Papa is a student

The meeting wasn't really anything to stress out about reality, there were a couple of personal questions about his home life and what his family was like. Since this was the first time Naruto was going through this interview, he determined that he might not have been able to make it through it so easily as himself. the sensei that was interviewing him was nice, but that was only because he saw him as Mia, not Naruto. Naruto's life was like a dumpster fire, while mia's life was only unfortunate. At least Mia got to know her parents, got time to spend with them, and even have caring siblings, while Naruto never had anything like that while he was younger. He always came back home to an empty, broken house where his door was kicked in and his stuff was thrown around carelessly. He had to find his own meals and never knew what a warm bed felt like since he had always been a stained mattress with a blanket, no pillows or sheets. He barely had food to eat during the week, and would often go to bed hungry after running out of food after three days.

No one really looked out for him, except for Shikamaru, Hinata, and Chouji. 

At first, their friendship was kept under wraps. Shikamaru and Chouji would happen to be sitting next to him during class and would talk to him a little. Hinata would sometimes leave her spare lunch box in front of Naruto by 'accident' only for Naruto to find a note that told him to enjoy it. After a little while, Shikamaru and Chouji started hanging out with him a little more often, even during class, and after school. As soon as they did, others started to take notice and started asking them why they did that, but their answers remained the same.

'Because we want to,' and that would be that.

Hinata would sometimes follow Naruto from a distance because she wanted to look out for him without her father knowing that she was trying to get closer to him. It was thanks to here that Shikamaru and Chouji were always able to find Naruto whenever he was walking around alone, or when he seemed to be in trouble. Actually, Shikamaru and Chouji did end up running to his aid once or twice before because of her following him from the shadows. For that, Naruto was thankful. He was envious of his identity as Mia, but he wasn't jealous since Mia wasn't real. Rather, if it wasn't for him, Mia wouldn't exist. So in short, he got over his feelings about his disguise quick enough. 

"Mia, tell me, what was your journey like?" The sensei asked as his questioning was coming to an end since he said there was only a short number of questions that needed to be answered.

Looking over to the clock, Mia realized that it had already been close to five minutes now. "Uh, my journey? Um, well, it was kind of hard to get here, especially since we had to sneak onto the caravan in order to make it into the village. We didn't want the merchants to get into trouble, and we didn't want to get caught or left behind, so it was really hard. We had to hide away out of sight and not be noticed, if we were, then we could have been sent back to our aunties house to be punished. None of us wanted that, so we did our best to keep track of the caravan. We also had to find our own food whenever it stopped or else we starved until the next town. It took a while to get here, but I'm happy that we made it," she smiled softly then. "I'm thankful that I had my big brother and sister with me, or else I didn't know what I would do." As she spoke, she thought about all the hardships she went through in the past to make her tone more believable. From the look on the man's face, she could tell that he felt bad for her, the empathy in his eyes spoke volumes.

Naruto didn't know why that look made him angry inside.

Maybe it was because this sensei was one of the first he had when he first came to the academy. He made his time in his class a living hell, all of the humiliation he faced came back to him in waves when he looked into the man's eyes. The way he was pitying Mia was not at all the way he pitied Naruto. Maybe that was why Naruto was imagining this man being gutted like a fish for being a hypocrite.

Meanwhile, the sensei wrote something down on the clipboard he had been holding since the start of the interview. The two sat in silence for a moment before the man looked up at him with a bright smile, "well, that is all the questions that I have for you, we are free to go, Mia-chan." Mia nodded her head and got up from the chair she had been sitting in. She made her way over to the door before the man called out to her, "by the way, Mia, I was wondering something just now, where are you and your siblings living right now?"

Mia paused, "oh, that's...a secret," she turned to him with a small smile. "We're still getting settled in here since we only just arrived, so we don't have a permanent place to settle down in yet. So, for now, it's a secret," she giggled cutely, letting her innocence show a bit.

The sensei let out a chuckle, "fair enough." He got up from his seat and walked over to the door of the office they were in, he opened the door to show Marco and Mikasa getting up from their seats. the sensei came out first and stepped aside for them to see Mia. "Congrats, as far as I can see, your sister had passed the evaluation. You can come back here tomorrow for the second stage of her enrollment." 

Mia walked over to her older siblings with a small smile on her face. Mikasa and Marco smiled back, "great job, Mia!" Marco praised her happily.

