Moving in silence
A few weeks later
It was getting later in the day when Naruto fell asleep again. Hinata, Chouji, and Shikamaru helped Naruto figure out the words he couldn't understand, they gave him a dictionary to also look up the words that he didn't understand. The dictionary was given to Naruto by Hinata the next morning since the three of them had to go back to school. The trio had been scolded for not going to school on Friday, and since they didn't give their parents or teachers an explanation on why they did not attend class, they were all punished. Shikamaru and Chouji's curfews were reinforced once again, while Hinata had to spend extra time in the dojo with her father to train for the rest of the week as her punishment.
As time passed, Naruto started to pick up on the difficult words that threw him through a loop before. While Naruto was getting better at reading, Shikamaru started tutoring him in math, they were going through with their earlier plan of helping Naruto raise his grades up to average so he wouldn't be held back a grade. Hinata also helped him in subjects that he didn't get to learn much about in the past. things like science, biology, ninja coding 101, first aid, and field medicine. The other subjects like combat practice, and chakra theory came later when Naruto was fully healed and strong enough to stand on his own.
Most of the time, Naruto would be left at the house alone while his friends went to school during the week. Naruto would practice everything he learned from his friends while they were gone so he could show them how much he had learned when he saw them again. Naruto didn't think that he was going to get this much of a chance in class, so he took the chance to learn everything he could to make them proud of him. Since they had gone out of their way to support him this much, then he might as well repay the favor to them. He learned as much as he could from them, from their class notes to their homework, not to mention their extra credit assignments, he soaked it all in.
Shikamaru, Hinata, and Chouji were all impressed with the speed at which Naruto was picking up everything. There wasn't anything that he wouldn't want to learn. After a couple more days on bed rest, strict orders from Dr. Hinata herself, Naruto had regained his strength. the young blond had recovered fully and was able to participate in some light sparing with his friends, though he could tell that they were taking it easy on him at first. Naruto didn't like that and proceeded to show him that he was not going to be coddled by them. He fought back with as much strength as he could muster to prove that point, after a couple of days of sparing for them to realize that Naruto was back to full health, so they stopped holding most of their punches. So, during the week, Hinata and Shikamaru would tutor Naruto while Chouji cooks for all of them, and on the weekends, they would spare with each other until it was time for them to go back home. The trio would have to leave before nine if they wanted to get back home in time, and they would usually come back in the morning around six before they had to go to the academy during the week. On the weekends, it might be a little later since they liked to sleep in a little.
Even so, Naruto always had something to do during that time because his tutors, Hinata and Shikamaru, would always leave something for him to do while he was alone. They figured that this would be a good way for Naruto to not feel so lonely when he had to stay back at the house without them. Naruto didn't mind the arrangement since he was used to living alone anyway. He treated the house as his new apartment, he made sure to clean it up as best he could, and he was happy with the surroundings of the house as well. There were plants everywhere, they all overgrown and in their natural state, Naruto liked to look at all of the wildflowers that grew around the house because it was beautiful to him. His friends would come over for the day to sometimes see him watching the plants in the backyard. Naruto never ventured out to the front of the house just in case someone from the village happened to be wandering around there for some reason.
It has been almost two full months since Naruto had disappeared. It has been about three and a half weeks since he had been found by his friends, and ever since then, he had noticed that there were some symptoms that he couldn't shake as he regained his strength. Other than not being able to stand the smell of fish, Naruto found that he would sometimes get sick to his stomach, on some days he would throw up all day, not to mention the cravings he had recently developed. From flowers to chalk, Naruto found himself craving these things almost daily now, but he ignored those cravings as best he could. Even though he felt that way on the inside, he would try his best not to let his friends know so that they wouldn't worry about him so much since he thought that it was only a stomach bug that his body couldn't get over just yet. Since he had never been sick before, this didn't seem like anything to worry about to him, so he ignores it.
For now anyway.
