4 Punting The Uchiha

Naruko would say today was a good day. The day previously was great, as she had finally made the improvements and completed the gun project and shown it to the Hokage. He even said he would buy them and that they could work out a deal today.

The only thing currently holding Naruko back with her inventions was money. She had to live and make inventions off of just her weekly allowance given by the Hokage. Which was not a lot.

So, she may or may not have pulled an all-nighter creating seals to make more guns. But that didn't matter to her, she always had more energy than she knew what to do with, and an all-nighter every once and a while didn't affect her.

She decided in the morning that she would also work on her seals at school. Usually, she only brought a fuinjutsu book and studied it at school before doing the practical part at home, but she needed to make these guns so her funds could finally be increased.

The books in the library at her house only contained profound knowledge on fuinjutsu and then all the other books were just basic academy knowledge. This was the reason Naruko was so confident about not paying attention in the academy. She had already studied the books in the library and memorized them so she didn't have to study at the academy.

This was also the reason Naruko was so advanced in the art of fuinjutsu. Most kids her age had a lot of things to do, like playing with friends, increasing their chakra reserves, and studying the new subject at the academy.

Many kids at the academy had to work especially hard at increasing chakra reserves, and the academy recommended doing meditation and studying to increase their spiritual chakra capacity while exercising or doing physical activity increased the physical side of their chakra. This was due to many children's low chakra reserves, which did not fit the life of a ninja.

Naruko didn't have to do any of that. She had no friends, and she was sad about that. All the kids avoided her and made fun of her out of jealousy or because of what their parents had told them. Not that she ever took their words to heart, but having no one other than an old geezer and one other adult figure along with two ramen shop workers to talk to made her feel very lonely. It also didn't help that her social skills were absolutely abysmal, not that it was her fault that she had never gotten social interaction as a child.

She also never had to study for the academy and her insane chakra reserve made sure that she didn't have to ever truly focus on increasing her chakra reserves.

So that made Naruko's life turn into three things, study, invent, train. And that was all she did ever since she was four. Study fuinjutsu, invent gadgets using her fuinjutsu knowledge and creative mind. Then train around her house. Some of her very creative exercises included using heavy logs as weight, which also made her look ridiculous with her small body. The Hokage had visited her while she was doing this once and hadn't stopped laughing about it when it was mentioned ever since, much to her embarrassment. After this, she had looked up different seals that could do something similar to the logs, and found two in the library. The four limbs weighing seals that used four beads on her arms and legs to weigh them down, and the resistance seal that weighed down her limbs and added resistance to all of her limbs, like she was constantly walking through water.

She decided to start with just the resistance seal, which was when she was eight, and had recently added the four limbs weighing seal on top of it. She also made sure to take them off almost weekly and let her body adjust to having them off. She had read that having weights on too long and not taking them off would make a ninja unable to properly perform if taken off.

But then another problem appeared. When running at high speeds, her eyes couldn't keep up so she had tunnel vision. So she had to recently start working on eye exercises to strengthen her eyes muscles because she couldn't find a simple solution in her huge library.

Naruko had also decided to study chakra a year ago. This is what lead to her discovery of the separation between physical and spiritual energies. And she had recently moved on to studying elemental affinities, but she had not gotten far yet.

Chakra study was actually not reserved for ninjas only, as chakra was a huge part of everyday life for almost everyone. It ran through everything and every single person in the world had chakra, so many people actually studied chakra and its applications in everyday life, like a source of natural energy and many other things.

Today in the academy, Naruko was working on the transportation seal on her desk, when she was suddenly interrupted and made to answer her teacher's question,

Naruko liked Iruka, as he was quite literally one of the only few that she could actually talk to. Their relationship had started rough but had been polished, and now Naruko considered him one of her few precious people, which had only had three people on it previously. Who were the Hokage, and Ayame and Teuchi, who ran the Ramen Ichiraku stand that Naruko frequently ate out at.

After that, they were forced to go out to the academy training ground to practice the basic academy chakra exercise. Naruko had long mastered the chakra control technique. It was the only one she actually had access too, because other exercises were either in the ninja sections of the library, which she did not have access to, or were taught by the teacher of genin teams.

Naruko knew her chakra control was nonexistent, and it didn't help that her chakra seemed to be like a raging ocean in the middle of a thunderstorm instead of the calm pool that Iruka had described the sensation as. This meant that Naruko was constantly forced to wrestle her chakra under her control and then force it along instead of guiding it like normal ninjas. And while this was much harder than guiding the chakra, it also made it more submissive and easier to control.

She had spent many hours mastering the leaf concentration exercise because of this problem after learning about it while reading through the academy textbooks in hopes of fixing the problem at first, but realizing the problem was not her control but the very nature of her chakra was also an enlightening experience.

