It has been over six years since I arrived in the Naruto world.
Today is the day Karin and I finally joined the academy. With Kabtuo being on the side of course as he's already been active at the hospital. Using Danzo's connections of course there wasn't a job he couldn't get.
I've also yet to claim my third subordinate which is a bit annoying.
It's just that most options were either too old or young.
Too old? Won't listen and give the loyalty I desire.
Too young? Brother, you're meant to be protecting me.
"Let's go!" Karin shouts as she grabs my arm and starts to make her way to the academy gates.
Seeing this I chuckled.
Karin now a year off being saved is looking healthy. With vitality coursing through her, she had a healthy amount of fat now which looked a bit toned due to the constant training outside. Her current strength lies in taijutsu and sealing techniques.
Which makes sense since she didn't have enough patience for chakra control.
But sealing is in her DNA.
While taijutsu is more important due to her being the sensor of the team. Being able to repel any assassination attempts are a little vital to our survival. She's like the second priority after me in any given situation.
"Karin relax a bit..."
The Uzumaki hearing my amused voice pouted. This was her first time at such a place which looked so big and lively.
"Hypothetically what happens if someone is trying to bully me?" She says in a pitiful voice, batting her eyelashes. "Permission to beat up?"
She asks shortly after with a sadistic grin.
"If the guy is from the Inuzuka clan then sure," I responded instantly not wanting anything to do with me.
Ignoring any trouble she's trying to make.
I've made up a few goals to achieve while in the academy as little side missions to keep myself from beating up kids for entertainment.
My first little mission is to befriend Show off and quickly grind through the grades (Important).
Learn at least two C-Rank ninjutsu (Required).
Somehow friend the Ino as she's the last person from the trio (Optional).
As much as I don't like the girl's personality, she does kind of take over the whole sealing barrier of Konoha which is impressive in itself. Her feats like connecting the whole shinobi alliance in a sort of call are not bad.
Still, her value is replaceable which is a bit meh.
These connections feel more like an obligation than actually needed.
I mean we don't really need to do business with them as the Shimura Clan is loaded anyway so other than political power they are completely useless to me. A Kage-level power who doesn't need to worry about Danzo basically owns the village at that point.
Not even a Hokage Tsunade could force me to do anything when I became the Shimura Clan Head.
With the rules stating no Clan Head could be deployed or go on missions unless it was wartime.
Showing off my skills could make it easier for me to rank up and start my journey to Jounin. It's also to improve my reputation among everybody in the village due to me not being Danzo.
I'm going to be in the light, not the dark.
Taking my attention off the entrance I spot a guy shouting while pointing in a direction.
"Everybody who is enrolling head over to the fields to the left where the Hokage will make a speech!" A shinobi shouts while pointing over to an open field with a wide but short podium with multiple chairs.
"Stay close Karin."
Looking over at the open field you could see multiple kids with their parents or caretakers as one group stood out the most in this decently huge crowd.
--POV Naruto--
It's finally the day!
The day I can start on my journey to becoming the Hokage.
I'm currently hanging out with some guys I just met called Shikamaru and Choji. They entered the place at the same time as me which was a lucky find!
"Shikamaru do you know any ninjutsu?" I ask him multiple times trying to get an answer out of him.
"What a drag... I kinda just slept most of the time." Shikamaru replies shrugging.
Hearing this I fall to the ground expecting a way different answer. Choji who was off to the side just crunched on his chips focusing on the podium.
Seeing this I ignored the crowd's bickering as suddenly the old man walked up to the stand.
The crowd seeing this starts to burst into excitement.
"Guys the Hokage is here!" I say excitedly while nudging the duo.
The duo realising that the speech is gonna be happening, starts to look at the front where the Hokage is currently looming over everyone. His Hokage robes looked so cool from a distance,
They would look good on me!
Hiruzen making his way to the stand starts to look over everyone with a gentle smile while waving.
"Welcome to the academy everybody, a place where you have the opportunity to contribute to Konoha showing your will of fire! Blah...Blah..Blah! Blah...Blah..Blah!" Hiruzen proceeded to get into the speech more making everyone including me get engrossed in his words.
'So cool, that will be me one day.' I fist-bump myself.
Hiruzen's speech after a short while ends with everyone starting to go to their desired classes. The old man explained which classes were what but I ignored everything he said until he finally mentioned he mentioned the shinobi role.
Which I obviously picked as I will become the future Hokage of course!
"Guys let's go over to the shinobi area!" I tell my new companions as we head over to the civilian side of the shinobi selection.
...
-POV Raiden Shimura-
"This is so boring." I quietly grumbled lying down on the grass.
By myself.
I was currently near the back of the academy near the entrance as we just exited the classroom.
After the first boring class of me just sitting there with Karin in the back, we went to the grounds to just take in the fresh air as it was our first break today for the academy. Karin although made some friends which was good she needed to feel more at home.
So she and a few girls from some unknown clan started to explore the Academy.
The academy is quite the spacious place unexpectedly for a place that divides two different groups.
There was the civilian park, and shinobi training grounds. The names are pretty self explanatory as they are trying to separate the two groups from each other.
Originally the civilian and shinobi sides were shared but Danzo has told me that Hiruzen wanted to separate these causes which made sense. Why have trained killers next to civilians which wouldn't make sense.
The shinobi park/training grounds were pretty easy to access as it's to go through the entrance then turn right and into a big field with multiple structures.
I need to grind!
The most well-known structure though was the obstacle test as it hosts several speed records coming from people like Minato Namikaze and Itachi Uchiha.