Now that Naruto was back to full strength again, minus the mysterious stomach bug, he was keeping secret, Hinata, Shikamaru, and Chouji thought it might be time for Naruto to return to the academy. Naruto wasn't sure if he wanted to go back, but he knew he had to graduate in order to become a ninja and earn his own money. He couldn't keep hiding away from the world forever. Shikamaru did want Naruto to return to the academy, but he wasn't sure if he should because he had heard some people whispering about how the 'fox was finally defeated'. The whispers he heard around the village mostly came from the adults who seemed to hate Naruto the most, and not only that, but they were praising whoever it was that 'killed the demon'. Shikamaru was worried that if Naruto reappeared around the village now when those rumors seemed to be at the top of everyone's minds, then Naruto might get kidnapped again.
With that said, Shikamaru brought his concerns to the others, telling them of what he heard on Sunday while they were talking about Naruto going back to class. "There's a chance that this could all happen again," Shikamaru started after he told them everything. "I don't know who did this to you the first time, but I would like to avoid this or something worse happening to you," he looked directly at Naruto as he spoke. The blond looked to be even smaller now than he remembered before he went missing. Naruto had always been skinny, but now he looked even skinnier, he could tell that Naruto hasn't been eating well since he first woke up and came downstairs on his own.
Naruto hugged his knees tightly, "so what are we supposed to do? It's not like I can really change my identity and rejoin the class on my own."
In order to get into the academy, the student would have to go through two stages to get in. The first stage included the parents and/or guardians of the student in question will have to write a letter of recommendation. The potential student would be brought in for a psych evaluation to determine if they have the mentality to become a ninja. These evaluations are usually carried out on new students at the beginning of their academy training so that they would grow with their training instead of being dropped into it suddenly. That is why the students usually start going to the academy around four or five years of age, but now they were ten years old now. New students at the academy over the age of seven were rare or unheard of, but not completely uncommon.
"Who could we ask to write the recommendation?" Chouji asked.
No one knew the answer to that question, "hmm, who wrote your first letter, Naru?" Hinata asked looking at the blond.
"Oh, uh, I think it was the Hokage," Naruto replied. "He had made me a promise to help me earn my own money, all I had to do was graduate from the academy."
"They why don't we get the Hokage to write him another one?" Chouji asked feeling optimistic.
"Speaking of the Hokage, do you think he knows that Naruto's here?" Hinata asked curiously, "I mean, he is the head of the village. It is likely that he would know most of the things that are happening in the village he looked after."
"True, no one had shown up here, so it's possible that he could know what we are doing out here," Shikamaru stated. "It might also explain all of the medical supplies that were found around the house after we got here."
Naruto frowned as he laid his forehead on his knees, he didn't really like the Hokage very much. The old man always seemed to be putting on a show in front of him for some reason. Naruto couldn't tell if Hiruzen was really helping him or using him for something somehow. "The Hokage only helped me because he had to," he whispered.
The others looked towards him, confusion in their eyes, "what do you mean by that?" Chouji asked, Naruto shook his head slowly, not wanting to talk about it. The others looked at each other then, not sure what to make of the boy's comment, "then...what if we write it?"
Hinata and Shikamaru looked at him curiously, "what do you mean by that, Cho?" Hinata asked, "how are we supposed to do that when we're kids ourselves."
"Yeah, not to mention that someone at the academy will recognize our handwriting eventually," Shikamaru pointed out.
Chouji nodded, "yeah, I know, but we could be careful when we write so that we don't give it away. All we have to do is write it out and sign it with a different name, right?"
Shikamaru thought about that suggestion for a moment before looking over to Naruto, "well, it could work. But then comes the psyche evaluation, the parents are required to show up with the kid before the interview." He turned back to Hinata and Chouji, "uh, yeah...I think that if we manage to get the letter passed, and get through the psyche evaluation, then we might be able to actually enroll Naruto ourselves."
"Wouldn't we get caught as soon as we show up for the evaluation?" Hinata asked, "I know that we can transform into suitable-looking guardians, but wouldn't the sensei doing the eval notice our chakra signature?"
