Academy days

Hiroto and Itachi are assigned to the same class. Hiroto arrived and sat at the back of the classroom. Itachi sat beside him just by the window. Soon students started arriving and the class is filled.

The class teacher arrived and introduced himself, next he asked students to introduce themselves along with their goals. Soon one by one everyone started to introduce themselves.

A random Nara - Win fastest to sleep competition

A random Hyuga - serve my family well

A random Akimichi - Taste all the food this world has

A random civilian - traveling the world

....

....

....

Uchiha Izumi - To become the leader of the Uchiha police force

Inuzuka Hana - To let the world know the power of Ninken

Everyone looked at the back of the class for the remaining two people to introduce themselves, particularly many fan girls.

"Uchiha Itachi. My goal is to protect Konoha and my family" Itachi said with a stoic face, which got cheers from his fangirls the chunin responsible for the class had to calm everyone down.

"Uzumaki Hiroto. My goal is to become strong so I can protect my family" Hiroto said and sat down.

"I thought he is an orphan" mused the class teacher, he quickly calmed the class down again.

Like this a few weeks passed by,

The training ground where Itachi and Hiroto train regularly,

Itachi looked at the training field and threw a kunai near Hiroto's direction, he swiftly threw a second kunai deflecting the first one to go straight at Hiroto. Itachi's attack made Hiroto move away from his position.

Itachi smiled at his successful attack using the second kunai aimed at where Hiroto could be after using body flicker jutsu. He made a run towards Hiroto and gave a kick, the other crossed his hands and defended swiftly. Itachi made use of that position to propel himself upwards and threw a fireball jutsu at his friend.

Itachi's fireball jutsu is countered with a waterball, which results in a fog obscuring them from seeing each other. Itachi utilized his advantage a few seconds after he threw a fireball to make a shadow clone and transformed himself into a kunai who was thrown in Hiroto's direction. All this happened within a span of a few seconds since he cast his first jutsu.

Itachi made use of fog to blindside Hiroto, Itachi undid his transformation changed his eyes to sharingan, and used a genjutsu on Hiroto who is just a moment away from completing his substitution jutsu hand signs.

Itachi took out a kunai placed at Hiroto's neck and undid the genjutsu, but Hiroto dispelled implying it was a shadow clone. Just as the clone dispelled Itachi felt a cold metal on his neck, and Hiroto's voice sounded " Draw ?". Itachi nodded and removed the kunai aimed at Hiroto's stomach.

Itachi turned back to look at his best friend picking up a kunai with a Flying thunder god jutsu seal from the ground.

Itachi now understood what transpired raised an eyebrow and asked "Swift release?", Hiroto nodded with a smile. Itachi understood he isn't the only one who took advantage of the fog, Hiroto used the swift release to accelerate his hands which resulted in faster jutsu creation thus giving him time to do a shadow clone, substitution with an FTG kunai.

"Swift release is such a cheat" Itachi complained about his rival's kekkei genkai.

"Says the guy with sharingan" Hiroto countered.

Both the boys laughed out loud and moved to take a small break.

"Itachi I don't think the academy has got anything to teach us," Hiroto said. "Yeah, I think so too. So what do you suggest ?" Itachi asked about his friend's plan.

"Why don't we train instead of wasting time there? " Hiroto said his thoughts. Itachi agreed with his friend but also voiced out his concerns saying "I don't think anyone would agree to it except us". "Yeah even Hokage will make us go to the classes," Hiroto said and stayed silent.

A few moments later, "A shadow clone, with the help of a shadow clone we can get its memories when the clone is dispelled but we need to be careful not to be caught" Itachi said his idea.

"Yeah it will work, but we will also need a training ground if we plan to send our shadow clones to the ninja academy," Hiroto said his thoughts.

Itachi thought for a moment and replied "There is a training ground that is not used near the Uchiha clan we can use it." Hiroto agreed to that.

"Hey Itachi do you think if your girlfriend finds out, will she tell your Mother ?" Hiroto teased his friend.

*** Flashback ***

Mikoto is taking care of Hiroto since Kushina's death, she is happy both the kids are very mature for this age.

"Hey Itachi, Naruto started crawling. I won this round. HAHAHA," Hiroto laughed with a smug grin.

Itachi ignored him but his eyes radiated competitiveness. Mikoto could only sigh at the antics of these older brothers competing about whose brother will develop first. These incidents made her ignore all the intellect that Hiroto and Itachi displayed, forgetting that she participated in the same competition with Kushina when she had her firstborn.

Mikoto hoped these kids get friends and show interest in anything other than being a ninja always. When Mikoto is sending off the kids to the academy on their first day, she got shocked when Itachi interacts with another kid of the same age that too a girl. Mikoto heard the girl introduce herself as Uchiha Izumi and how their first interaction went about how Izumi met Itachi when he is showing Sasuke around the village, and how Sasuke cried when the little girl took the infant into her arms.

Mikoto is already planning how to make them interact more and probably introduce a friend of Izumi to Hiroto too, that way they can go on double dates maybe if Kushina was here she would help her more. At the thought of Kushina, she had tears threatening to fall from her eyes, but quickly composed herself and mentally said "Don't worry Kushina I will do it in a way that will also make you proud".

A few feet away from her Hiroto and Itachi felt shudders down their spines, so they looked around for any possible attack.

From that day Mikoto invited Izumi and tried to set her son up, Hiroto is also trying very hard to silently slip away from Mikoto's clutches.

*** Flashback-end ***

Itachi has decided to sacrifice himself by bribing Izumi with a date.

True to their plan they sent shadow clones to the academy but due to this their chakra reserves are taking a hit as the shadow clone needs to have enough chakra to sustain itself for a day. Itachi and Hiroto attend the academy when they had an intense training session the day before, sometimes either of them pushes themselves, or only one of them some days.

Today in the abandoned training ground

Hiroto is facing Itachi ready to start their monthly sparring session, just as they are about to start Hiroto signaled Itachi for an intruder and sent a kunai probing the intruder's intent.