Chapter 7: Academy Arc: One

Disclaimer: Everytime I say that I don't own Naruto, Kishimoto makes more money off of it. I don't own Naruto, and I'm broke.

Day dawns over Konoha as the sun bleeds a dizzying shade of red on the first of September when I rise to do my morning run with the Triplets. Ichi's longer legs carry him in an easy lope beside me and San and Ni fan out behind, Ni whining all the while. I measure seven laps around the compound before I have to sit down on the porch steps. I wander back into the house. In my room, I change into a mesh shirt and a tan kimono shirt. The clan symbol isn't painting a giant target on my back, instead it's stitched to the left shoulder, while the Uzushio spiral is stitched to the right. I pick up my bag and then walk down the hallway following the smell of food into the kitchen.

Tou-san stands grilling fish in one corner, while Kaa-san ladles out some miso soup. "Good morning."

I nod. "Good morning." I set out the bowls and the chopsticks scooping extra rice into the Triplets' bowls. They were going to have to sit extra still for a long time today, and they'd gotten rather large by now. "

There's a bento on the counter." Kaa-san waves in its general direction and I scoop it up, setting it carefully in my bag. I already had food for Ichi, Ni and San stowed away, but lunch for myself was important as well.

"It's a big day today, isn't it." Tou-san smiles, and it doesn't quite reach his eyes. "It seems like just yesterday we came back from the hospital together, all three of us."

I smile back at him. "Un." We dig in.

As we head down the path towards the Academy and a short orientation, I walked on ahead with the Triplets and Tou-san and Kaa-san walked behind at a more sedate pace. It was true that I was bored at home. There was only so long one could meditate, or reread the library books, or run around the clan compound. There weren't many people that I enjoyed talking to, and I couldn't possibly go talk to the memorial stone all that often.

For one thing, there was no need to be Kakashi version 2.0, for another...it's a little strange to speak to a rock simply because you didn't know who else to talk to.

Tou-san kisses me goodbye on the forehead at the door of the auditorium while Kaa-san ruffles up my hair. "Go knock them all out of the park, Little Nose."

I smile. "Un!"

Tou-san's words are a little more serious. "Remember our pinky promise. No impressing them so much that they push you into graduating in a year."

I nod, and Kaa-san starts to drag him away. "Oh come on, Kai-baka. She knows that already. Smarter than you think, much more than you perceive and all that."

I laugh and Ni perks up. "More fun friends to play with?"

I laugh. "I thought you only needed me and your brothers to play with."

Ichi bumps him. "You be quiet." I stifled a laugh and push open the doors to the auditorium. Well, there's only one way to go now, forwards.

Most people were older, nearly seven or eight, but I slide onto a bench in the back, pressed up against the wall, and the Triplets squeeze in after me. I am early, which is a relief.

There's a Hyuuga boy stepping into the room, and he scans the room, white eyes flicking back and forth. There won't be another main branch member born in another year or so, and I concluded that he was branch without glancing at his forehead, which would have been rude. "Might I sit with you?"

I move over, and San yelps and falls off of the bench, he wriggles over and curls up on top of my feet instead. "You may, if you don't mind the Triplets." I respond. His eyes widen for just a fraction. Did he not expect me to say yes?

But he sits down. "Hyuga Tokuma." He offers me a hand and I shake it.

Ni scrambles over to sit on his feet. "I want to sit with the new friend."

"Inuzuka Hana." Tokuma looks like he's about to say more, but an Aburame boy comes in next, his sunglasses are tinted purple and he's wearing a tan jacket and walks in our direction.

"I conclude you two must be my genin teammates after graduation. Therefore would it be possible to sit with you?" We're thinking that far ahead?

I offer him a hand. "I'm Hana."

He smiles. "I'm Muta." Then he turns towards my seatmate. "And you are?"

"Tokuma." My seatmate leans forward. "Why do you think we'll be your teammates?"

"It is simple." Muta gestures towards our clothes. "We are all wearing tan, and everyone knows that our clans have the strongest tracking abilities."

Tokuma cracks a smile. "So you think it's that rigged?"

I think it over. In canon, while not acknowledged to be rigged, everyone knew that Team Ten was infiltration, Team Seven was Frontline, and Team Eight was tracking. So we're slated to become this graduating class's Team Eight? "So if it's really rigged," I say softly and almost to myself. "Do you suppose they'll want to call us Team Tan?" We look at each other for a startled second and all break out into laughter all at once.

Muta slides onto the bench on the other side of Tokuma. We were pressed tightly together now, like sardines in a can.

Ichi gives me a long suffering look and hops off the bench and wanders over to Muta. "I suppose I should sit with our new almost-packmate. Both of them are older than you, but it'll have to do until we figure out the hierarchy." He promptly flops down on Muta's feet.

"Thanks, Ichi."

Tokuma raises an eyebrow at me. "You barked."

I raise an eyebrow right back at him. "I barked."

There's a throat cleared at the front of the room. "Attention everyone, I'll read the class postings, and then we'll move right along."

As it turns out, there was something I'd forgotten. Hana had been in Itachi's class in canon, and it seems entering Academy early did nothing to shake that. I must have missed him walking in since I was talking with Muta and Tokuma.

"That's the Uchiha Heir over there." There's an edge of bitterness in Tokuma's words and I turn to look at him.

"I know. I was just wondering why he was in our class and what sort of team he's destined for."

Tokuma raises an eyebrow. "You're not going to say something about how he looks cute?"

I frown at him, tilting my head back so I could look down at him, "Why would I care about that?" Muta chuckles.

Sensei walks to the front of the room and asks us to introduce ourselves.

"Aburame Muta, I want to enter the Intel division after I graduate to chunin."

"Hyuga Tokuma, I want to become an adept jonin, and serve Konoha and the clan."