Mikasa hugged her tightly, "I'm proud of you, Mia!" Mia hugged her back before they separated to turn back to the sensei who seemed to be sharing in their excitement. "We will make sure to bring her back bright and early in the morning for the next step." After they said their goodbyes to the sensei, the trio made their way out of the academy building and made their way outside where they regrouped with Shikamaru. Chouji and Hinata turned back into themselves, while Naruto continued to stay as Mia just in case someone walked by and recognized him. Hinata walked right up to Shikamaru with a bright smile on her face, "phase one was a success, Shika. Did you see Naruto in there, how did he do?"

Shikamaru nodded, "mhm, he did pretty good." He glanced at Naruto, "I was starting to believe him for a second."

"Man, that was stressful, I thought we would have gotten close for sure when I saw Iruka sensei walk by on his way to the teacher's office." Chouji sighed tiredly as he remembers how the three of them saw their sensei while they were heading down to the first floor for Naruto's evaluation. It made their hearts skip a beat, but thankfully they were able to keep their cool in the heat of the moment and made sure to keep a straight face in front of him. Iruka only smiled and waved hello to them as he seemed to be in a hurry to get to the teacher's office. 

"Well, don't relax just yet you guys, we still have to prepare for Naruto's test tomorrow." Shikamaru stated, then he paused before continuing, "but first..." he took a few steps closer to Naruto, "we should head over to the hospital before heading home."

"The hospital?! What for? I'll better now, I can even walk around on my own too," Naruto stated with a pout. "Are you just saying that because you're turning into a dad or something? You don't need to worry about me so much, Shika."

"Troublesome, I'm too young to be a dad, Naru," Shikamaru shook his head. "Actually, the reason why I bring it up is that there's something I wanna check out. It's about your health." Naruto pouted wondering if Shikamaru had noticed the stomach ache he had been trying to hide from them. "I was actually kind of curious about how you would do during the test tomorrow, so I was thinking that we should check to see if you are fully healed."

Hinata nodded, "yeah, sounds good. We wouldn't want to postpone your enrollment here any longer, right?"

Chouji also agreed with them, "that's right, if you don't hurry and start class now, then you might be left behind when it's time for everyone to graduate. You can only stay in the academy after graduation for long after all."

Naruto sighed, he didn't think Shikamaru meant any harm by it, but Naruto absolutely hated hospitals. The needles, the smell, the sounds, everything about the place made him want nothing to do with the place. Not to mention the fact that he had never had any good experiences there before. However, if this would finally make his friends stop worrying about him so much, then he might as well go along with it. "Alright, fine, I'll go with you to the hospital," the transformed boy said dejectedly.

"Great, I've already set up an appointment for you with a doctor too. We should hurry before we're late." Shikamaru said as he started making his way towards the hospital by taking a shortcut through the bushes. This was to make sure that no one walking around the front or side of the academy saw them skipping class, again, this morning. Hinata, Chouji, and Naruto followed him quickly so they also were not seen hanging around the back of the school. "We're so gonna get chewed out for skipping again today, but it would be best for Naruto to get a check-up today while he still can. Once we are all back in the same class again, we are sure to be getting tons of extra credit work as punishment, and Naruto's gonna get some too since he's coming in so late. I just hope that one sees us before we can come up with an excuse," the Nara thought as they walked.

Unfortunately for him, someone had already seen the group walking away from the building.

Iruka watched from the second-floor window of the academy building as three of his students and a potential new student left the academy grounds. he wasn't really mad at them per se, he figured that they had run into the new girl on her way out of the building after her evaluation, and was no trying to show her around the village. From what he heard from his co-worker, the girl was not originally from the village and came from a complicated background. While Iruka had no idea of who's class she would be in if and/or when she passes the enrollment test, but either way, he would be making sure that his current students got punished accordingly once they got back to class. With a mischievous smirk on his face, Iruka started getting the assignments ready for his three wayward students to do once they finally showed up to class. He also decided to hold off on talking to each of their parents about their recent behavior since talking to each one of them would take away from the end-of-year exam that he needed to start preparing for. "So much to do in such little time, when will I ever get a break?" Thought the chunin as he took a seat at his desk in the teacher's office.

At the hospital

Shikamaru was the first one to walk into the hospital with his friends following behind him. Naruto was still disguised as Mia because no one glared at him at all when he looked that like, for which he was thankful. The group of four made their way up and over to the section of the hospital that was strictly for younger kids around the ages of zero to thirteen or fourteen years old. The main people that visit this section of the hospital were kids in the academy and young ninjas that fall into the age range. It was seen as a safe place for kids in or entering the ninja field where they offer health care and therapy for preteens going into their teens. Everyone knows how stressful being a ninja can be at times, and all the dangers that come along with it, so it stands to reason that no adults are allowed to enter this area of the hospital unless they were given permission or they were on staff at the hospital. 