"It's possible, but we won't be present during the whole interview," Shikamaru said. "We just have to show up at the beginning and then take him home at the end of it. Plus the interviews only last about five minutes at most. It would be just like the first time."
Naruto sighed, he lifted his head to look at his friends, "I actually didn't go through the psych evaluation when I enter the academy."
"What? How?" Hinata asked, she knew that everyone got the evaluation whenever they were applying to get into the academy. But, if there was a special exception, then a student would be able to skip some part of the two stages and jump ahead of the other students who were on the waiting list. "Wait, Naruto, did Lord Hokage write your letter?"
Naruto nodded, "yeah. On the first day of the academy, he gave me a letter he had written out for me and told me to give it to my first sensei. After the guy read it, he sent me to sit in the back of the class. I only spent a couple of weeks in that class until I was sent to another sensei, and another until I was placed into Iruka sensei's class. I never had to do that interview you guys are talking about."
Chouji nodded, "yeah, I get it now. That explains how you were able to get into the academy without parents or a guardian, right? Since you have to have at least one of them to get a letter and be approved for the interview."
"Then, if he's never been through the interview, then we might have a better chance of getting through this," Hinata replied. "I think that Naruto should also transform into a girl that looks nothing like himself so that they don't get suspicious." She suggested after thinking about how Naruto could easily transition back into the class without anyone noticing. She thought that if Naruto had transformed himself into a girl, one that looked nothing like himself, then Naruto would have a better time fitting in and would learn more than he ever could as himself.
"A girl? Seriously?" Naruto sighed, "fine, I guess it makes sense, but I don't know anything about girls. Plus I lost everything in the fire, I only have the clothes that you gave me, Hinata."
Hinata smirked, "that's not a problem. I can just give you some more of the clothes that I no longer wear or can fit, that way you don't have to go to school with the same out over and over again." As she said that, she started thinking about how cute Naruto might look in a sundress. Even though Naruto was a boy, his current appearance looked quite doll-like that it made it easier to imagine."Actually, I don't think you really need to transform into a girl at all, if you just put on a wig and change your eye colors, and cover your whiskers, then that could be your disguise instead.
Naruto sweatdropped, "uh, yeah, I don't see how that is any different from just transforming into a girl. It's quicker and less troublesome."
Shikamaru and Chouji chuckled, "yeah, that is true." Shikamaru nodded, "but, maybe for now we can just meet in the middle. Naruto can wear Hinata's clothes, and use the transformation jutsu to just chance his boyish features. It would be best to go with a low maintenance kind of thing right now." Chouji nodded in agreement, Naruto smiled at him thankfully.
Hinata shrugged her shoulders, "well, that's alright, I suppose." She got up from her spot on the floor, "anyway, I should hurry up and get back so I can start gathering some clothes and a couple of other things." She turned her attention to the other two boys, "you two should also get him some of your old clothes too, it would be weird to have him wearing girl's clothes all the time, even when he's not in school or walking around the village."
"Right," Shikamaru nodded. With that, Hinata left the living room to head out the front door, meanwhile, Shikamaru and Chouji got up and up to head over to the kitchen. "We'll get lunch started, is there anything that you want to eat today Naruto?"
The blond shook his head, "no, anything should be fine," Shikamaru nodded and continued on to the kitchen with Chouji.
The next day
Even though they lived in the Land of Fire, where it was usually quite warm most of the time, it was getting closer to the winter now. Fall had come and gone, and the wind had picked up considerably today. It made Hinata's outfit choice for Naruto seem slightly underdressed. Naruto was gifted a bunch of clothes from Hinata's own closet, things that she wore a year ago that she had currently grown out of seemed to fit Naruto perfectly. She didn't know if she felt happy about that fact, but, at least he had some clothes to wear with his disguised. As for his outfit, he was wearing a pink v-neck short-sleeved top with a simple blue skirt that came down above his knees, and a pair of Marry Janes that Hinata was given a few months back that wasn't her style. The shoes were cute and girly, but Hinata didn't find them to be very practical, she did like them, but never wore them. Since it was windy outside, he was also wearing an off-white jacket with a double row of buttons going down the middle.
