19.

As he looked around he finally realised how much time had gone by, it was already night time.

Getting himself up he made his way inside the house and had something to eat. After having eaten he and Mai talked for a while and he went up to his room to freshen up and went to sleep. Despite not needing to sleep he still found it relaxing and soon dozed off.

As the sun rose from the edge of the horizon, a young boy could be seen soaked in sweat out in the backyard. The black clothes he was wearing were drenched in sweat with dust covering most parts of them.

Nahen went over the to the pond on the side and and plunged himself and sank to the bottom of the pond. Every after a few seconds, a small bubble of air would rise from the bottom escaping from the boy below. Nahen below was holding his breath practicing.

It had been a few weeks now since he started this practice of his and strangely enough his progress was fast. While underwater he was practicing his chakra control as well. Several leaves were stuck onto his body as he was meditating and channeling his chakra around his body and to the leaves causing them to stick onto his body.

Suddenly a surge of bubbles escaped to surface of the pond and Nahen swam up to the top and paddled to the edge of the pond getting out.

*Huff...Huff...*

With haggard breath and soaked clothes and his slightly overgrown hair drooping over his face, soaked to the bone. "15 minutes this time, a....new re..cord." With his hands on his knees Nahen said as his eyes shined with a new found light in them.

'Soon I need to fasten up my training, I need to prepare myself fast. Canon is about to begin soon.' As he sat there on the ground with his eyes closed and crossed legs, he started meditating and continued to train his chakra control again.

After an hour or so Nahen opened his eyes and regained his consciousness to the voice of a certain annoying loudmouth blonde.

"Get up already or we're going to be late already and they'll kick us out on the first day." Naruto cried out as looked at Nahen still on the ground without any trace of concern on his face.

"It's only the academy Naruto, don't fret alright" He said while slowly getting up and stretching his body that had been stiff from not moving for a while in the same position.

"Hurry up already, you're not even dressed yet. Finally we'll be learning some ninja stuff and then I'll become the Hokage. Believe it!"

Hearing Naruto rant on about the academy, being a ninja and the Hokage, Nahen groaned inside then went inside to wash up and put on some fresh clothes.

Yes that right, a year has passed by now and Nahen and Naruto both are starting their first day at the academy today.

As he finished setting up his outfit, he left his room spotting loose black cargo pants with a dark blue t-shirt and instead of the standard shinobi sandals he put on some high end leather and premium fibre boots that he neatly tucked under his pants. As a finishing touch he put on his black handleless glasses.

Looking at himself in the mirror he ran his hand through his hair which had been cut low enough to reach his shoulders. Satisfied with this look Nahen went down stairs where he found Naruto and Mai eating something.

Seeing Naito finally show up, Naruto yelled with his mouthfull "Finally, we can go now." he said while getting up from his chair.

"Atleast finish your food first, and don't speak with your mouth full" Nahen let out yet another groan today as he watched Naruto.

Mai seeing both their interactions felt relieved knowing they atleast had each other's backs.

Having had something to eat,ai took the two to the academy to start their first day. On the way there they stopped at the restaurant which was conveniently close to the academy. And there was a general bustling line of customers.

This was all thanks to Nahen's genius idea to launch a new menu with a new special for today's start of the academy. A lot of people responded to this and stopped by to get some for their kids on the way to the academy. And they too stopped to get some and didn't have to wait in line.

Having gotten to the academy gates Mai bid them farewell and watched them enter the place. Along the way a lot of the parents around looked at Naruto with hateful glares, even some of the civilian kids had the same looks as their parents. Not paying them any attention thanks to Nahen's brainwashing Naruto looked dead ahead and didn't bother with them. He had gotten used to it.

Having been from a ninja background and a few words from the man above, they were allowed entry through the gates along with the clan kids while the civilians were held outside in the meantime which made them send envious glares towards their vanishing backs.

At 8:30, a ninja finally appeared at the gates and let the new batch of students in and made a small speech to gather the crowd. A few moments the Hokage in person appeared on the stage and and gave his long speech about the will of fire which brought forth a lot awe from the kids.

Nahen sneered as he heard the whole speech without even listening. What a bunch of bull shit, brainwashing them with sweet words to make them loyal to the village enough to even give up their own lives for its sake.

Alongside Hiruzen was his old teammate and elder of konoha. The bandaged cunt himself, Danzo Shimura. Usually he doesn't attend this event and sends one of his root operatives to scout potential talents for his organization.

But this time he decided to show up in person to keep an eye out for a specific individual. Nahen Sato. Since the last two time his attempts at capturing Nahen failed, he never pulled another stunt after that but never pulled the surveillance on him.

In addition to him he also kept an eye on Naruto, as the kyubii's jinchuriki he was a person of interest to Danzo and he always tried time and time again to fight Hiruzen for these two to turn them into tools and pull them into the root.

Other than Danzo, Hiruzen was also watching Nahen from the shadows and monitoring his growth. Although he found out how hard he was working, it always startled hima a bit why a kid so young was training so hard at such a young age. And what was more troubling was the amount of progress he was making in such a short amount of time.

He was astonished of what a good friend he genuinely was to Naruto, which reminded him of the promise he made to his parents and how he failed to keep that promise. Just like now, as he was giving his speech he was observing the changes in Nahen as well as his behavior.

Even though he knew he was strong, he didn't know by how much and if he can even control that hidden power of his. His progress was always of interest to him. From his hard work and the updates he recieved from Gai on his progress to his amazing culinary ventures having expanded further and opened three more branches in key strategic places in konoha. even down to his literature ventures.

Being the Hokage nothing was hidden from him and when he this new famous author rose in the village, he was intrigued about his or her identity and was shocked when he found out that it was Nahen using an alias to protect himself from too much fame and for his work's publicity in foreign lands without the association of a hidden leaf ninja in the future. His insight was another thing that drew his attention more to him.