It was just an extra precaution to make sure that the kids that visit there feel safe. the doctors and nurses there are also sworn to secrecy of their patients as apart of their confidentiality policy. Kids can also make appointments here in secret so that their parents don't have to know unless the kids want them to. Along with confidentiality, this area also provides their services free of charge to the academy students, whereas new genin get discounts upon their graduations and their very own insurance cards. This was the main reason why Shikamaru decided to bring Naruto here for his checkup.

"Okay, here we are, the kid center," Shikamaru announced as they walked into the kid's section of the hospital. He made his way over to the front desk where the receptionist smiled at him, "hello, I'm here for the appointment that I scheduled for nine forty-five." He stated as he handed her his academy ID badge to confirm his identity although any form of identification will do as long as the name of the appointment matched the ID. This means that anyone wanting to use other names to make an appointment should have a way to confirm the name.

The receptionist smiled at him after typing something out on her computer, "yes, I have you right here, the name for the appointment is listed as: Shikamaru Nara, is that correct?" 

Shikamaru nodded, "yep, that's me."

She nodded at him, "very good, you made it on time. You currently have one person ahead of you, they should be out in a few minutes though, so you won't have to wait so long. I will let the doctor know that you have arrived for your appointment, may I ask who the patient is for this visit?" She asked out of courtesy since kids that come to this section sometimes make appointments under different names or under the names of friends because they don't want to tell anyone what they are coming here for. Not that they really have to worry about that since the policy doesn't allow anyone in this section to talk about their patient in any details outside of the section. She was happy that this boy brought his ID with him and showed up on time, some of the kids that show up here can be forgetful sometimes. 

Shikamaru nodded, he gestured over to the curly brown-haired girl standing behind him, "it's for her. She's been feeling a little under the weather lately and refused to come to the hospital until just now when we convinced her. As her friends, we just wanna know what's going on with her lately."

The receptionist nodded her head in understanding, "of course, I understand." She replied, "you are very kind to look out for your friend like that." She gathered some papers from a draw in her desk, clipped it to a keyboard before handing it over to Shikamaru, "well, since you say your friend has never been here before, she will need to fill out some information here. The questions are the same as what is on the adult's version, however, the questions have been simplified enough for kids to understand. I also must inform you guys that even though the services here are free to academy students, if you are making an appointment for counsel, you will need to head over to the neighboring desk for those appoints." She pointed to the twin receptionist desk that was across the room from hers.

Shikamaru took the clipboard from her with a smile, "thanks, we'll keep that in mind next time."

The woman handed him a pen just in case he didn't have one, "then you may take your seats until your name is called by the nurse who will take your friend to meet the doctor. You are welcomed to our waiting room while you wait."

Shikamaru nodded his thanks before walking over to the four rows of empty chairs nearby. He took a seat in the front row as he started looking over the papers that the receptionist handed to him. He started filling out what he already knew about Naruto, meanwhile, the disguised blond was looking around nervously as he took a seat next to Shikamaru. Hinata and Chouji sat on either side of them as they all waited. "Naru, are you allergic to anything?" Shikamaru asked. Naruto shook his head, his curly brown hair bouncing around him as he did. "Okay, have you had any major surgeries in the past?" Shikamaru asked, Naruto thought to himself for a moment before shaking his head. "Okay, and what about medicine? Although I don't think you are on any right now, did you ever take any in the past?" Again, Naruto shook his head no, Shikamaru nodded and filled out all of the blank spaces with the needed information, looked over each page closely before putting down the clipboard, "okay, all done. Now we just wait."

Naruto nodded nervously, his eyes turned to the door, the ceiling, the empty chairs, the two receptionist desks, and the room in general. It was very colorful, giving it a kid-like feel to it, but it was still apart of the hospital that he hated coming to as a kid. His eyes fell back onto the door, waiting for it to open and the doctor to come out. "Um...hey, guys, what am I supposed to do in there?" He asked nervously.

"Nothing," Hinata said from her seat on Naruto's other side. "Just go in there and let the doctors do his job, all you have to do is tell them how you have been feeling lately. If it's nothing serious, then they will tell you right away, but if it is, then Chouji and I will step in to hear it."

"Really? So I won't be alone when I go in there?" Naruto asked nervously.

"Well, technically you do have to go in on your own to get checked out, but if you ask the doctor, then one of us can go in with you if that's what you really want." Shikamaru explained, "the doctors here are required to keep our visit secret, even from our parents. That meant that if our parents come down here to ask if we were here, they will tell that we were, but they can not tell them why that is unless it's something that needs to be old to them."

"Something like what?" Naruto asked curiously.