As for Naruto's disguise, he changed his hair to be longer, curly, stopping to just below his shoulders and changed the color from golden sun blond to milk chocolate brown. His eyes went from blue to a shinning green color that almost sparkled. He gave himself a light sprinkling of freckles as well, mainly because he liked how freckles looked, they would take the place of the whiskers on either side of his cheeks. He also gave himself a beauty mark under the corner of his left eye just because and made his face slightly rounder. His height was naturally shorter than all three of his friends, so he automatically looked a year younger than them without trying, which he was planning to use to his advantage.
"Oh, Naru, you look so cute!" Hinata cheered happily as she rushed over to give him a big hug while letting out a girly squeal.
Naruto looked at himself in the mirror of the upstairs bedroom he had been using until now. he would have to admit, he did look quite cute, not only did he look cute, he looked nothing like himself. he was kind of impressed with how real the transformation looked on him. If he didn't know any better, he would have thought that he was looking at a complete stranger. "Uh, thanks," naruto said awkwardly.
Shikamaru nodded in approval, "yeah, I think this might work now. Since you don't look like the Naruto they know, then I'm sure that we'll be able to fool them enough like this. Not only that," he folded his arms, "we can also change our plans from before."
"Huh?" Naruto looked over to Shikamaru's reflection in the mirror, "what plans are we changing?"
"The ones about the grades," Chouji clarified with a smile. "Now that you don't look like, well, you anymore, we can continue going to class as normal and help you get higher grades. Instead of just doing average, maybe you can try out for Rookie of the Year or something. It's possible, right Shika?"
"Now hold on, you guys, you're forgetting that we still have to get him into the academy first. That's why today we start 'Operation: Guardian', I even brought over a letter I worked on last night," Shikamaru stated. "It's mostly a copy of my letter from when I first started, but I changed a few things to make sure that it wasn't too similar."
Naruto turned his head a little to see the letter that Shikamaru was holding, "okay, so which one of you is going to be my 'guardian' today?"
"That would be me," Hinata said as she finally released Naruto from her hug. "And Chouji too, we'll transform into adults and bring the letter to the school along with you. Shikamaru's gonna head there ahead of us to take up a place where he could watch over everything that's happening. With any luck, everything goes smoothly and the first stage gets finished without breaking a sweat."
Naruto frowned, "geez, Hina, you make it sound so simple."
Hinata shook her head, "not at all, I know that no plan goes off perfectly. I'm just trying to be optimistic right now."
"By the way, shouldn't we come up with a backstory about why we need to enroll Naruto into the academy at such a late age?" Chouji asked, "I mean, wouldn't the senseis get curious to think that we might be enemy ninjas trying to infiltrate the village? My dad told me a story about some young ninjas that were about our age who were taken from their parents when after they were born only to be raised as killers or something."
"Oh, you mean the story of the Moriyama Company?" Hinata asked knowing the story quite well since her father had told her that same story many times when she was much younger. The story was meant to teach young potential ninjas that being a ninja is not always a glamorous life, anything can happen. The story was also used as a way for parents to make their children realize that they could have been born into a worse situation than becoming a young ninja that had to go to school every day. While the kids of Konoha hear of this story often enough, they don't usually understand the full weight of being ninjas until they actually go on their first C rank mission. They also don't know how true that story really is. "I thought that was just some story that parents told their kids when they complain about stuff too much."
Chouji shrugged, "maybe, but isn't there a chance that they could think that?"
"Stories aside, Chouji does have a point," Shikamaru stated. "We should carefully think about what our motivations are for getting Naruto enrolled. That includes where we came from and everything like that. I don't think they will look that far into it, but the possibility is there, so we shouldn't take too many chances," Chouji and Hinata both nodded in agreement with the Nara.
Naruto looked at all three of his friends, inside of him, his emotions were growing out of control. Before he knew it, he was crying, why? He wasn't really sure about the reason, his eye-balls just decided to start sweating on their own. Chouji noticed first, "hey, Naruto, what's the matter? Why are you crying?"
