chapter 13 first day at school

Naruto was in his room looking up at his ceiling waiting for his alarm to go off he had barely gotten any sleep last night. He had been training for a year and today was the day, it was the day he started his first day at the academy. He couldn't wait, he was so excited about things and the last year had gone on real fast it seemed.

He remembered the day Hinata's baby sister had been born, and she was kind of cute for a baby. He trained with Hinata and even Neji when Neji had the time which was nice, although he was already in the academy now a year ahead of them and doing very well. Naruto also enjoyed his time with his new friends Ino, Choji and Shikamaru but over the year something happened with him and Sakura. He started to really like her lately, okay so he also thought she was really nice looking and way smarter than he was. In the year he had known her she had gained more confidence and trained with Ino, the two had started to form a strange friendship/rivalry between the two of them.

He remembered six months ago he had been walking down a street with Sakura walking her home. It was on his way anyway and they had finished playing together that day. Hinata had been busy with her baby sister and the others had various other things to do. It had been going well until a couple of kids got in their faces, just a couple of bullies a few boys and a couple of girls. Naruto although angry could take it, but then they started to tease Sakura about her forehead making her cry a bit. That's when Naruto threw the first punch, he wished he could say that he fought and won but ended up with a beating.

At least he gave a few of them bloody noses.

So there he was just sitting up against a wall with Sakura trying to wipe some of the blood from a small cut looking really worried about him. "You didn't have to do that you know I don't like seeing my friends hurt Naruto."

He shrugged, "yeah well no one makes fun of my friends, besides it made you sad and I don't like seeing you sad."

Sakura gave a small smile at that, it felt good to have someone care for her and Naruto was always so nice to her. Sure he usually got into trouble and was a bit loud at times but he made things fun and he always stood up for her and for the others too. She remembered just last week when someone called Choji fat and he stood up for him. Naruto was very protective of his friends and no matter what the odds were he always fought his hardest for them. He never gave up and it was one of the reasons she had asked for some training from her father and even a little with Ino.

She dabbed a bit at the small cut on his eyebrow but thankfully it had stopped bleeding, although she and Naruto never noticed just how fast he always healed they just figured it always healed fast. She put away the small cloth she had on her and looked at him, there were a few flakes of drying blood but not much and he was looking at her with those blue eyes of his. She had to admit she had never seen anyone with eyes like his, they were just this unique shade of blue and after a year she still hadn't seen behind the mask. She wondered what he was hiding, was he ugly or did he have a scare or something?

"Thank you Naruto-kun...although I wish I didn't have this ugly forehead, I get teased so much because of it that I just want to hide it." Sakura looked down not wanting to see into his eyes. She remembered how Ino told her how it wasn't ugly but she was still sensitive about it.

Naruto looked at her for a moment before speaking softly which was rare for him and only when he truly meant something, "I don't think it's ugly Sakura-chan, I like it. I think it's uh...cute?" He honestly wasn't sure what to say about it, but he had heard that word used before by older people when they were talking to others and people seemed to like it.

Sakura blushed a bit smiling, "thank you Naruto-kun, but come on let's get you to my place so we can clean you up."

"Okay!" Naruto jumped up full of energy and hyperactive again, "You think you're mom made those cookies again? They're great!" Naruto liked the parents of his friends since they always treated him well. Especially Ino, Choji and Shikamaru's dads for some reason, Sakura's mother and father seemed a little unsure about him at first but after some time they seemed to warm up to him. It also meant that when his dad was away on a mission for some time he could sleepover at his friends place. Choji's family always had a lot of food, Shikamaru's family was okay, his dad was pretty lazy and his mother kind of scared him at times but they lived by this large forest with all these deer. He only been with Ino's a few times but he liked it, and he liked learning about plants and stuff too. He had kind of started a small spot for flowers in his backyard.

Although his dad had been worried about him for some reason but he just told him that it was relaxing for him.

Naruto thought back over the year and had to admit it was a pretty great year. And now they would all be in the academy together and he couldn't wait for it. He wondered if he would find any new friends or not in school? He looked over at his alarm clock and scowled at it, 'Stupid alarm ring already so I can go!'

When it finally went off it only rang once before his hand shot out and stopped it. He jumped out of bed and went to get a shower and then change. He made it into the kitchen before his dad woke up and he sat at the table waiting for him. But after thirty seconds he jumped off the chair and pushed it to the counter as he tried to make his own breakfast. It wasn't too hard since he knew how to cook some meals for himself or for his dad since his dad taught him some things like how to cook.

He said it was an important skill to learn to be independent and something about how it showing how much a woman means to you if you cook her a breakfast in bed. Personally Naruto didn't get that last reference at all. By the time Kakashi had gotten out of bed he saw already a small mess of the kitchen thankfully Naruto was improving that first time he tried to make something on his own had been a disaster.

