turning around to see what happened and stepping on said mask which had fallen to the floor. It shattered.

"Who just threw that?!" He shouted, but I was undeterred as I marched forward and offered Naruto a hand up. He looked at me, surprised, but then grinned and stood. My collar was grabbed by the mask owner who glowered at me.

"You brat! You knocked my mask over…!" His grip tightened on my shirt, I glared.

"Does it matter? A mask that breaks so easily obviously wasn't worth much." I snapped back. He lifted me off the ground, but Naruto ran forward and kicked his shin. He dropped me in favour of clutching his leg, and the two of us ran off.

Around the block we stopped, and I didn't even need to ask Naruto what had happened. He always bit the inside of his cheek when he wanted to act tough. In truth, he was probably only doing it because the shop keep had acted unfairly to him.

"Hey," he looked up at me as I spoke. "If it's a mask you want, I have one."

He paused, then grinned.

"Kari, you're the best!"

"Hmph, I know," then I frowned. "But…. Why did you need one?"

Naruto just grinned, a diabolical look on his face.

"Because I've got some classmates to scare!"

Day 15

Naruto wasn't right at all.

He came in late after his prank, and all he wanted to do was cuddle and mutter about his 'stupid sensei'. I didn't mind, Naruto was really warm, and I had a hard time keeping my temperature up at the best of times.

Morning came, neither of us made any attempt to move.

"Kari?" Naruto asked. I 'hmmed' a reply. "Why do they look at me like that?"

I hesitated, remembering the look really well. When I looked up from being curled against him, I noticed the look on his face. So I took both hands and smacked his cheeks before pulling them and stretching them each way.

"Ow! What are you doing that for, y'know?!" Naruto shouted in my ear. I winced, pulling my hands away, but I smiled.

"There, you've got fire in your eyes again." Naruto was a bit taken aback by this, but I just grinned.

"Naruto, I don't know why they look at you like that, but…. But who cares? Someday, you'll be Hokage, and you'll be someone the whole village can look up to. Isn't that your dream?" Naruto rolled onto his back, the fire dimming some.

"You….. Do you really think I can become Hokage?" Naruto asked. I was surprised, because this was the first time Naruto actually asked me what I thought on it. I poked him, smiling again.

"I think, one day….. you're going to become someone very special to everyone else." I said confidently. He glanced at me from the corner of his eye.

"What about to you?" He asked, hesitation in his voice. I shrugged.

"Well, you're already the most important person in the world to me, so," I held out my pinky to him. "Let's make a promise. I promise to always be your best friend if you promise to never give up on becoming Hokage."

Naruto finally gave a smile before hooking his pinky with my own.

"You better believe it!"

Day 20

I think I'm dying.

Oh no wait, that's just the trauma.

Training was getting frustrating. Keeping it a secret from Naruto was even more frustrating. I spent more and more time out in the training grounds trying to get that stupid clone jutsu right. So far absolutely nothing I did came close to becoming a clone. I was about ready to start slamming my head into the tree now.

"What did the tree ever do to you?"

I jumped in the air before trying to locate the source of that voice.

"Up here."

I looked up and found on a higher branch someone sitting. He had a book in hand and seemed to be relaxing up in the same tree I had been slamming my head into earlier. What was worse, I recognized him as the man from the cemetery earlier this month. My face turned beat red when I realized he had likely been there while I was crying about the pain in my legs too.

"Uh…. H-Hi there…. Um…. Nice weather we're having?"

Smooth Hikari….. Real smooth.

The guy shut his book and rolled out of the tree. He landed quite gracefully next to me while looking down to my much shorter frame.

"You come out here quite a lot, it's getting harder to read when you're yelling at the tree. I must also stress, young ladies shouldn't be saying even half the words I've heard." The man said, making me turn purple.

"How-How many times have you been there?" I was scared of the answer. The man turned to start walking away.

"Oh, half a dozen or so, I'm not sure," he said with such nonchalance I turned pale. However, the man stopped and looked at me. "Y'know, if you stopped trying so hard to make the clone, it might come easier."

