Sizuki Ruma rubbed his hands on his pants. It would be his first year as the main teacher, and no matter how much he reminded himself of his stellar performance reviews, of how hard he'd studied to be where he was…

He never quite managed to rid himself of the feeling that he didn't belong, that he was an imposter.

Born in a literal no-name village in Fire, his parents had moved him and his two brothers to the Hidden Village after two years of crop shortages left them with no other choice. They'd worked night and day in dead-end jobs when he was a child, trying to support them, and the Academy was free—it would teach their children to read, and do math, and get a stable job.

(His mother still cried any time any of the three of them left the walls, had a mission with even the slightest hint of danger. His younger brother never told her about his job as a guard in Konoha's prison, lied to her and said he was in bureaucracy, and his elder brother hadn't told any of them where he worked—never a good sign, at least when it came to measuring danger.)

Sizuki Ruma had spent his entire life striving to make up for the amount of effort his parents and Konoha had poured into him, but over time he'd grown accustomed to the feeling that he'd never completely erase the sensation that he could be doing better.

Now, though, that sensation was overwhelming.

His new class—all of them in their first semester, all of them young and unruly and without any prior experience in the Academy—would be arriving in mere minutes.

He wiped his hands again.

Younger classes were generally not assisted by a second teacher—that was left for the older classes, where the frequent use of chakra and sparring made it far more necessary. There were two that rotated across the first three years, providing a hand as necessary, but really it was just his class. Just his responsibility.

Ruma took one last look around the room, its prepared desks and chairs and blank blackboard, then walked outside.

The Hokage's speech was excellent, a master craft in public speaking that churned the crowd into a frenzy of patriotism and energy.

The Head Teacher's rattling of the names, by contrast, was… dull.

That was intentional, Ruma knew, but he didn't think he'd ever get over the sudden shift from one mood to the other.

In front of him, his class began to coalesce. Out of the six new classes this year, he'd been given what was secretly considered the second most important, a huge responsibility that always seemed to fall into the hands of either the most or least experienced of the teachers, seemingly at random; the other of the two always got the most important class.

That they trusted him to take care of these high-ranking clan children, of the most athletic of the civilian children, of the majority of the orphans—

And still, the feeling of being unworthy remained.

His class formed, he turned and began to lead them to their classroom. Up and up and up they went, the little four, five, and six-year-olds trailing in a longer and longer line as their differences in physical ability became more and more apparent. As they made it to the top floor and entered their room, he had the first arrivals fill in the first row and then gestured so that each subsequent group of children would move to the next closest seat upon entering.

Only after the majority of his students had already arrived did he allow his eyes to travel across their faces, take in the minds he was supposed to mold.

The youngest in the first row was recognizable as Morino Ibiki—Ruma had been given a file on the little boy who was ostensibly part of every clan of Ino-Shika-Cho as well as a Morino. He'd already resolved to keep an eye on him—younger kids might recover quickly from trauma, but that didn't mean he was already fully recuperated—and so he made a mental note that the boy seemed to be the type to fight to succeed. He was gasping for breath but had still made it third fastest of anyone—a not insignificant achievement. The next youngest was Sarutobi Asuma, but then that was far less surprising: he was, after all, the youngest son of the Hokage. Besides them, there were three Uchiha, an Ino-Shika-Cho triple who had been driven forward by the Akimichi, a child of two special jounin parents (Yamashiro Aoba, Ruma recalled) and an orphan—Ebisu, Ruma thought.

A more diverse row than he'd expected, actually, but then the other Nara (not a member of an Ino-Shika-Cho because he'd apparently antagonized any children he played with) hadn't been motivated to be quick, the three Inuzuka had become thoroughly distracted, none of the Mitokado or Shimura clan had seen fit to rush forward, and one of the Utatane clan had to lag behind to help the other up—he'd broken his leg just days before class was due to start, and though it had been healed Ruma had been told that the boy was still supposed to moderate its use for the rest of the week.

He waited until the rest of the group filed in, the civilians and orphans making up most of the back row, then checked to see if any students were missing.

