There wasn't much to do in the academy, in terms of physical fitness.
Maito Gai could only aspire to match the feats of strength, agility and dexterity that Haruto's father could boast about performing, and he did, a lot. The same exercise routines that had led to that man's power had also led to Haruto's own.
Put simply, he was the strongest and fastest student in the academy, by a fair margin, and the only student he didn't consistently and completely curbstomp was the Hokage's daughter, who seemed to be insulted when he outperformed her. Instead of angering her further, though, he'd cut the level of his performances to a more… reachable level. Well above the norm, but still lowered enough that while he previously left everyone in the dust, now he could at least pretend to be in the same ballpark.
It was a defense mechanism, based on the fact that when he was outperforming everyone significantly, people didn't really like him. He'd spent only two months as the top of the class, before dropping to the third place. Namikaze Naruko was first of the class, and she clearly took pride in this. Uchiha Satsuki followed her, a girl who truly mystified Haruto on a great deal of topics. Mostly because Haruto could see how nasty the girl could actually be when she wasn't projecting the image of the perfect student.
His hearing was good, and he had heard her, more than once, disparaging Naruko under her breath. Admittedly, Naruko was an arrogant, annoying brat and had a habit of angering everyone around her, but some of those comments were really mean. That, and he was sure that, despite the nastiness in their relationship, they were friendlier than they'd like to admit.
Mostly because they were the only person the other would acknowledge as a proper rival. The only ones to match each other in terms of ninjutsu and genjutsu. Haruto himself outdid the both of them in physical matters and textbook knowledge, but that was about it. He could never outdo either of them in Ninjutsu or Genjutsu, and actual practical applications of the textbook knowledge, such as the camping and survival exercises.
Admittedly, their own competition with each other had almost caused them to fail, as the exercise had been based on teamwork. Fortunately, Shino and Kiba had been along for the ride and between the three of them, they'd managed to fill up all the holes and account for the fact that the two best students in the class were more interested in outdoing each other than in actually surviving.
Sparring just plain sucked. He had to hold back in order to not hurt his opponents, otherwise he'd be failed—and this wasn't idiotic, he knew intellectually, because sometimes you have to subdue an opponent without harming them—which he really wasn't all that good at. He'd survived on Civilian School mostly because the sports practiced in them almost never included contact. Furthermore, despite his prodigious strength and speed, he was quite rusty. It was a rough wake up call to have the Akimichi of the class match his physical strength and then show him how far he'd fallen from just a few years back, by beating him down with superior skill.
Even worse was losing to Uchiha Satsuki, even though she barely had to put in much effort into the fight. She just outstripped him in terms of skill in hand to hand combat to such a point that he couldn't even take advantage of his superior physical strength to do even the slightest bit of damage.
Finding out that he had disappointed Namikaze was the worst though, because she'd apparently been expecting much more from someone who her father had favored with his presence. They hadn't even fought, she'd flat out refused to fight him, citing his pathetic performance against her rival as evidence that he'd perform just as bad, or worse, against her. The sheer insult that came from that almost made his blood boil. It reminded him of the days when adult ninja would squirm in fear whenever they were hired to be sparring partners. He'd been ten years old then, and now, he couldn't even face genin! It was humiliating, it was angering, it almost made him want to cut loose, to stop holding back and show them what he could do!
And it had to have shown in his face, because his mother hadn't taken kindly to it.
"You've got pent up aggression," she informed, simply. "I'm really proud of you for holding back as much as you do. It's as good an exercise as any, since both you and your father have the same control problems," she added, sighing and leaning against the kitchen counter, looking at the ceiling as if reminiscing. "He was so much worse than you, though. He really couldn't go more than a month without getting into a life and death struggle."
It was clear that she missed him.
Stressful situations and all.
"You're not really built to be a frontline fighter… You got cursed with a body made for the sole purpose of fighting," she said, frowning. "It's my fault. You've got your brains from me, and your body from your father," she said.
At this, Haruto smiled slightly, "except the hair," he added.
Risana smiled. "It looks cute on you," she said, shaking her head. "Though it'll probably look silly on the manly adult you'll become. At least people won't call you Haruka if you look like a sculpted statue."
"I don't know. Naruko seems convinced that it's my name," he said, frowning, "and a lot of people just follow her lead."
"…Have you tried telling her?" asked the mother, raising an eyebrow.
"Twice!" Haruto said, frowning. "I honestly don't know if she ever listens to anyone but her father."
Risana laughed. "She's just like her mother," she said, nodding. "That woman would only ever listen to the people she respected, and that list was very short," she said, sighing in remembrance. "Getting her to change her opinion if she didn't respect you was harder than getting your father to give up food."
Haruto winced in sympathy towards his father. He remembered quite a few punishments for their actions had been to deny his father the food he loved so much. "Speaking about food…"
Shaking her head, Risana laughed again, before turning and moving towards the kitchen. She'd have to get started early, 'cause her son seemed hungry.