Chapter 5
JULY- 3 MONTHS-
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Naruto was bored. She was currently sat in history class learning about Hashirama Senju, the shodaime hokage, and she knew everything she needed to know and then some. After-all, she had met the man.
During her three months at the academy she had run into a lot of people she recognised, yet some had to introduce themselves before she fully recognised them. Iruka-sensei, Mizuki, Hayate and Doto Akimichi who she recalled hearing worked with her father during the war that would be announced later in the year.
She had also met Izumo and Kotetsu a few times within academy walls. And much to her surprise she had seen yet not met; Asuma, Anko, Gai, Kurenai and Ibiki. She was thoroughly pleased when she didn't see the pedo-hebi with Anko or she wasn't sure what she would have done. Yet knowing the old snake, he would simply brush it off as Jiraiya having taught her to test her abilities on him or some crap.
As she thought of the hebi sennin, she wondered when he would defect and if it was possible to stop that from happening. Fighting him was out of the question, she was nowhere near the sennins level at this point in time. A few more years and she should be able to do quite some damage to that smug face.
She shook her head, if she kept thinking about him she would get angry, if she got angry the teacher would wonder why and get worried. She absolutely hated being pampered just because she was the adopted daughter of a sennin and sibling to the Yellow Flash.
She contemplated whether or not she should leave a clone in her place during the break, yet thankfully the shodai was on her side as the door opened and in came Minato Namikaze, her father turned brother.
The teacher, a female, did her very best not to blush and Naruto found she wasn't very irritated about that. Minato was a good looking male, so it was obvious women notice it. As long as they didn't try anything, it was all good.
He whispered to the teacher, Akira, yet Naruto could hear, "I'd like to take my sister for some private training if that's alright? She gets easily bored and already knows the academic side of things. If she has homework, we'll take that and she can finish tonight."
Akira sensei looked nervous, unsure what she should do, yet when she looked at Naruto she understood what the older blonde was saying. Naruto looked as bored as she felt.
She sighed and nodded to Minato before saying, "Naruto. Namikaze-san is here to pick you up early. If you collect your homework, you can go with him."
Naruto hid her joy quite well yet she knew some happiness could be seen on her face as she made her way down the stairs to the teacher's desk, taking her homework on the shodai and left with her brother.
They were making their way to training ground 7 when she asked, "Don't you have to be with your team aniki?"
Minato smiled and ruffled her shoulder length hair, causing her to pout and fix it the best she could and, "Well… it's already past noon and we've done quite a bit this morning so I let them go early to get some training in with you."
She him a smile back and they quietly made their way to their destination. She wondered if this is what it felt like to have a brother. Or perhaps even a father at a young age. Ero-sennin had been a father to her when she was already a teenager and even then, she was so engrossed in getting Sasuke back she hadn't thought to cherish these sort of moments with him.
She had never thought he would die on her, the way he had. But Jiraiya would have wanted to go out fighting and in a useful way rather than on a sick bed. Yet it hurt non-the-less.
When she had first met her father she had felt several things. Anger for sealing Kurama within her. Sadness that he had left her unloved. And happy to know he loved her even though she hated herself for all that she was incapable of.
Yet here she was, sending time with her father, not that he would ever know who she truly was to him. He would forever think her his little sister, and Naruto found she didn't very much mind.
When they weren't too far from the training ground she felt a chakra signature that even after being in the presence of it, made her blood run cold before she reminded herself he meant no harm.
Obito Uchiha. She found he was very much like Kakashi sensei, always late for team meetings, yet not for missions, always had an outlandish excuse which was far more believable than Kakashi's. She wondered whether or not Obito was a fan of Icha Icha as well, she wouldn't be surprised.
Minato had either noticed or chose not to comment on Obito being there but her inner prankster couldn't help it, "Aniki? Why is Obito at the training grounds?"
Minato's head quickly turned to look at her causing him to trip over a tree root, subsequently causing Naruto to giggle at the sight. The revered yondaime hokage, yellow flash of konoha, triiped over a tree root in the village hidden in the leaves.
Oh the irony was real.
Minato did not allow this to deter him as he brushed off the dirt from his clothes and looked discretely at his sister, "And how would you know if he was there exactly Naru?" he had taken a very keen liking to shortening her name, especially when he saw the flustered look it would give her.
She chose to ignore the name and continued with the conversation at hand, "I have Uzumaki blood. I'm good as sensing other people. Ero-tousan also taught me the very basics in senjutsu as well." It wasn't a lie, whilst Naruto needed her physical body to be stronger, she did not have Kurama to tell her when she was being followed or if someone she wished to avoid was nearby. Therefore she had asked him to help her with senjutsu without absorbing very much of nature's energy.