Naruto quickly whipped the tears from his eyes or eye-sweat, "I'm not crying, my eyes are just sweating!"
Shikamaru's eyebrows knitted together, "he's clearly crying." Of course, he didn't say this out loud, "uh, okay, so let's get back to the backstory then." He had never seen Naruto suddenly start crying like this before, but he guessed that it had something to do with the storage 'stomach bug' that Naruto was trying to hide from them. Hinata had taken note of it first because she had appointed herself as his caretaker of sorts, so she noticed the symptoms first. It wasn't like it was hard to see though, the way that Naruto didn't eat certain things, the way he would look kind of sickly in the morning and most of the afternoon. There was something going on with him, and Shikamaru wanted to know what that was, but for now, they had to focus on one thing at a time.
At the academy
Naruto, Hinata, Shikamaru, and Chouji all arrived at the school extra early that morning. Shikamaru went into the building first to find a good place to hide while the interview was going on. Once the letter was accepted, then there was no doubt that they would be heading towards the interview room right after. There, Shikamaru would use the earpiece that he borrowed from his dad's office to give Naruto some direction during the interview by tapping code into his earpiece to communicate to Naruto. Morse code was one of the first things that they taught Naruto since they were learning it themselves in class, so he was learning it over the past few weeks. They had prepped for situations like this during that time, so Shikamaru was hoping that it all went according to plan. Thankfully Naruto seemed to soak up everything they were teaching him like a sponge in water.
As for Hinata and Chouji, they were going to be entering the building with Naruto under disguise. Chouji would be the big brother, and Hinata would be the big sister, a natural for her considering. They both transformed into young adults who resemble Naruto's disguise. Hinata made her hair light brown and straight, and Chouji made his hair dark brown and curly. Hinata made her eyes dark brown, while Chouji's eyes became light green. Hinata gave herself some freckles to match Naruto's, in her transformation, she wore a simple white dress with black closed-toe shoes, a black jacket, and a black beanie. Meanwhile, Chouji had no freckles, his transformation's body type remained chubby with hints of muscles, and she wore a simple cream sweater and black jeans with gray closed-toed shoes.
Hinata and Chouji couldn't decide who would be the older or younger sibling while they were transformed, so they decided to be fraternal twins, while Naruto was their younger sister. The three of them would be orphans who recently came to the village after running away from their abusive relative's home village. They would have snuck into the village by hiding away in a hidden compartment of a merchant caravan that recently came into the village recently. Shikamaru had checked these facts to make sure that there was enough truth in their backstory that they could squeak by. Luckily for them, there was a merchant's caravan that came into the village recently from the Land of Water to sell some goods. Between the three of them, they did look like actual siblings, so there wasn't anything to disprove that other than a blood test. The reason why the three of them had to live with an abusive relative would be because their parents had recently passed away from a plague that hit their home tome east of the village that their relatives lived in.
It was also lucky for them that the plage was also very much a fact. The ninja newspaper had an article about it a couple of days ago, the newspaper was created to report on things like this so that things like diseases don't get spread around. Not to mention that the concept of the ninja newspaper was created by an ex-ninja whose origins and background are unknown. It's speculated that they use a spy network to get all their information from, either way, it was working out for them as they found it helpful to their cause. Thanks to that newspaper, their story was believed and they made it into the academy with little trouble. The letter that Shikamaru wrote for them was also received well because of their background. The sensei that read the letter assumed that the brother, Marco, wrote the letter for his little sister, Mia, to be accepted into their ranks. It was also good that the backstory had no ninja affiliation or else they would have been in trouble.
Naruto's transformed self was called Mia, a nine-year-old girl.
Chouji's transformed self was called Marco, a fifteen-year-old boy.
And Hinata's transformed self was called Mikasa, a fifteen-year-old girl.
With that said, Mia was allowed to do the psych evaluation, "alright, here you go." The sensei that brought into the building gave back their letter after reading through it and making a copy for record.