"I take it someone it eager for their first day?" He asked seeing Naruto excited and nearly bouncing off the walls.

"Of course dad! This is going to be great, I'm going to learn to be a ninja with my friends, make more friends and learn all kinds of cool stuff," Naruto went on and on to his father's amusement. It had been something that Naruto had been looking forward to for over a year now. "So are you going there on your own, you know the way right?" Kakashi asked although he knew for certain that Naruto knew the way by heart but he liked seeing Naruto this excited.

Naruto put on that face when he was thinking, although for him it looked like he was struggling with the meaning of life when he did it, then he suddenly seemed to get an idea. "Actually dad I think I'll go and see someone before I get there."

"Well you better get going or you might be late," Kakashi said pointed to the clock. Naruto's eyes widened and quickly pulled on his mask and ran to the front door, leaving Kakashi to chuckle as he went to put on a morning cup of coffee for himself.

Over at the Hyuga compound the young Hinata was a bit worried, after all it was her first day and she felt a little worried that no one would like her. Thankfully she had all her friends going there so she would at least not be lonely although there was one other thing bothering her lately. Naruto seemed to be getting close to Sakura and it made her feel strange things. She felt sad because the attention he showed Sakura she found herself wanting him to show it to her. But he wasn't cutting her out of his life, he always came to play with her and to have fun and even to train a bit. And she felt a bit closer to her cousin now too since joining him in training now and then, and she had to admit he was much stronger than she was.

She still nearly giggled at all the times Naruto kept getting her father and uncle confused sometimes she wondered if he did it on purpose because of the annoyed looks her father and uncle got at times. But she still felt weak, she was always nervous around people and she could never really harm anyone in her sparing matches. But then every time she doubted herself Naruto would always encourage her and she found the strength to push on. She wanted to be strong like he was, he never seemed to be afraid and always fought his hardest no matter what.

He had saved her from that kidnapping, the night was a bit hazy but she still had nightmares about that. But Naruto had saved her, and he had nearly died in the process, she could still remember seeing him covered in blood.

"Hinata are you okay?" Hinata was brought out of her thoughts as she was sitting on her bed in her room and looked up to see her mother there by her doorway. She smiled kindly at her as she walked in and stroked her hair gently.

"Nervous dear?" Hannah asked and Hinata nodded her head, "Are you sure you want to be a ninja then?"

Hinata had been thinking about it but she knew the answer to that, "Y-yes I do. I want to show that I am strong mother. That I...that I can show that I'm not weak and..." she looked down as she fidgeted with her fingers in her nervous habit.

Her mother wasn't fooled though she had seen how Hinata was around Naruto and she had to smile. She knew that her daughter was starting to like the Hatake boy and who could blame her? Not every day that someone rescues you. Although she was a bit sad, if she grew up and fell in love with the boy he would need to seriously prove himself for Hinata to marry outside of the clan let alone be courted by someone outside of the clan.

Not many of their people did but there were a few, because in the past when some would run away to live with the person they fell in love with, or events that had led to bloodshed and other unpleasant things a set of rules were set up. The person that a Hyuga could see outside of the clan would have to come from a distinguish background, shown very high level of skills and strength. Plus the clan head and elders had to agree. A part of her hoped that her daughter found someone else to avoid heart ache but another part of her wanted her daughter to be happy.

Thankfully her father hadn't given in the elders about an arranged married to their daughters, since he wanted at least some free will for them. Plus that was the reason they had been married, if he had been arranged then he would have had to marry most likely someone else and Hannah loved her husband.

"Well then let's get you ready then Hinata or else we will be late," she told her daughter helping her to get ready. They arrived at the main gates and she felt another headache hit her eyes with the bright sun. She tried not to show it but lately she had been getting migraines lately, in bright lights it could get very bad but she just put it off as stress. After all she had a new baby daughter that was a handful.

They came to the gates as she nodded her head to the guards who bowed theirs in respect. They weren't ten feet from the gate when a loud and a very excited voice yelled out to them.

"Hinata-chan! Wait up!" Naruto came running up to them and stopped just short.

"Naruto shouldn't you be on your way to school?" Hannah asked.

"I wanted to walk there with Hinata-chan on our first day," Naruto smiled up at her.

"Well then Hinata, I don't see why Naruto-kun here can't walk you there," she smiled seeing her daughter's cheek get slightly red as she looked down and poking her finger tips together again. But she did catch the small smile on Hinata's face.

"Yeah you heard your mom let's go! I don't want to be late," Naruto quickly grabbed Hinata's hand which of course made her blush even harder as he ran to the school with her. Hannah watched the children run off together. She turned back and started to walk back towards the gates when she suddenly felt very dizzy and stumbled.

"Hannah-sama are you okay?" one of the guards ran over to her but she got up and waved him off.

"I'm fine just tired," she told them going back into the mansion maybe taking a nap would help her out.