I took note immediately, seeing as this guy was a ninja and obviously more skilled than myself.

"What do you mean?" I asked, eyes fixated on him for more details. The man made several hand signs before executing a perfect clone jutsu. I took note of the hand-signs, but there was something else to note. I could feel a weird sensation when he did the jutsu, sort of like where Naruto would practice the clone jutsu.

Frankly, I'd never seen it done properly before, so seeing it now made me look at him in awe.

"You keep trying to pour all of your chakra into the jutsu. Think of it instead as compartmentalizing the exact amount of chakra needed. The hand-signs will allow you to focus your chakra nature, and the rest should come naturally. This is a basic technique…. I'm sure you could figure it out in three days." He allowed his clone to vanish before turning and walking off. I cottoned on to the last statement after trying to keep up with all that information and felt a surge of excitement.

"Of course I can! I'll show you in three days!" He didn't reply, but he did give a short wave. The moment he was out of sight, however, I realized exactly what I had gotten myself into.

"Okay, I better start right away." I said, sitting down on the grass.

So, I needed to compartmentalize my chakra instead of just pouring it into the jutsu. Was a bit hard, considering I couldn't get a feel for my own-

Wait a minute…. There it was! I could feel the gentle flame pooling in my belly. Why didn't I sense that earlier? Perhaps it was my own lack of self-awareness. Either way, it didn't matter, I had found it, and now I needed to do the hard part.

First, learning to separate that amount of chakra into my jutsu.

Second, learning how much chakra that was for the jutsu.

It made sense why even if I threw myself into the jutsu I wouldn't get a proper execution. Just because I throw more water into the broth doesn't mean I'll have more delicious soup, it just means I'll have water-downed broth. There was a balance, and I needed to learn that first.

After several attempts and failures, I realized this was going to be a long, long, long three days.

Day 23

Three days later, I was about done with this jutsu, when I finally, finally had my breakthrough.

It finally came to me by guessing how much chakra was needed for the jutsu when I finally made a clone. She was sitting next to me on the grass. I scared myself so badly that I broke the jutsu immediately before I cottoned on to my success. This made me so excited that I had to calm myself down before I was able to do the jutsu right.

"Oh, so you finally did it." I turned to see the same man from before walking up to me, turning a page of his book. From here all I could see was 'Make Out Paradise'.

"Yeah! See I told you I could do it!" I said, feeling smug that I did it essentially on my own. The man glanced up from his book, his eye seemed to be smiling at me.

"Well, I gave you three days, but honestly I expected you to do it in two." He said in a jovial tone that threw me for a loop.

Well, that sure knocked me down a peg.

"However, that was a pretty solid clone. For someone with no prior experience as a ninja, that was a pretty good first try. Good job." He said while flipping through his book.

I felt like beaming at that, and couldn't help a smile slipping onto my face. The man glanced up at me then, and I automatically felt my back straighten.

"Well, now that you've learned the clone jutsu, what's next?"

"Oh, well, I want to learn the rope escape technique, then the transformation jutsu, and the substitution jutsu." I said, counting the jutsu on my hand. Three jutsu I wanted to learn now. The man tilted his head at me.

"Well, you know how to do them. I wonder how long it will take you to learn the rest." He began to walk away, but I ran in front of him. He glanced away from his book and down at me.

"I want to make a bet! If I can learn these jutsu in the next week, you gotta teach me something else!"

Completely unfounded, and probably ridiculous, but the man definitely had more talent than me, and if I had a teacher then I could excel much faster at becoming a ninja. Naruto could get a teacher too. We could fulfill his dream of becoming Hokage a heck of a lot easier with someone training us rather than bumbling through it all on our own.

The man looked down at me, seeming to regard me differently for a second, and smiled.

"You have yourself a deal."

Day 28

I was officially worried about Naruto.

Last week he claimed he wasn't going back to the academy, now he was coming home at weird hours and all he wanted was to cuddle and eat food. No complaints on my part, but I was getting sick and tired of picking up his garbage.