She was slightly miffed at the thought of having to relearn the art of a sennin of Mount Myoboku all over again, but conceded that there was nothing to be done about it.
Minato raised a brow, looking curious and indifferent yet she could sense he wasn't pleased at his sensei teaching his little sister something so very dangerous when she was so young.
"And how is that going?"
"It's alright. He's not teaching me very much, but I asked him to when I noticed that some people were following me by looking through a mirror. I wanted to be able to sense when people are doing that so I won't get surprised by their presence."
Minato nodded in reply, it made sense that she would want to learn for the purpose she stated yet he was not happy that a five year old was achieving things that and adult would. It made him think of Kakashi who had made chunin at the mere age of 7, robbed of his childhood, yet Minato had taken the young Hatake under his wing in order to help him socialize yet none of his hard work had come to fruition, much to his chagrin.
The two of them once again lapsed into a quiet walk that did not last more than a minute as they made it to the training grounds. Naruto looked at the memorial stone yet, pleasantly surprised there were no added names. That did not mean there were no deaths, it simply meant their bodies had been returned. Everyone was bought home.
She was not naïve enough to think that no one had died, they were on the brink of a war with the other nation's after-all.
As they approached the centre of the grounds Obito looked up at the two of them, he had clearly been studying as he had scrolls laid out in front of him that he had kept looking at, "Minato sensei? What are you and Naruto doing here?" he asked as he stood up straight.
Minato smiled at his student as he spoke up, "Just thought I'd do some private training with her before she went bored out of her mind and did something. Don't even try to deny it." He looked sternly at her as she opened her mouth to say her defence, "Soo. What are you working on there, Obito?"
He looked down at the scrolls and hurriedly picked and packed them, clearly having forgotten they were there. Yet he did not pack them away quick enough for Naruto to not notice what was on them, and most likely Minato as well, "You're working on a katon jutsu?" she titled her head to the side, truly intrigued that he would hide it from them or even training outside of the Uchiha compound, "The great fireball is mostly for distraction purposes since it's easily noticeable and avoidable, especially since it doesn't move in different directions. If I had a katon affinity I would want to learn the phoenix flower jutsu since it uses shuriken as well as fire and is able to go in the direction you throw them at."
Both Minato and Obito looked stupefied at the young Namikaze. It was not every day you heard a first year academy student giving advice on jutsu's to a genin. Obito groaned, "Seneiiiii! Your sister is already ahead of me! I feel like-like." He groaned again, tugging at his unruly hair.
"There's no need to be upset, yet. I can't even use my chakra for very much, yet you can do a lot of things I can't. There's no use knowing the theory of something if you can't do the practical side of it." She shrugged her shoulders. It was true, even in her own time. No matter how much you studied something, there was no use if you didn't have the affinity for it. Or in her case, it wasn't hard as she had the chakra of all nine of the tailed beasts, all having their own abilities, giving her access to each of the elemental affinities. "I can't even balance a leaf on my head yet you can water walk."
Minato's head looked to his student in confusion, he had yet to teach his students that. He had taught them tree walking and each of them individual jutsus that seemed appropriate, so how did he know how to water walk? And how did Naruto know that?
He looked between his student and sister, not sure who to ask so he settled for his sister, giving her the look that meant he wanted answers, he wasn't disappointed, "I was taking a walk by Naka River near the Uchiha district when I saw Obito walking on water. Academy students don't learn that, in fact, most genin don't learn that till at least 6 months into the programme."
Obito and Minato looked incredulously at her, wondering just how much she actually knew. This five year old knew things that weren't even official, yet they had a sneaking suspicion that it had a lot to do with Jiraiya. She had been raised by him, or so they thought.
"When are we actually going to get into my training?" it was that question that bought them out of their thoughts and back to reality, Naruto writing down the necessary hand signs for the phoenix flower jutsu and Minato setting her a regime of training exercises to do, to which she argued about, since she already had her own. After looking through it, he begrudgingly admitted her one was better for her and allowed her to carry on with that, but told her she must attend extra lessons with one of her guardians.
As if she wasn't secretly practicing by herself.
After three and a half hours of training; one for building up her speed, one for building her strength, one for chakra control, and the extra half hour was spent on helping Obito and getting the theory down. Needless to say, Naruto had a long way to go till she would be happy with her results.
Minato had put his foot down when Naruto had hinted towards using some weapons, saying she had no upper body strength in order to use one without hitting something close to her, to which even Obito agreed on.
She had been so engrossed in her training she hadn't thought about Obito being there at all. He reminded her of a combination of Kiba, Kakashi sensei and her childhood-self combined. That was not something many people would have liked in a combination yet it worked very well for the; to be mass murdered.