None this time, which was quite unusual, but then he was sure watching a boy on crutches make it up had provided some motivation.

Still, it was tradition.

"Well, that's time. I'm glad you all made it." Ruma said as he paced back to the final row, grabbing the last two empty chairs. The children watched him warily as he made his way back to the front of the room, then in shock as he chucked both chairs out of the open window. "If you hadn't you would have found your seat gone before you arrived."

He paused, letting them take that in, before turning to the board. "We will begin with instructions on how I expect you to write in my class."

Much of the first day was expectation-setting. In the coming days he'd do more interesting things, to try to capture their attention and keep everyone from the most ahead to the furthest behind students interested, but today was meant to be a mix between banal and startling, keeping them on their toes while drilling in that this would be the new normal, and no disagreement about that would be tolerated.

He could feel the forty-eight eyes on him, now, and that's just the way it should be.

He took a breath, reminded himself once more that he was more than capable of the task in front of him, then grabbed his wooden pointer and gestured to the words he'd written on the board, words that he knew many of them couldn't read.

"We'll begin with what will be standard across every assignment: your name must be written in the top left corner…."

.

By the second week, Ruma had finally gotten a feel for his class. They were rowdier than he preferred, took a bit longer than most others to quiet down, but then he hadn't had to kick a child out or force them to sit on the floor the first day.

That they were the only class where that was the case—they knew that by the first minute of the first lunch period, were inordinately proud of it by the second minute—seemed to provide more than sufficient motivation to keep them on track, however.

They were still a full group, not surprising given that it was only the first week, but there seemed to be more of a cooperative spirit than he'd ever seen before: those children that were naturally ahead of the pack, even the Uchiha, really wanted to last as long as possible as one group.

He was sure that eventually, that would engender its own form of bullying, threats, and the like if any child wavered in their commitment to school, but he'd address that when it arrived.

For now, he'd use the motivation, teach the motivation, and try to ignore when the motivation made his children just that bit more active than the other teachers.

He'd also, Ruma decided, play into the more obvious results of that motivation.

"Today, class, we'll be working in groups." Ruma announced. "We'll run a short quiz tournament involving all you've been taught so far." Which wasn't much, to be honest, but it was always important to ensure they had the basics down before going further, and this would do that. "One subject of the twelve on the board will be done at a time, with one contestant per group, and no contestant can answer for more than two subjects. No cheating will be allowed. You will be given half an hour to prepare." In front of him, his students leaned forward eagerly—this seemed far more fascinating than any lecture. "Team 1 will be Morino Ibiki, Shiranui Genma, Sarutobi Asuma, Yuhi Kurenai…"

After finishing listing out the sixth group, Ruma was barely able to contain his utter glee at what he saw. Some of the children—the civilian children especially—were woefully behind compared to their clan and even ninja-descended classmates, but he'd made a point to put about two students from each row in each group: the result was that the most prepared were spending the full half hour eagerly helping their possible future teammates prepare for the quiz.

Then Ruma realized that they'd want a prize.

(He hated prizes. It was always so hard to think of how to reward kids—they always seemed to respond so differently.)

After some minutes, he came up with a workable idea and then, after a final lap around the room to answer any last-minute questions—yes, 'full name' means first and last; no, the skill which had not been mentioned even once would not be covered in the quiz tournament—it was time.

"Alright, let's begin. The first subject will be history. Please send your contestants for the history subject down." Unsurprisingly, given the youth of his children, each and every group sent one of their front-row members to answer the first question. Unsurprisingly, given that, each did very well, and the round robin of question-answer pairs went for seven rounds before a winner—Sarutobi Asuma, on a question about his father because Ruma hadn't thought ahead enough to realize that a completely random question card order was probably not the best—could be called.

The next subject, math, saw the next best students from each group go to the front. One of the Uchiha—the only one that hadn't been sent up the first round—won.

The one after, athletics, saw the first answerers returning. Sarutobi again pulled the victory.