Finally, I cracked, and poked his face until he got up and cleaned the house like he was supposed to. Surprisingly he didn't need a ton of motivation. I had expected a complaint about it being his house, but there was none.

My exam was in two days, but it was all going to be for nothing if Naruto didn't go back to class. How was I supposed to broach the subject without making it obvious? I didn't know, and frankly, I was banking on telling him after I succeeded. I didn't want to tell him yet though, on the off chance I failed my entrance exam. Getting him all excited would be a bit pointless.

So I said nothing, and I continued my training in private. On top of my regular training I also trained with Naruto, though he was much less interested in becoming a ninja suddenly.

"What do you mean you don't want to train?" I asked, frowning while Naruto leaned against a tree. He shrugged, looking every bit the nonchalant brat everyone thought he was.

"Don't really care. What's the point?" He said, dismissing the idea of training immediately. My brows furrowed deeper as I tried to figure out this strange concept. Naruto and training went hand in hand, but suddenly they didn't matter?

"How are you going to become Hokage if you don't train?" I asked. He flinched, but looked away.

"So what? Nobody cares anyway Hikari."

Oh that little…..!

I clocked him a good one on his head.

"Ow! What is with you and hitting me lately?!" Naruto snapped. I glared, making him back up a few inches.

"Nobody cares?! I care you stupid boy! You promised me, that as long as we're best friends you're going to become Hokage, right? Did that mean nothing to you?" Naruto was roused slightly by that as he stood up.

"Uh, no it meant a lot! Seriously Kari, it did!" Naruto put his hands in front of himself to prepare for another blow, but I just pointed to the side of the clearing.

"Double the amount of laps for that attitude! Let's go!" I said while charging at him. He ran away, doing these laps around the clearing as I demanded, but it was only after lap two that I realized I had also done this to myself since I had to run them too.

Well, guess I'll be pretty fit by the end of this.

Day 30

It was finally here, my entrance exam. I was to come to the Academy and go into classroom 1-A for it. A basic written test and a practical test would be given to me, and based on my scores I would either pass or fail.

I arrived a bit early, and was told to wait out in the hallway for my exam. It was while I was there that I saw a group of kids leave class early. A few looked at me, but most didn't bother to glance my way. I did noticed Choji and Shikamaru amongst them though and called them out.

"Oh, hey, Hikari right?" Choji said. I nodded, standing up from leaning against the wall.

"Yup, what's going on?" I asked, noticing the students loitering a bit in the halls. Shikamaru scoffed.

"Naruto ran into the back hills looking for bodies. Hibachi over there told him to get something from them." Shikamaru said while gesturing to a group of boys. The one called Hibachi scoffed.

"Yeah, and it would've been great if you hadn't said something, Nara!" I frowned, looking between the two groups.

"I don't understand…. Why do you have a free period because of Naruto going back there?" I had been the the fields myself a few times. Naruto liked playing among the traps, and joked with me sometimes by 'accidentally' setting them off to spook me.

I didn't like it back there much.

"Because there was apparently a fight or something, and the enemy ninja might still be there." Shikamaru said, but before I could openly gawk at his nonchalance Hibachi spoke again.

"Well I say good riddance!"

I froze.

"You should've seen his face when I told him he could be our friend! It was priceless!"

I turned to Hibachi and slowly stalked up to him. He noticed me and glared. My arm felt like it was burning as I sensed a build up of chakra in my system.

"What? You got something to say midget? Don't tell me you-"

Poor brat never saw it coming.

I kicked him in the crotch, hard. Then when he was bent over I gave one hell of an upper cut to his face. The kid called Hibachi was out cold on the ground.

Everyone stopped what they were doing in the hall.

"For your sake," I said while glaring at the two friends of his. They backed up a step, "he better be unharmed."

The door to class 1-A opened just as I was beginning to rush down the hall.

"Hikari, your test is ready." A woman called out to me. I ran past several students who all gave me a wide berth thanks to my earlier display. I skidded to a halt at the end of the hall.

"I don't have time for some stupid test!" I yelled before taking off out the door.