I plan on becoming the newest prodigy the Hidden Leaf has produced, and the best way I thought of for any initial fame is to graduate at the age of six and absolutely destroy any past records this academy has held in past years.
"Let's warm up a bit," I murmur making my way to the training grounds.
On the grounds, there were over 30 stumps with little targets.
'I've only brought fifteen shurikens.'
Getting to the middle I take a deep breath closing my eyes.
Breathing out my eyes open as my body springs into position and my hands go into my pouch. Four shuriken in hand I split them between both of my hands. Swiftly right after I lock onto two targets which are over 15 meters away.
*Swish*
*Thud! Thud!*
In half a second the two shuriken cut through the air and the red circle was not exactly perfectly in the middle. Turning to the right there were some 20 meters which quickly had a shuriken appear in the red circle.
'I can only throw two shuriken at a time, but my accuracy is above average.'
My thoughts wandered as after 30 seconds passed.
The rest of my shuriken embedded themselves.
All of them hit the red circle but were a tiny bit off the dead centre. Making me frown a little as I can't be missing like that in a real mission. Doing a single-hand sign, I flicker around multiple times to collect my equipment.
*Swoosh*
(Time Skip - Few Weeks)
--Third Person's POV--
As Raiden walks into the sparring grounds near the back of the academy with the rest of his class. Most of them starts to get pumped up and talk even louder than before.
The sparring grounds were the shape of a rectangle with a circle in the middle to indicate the boundaries of where the spars would be taking place. They were joined by a teacher who introduced himself as Hanaki Narunso at the start of the academy.
The four corners of the sparring grounds had multiple wooden stumps usually used for taijutsu practice.
It has now been a few months since they started the academy and Hanaki wanted to teach them a few katas to learn as they progress through the years.
There weren't gonna be any spars though as it's just unnecessary fighting at this stage. This would just grow random resentment from kids who can't control their punches.
Or properly train.
Only if they knew...
Hanaki Narunso walking in front of the bustling crowd of kids starts to hold out a scroll.
"Today we will be seeing your physical limits, so to start us off before we try to learn any katas we will be ingraining into ourselves.
As a whole group, we will keep doing laps around the grounds until you get tired and aren't able to keep going forward. Do try your best though and aim for around 3-4 laps." Hanaki says in a clear voice to the kids.
"Everybody start to line up next to the entrance door."
The entire classroom including Raiden made their way to the beginning and after a few minutes of waiting Hanaki started the count and everyone started to run at the start with a few kids leading the initial start.
Two boys with distinct features can be seen in the lead with one of them having black onyx eyes while the other having two red triangles on his cheeks. While this was happening right behind them could be seen Raiden and Hinata chatting and keeping up with the two people in front without difficulty.
Five laps later, only five kids remained. These include Raiden, Hinata, Sasuke, Kiba and Choji.
"Hinata are you doing alright?" Raiden can be heard asking Hinata while looking perfectly fine. Hinata is currently still looking okay but with a little bit of sweat nods as a response while focusing up.
"That guy looks like he hasn't run at all!" A random kid shouts.
"Yeah, he looks perfectly fine!" Another kid calls out.
Slowly but surely the race wore down most of them until only Raiden remained.
Raiden decides it's a good time to stop, finishing up his final lap before heading towards the rest of his class who are currently in awe. As stupid as it was, as children small things like who's the fastest or who did the most laps made them popular.
Not a bad start.
Raiden walking up to the class makes his way next to a certain Uchiha boy.
"You did pretty well in the run, my name is Raiden Shimura. What's yours?" Raiden tells the panting Uchiha who is currently on the floor groaning.
"Thanks, you did pretty good yourself. My names Sasuke Uchiha." Sasuke responds by getting on his feet.
"Wanna partner up for the kata training? You're probably one of the strongest guys in the class." Sasuke hearing this nods not seeing anything bad about this setup.
Hanaki after the laps were settled started to teach everyone who didn't know any taijutsu katas, the basics of the academy one.
While clan kids quietly went off to the side and practised by themselves or with a partner. So Sasuke hearing Raiden's offer agrees as he sees Raiden as a decently strong guy from a clan.
Raiden and Sasuke parted ways with the rest of the class.
"Have you wandered around the village much?" Raiden asks curiously while kicking a wooden stump. Knowing that the Uchiha clan were at their peak of civilian hate right now besides the aftermath of the Kyubi attack, Sasuke shouldn't be out much unless he's with his family.
"I have a little bit with my Nii-san and mum for dango and shopping, but other than that not really," Sasuke responded while giving a different wooden stump a quick punch.
"Is the dango shop you go to great? I've been trying to find one." Raiden says groaning.
Raiden has spent quite a few hours visiting a few stalls without any luck on "the one" as people like to call them. Sasuke hearing this starts to giggle as he converses more with Raiden making a more friendly vibe in their area.
This went on for a few more hours until the whole class went back to the classroom as Hanaki started to round everybody up.
Everyone in the class was able to at least learn about three-quarters of the katas while some were able to memorise all of the moves, the only thing the kids took away though was that they needed to improve their physiques more as they got tired easily.
-POV Raiden Shimura-
"Goodbye!" I waved at Sasuke and he waved back.
Behind him was the big man himself.
Itachi Uchiha.
His neutral face was sort of scary, looking more like a pretty boy but I knew better. This is the man who killed and unlocked the Sharingan at a young age.
'I don't swing that way, look at Ashura's Reincarnation!'
Not too long after, Karin said her goodbyes to her friend, and we were on the way home.