Marco accepted the letter, "so, will my darling little sister be able to enroll here?" He asked curiously as he looked back at Mia and Mikasa.
The sensei looked over to the two sisters as well, he couldn't deny that Mia and Mikasa both looked very cute. He couldn't help but stare, but he brought himself back to reality when Marco turned back to him, "oh, uh, actually, there is another part of this preliminary that she will need to go through first. It's just a psych evaluation to see if she will be able to handle the curriculum that is taught here. You might be surprised by this, but children her age don't usually enroll here this late, or rather, it's a little less common."
Marco nodded, "I understand. So, when will we be doing this evaluation thing?"
"Ah, I can take her to the office to do it right now," the sensei said. He started to make his way towards the stairs that would take him down to the back end of the first floor. The trip had been taken up to the second floor when they arrived so they could talk to this sensei in the admissions office, but the interview room for the psych evaluation was held downstairs towards the back of the building. This was to make sure that no noise from the classrooms or the training area outside near the side of the building was heard while the evaluation was taking place. "You three can follow me down, but only Mia and I will be in the room."
"Only the two of you?" Mikasa asked worriedly, she looked down at her little sister unsure if she wanted to allow her to be near an older guy that wasn't their brother, Marco.
The sensei nodded, "yes, and you have no need to worry about her safety. I promise we will be sitting apart in the room while I ask her questions, it's the best way for me to see if she is ready to enroll here as a student. As a matter of fact, this method was adopted into our enrollment process by the Third Hokage to make sure that all of the students are not being pressured into becoming ninjas. Or if they are, that they are going through with it because they really want to become stronger and know how to defend themselves in the future. Things like that are what determines who will and will not be accepted into our ranks." He explained as they made their way to the office, when they arrived, he stopped in front of the door and opened it wide for Mikasa and Marco to see. "This is the room that we will be doing the evaluation in, as you can see, it's pretty plain, and there is a reasonable space between the chairs so it's not like I will be uncomfortable while we talk."
The siblings looked inside of the room to see two chairs and a table. The table was about seven and a half feet wide with a chair on either side of it. There was one window inside that showed the forest around the back of the school, it looked somewhat peaceful outside. Mikasa sighed in relief, "that's good. My apologies, it's just that we get very protective of our little sister after all that we've been through," she said as she patted Mia's curly hair.
Miz blushed, "Hinata's really good act acting. She makes a really good big sister too, I wonder if her little sister gets this kind of treatment from her often."
The man nodded, "understood, we get a lot of brothers, sisters, and parents that are like that when they are enrolling their little ones here. Rest assured, this is only a routine questioning that all of our students go through, you can ask any of them to be sure."
Marco chuckled, "will do. Well, I guess we'll have to wait out here since there are only two chairs there, isn't that right?"
The man nodded, "yes, that's right." He looked down at Mia with a small smile, "well, Mia-chan, would you like to get started?" Mia nodded and walked into the room a little nervously as her siblings watched. She went over to one of the chairs and took a seat and looked down at her lap until the sensei came over. The man smiled at her and turned back to Mia's older siblings, "the interview shouldn't take too long, five minutes at most. you can have a seat in those chairs over there until we're done," he pointed to a row of five chairs that sat across from the office door. "we'll come right out once we're done."
Mikasa nodded and looked past the man towards her little sister, "don't worry about being perfect, Mia, we'll be waiting right outside for you, okay?"
"Don't worry so much, Mikasa, she'll be fine," Marco stated like a kind big brother. He looked over to Mia just before leading Mikasa over to the chairs, "just relax we're almost done here, okay?" Mikasa nodded her head softly as they both took their seats. They watched the man enter the room with Mia and closed it, blocking their view of the. Just then Marco leaned back in his chair, "this is kind of stressful, it's making my stomach flip."
Mikasa chuckled, "yeah? But it's not like you're in there being interviewed, Chouji," she whispered.
"Yeah, but still," Marco whispered back, Mikasa chuckled again.
To be continued...