The back hills were not a place I liked, as mentioned above. However, on the rare occasion I had been back here, I had thankfully learned most locations of traps. So I knew exactly where to avoid.

My main objective was to find Naruto as fast as I could, and the easiest way was to figure out where the battle had been. He was looking for bodies after all.

So imagine my surprise when Naruto came running my way….. followed by three other ninja.

From this distance I couldn't make out the headband, but they were definitely not friends. I wasn't dumb enough to jump into the line of battle and sacrifice myself, but I had to help Naruto somehow…

An idea formed in my head as I ducked into one of the bushes and waited for the perfect moment as the blond rounded said bush I hid behind. Right as he did I grabbed his shirt and yanked him behind with me. He fell back against me, and to be safe, I clasped a hand on his mouth to keep him from talking while the enemy landed on the other side of the bushes. We sat silently, waiting for any cue that the enemy had left.

We heard them move away.

I took a breath, before Naruto motioned for me to follow him. We snuck through the underbrush for several minutes in complete silence as we tried to get back to the village.

Shuriken whizzed by us, one scratching my cheek. I flung a hand up in pain before Naruto yanked me behind a tree.

That was way too close!

A ninja appeared next to me, and all I could register was a blade coming near my face before I braced to be hit.

The blow never came though, instead a ninja wearing a leaf village headband grabbed us both and carried us off. Just in time too as another ninja attacked the spot we had been.

"Iruka-sensei!" Naruto shouted, flailing a bit in Iruka's other arm as we were both carried off. He wasn't fast enough though, as a huge barrage of shuriken came at us. There was no way he was going to dodge all of that, he wasn't fast enough!

Focus Hikari! Compartmentalize your chakra, now use your hand-signs to mold it. Ram…. Snake…. Tiger…. Yes!

"Clone Jutsu!"

Three Hikari's grasped themselves together to make a protective wall behind Iruka. They took the brunt of the attack before vanishing. I felt extremely dizzy after that, and a bit stunned when an explosion later went off behind us. Iruka didn't stop, eventually putting both Naruto and I on the ground. I toppled to my butt, Naruto staggering to kneel next to me.

"Kari! What are you doing back here?" Naruto sounded tired from whatever adventure he had been on before I arrived. With the last of my strength, I focused a glare at him. Naruto immediately flung back and put up his hands, but that stilled my anger slightly. I had been hitting him too much again, and never once had he fought back.

Instead, I crawled over and gave him a hug.

"Idiot! I thought you were going to die!" I cried, Naruto clasped his hands around me.

"I-I'm sorry, Kari." He said, holding me tighter. I pulled away, wiping my tears up.

"Why would you go out there anyway?" I asked, sitting down on my folded legs. Naruto paused, then had the decency to look a bit embarrassed.

"I…. I thought maybe…. The others might start becoming my friend. And then you can have more friends to Kari, and we don't have to be alone." He confessed. I wanted to hit him for being stupid, but instead did a slow motion karate chop to his head. The blow was soft, barely a tap.

"Dummy, I'd rather be alone forever than have friends like those. Besides," I mussed his head, "you're such a handful, I'm already run off my feet with just you."

Naruto turned pink, his tiny hands balled into fists.

"Kari! You aren't exactly easy to handle either!" Naruto countered. I giggled, he wasn't wrong. We both had our bad habits, but they seemed to balance each other's out well enough.

"Hate the break up the party, but we should probably get going back."

It was only then that I realized two people were standing a few meters away from us. I turned to see the one called Iruka, and the man from the cemetery and training grounds. I was about to comment on the fact that I had run out of time on my jutsu, when it dawned on me that I had left the academy during my exam.

My face paled, there was absolutely no chance I would get back in time.

"Kari? You okay?" Naruto asked. I turned to look at him, before hanging my head.

"I missed my exam." I whined.

"What exam?" Naruto asked.

"I was taking the modified entrance exam to get into the academy. I… I was applying to become a kunoichi." I confessed. Naruto grabbed my shoulders and gently shook me.