It was only as he announced the penultimate subject—"Konoha behavior," or how civilians, Academy students, and shinobi were expected to act within the walls—that he saw most of the back-row students.

It took three rounds for that particular subject to find its winner—an orphan who had so far not volunteered an answer to a single question—and four rounds for the final subject, language, to find its own: a civilian boy from Sarutobi's group who actually cried in sheer shock: his win was needed to pull the victory for his team, and they wasted no time in crowding around him to congratulate him on that fact.

Ruma gave them several minutes celebration—even the losers didn't seem that put out, given how close it had been, so the good feelings were taken up by the entire group—and then cleared his throat.

"Should we talk rewards?"

That had every eye snapping to him.

He'd thought for a while about how he wanted to reward them, keep the momentum up without letting those who didn't win wallow, and in the end, decided he may as well tie it to his next major project: "Next week each group will be giving a presentation on a Great Nation, or our lost sister-nation Uzu. Now, how many Great Nations are there?"

"Five!" The class shouted.

The boy who'd just scored the final point was even more eager: "Fire, Lightning, Wind, Earth, and, um—" Ibiki, standing next to him, whispered in his ear, and the boy grinned. "Water!"

Ruma nodded, smiling back. "Which team will be presenting about which nation will be decided by pulling names out of a hat next Wednesday, but Team 1 gets to know now: you will be doing a presentation on Uzu."

The groups gasped and cheered for their classmates, completely uncaring that they knew nothing about why such an assignment should be a reward (and it shouldn't, really, but if he treated it like it was, then they'd buy it, at this age at least.)

Ibiki was staring at him, though, narrow-eyed. "Where will we get the information to present about?" He asked.

Ruma nodded, grinning. That was just the question he was waiting for. He paused a bit longer—enough for the other children to quiet down too—and then, with a probably unnecessary flourish of chakra, revealed to the children their first textbooks, which included first-year friendly descriptions of all nations, including the Great and former ones, as well as more pictures than words. They were textbooks that he was technically supposed to hand out next Monday, but then if he did it as he'd been taught, the children would have been mildly interested at most at getting their hands on one. Now they clamored, eager, and he had to actively work to get them into an orderly line to pass out the textbooks to.

For the first time since he'd begun work in the Academy, for the first time since he stepped foot in the Academy in any capacity, Ruma felt like he belonged. These ideas weren't entirely his, of course—older classes did special events on Fridays, too, to great effect—but here he was adapting those ideas to fit his class and, so far, doing so successfully.

Ruma smiled down at the clamoring students beneath him as they oohed over the carefully printed words and art on the pages, instructing them to be careful as they showed the students around them the interesting pages they'd already found, and he decided, then and there, that he was going to be worthy of the glowing reviews he'd already been given as an assistant teacher, that he really did belong.

As a teacher, Ruma decided, he'd make his class excel.

.

Shin's promotion went well. His parents held a party with what seemed like every Ino-Shika-Cho in attendance, and his first duty assignment—ambassador to the Daimyo's court—wasn't to start for several weeks, giving him plenty of time to study up on his new role and ensure that Ibiki was aware that, though one of his godfathers was leaving, he wasn't being left behind: the little boy would see him every month or two, and without an ongoing war (the Hokage refused the pressure to respond to the Kumo prison camp, so it seemed that keeping it that way remained a priority), mail could be sent very regularly.

Ibiki was still not thrilled, but the party and his continued excitement over school—Sakura had to admit that his experiences seemed far more riveting than hers had—kept the tantrums to only about every other day.

Sakura, meanwhile, had been informed that she was being transferred again, this time back to Efficiency Sciences to work on her Economics theories and an idea she'd had for reorganizing the outline for post-mission reports, though she was expected to continue regularly checking up on Uchiha Shuji (he had grown to tolerate her presence, so it was now her permanent duty to oversee the computer's continued development.)

Juro was right where he wanted to be and showed no signs of moving: he liked children, he said, liked the wide-eyed looks they'd give him when he healed an incredibly painful injury in mere minutes. He especially liked that they acquiesced to his treatment, and therefore had absolutely no interest in returning to operating on shinobi.