For the exercise, Naruko had quickly wrestled a bit of her ocean of chakra under her control before it calmy followed her command to the tenketsu points located throughout her body, she released it out of them in a whirlpool-like manner that sucked in the leaves adjacent to her and her vicinity. As the leaves came to her tenketsu point, she quickly coated them in a thin layer of her chakra that allowed them to stick to her.

Naruko looked around at the people in the training ground, mainly for someone to mock. If there was one thing Naruko truly loved above all else, it was Ramen. And right below that were pranks and mocking people. But what most people didn't know was the true reason she pulled pranks and constantly verbally whipped people. Most just assumed she was a demon-child, others thought it was for attention, and some even though she did it as her own form of petty revenge. But the true reason she did it is to witness the expression of her victim's face slowly turning red in anger, as their emotions explode and they lose all control. Naruko loved seeing normally calm or arrogant people just completely explode.

That's why when she spotted Sasuke Uchiha, one of the best students of the academy and the definition of a calm and arrogant bastard, struggling with even one leaf, she could not miss this opportunity. With a mocking smile on her face, she dished out a quick insult to his clan and arrogance.

Naruko looked on in glee as his usually stoic face heated up a bit, and his calm expression completely broke as he was quick to defend himself and insult her back. And of course, he used that stupid nickname, 'carrot top.'

Naruko was never really sure why that pissed her off so much. It was just a small insult and there were so many worse things to say, but someone making fun of the color of her hair already seemed to tick her off. Naruko mused to herself that it might be genetic, before laughing to herself in a self-deprecating manner.

And so she went for a sore spot, his clan, and his sexuality. Seeing him explode in anger was probably the best thing she would see all day. As he huffed in anger and challenged her to a sparring battle, she sneered inwardly.

She was the strongest in this academy. Call it arrogance but she had proven that and wore it with pride. Yet Sasuke always seemed to try and challenge her, something about his elite status as an Uchiha. She didn't understand how someone could be so arrogant after losing every spar against her, and yet still come back for more.

As she stood across from Sasuke with her hands in the seal of confrontation, along with Iruka announcing that chakra was usable in this match, she pondered to herself.

She knew she was strong. Without using her seals and chakra and releasing her weights, she was probably a high-genin. With chakra, she could probably just about match someone that had just achieved low-chunin. Chakra didn't make much of a difference for her, as she knew practically no techniques. And the difference between a high-genin and low chunin was astronomical. Along with the difference between an academy student and genin. And the difference between a chunin and jonin was even higher. It was because to truly become a chunin you had to start learning jutsus of an elemental affinity and many other difficult requirements. This was why a lot of the chunin in villages were truly only high-genin level, which is a spot many ninja bottle-cap at.

But with her seals and enough time to prepare and information on her opponent, Naruko could probably take on a high-chunin, and with the perfect environment even a low-jonin. Of course, that was with perfect conditions and even then it was very slim. But Naruko also knew she was strong for her age, even though people like Kakashi Hatake and Itachi Uchiha were promoted to jonin at her age, they weren't truly jonin strength. The village rankings during war-time were much different, pushing kids out of the academy and into the battlefield as much as possible and handing out field promotions like it was candy. But she also knew they probably were stronger than her, because they had personal teachers and a clan background at her age, while she was an orphan stuck in the academy with a library full of fuinjutsu techniques and access to the civilian and academy student libraries.

As soon as Iruka announced the start of the match, Naruko silently held up a sign and whispered 'release,' as the resistance seal and four limbs weighing seal were released.

To the academy students, it looked like Naruko had suddenly disappeared, while to Iruka and his fellow teacher, Mizuki, it looked like Naruko had suddenly picked up speed tremendously and moved as fast as a new chunin.

Iruka's eyes practically bulged out of his head as he sensed no chakra surging throughout her body, signifying that this was pure physical strength and no chakra enhancement.

While Mizuki had a malicious snarl on his face, 'to think the demon-brat has hidden her strength this well, no matter. Soon I'll put my plan into motion and kill her myself, being heralded as the hero of this village.' He thought to himself.

Naruko had also unconsciously sensed the hatred radiating off of Mizuki, a skill she had picked up when walking through the village, and decided she would report this to the Hokage later.

Back in the spar, Naruko had quickly appeared behind Sasuke and pulled her fist back in the standard form of a punch from the academy style taijutsu, a style that revolved around the basic forms of punching and kicking. It was meant as a foundation level style, and once a genin was introduced to a jonin instructor the instructor would introduce their genin to different styles.