-Later-

Naruto was looking at the school with excitement in his eyes, Hinata was standing next to him looking up at the building although she was nervous she was glad that Naruto had came to get her. She always felt better when he was around. Naruto looked at her with that hidden smile of his, "Come on let's see if we can find our class and the others!"

They searched through the academy and found the room on the first floor, there was a signed on the wall that told them that the new year's class would be inside and Naruto just walked right in and when he saw who the teacher was Naruto's day got even better. "Iruka! You're our teacher?"

Iruka smiled looking at the young boy and the shy girl in his shadow, "yes Naruto I am, I'll be your teacher and I want you to call me Iruka-sensei now okay?"

"Sure thing Iruka-sensei!" Naruto said happily, he was glad that he was getting him as this group's teacher. He knew that some classes would have a teacher throughout the time at the academy with maybe different support teachers. Sometimes students got a different teacher now and then if they were held back a year or something. Ninja schooling didn't work like the ones the civilian kids did, since as they were preparing for the lives as ninjas they needed a special type of schooling.

Naruto walked up to an empty spot, he saw Ino and Sakura sitting together and waved to them as they waved back. He nodded to Choji who was eating a bag of chips, with Shikamaru already sleeping at his desk. He sat down with Hinata on his left and to his right he saw a boy with short dark hair looking a bit darkly at the front.

Naruto wasn't sure who he was but he seemed familiar, then it hit him. "Hey you're that boy I've seen sitting around alone. How come whenever I say hi you just ignore me?"

The boy just sat there quickly as if he hadn't heard Naruto's voice. This of course was starting to tick Naruto off a bit since being ignored wasn't something he liked, "Well I'm Naruto and this is my best friend Hinata so what's your name?"

Again silence, "hey you jerk when people are being nice to you, you should at least be polite and respond."

Now the boy looked at Naruto sideways, "I don't care."

Now Naruto was really getting pissed off that the boy, "oh yeah? Then what makes you so special huh? Just my luck my first day and already we're sitting next to the class jerk."

"N-N-Naruto, maybe w-we should just leave him alone?" Hinata said in her usual soft voice.

"Yeah alright fine, but the least you could do is at least give your name," Naruto said glaring at the boy.

He only looked at him for a bit and grunted before giving out his name, "Sasuke Uchiha."

Hinata's eyes widened at the name, she heard of the boy but had never really seem him before, she knew of the clan which no longer existed since a year ago and she looked at the boy. She couldn't imagine what it was like for him, she wondered what she would go through if her entire clan had been wiped out and she was all alone. She felt bad for him but she wasn't sure what to say to something like that, she wanted to say something but she saw that he just wanted to be left alone and would let him.

Others that they knew came in and they said hi to each other while Sakura and Ino battled for the chairs behind Sasuke although it wasn't until Shikamaru pointed out that there were two empty spots anyways before the girls settled down, with Ino right behind Sasuke and Sakura right behind Naruto.

The classes started that day and Naruto was given text books and papers as well as other things for the school semester. Naruto had to admit school wasn't as exciting as he hoped, he liked Iruka and all but some of the lessons were kind of boring. The history was okay at least he went into the pasts Hokages so he wanted to know about the men he wanted to surpass, he also learned a bit about what made a Hokage so that was usual for him.

Some of the stuff was boring because he already knew some of it, like the chakra stuff his dad already told him about that and the different kinds. Okay so he didn't remember it all but he knew the basics and enough to allow him to mould his chakra at least. Then they went outside so Iruka could get a basic handle on any skills they might have. He stood in front of a target with a table or kunai and shurikens, they were blunted to the kids wouldn't hurt themselves but the points would imbed into the board that had several rings. The point trying to hit the center ring of course, so the kids lined up and started to throw.

Naruto watched as everyone tried out, some of the kids weren't too bad, some were actually kind of terrible obviously they never trained with the weapons before now, one kid actually missed the board once and hit a tree. He was glad to see that his friends were doing well, Hinata seemed to have the best accuracy out of the girls, and there was one other boy that seemed to be doing well also.

Some kid with red triangles on his face that when he did well had a huge grin showing off some wickedly sharp canines. Naruto thought he was named Kiba or something, then it was Sasuke's turn and the boy nearly hit dead center with all the throws. Everyone was amazed at that and he heard a few squeals from the girls.

"Well done Sasuke, so far you seem to be at the top so far," Iruka said with a smile and looked at his clip board as he marked the score and saw who was next. "Naruto Hatake you're up next."

"Alright time to show them what I can do," Naruto said grinning under his mask picking up his kunai.

The other kids were watching as well as the kid with the mask went up. There were some whispers about who the kid was and why he was wearing a mask all the time.

"Does anyone know that kid?" a boy asked.

"I'm not sure, but I have to wonder if he's any good," one of the girls said.