"Kari! Seriously?! You're going to become a ninja with me?!" He was beaming, but I couldn't cut the frown from my lips.

"I missed my exam Naruto." I said, hanging my head once more.

"Well, I suppose I could help with that," I looked up to see Iruka smiling down at me. "I'm a teacher at the academy, and considering you managed to escape three chuunin level ninja and performed the clone jutsu, I think you're set to enter the year with Naruto."

It almost seemed surreal, to have something given to me instead of having to fight for it. I didn't know what to do with myself for a moment, before the situation caught up with me and all I could do with grinned and hug Naruto and cheer. The other man too thought it was amusing as he smiled back at me when I looked to his one visible eye.

After getting the scolding of a lifetime from Iruka-sensei I visited my parent's grave again, and told them my plans for the future. The day was ending, but I couldn't find it in myself to move from the spot.

"You have a bad habit for staying out late." I heard from behind me. The masked man from before came up to beside me, and stared at my parents headstone.

"I wanted to let them know what my plans are. They should know." I said gently, kneeling down in front of the stone to brush a hand across their names.

"I suppose I'm one to talk, I come here a lot more than you." He said, stepping around the headstone to visit the one in front of theirs. I stood up, wanting to talk more to the man. However the look in his eye….. he looked lost and alone. I didn't know what to do, so I gave a short bow and made to leave.

"Did you manage to learn those jutsu?" He called offhandedly. I paused, then turned to look back at him. He was still staring at the headstone with his back to me. I hesitated, but then smiled.

"Sort of, they're not perfect…. But I did them." I said. There was quiet for a moment while I plucked up the courage. "If you don't mind me asking….. What's your name? My name is Hikari."

He glanced at me then.

"Kakashi Hatake….. What is your sir name?" He asked abruptly. It caught me off guard, but I managed to keep my composure.

"Well….. I don't have one." I confessed. He looked at me more, turning his body slightly. It was silent as he waited for me to continue. "I was an orphan during the Nine-tails attack on Konoha. I was only given a first name by one of the staff members at the orphanage."

Kakashi glanced down at my parent's tombstones in silent question. I filled him in.

"Oh they weren't my birth parents, they adopted me a few years ago…. But I….." I remembered back to the closed knit group of friends they had, how I hadn't once been reached out to from any of them regardless of my parent's obvious wishes "I'm not really counted as a Sota. So I decided it wasn't really my last name."

Kakashi was quiet as he regarded me again, then without a word, he slowly turned back to look at the grave in front of him. I stood there for another moment silently, wondering what he was thinking, before he spoke.

"I'm sure you'll find a suitable name. One you can belong to." Kakashi looked at me, and while I got the feeling he was smiling, I could also see the deep sadness in his eyes. This was a man who had lost a lot more than I could fathom. I felt an instant respect for the seemingly aloof and gentle man.

"I….. I will, I know I will." I couldn't ignore the swell in my heart when I said that.

It was hope.

Hey guys!

I started writing this chapter thinking it would be too short... it's my longest chapter to date!

Thank you all for reading! Hikari is officially an Academy student! Don't worry, I'll be covering her first impression, and Hikari will be getting her own place officially! I'm pretty excited, and thought y'all should know the Academy years are going to be about 5 more chapters, then comes Naruo Part one, which should be 20 ish chapters, then the time skip period of 10 chapters, then Shipuuden should be 30 something chapters...It's a lot. I initially wanted 15 academy year chapters, but realized a lot of it can just be put into longer chapters. Same content, just few chapters.

This story is already gearing up to be ridiculously long with several arcs and 3 major arcs. I'm already exhausted thinking about it. I am curious what you guys think of it, since my view count is at 60 for the last chapter post. Ah, well, I guess i'm just winging it. I really enjoy writing Hikari anyways, so I'm not going to rely on reviews, but I will be blunt, if nobody reviews this and I suddenly get a lot of reviews on another series I'm doing i will put that other one as a priority.

Anyway, hope you're all doing well! Wash your hands, and stay safe!

Iland Girl