Even though Naruko was much faster and stronger than Sasuke even if he was enhancing his muscles with chakra, he still had the Uchiha Interceptor style to attempt to balance out the difference in strength. Sasuke also wasn't a push-over, even though he had lost every fight against Naruko he was still a league above all the other academy students. Plus with his experience of fighting people much stronger than him in training, like his father and Itachi, he could at least attempt to fight Naruko.

The Uchiha Interceptor style focused on speed and dexterity. It was a style that heavily relied on the Sharingan eyes, which would allow the user to predict the movements of others and exploit the weakness in their opponent's taijutsu form. The style focused on precise strikes with fists and blocking with counterattacks.

Predicting where Naruko would strike, Sasuke quickly spun on his heel while holding his arms up in a defensive stance while scanning Naruko's form for a weakness. Locating one, he was about to act on it, but Naruko's fist connected with him first. Not expecting the amount of strength behind it, he was sent tumbling backward and was stunned.

About to stand up, Sasuke suddenly heard the air beside him sing, like it was being sliced through with a sword. Ducking, he saw Naruko's signature black combat boots going flying above head, narrowly avoiding him.

But what he did not expect, was Naruko's other foot to lash out at his unprotected stomach in a quick strike as her arms supported her body with both her legs in the air.

Sasuke was sent tumbling backward, he rolled a bit before landing in a crouched position, holding his now-bruised ribs, he looked up to see Naruko with a cocky grin on her face looking down at him.

"To think that the elite Uchiha, part of a famous clan, couldn't even beat a clanless orphan like me. And I'm not even using chakra to enhance my muscles, how pathetic are you?" Naruko smiled inwardly as she saw his grimacing face quickly turn to rage.

"Clone jutsu!" He quickly exclaimed as three other Sasukes appeared beside him and rushed towards Naruko. She merely kept the cocky grin on her face as she danced around the clones and lightly kicked them to disperse them. What she did not expect, however, was when the Sasuke she had thought was the real one suddenly burst into smoke, and she was decked in the head from behind and sent flying.

Or at least, that was what Sasuke had thought would happen, but while punching Naruko, she suddenly burst into smoke. And in his surprise, he didn't even realize he was flying until he registered the pain in his side from a painful kick sent by Naruko from behind him.

Landing painfully, Sasuke looked up to see Naruko who still had her cocky grin. "You act like your the only one who could use the clone and substitution technique. How stupid of you." He heard her lazily drawl out like this whole battle is merely a small warm-up to her.

In Sasuke's rage, he blazed through hand signs that Naruko knew was definitely not an academy jutsu.

Iruka, however, did realize what this was. The Hokage had told him about the Uchiha coming of age rite after all, but before he could say anything, Sasuke had already jumped high in the air and was preparing to launch the jutsu.

"Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique!" Sasuke shouted as he inhaled a large amount of air, before releasing a giant fireball that sailed towards Naruko.

Naruko was surprised. Elemental jutsus were usually reserved for those chunin levels and above due to their large chakra requirements. And even genin can rarely use them, let alone an academy student. But, just because of her surprise did not mean she was helpless. Of course, she could easily dodge the attack, but she had a much better idea.

Quickly going through the hand signs for the substitution jutsu, Naruko grinned a very evil smile.

Normally, substituting was reserved for intimate objects, and this was because even trying to switch with a living being was not only much more difficult but also required a ton more chakra. But for a chakra monster like Naruko, this difference was negligible.

And suddenly, Naruko was in the air about to land and Sasuke was standing in front of the giant fireball he had just release.

As panic filled his eyes, Naruko's evil smile never left her face. A green blur suddenly intercepted, though, and pulled Sasuke out of the way. The green blur suddenly landed outside of the sparring boundary, revealing themselves to be Iruka.

"Naruko! You could have easily just dodged this jutsu! Why would you put a fellow student in danger like that!" Iruka yelled at Naruko, who only gave him a blank stare back.

"Teach, he was the one who launched that fireball at me, if anything, blame him." Naruko lazily responded like she hadn't almost just killed someone. But inside, she was panicking. For as mischievous as Naruko was, she truly hated hurting people. And she knew that what she had done was her not thinking and had been done in the heat of the moment. She also knew this would probably earn her a lecture from the Hokage later though.

Right as Iruka was about to continue lecturing Naruko, a female ANBU member with a cat mask suddenly landed with a scroll in their hands. It was stamped with the Hokage's seal meaning that it was important.

"Naruko Uzumaki, the Hokage has requested your presence for an important meeting. Please follow me." The ANBU said. And as the other academy students gasped loudly thinking she was in trouble, Naruko only inwardly smirked, with her face in her normal blank stare.

'It would appear I will finally have the funds to truly start my true goal.' Naruko thought in her head before a happy smile lit up her blank face and she happily followed the ANBU to seal the deal.