And even for Shin and Sakura, their assignments were weeks away—for the duration of the party, at least, they could ignore the rest of their responsibilities for a short while.

And then Sakura got a niggling sensation. It was just on the back of her neck, almost a tickle, and though it didn't feel harmful, it also demanded her attention. She turned, saw nothing, and made her way further into the forest in that direction, wondering what her brain wanted her to notice.

It didn't take long to find out.

The first tree she passed just as the merrymakers began to thin had two people behind it: Yamanaka Inoichi, heir to the Yamanaka Clan Head, and Yamanaka Kohana, little sister to Yamanaka Sakura. They were locked in a tight embrace and completely oblivious to both Sakura and the three deer who stood across a short clearing and eyed them with clear amusement.

"Well," Sakura said, almost conversationally. "I really shouldn't be surprised. I always seem to be seeing or hearing things I shouldn't at parties; nothing for it, though. I'm still going to attend, so I may as well get used to it."

The younger teens broke apart with a gasp, staring wide-eyed at the interloper.

One of the deer seemed to snigger, and their attention snapped to them and their friends, who seemed in no rush to give the young couple their privacy. To be fair, Sakura wasn't either, far too interested in the details herself to allow them to continue on unawares. She snapped out her sensing instead, checking that Ibiki was suitably distracted, then leaned against the tree.

"So… when did this begin? And, far more importantly, why am I the last to know?"

"You're not the last to know!" Kohana whined. "We haven't told anyone."

Sakura's eyebrows rose. "Oh? And why not?" Her eyes snapped to her tutee. "Embarrassed?" It wasn't outside the realm of possibility. Their particular branch of the clan, with its relatively weak strain of their bloodline, hadn't been married into the main line in quite some time, and was considered—on the whole—to be a notably worse family to be descended from than any of the others. Her eldest brother Ren had actually received some congratulatory comments from his closest cousins on 'jumping up' and marrying above his station—his wife was from a line that could see out of others' eyes, which was considered a far more valuable skill than Sakura's immediate family's battle-startle. Her mother had actually married below her station, but then that had been less of a surprise: she'd been the only of her nuclear family to inherit their interrogation strain, and that level of hereditary success made her an unpopular choice amongst equivalent strains.

(The whole strain thing was a part of Yamanaka politics that Sakura tried to ignore, especially because after decades of intermingling, it was very common indeed for a child to present strain(s) that neither parent could use, but when you were the future clan head being romantically involved with someone who could be seen as 'strengthening' the main bloodline was much more important.)

Inoichi, to his benefit, seemed almost insulted by the idea. "No! Of course not!" He said. Then, realizing that both his tutor and his paramour were looking at him with no small amount of cynicism, he tried to explain himself further. "She's the one that suggested it! Really!"

"Oh! You did not just scapegoat me!"

"That's not what I meant! Look, Kohana isn't below my station, okay?"

"I'm not even a shinobi, and a grand total of two of my siblings have the interrogation strain, and Ren didn't even pass his to his son." Kohana said. "It might not be the main reason why we were hiding it but I am absolutely below your station."

"No, you're not." Inoichi said, almost desperate in his need to be understood.

Sakura held her hands up, trying to calm him down. "Okay, okay. Clearly we're missing something—want to fill us in?"

"You!"

"Me?"

"You!"

"What does Sakura have to do with anything?"

Inoichi looked almost frustrated now. It was clear that this wasn't a situation he'd been in before, and he felt on the backfoot, but after a second he composed himself enough to, finally, make sense: "Sakura's—well, being a genius, and being in the Spring Delegation is big, and tutoring me is big, and being a sensor is big, and being personally responsible for several major inventions is huge, and—I mean, don't get me wrong, your other siblings are also doing our clan proud, but Sakura's personal standing pulled the rest of your family's standing way up single-handedly. Trust me, when we announce we're an item no one will think it's a bad match for me."

