3 Chapter 3

"Akira... it's going to be alright. Take a deep breath. Ok... you got this."

Akira slapped his cheeks motivating himself as he stared at the academy in front of him.

During the past one week besides visiting Kurenai and Anko, he had been visiting the library gaining rough understanding on how chakra worked as he couldn't access higher levels of books without becoming an official ninja of the village.

He managed to learn a few tricks with his chakra like tree walking, water walking, chakra strings and many other things.

He also fully utilised his third and final cheat ability Rapid Growth. It enabled him to develop his body at faster rate. He used his own chakra as a restraint for his body while training which developed both his body and chakra reserves.

Taking a final deep breath, he entered the academy.

"Let's see class 2-1, where is it? Ah! There, it is." He went towards the class he was supposed to be teaching Taijutsu.

As he went there, he saw a scar faced man shouting at a particular blond whiskered boy.

"Naruto! How many times do I have to tell you to take your studies seriously?" The scar faced man reprimanded the blonde whiskered boy.

"Eh! But Iruka-sensei! It's so boringgg!" The boy in question whined.

"At least don't disturb the whole class with your antics if you are bored Naruto!" Iruka glared at him.

"Ahem!" Akira faked a cough to gain Iruka's attention.

All the students and Iruka's attention was focused on Akira.

"I am here as a new teacher to teach Taijutsu. My name is Akira Kurogane." Akira said greeting Iruka.

"Oh! Akira-san, come in. I was expecting you. Hokage-sama has already informed me about you. My name is Iruka Umino." Iruka said as he shaked his hand.

"Iruka-sensei! Are we getting a new teacher?" A pink haired girl exclaimed.

"Ah yes Sakura. Akira-san here will be instructing you all on the basic Taijutsu for about six months."

"Why only six months?" One of the curious students asked.

"Because after six months he will start going on missions as a ninja. Anything else?" Iruka asked.

"Does that mean he's new here?" A pineapple haired boy asked lazily.

"Yes Shikamaru. He's new here and I expect you all to give him a good impression of the village. Do you understand me?"

"Of course Iruka-sensei! We will give him the best time of his life, believe it!" Naruto enthusiastically yelled out.

Akira looked at all the students and recognised some of them from the series he had watched. Currently, they were all only about 8 years old.

"Alright move out everyone! Since Akira-sensei is here now, we will move onto our Taijutsu classes." Iruka said as he ordered all the students in the class to head for the training ground.

The training ground was quite big and currently all the students were gathered around looking at their Taijutsu teacher.

The said Taijutsu teacher was pretty nervous. Iruka seeing his nervousness smiled gently, "You don't need to worry too much. Just teach them what you know."

Akira nodded and looked at the students.

"Everyone! My name is Akira Kurogane and well as you all know I am here to teach you some Taijutsu. First, what can you tell me about Taijutsu? Anyone?"

A hand was raised eagerly by a pink haired girl. Akira then nodded at her to speak.

"Akira-sensei! Taijutsu is a form of art where we utilise our body to deal with our enemies."

"Can I know your name?" Akira asked.

"It's Sakura Haruno." She replied dutifully.

"Ah so Sakura. What you said is right but Taijutsu in my opinion is mainly used for defending rather than attacking." Akira pointed out.

"Eh! But aren't we learning Taijutsu so we can beat the bad guys?" Naruto asked naively.

Akira chuckled at that, "Beating bad guys is considered defending yourself since you won't be able to protect yourself if you don't take them down. But what I mean is Taijutsu isn't meant for killing. It is meant for protecting."

Iruka was surprised at the explanation Akira was giving. He had thought that his Taijutsu was mainly utilised for the art of killing as Hokage had informed him about Akira's peculiar past which was not entirely correct.

"I am not going to waste my time learning how to protect. I need power so I can defeat my enemies." A duck butt black haired boy spoke.

Akira raised his eyebrows, "Tell me little guy. What do you think is easy? Protecting or killing?"

The boy in question was Sasuke Uchiha. He was stunned at the question and furrowed his eyebrows.

Seeing that he wasn't speaking, Akira decided to enlighten him.

"When you are protecting yourself or someone else, you are in a lot of pressure and won't be able to go all out. But when you are trying to kill someone, you can go all out without any restraint. So it is easy to kill but hard to protect. If you want to get strong then you need to learn to protect. Anyone who takes the path of the killer have only limited growth but those who protect tend to get stronger each passing moment."

Naruto perked up, "You mean protecting people like Hokage-jiji, right?"

Akira smiled, "Yes, that's a very good example. Hokage is the strongest because he needs to protect all the people in this village."

Sasuke Uchiha was now having a conflicted look. His older brother Itachi Uchiha had massacred his clan proving that a killer like him was a powerful ninja but at the same time what Akira had said made sense as well.

"Anyways lets begin our exercise! Today I will be teaching you how to breath."

Just as Akira said that all the student exclaimed.

"EHHHHH!!!"

"Akira-sensei, what do you mean by teaching us how to breath? We already know how to breath or else how could we still be alive." A spunky light blonde haired girl spoke. She was Ino Yamanaka.