"Inuzuka Hana, I want to..." I pause. "Be the best partner I can for the Triplets and make my parents proud of me." What else could I have said? I want to survive the fourth shinobi war? I want to die well after my middle age this time around?

"Uchiha Itachi." His quiet voice breaks me out of my thoughts. "I want to be the youngest Uchiha to join ANBU." Of course the resident genius is the one with the most ambitious dream. Of course it is.

"Uchiha Izumi!" I turn to look at the brown haired girl in a corner. "My dream is to be the world's greatest konoichi." She's...I don't remember her at all. That didn't mean much of anything though, there was an entire world of people that were either never mentioned, or I didn't remember that were incredibly important.

She could have no effect on anything, or she could effect everything. Who knows?

We start by learning how to read and write our names, which, given that I had mastered these skills to some extent a year and a half ago by myself...is a let down.

"Ah, Hana-kun, you've already learned this at home right?" Funeno-sensei beams at me, and I smile politely back at him still sandwiched between Tokuma and Muta.

"Un, Tou-san spent a lot of time on it." Best let them believe that, than to think that I learned how to read and write by myself at the public library.

The next 'test' for us is to run around the academy building. I keep easy pace besides the flagging Muta until Funeno-sensei barks at me to hurry up. A flash of annoyance dances across my heart and I take off, the Triplets trailing in my wake as I finish ten laps around the school building far too quickly for my own good.

The only other person yet crazy enough to be at the finish line is Itachi. Oh no. Please go away. I don't want to talk to you. Despite not remembering the miscellaneous details about him, there was one big, big thing that could not be forgotten no matter how many years ago it was that I'd watched Naruto. Uchiha Itachi agreed to kill his own family members, and spared only his little brother whom he then tormented to become half insane as a form of love.

I wanted to be nowhere close to him, but unfortunately, there's no reason for me to be impolite to him.

"You could have finished more quickly than you did, but you stopped to run with Aburame. Why?" Trying to hold a conversation with him makes a shiver crawl down my spine.

"I like Muta-kun, and he needed the encouragement." I can't quite look him in the eye as I answer, and Ichi bumps my hand with his head.

"What's wrong?" I look down at him.

"I'm not sure I like him."

Itachi looks mildly unnerved. "Do you actually understand him?"

My eyes narrow. "Ichi's one of my partners. Of course, I understand him." Besides me, the Triplets growl in unison. Before the tension between us can climb to snapping, Funeno-sensei calls a break for lunch. I had never been more relieved in my life to walk inside, collect my bento, and plop myself down between Tokuma and Muta.

"What did Uchiha-san want with you?" Muta asks.

I frown and spear a rice ball with my chopsticks. I chew the thing aggressively before I respond to Muta's query. "He wanted to know if I could actually speak to the Triplets."

Tokuma's lips tighten. "Isn't that a stupid question?"

I prod his shoulder. "Of course it is." We sit in companionable silence for the rest of lunch broken only by the sound of blissful food intake.

Kaa-san's there to pick me up in the afternoon, and while I'm happy that she's there, I'm also confused. Kaa-san works in tracking, and normally she's not in the village when she's on a job. Tou-san's the one who's home in the afternoons.

"I thought you'd be out of the village right now?" I ask, as I slip my hand in hers.

Kaa-san just laughs. "So you remember when I asked if you wanted a sibling, Little Nose?"

I nod. "Well, it's entirely possible that you'll get one in the very near future. I'm going to be on leave until your brother or sister is born." Kiba. This should be Kiba.

I smile brightly at her. "I'm going to have so much to tell my brother."

Kaa-san ruffles my hair. "I'm going to laugh at you if you get a sister instead, Hana." Oh, I don't think you'll have to laugh about that Kaa-san. "At any rate, how did your first day of Academy go?" She has a far away look in her eyes. "I know that I punched Hyuga Hizashi across the room for being stupid." That...sounds like Kaa-san.

"I met Uchiha Itachi." I say not quite frowning but getting there. "I don't think I like him, he's..." I think back to him asking me why I didn't abandon Muta and how he was genuinely confused. "He's stuffy." I say, and Kaa-san howls with laughter. A few civilians back away from my wild looking mother.

"Oh boy, you think the little Uchihas are bad?" She bends down to look me dead in the eye. "I'll tell you a secret: the big ones are worse." We share a smile, and walk the rest of the way home.

That night Tou-san comes back with an injury to one of his legs. It's only a gash so he doesn't go to the hospital, and we don't force him to. Instead, I sit with him as he bandages his left leg and chatter brightly about my day.

"And then Sensei yelled at me to hurry up and I got a little bit angry so I ran much faster."

Tou-san looks at me with a bemused expression. "There's something you aren't telling me about all this Sprout."

I look down at the table and wriggle uncomfortably. "Well...I was the second one to finish after that."

Tou-san sighs. "Well, at least you weren't the first." I look up at him hopefully. "Who was the first?"

I cross my arms and look away. "Uchiha Itachi."

Tou-san nods. "The Uchiha Clan Heir. It could have been worse. Well, try to stay under the radar, Hana."

I nod and proceed to tell him about how Muta had shown me his kikaichu and that was so cool and then Tokuma was upset because he didn't have a partner and oh, there were just so many things.

Tou-san nods along with me, making comments at the right places and smiling all the while. "I'll look forward to watching your progress, Sprout."

I laugh. "Of course, I'll make both of you proud of me!"

A.N. And thus starts the journey of Academy days. We've finished the childhood arc everyone! Hooray!

Thanks so much for leaving a review, CarlyPanda. If anyone else is questioning, relationships are a long way off, and I don't think it's anything anyone has suspected so far. To everyone who has followed and favorited, you all are great.

Let's keep this going guys.

~Tavina