Sakura… felt like an idiot. She'd known her clan standing had risen sharply, of course, still had regular teas with many of the clan elders, and she had the Clan Head himself as a therapist to her godson—and while he might try to be the therapist for any Yamanaka child in need, Ibiki's official standing in the clan had been a bit murky until that point, when the Head accepted him as Yamanaka so completely and the other two clans followed his example. It just… hadn't really occurred to her, though it should have, that her own personal accomplishments reflected so well on her immediate family.

Still, it made sense. "Okay, then why were you keeping it a secret?"

Kohana… was less mollified. "That still doesn't make sense!" She snapped. "I'm not a ninja, I have absolutely no major accomplishments of my own! Are you really trying to claim that Clan Head Inoto would be okay if we flounced out of these woods with my hickeys visible on your neck?" When Inoichi glanced between the two, trying to figure out who to respond to first, she got even more upset. "Answer me first! I'm your girlfriend!"

Inoichi glanced at Sakura, shrugged, then turned more fully toward Kohana. "Your not being a kunoichi isn't really the negative you think it is, at least from the perspective of clan head. Shinobi-work leads to worse fertility, pregnancies, and childbirths on average so skipping that, especially with how much trouble by Dad had in carrying on the family line… right now that's basically just a plus. As for personal accomplishments… that's what the clan head wants in the family of the spouse, not the spouse. My Dad wants me to be happy, and you make me happy—ridiculously, stupidly happy. He wants my kids to be happy too, and, um, if we get there then—well, you kind of have a lot of experience in childcare by this point. So you'll be a fantastic mom. Really, I promise: my Dad will have no complaints."

Kohana looked like Inoichi had just told her she was a goddess. Sakura decided she would never be able to understand romantic love, and ignored the touching moment happening before her to, once more, repeat her (very important) question: "Why. Are. You. Hiding?"

Kohana, sheepish, raised her hand. "That actually is kind of my fault, although really I'd say it's the fault of timing."

Inoichi, wrapping his hand around Kohana's waist, continued: "It was just after you'd gotten custody of Ibiki, and I'd just come in from a mission and didn't know about that yet. I stopped by your house to ask a question and Kohana filled me in and then we got to talking…"

"and talking…"

"and talking. And then, well, I asked her out."

"But you and Shin and Juro were so busy with Ibiki, and upset about Sachiko and what happened to the both of them—"

"We didn't want to seem oblivious to your struggle, so we figured we'd wait. Before going public, I mean."

Sakura blinked. "Ibiki's in school. Shin's passed his special jounin exam, I've been back at work for ages—I ask again, why hide? Especially for so long?"

Kohana flushed. "We just… got distracted."

"We had to talk about it first, you know, going public, but every time we did…"

"You got distracted, got it." Sakura said. She felt like rubbing her temples but didn't—she doubted the other teens would appreciate the gesture. "Well, Shin won't mind if you announce your relationship during the party, so have your little chat—without getting distracted—then stop hiding behind trees. I'm not sure if you know this, but some of the summoned deer can speak."

The sweethearts jumped, then glanced across at the group of deer, now five strong, on the other side of the clearing.

"Hello." What looked to be the oldest said.

Kohana scrambled back in alarm, and Inoichi looked pained—Sakura had no doubt that he knew that, but had forgotten in the heat of the moment.

"If it helps," the deer said, "I might have forgotten to mention what I saw. Maybe. Good entertainment, though." His voice sounded weird, formed as it was in a mouth not meant for their language, but his point was made: both younger teens were now bright red, and perfectly aware that their attempts at secrecy left more than a little to be desired.

Sakura, filled in and aware of the situation, made her exit. They were due to start serving the evening meal soon, and she didn't want to miss it.

About an hour after dinner, Kohana and Inoichi admitted their relationship. As expected, no one seemed particularly disapproving, and almost none of the Nara seemed surprised—Sakura guessed they'd been using the forest for longer than that day as a secret rendezvous: of the Yamanaka, only Inoto seemed similarly nonplussed, and he was their clan head for a reason.