Akira gave a amused smile, "Do you really now?"

Akira turned to Iruka, "Iruka-sensei, what do you think?"

"Me? Well... I don't really know what's so important about breathing exercises in Taijutsu. We already teach them to hold their breath in survival exercises." Iruka said in skepticism.

Akira sighed, "Alright then. Anyone want to volunteer so I can show you how useful these breathing exercises are?"

"Me! Me! Me!" Naruto excitedly yelled out.

"Ok then... Naruto, right? I want you to punch this dummy." Naruto grinned and went towards the dummy that was in the training ground.

"Take this!" He punched the dummy but the punch wasn't really effective.

"Ok as you all can see the punch was not very effective but now how about when he does with a different breathing pattern?" Akira said aloud.

"Naruto, I want you take a deep breath and hold your breath till your punch lands on the dummy. Got it?"

"Got it!" Naruto gave an affirmation.

Naruto took a deep breath puffing his chest while holding his breath and punched the dummy.

BANG!!!

The dummy was smashed into bits and everyone was surprised at that even Akira because he didn't think that it would be this effective.

'Maybe he unconsciously used chakra and amplifying it's power further.' Akira thought.

Meanwhile Naruto had shiny eyes at what he just did.

'This is so cool! I am so cool! I am definitely gonna be the Hokage with this! Believe it!'

Sasuke was shocked at the display of power as well. He had thought that this new teacher was sissy with his whole preaching he did but it seems he had more to him than he had thought.

Iruka rubbed his chin and looked at the scene. 'It seems Hokage-sama's guess was correct. Akira is an enigma but an enigma which may benefit the students.'

"Akira-sensei! That was amazing! Teach me some more of those breathing techniques!" Naruto excitedly said.

"Don't worry I will teach all of you the importance of breathing exercises. And not only that I will be giving you homework as well. All the breathing exercises I give today. I want you to find out their uses."

As Akira said that all students gave a loud 'YES!'.

The day at academy had finally finished as all the students started returning home.

Naruto sat on the swing by the academy alone as he watched the students go home with their parents in envy.

Naruto never had the love of a family as he had been orphan from the moment he was born. And even the people of the village treated him like air, not giving him any form of affection at all.

As he was looking at the scene that was going on, he felt his shoulder get tapped. When he turned around to see it was Akira.

'It's that cool sensei! But what does he want? Maybe he wants to talk to me since I am so awesome!'

Naruto grinned, "Hey Akira-sensei! What's up? Do you need something?"

"Well... I was just wondering if you would like to come to my place for a while." Akira said with a smile.

"Eh!? Umm... did I do something wrong?" Naruto asked in confusion since nobody called him up if there wasn't anything wrong.

"There's nothing wrong. It's just that you are an Uzumaki, right?" Naruto gave a nod.

"You see... my little sister is an Uzumaki as well and I was hoping for you two meet since you two can be considered family." As Akira said that Naruto blinked several times.

"I HAVE A FAMILY!!!" He yelled with joy.

"So are you coming?" Akira said in a teasing manner.

"Of course I am!" Naruto yelled.

"Hey... Akira-sensei what if she doesn't like me?" Akira sighed as it might have been 20th time Naruto asked him the same question.

At first he was excited but slowly he grew nervous at the thought of his family not liking him.

His worry was founded since almost all the girls yelled at Naruto and didn't like him much.

"Naruto... I have been telling you. Don't worry! She will not hate you or anything, ok?"

Naruto poked his fingers nervously as he reached his destination.

"Karin-chan I am home!" As Akira said that, a red blur appeared and dived at Akira.

"Nii-chan! You are home! How was your day? I was so bored at the medical unit. They didn't even let me do anything and only kept giving me lectures." Karin said. She had already started out going to the medical department to become a medic.

"Nii-chan who is that behind you?" As soon as Karin said that Naruto grew nervous.

Akira pushed Naruto forward to make Naruto introduce himself.

Naruto awkwardly scratched his head, "I am Naruto Uzumaki. Nice to meet ya!"

Karin looked at him for a while and hugged Naruto. "Kyaaa~! I have such a cute brother! Oh! Look at that whisker marks! By the way my name is Karin Uzumaki but just call me Karin-neechan."

"Naruto is one year older than you Karin." Akira said.

"Nii-chan! Age is just a number!" Karin said as Naruto was snuggled in Karin's developing bossom.

'It feels nice to be hugged like this... is this how it feels to have a family?'

Naruto thought with a happy grin but his happiness was shortly bursted as Akira glared at him.

"Naruto... you aren't thinking anything perverted, right?" Akira said narrowing his eyes.

"Eh!!! No of course not I am not like Hokage-jiji."

Akira remembered that Hokage was quite a closet pervert and laughed.

"Alright then. Both of you come along. I am going to be cooking food. What do want Naruto?" Akira asked as he already knew what he liked but asked nonetheless.

"Ramen!" Naruto yelled with vigour as he was still busy being snuggled by Karin.

"Ok. A special Ramen coming up in a moment." Thankfully Akira had already prepared ingredients for Ramen.