Another girl watched tilting her head, "Well I don't think he'll do as well as Sasuke-kun, but makes me wonder about the mask."

"It's family tradition," Sakura said to everyone who was now looking at her and the circle of friends. "His dad wears one all the time and the only one that's actually seen his face if Hinata here but she never says what he looks like."

Hinata blushed as everyone looked at her, "sorry but he made me promise not to tell."

"Still he can't be that good, he's kind of a runt anyway," Kiba smirked as he walked up to them.

"Yeah well that 'runt' took on a ninja and beat him over a year ago and nearly died as he saved Hinata here from being kidnapped," Sakura snapped at him and now everyone was looking at them, even Sasuke heard that and cast a glance to them. He looked at Naruto who was starting his own throws as he studied the boy.

"Yeah right," Kiba couldn't believe that a kid like that not even trained could take out a ninja.

"Hey shut up," Ino growled out, "We saw him in the hospital with the bloody bandages on his chest where a kunai had hit him. He's lucky to be alive and for your information Hinata's father here the head of the Hyuga clan even said so, so shut up about it and take a bath you smell like a dog."

Ino didn't like other people mocking her friends and even for a kid she had a sharp tongue on her, although she only thought that Hinata's father had said something like that since she had overheard her father talking about it over dinner once.

"Wow look at that!" a kid yelled out and everyone looked to see that Naruto had done about as well as Sasuke. Naruto looked proudly at his score he wasn't sure how well he did although by the looks of it Sasuke only just beat him by a few points. He was disappointed that he didn't win but that just meant he had to train harder now.

Sasuke looked at the kid harder now he needed to be stronger and he couldn't have any equal, he had to kill him to avenge his clan but this kid was nearly as good at him at least in this field. But he would keep his eye on him just in case. If the kid proved to be his equal or even stronger then he would beat him, he had to because his brother was stronger than anyone else in his village so he had to be stronger than anyone in this village too or he wouldn't stand a chance.

As the day went on Naruto while in class looked to be bored or not always paying attention, while they were doing the physical training he started to compete with the Uchiha child. Whenever those two did everyone wanted to see who would come out on top, although Sasuke beat Naruto most of the time it sometimes was by a slim or small margin. Everyone else was trying to just keep up with them and by now everyone was talking about the two kids. Naruto was a bit disappointed when in the basic taijutsu class he wasn't paired up with Sasuke, he wanted to see where he was in skills with the kid but instead he got paired up with the loud kid Kiba.

Kiba was stronger than him but Naruto still managed to keep making him hit the ground every time thanks to all that training Naruto got from his dad, and his 'aunt' and 'uncle' as well. He was pleased to see that Hinata seemed to excel out of the girls thanks to her gentle fist style training. By lunch Naruto and his friends were sitting together outside with the snack packages there were there for the students.

"Man school is a lot different than I would have thought," Naruto said eating his food, and to the annoyance of everyone else whenever they averted they're eyes somehow his food was always gone in a blink of an eye. "I thought it would be more fun and stuff."

"Well I'm having a good time," Sakura stated eating a sandwich. "I mean we're learning lots of things and knowledge is important to have."

"Who cares, I just wish that we could take classes outside," Shikamaru said laying on the ground looking up at the sky while eating an apple.

"You'd just go to sleep again like in class," Ino said rolling her eyes, Naruto laughed at that and Ino went to look at the other blonde, "I wouldn't laugh Iruka-sensei caught you nodding off twice."

"I didn't get any sleep last night I was too excited!" He said in his own defence although that was true he just didn't want to admit that Iruka could be a bit on the boring side at times and things like math and science wasn't really his strong point. Plus he didn't get how Iruka said it would help with his life as a ninja so maybe he would ask his dad at least later.

While they talked on Naruto noticed one kid who was off on the side, he wore a coat with dark glasses and had the bottom of his coat covering his face with messy brown hair on top. Naruto watched as the kid was eating by himself but he seemed to break off some small pieces of his food and place it on the ground. Naruto was wondering why when he saw small black bugs come out from his sleeve and go to the food. Naruto was wondering why the kid had bugs in his coat, although they seemed to be doing what he said too.

Naruto just shrugged it off as someone asked him a question. The rest of the day went by pretty well at least although Naruto learned one aspect of school that he would hate until the last day of his life in school. The most dreaded word that would go into his list of words that he hated and that word was homework.

Naruto sighed as he walked home with his new books and stuff all the while muttering to himself about how he spent all day learning stuff and doing work and now he had to take work home with him? Sometimes life just didn't seem fair to Naruto, and then his mind began to wonder about how to liven things up at school. A few ideas started to form and he couldn't wait until he started his plan to make school less boring and one target he would love to try it out on was Sasuke, that guy needed to get that stick removed and he was going to make that boy liven up even if it killed him.

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