Of course, she did plan on putting a stop to that, putting a stop to Obito being crushed… maybe she would allow him to be crushed so that Kakashi could have a sharingan eye and after he gave the eye, then save him. Although she thought that was very cruel and heartless for her to do to someone so kind, Kakashi had done a lot of good with his friend's sharingan.
'As if I have that many emotions left to care about that Uchiha bastard.'
Although… she did have a couple of sharingan eyes she had found in Danzo's hideout. He had stolen many and not implanted them all into himself, but people, namely the Uchiha, would question where he got the eye from.
She would have to properly sit down for a full 24 hours with no distractions in order to fully think of what she wanted to do and how she was going to do it.
Once the time was over, the two males were slightly short winded yet Naruto was hardly fazed. She had been doing a different regimen from what she had shown Minato that even Gai sensei and Lee would approve of.
One week hadn't been enough to get her stamina back to what it was, but it was enough to see a difference in herself, all she needed was perseverance and all would work out.
Hopefully.
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The next day when Naruto woke up she was feeling very achy and sore. Her legs felt numb yet also felt as if the tips of several kunai were running down then, her arms felt far too heavy to lift as if they were made of led, and her back seemed to be bruised yet the young Uzumaki knew it was not.
She sighed knowing this was a downside to Kurama being asleep. She would have to activate the healing process herself yet she felt far too tired to do so. Huffing she closed her eyes and felt for her chakra. Once she found it she willed it to spread around her body in order for it to heal her.
Kurama would usually do this part for her, but seeming as he would be asleep for however long he needed, she had to make do with herself doing it. It wasn't as if she was going on S rank missions or anything.
Heaving herself up she saw the sun had just risen as she had, a normal occurrence with the young blonde, since as long as she could remember, she had been waking up with the sun. Sasuke had been the exact opposite, always wanting to do things at night. Now it all made sense, she was the sun; reincarnation of Ashura where he was the moon; reincarnation of Indara.
The irony wasn't lost on her, when she remembered her role was to lurk in the darkness of the world to fix its corruption.
She stood up and looked at her room, there were scrolls scattered across the floor as she had spent a lot of time studying the laws which were in place in this time; they were mostly the same with minor differences she would be expected to know.
She was silently dreading going to the academy, Akira sensei was a nice yet firm woman, much like Iruka sensei had been, and like all first year teachers, she was reluctant to do much physical training which was what Naruto needed to work on the most.
She spoke to Jiraiya about it after she had cleaned her room and made them some breakfast, and the sennin had said he would try and work something out for her. She was doing more physical training at home than she was in the ninja academy.
She sighed as she made her way to the academy, she was slightly sore after all the training she had done, despite having healed herself. She would have to do more chakra exercises before she could heal herself fully without Kurama.
She longed for the day she could return to her mindscape and have the angry fox scowl and talk to her, because despite his outward appearance he very much enjoyed talking to her. All she could do now was go there and curl around his fur, receiving a response through his tail pulling her into his warm embrace.
Once she made it to the academy she bumped into a messy, dark haired Uchiha. No not Uchiha, he couldn't be. The only Uchiha who smiled was Obito and this was most definitely not him.
"Oh. I'm so sorry for bumping into you uh…" spoke Naruto, confused as to who this was.
He gave her a small smile and replied, "That's alright. My name's Shisui Uchiha. And I didn't hear your name miss…?"
"Namikaze. Naruto Namikaze." She waited for the tiring response she had been receiving from everyone whenever she used that name, yet received a very refreshing look instead.
It was as if he were staring at a puzzle with that he couldn't wait to piece together with a pure unadulterated interest, which caught her off guard. No one had looked at her like that before, minus Orochimaru but he didn't count. "Ah, well it's a pleasure to meet you Naruto-san."
Raising her hands in a stop gesture she spoke, "No, please no honorifics, please. I'm not a very polite person unless I need to be." She wore a grimace on her face as Shisui gained a mischievous smile on his own, yet he chose not to act on it.
Chose was a strong word, more so he had no choice as the bell rang, signalling class starting in a few minutes.
After-all. Honorifics were for people that deserved them, and seeing how Naruto had failed to save one fifth of humanity- she was not fit for them.
They bid each other farewell and made their way to their respective classrooms. It was only when Naruto caught sight of a crow that the name truly clicked.
He was Shisui Uchiha. Itachi Uchiha's closest friend, the man who first reported the coup d'état to the Sandaime, whose left eye was stolen by Danzo and who gave the left to Itachi then proceeding to jump into Naka River.
The same Shisui Uchiha whose eye currently was in her very own right socket.
By the shodai could things get any more complicated?