Chouji leaned forward in his chair to see Naruto, "oh, you know, like if we somehow got cancer or something life-threatening. Other than that, everything else is a secret from everyone else. Only you and the doctor will know what you guys talk about in there, so there's no need to worry about anyone else finding out unless that's what you want."

"Wow, really?" Naruto felt a little impressed, he wondered if he would have gotten the same treatment here if he was himself, and not Mia. Then again, Naruto was not willing to take that chance.

"By the way, Naru," Hinata asked, she was looking at Naruto worriedly again. He was starting to think that she might grow grey hair before she's even old enough if this kept up. "How are you feeling now? Are you tired or anything? You've been in your transformation for almost two hours now."

Naruto gave her a little smile, "oh, uh, don't worry. I'm fine, this jutsu doesn't use up a lot of my chakra, so I can probably wear it for much longer thanks to 'him'." he was referring to Kyuubi but didn't want to say it out loud just in case someone was listening to their conversation. If someone was...Naruto looked around the room, there wasn't anyone else around except for them and the receptionists. "Uh, actually, guys, can you just call me Mia while we're out in public?" He whispered so only the three of them could hear, "I really don't want to tip anyone off about who I really am if I can help it."

"Oh, you're right, Na-I mean Mia," Hinata said softly. "It would be bad if someone figured out that you were, you know, you."

Naruto nodded, happy that his friends understood him well enough to know about his concerns. Shikamaru leaned back in his seat, arms folded, "yeah, that's true, we should get used to calling you Mia while we're out in public just in case. You never know who's watching from the shadows, especially when you're going to become a ninja...How troublesome."

Just then someone opened the door between the two receptionist desks. A woman with short silky blond hair and pale blue eyes came out wearing a white lab coat over a black-green knee-length dress. She looked very professional and her smile looked very kind. "Appointment for a Mr. Nara?" She called out looking at the four friends.

Shikamaru stood up, "that's us, but the appointment is really for my friend over here." He held Naruto's hand, urging him to get out of his seat, the disguised blond quickly got up, feeling extra nervous as he looked up at the blond doctor. 

"Okay then, you can follow me inside, don't forget to bring your paperwork with you," the blond doctor said as she held the door open wider of her patient. She could tell right away that this girl was a newcomer since she wasn't moving her feet when she called for her to follow. "Poor thing must be making a mountain out of a molehill in her mind, I wonder what's got her so spooked." She thought, "you know since you are a first patient here, you are more than welcome to have one of your friends come in with you." 

"Uhm...well, I..." Naruto looked at his friends, he was really nervous but had no idea what to do about it. "Uh, okay..." he turned to Hinata hesitantly, "H-Hinata?"

Hinata quickly jumped to her feet before he could finish saying her name, "don't worry, I'll go with you." Naruto at her gratefully, she took his hand in hers and the two of them made their way over to the door, once they stepped behind the door with the doctor, Naruto got a good look around the back area. There were three hallways, two of them were long with rows of doors on both sides and one door at the very end of both, while the third was short and looked to lead into another waiting area. It passed two open office spaces with a counter separating the office from the short hallway. From where they were standing, the two of them could see some nurses doing some work in the open office space, one of them was talking to a patient who looked to be about their age. The patient actually looked to be someone they knew, upon closer inspection, the patient was Kiba Inuzuka, they could tell it was him since he was wearing his signature grey hoodie with the black fur trim.

The doctor started walking down the left hallway, "follow me, girls," she called to them. It seems that they had gotten caught up in looking around to notice the doctor had already started walking. Naruto and Hinata quickly caught up to her in time before Kiba turned away from the nurse to head back out into the waiting area. In his hands was a bag that looked like the type that was usually given to hold prescription medicine. Naruto noticed this as they made their way over to the room the blond doctor had waiting for them. Kiba didn't seem to notice them as he opened the door and walked out, the look on his face was very thoughtful, which made Naruto curious. "Alright, this will be the room that I will be doing your check-up in," she said opening the door for the girls to enter. Once they were inside, the doctor closed the door behind her, "now, will my lovely patient take a seat on the bed there, your friend can have a seat in the chair next to it." The two academy students did as told, "good, now then, let me introduce myself, my name is Dr. Filo, I will be doing your examination today. May I have your name?"

"Uh...I'm...I'm Mia..." Naruto said softly, but it was loud enough for Dr. Filo to hear it.

"Good, good, shall we get started?" Dr. Filo said after writing down Naruto's fake name on her clipboard.

After the exam

"This is...this is a surprise," Dr. Filo said, her face looked a little pale, but her professional manner stayed intack.

"What is it, Dr. Filo?" Hinata asked worriedly.

To be continued...