"And the winner is...Sasuke!"
As the watching students cheered, Naruto, lying flat on his back, looked up at the sky. It was a nice day, he thought, with only a few clouds in the sky. After a few seconds passed, dredging up the last of his willpower, he clambered up to his feet, ignoring how sore his body felt. Brushing the dirt off of his pants, he walked to the edge of the wooden platform and leaped heavily down.
"The next bout will be between...Sakura and Ino!" He heard Iruka call out, and two squabbling girls jumped up to the platform.
"Nice one, Naruto," a boy called out. Without responding, Naruto passed him by, but not before he heard the boy add, "You lasted almost ten seconds up there!"
The children standing near them laughed, and feeling the tips of his ears beginning to burn, Naruto abruptly picked up pace and ran back inside the Academy building.
His footsteps pounded loudly through the hallway, and even though he knew he should be practicing how to run without making a sound, he couldn't bring himself to care. The door to his classroom opened with a clatter, and straining on his tip-toes, he grabbed his bag from his cubby near the end.
Naruto knew it was wrong to leave when Academy wasn't even over, but the only thing they were doing for the rest of the day was the one-on-one taijutsu fights. No one would notice him gone...except maybe Nogi and her friends, anyways.
Just as he neared the open doors to the front exit, Naruto heard the sound of adult conversation, and skidded to a halt. His heart pounding in his ears, he looked right and left, looking for a place to hide. As the sound grew closer and closer, he chose the first thing he'd noticed, dashing into the niche between the door and the wall.
"...the students coming along?"
"They're very promising. We're conducting this year's first taijutsu tournament today, and they're all performing excellently."
Naruto's eyes widened, as he recognized Iruka's voice. Hadn't he just been back at the arena? What was he doing here now? Had he noticed Naruto was gone?
Unable to put aside his rising curiosity, he put an eye to the crack of the door – and then seeing the person beside Iruka, he felt his heart skip a beat.
The Hokage was standing right in front of the very door he was now quivering behind.
"Ah, Fugaku's younger son is in your class, no? Quite precocious, isn't he?"
"Actually, while I'd hate to see him go, I think that if he continues to perform as well as he is doing now, transferring him to a more advanced class wouldn't be out of the question."
"They are brothers after all..." the Hokage chuckled. There was a short pause, as the Hokage seemed to be surveying the Academy building. For a horrifying instant, Naruto thought that the elderly ninja's gaze had paused on the sliver of his face, and had to fight the urge to run. But then he turned away, and Naruto felt some of the feeling begin to return to his face.
They resumed talking, but began to move away in the direction of where the other children were, and after a short while, Naruto finally came out from his hiding spot.
His head turning back and forth rapidly to survey the empty lot, Naruto ran as fast as he could, only coming to a stop when he reached the cover of a patch of trees. Panting, he rested for a few minutes against the trunk of a cherry blossom tree.
Two weeks had passed since he'd joined the Academy, and Naruto had quickly learned that it wasn't just basic ninja knowledge that he was behind in. Many of the other students were from clans or had ninja relatives, and they had been training since well before joining the Academy. It was all Naruto could do to keep up with the daily physical exercise, and he was completely out of his depth when it came to actual taijutsu.
While the other children were flipping through the air and flowing from one stance to the next, Naruto was still struggling to follow along without landing flat on his back. He desperately needed more instruction, but Iruka only had so much time to spend on him before he had to move on to the other children.
Iruka had told Naruto and the few others who hadn't ever received training before that they would catch up soon, but lately, he hadn't been able to bring himself to even look up at the Academy sign.
He'd sworn to become Hokage, but the way he was now, he thought he'd be lucky to even graduate.
If only, Naruto thought. If only he had someone outside of the Academy to teach him. Then maybe he wouldn't be so behind...
He shook his head wildly. Jumping up to his feet, Naruto smacked his cheeks with his hands. If he had time to feel sorry for himself, he thought, he might as well spend it practicing.
Drawing himself up to his full height, he turned to face the tree he had been leaning against. Emptying his mind, he felt his body relax. Adjusting his footing and planting them firmly into the ground, he curled his hands into fists the way he'd learned in class – and then he punched his right fist into the empty air. Then, drawing that one back, he punched with his left fist. Right. Left. Right. Left.
Over and over, Naruto punched repeatedly into the air, pushing his body to remember the motion – until suddenly, he realized with a jolt, that several hours had passed: The sun had set, and the temperature had dropped.
He was rummaging through the bushes looking for his bag, when he heard the sound of footsteps and froze. Reacting on instinct, for the second time that day, Naruto ducked, trusting the shadows to complete his concealment.
To his dismay, the footsteps stopped at a place not too far from where he was hiding.
"This looks like a great place to talk, doesn't it, Izumo?" It was Iruka again, and compulsively, Naruto stepped back even further into the bushes' shadow.
"...sure?" It was an unfamiliar male voice this time. "What'd you want me for?"
"I was just thinking – it's a pity the Konoha Archive Library is closed to civilians, isn't it?"
"What? Of course it is. We wouldn't want sensitive village information falling into the hands of just anybody."
"But it's not just that, right? There's the jutsu section, with scrolls on taijutsu, genjutsu, ninjutsu..."
"Well, yes. But civilians would just hurt themselves without formal instruction."
"But if that section was open to – say – Academy students, that'd help them with their studies, don't you think?"
"Are you feeling okay, Iruka?" The voice sounded annoyed. "Of course it's open to Academy students. Not that my little sister seems to care..."
"Oh yes, I forgot! They'll need an Academy instructor's permission for more advanced-level scrolls, but basic and fundamental scrolls are freely accessible to students. The Konoha Archive Library sure comes in handy. Don't you agree, Izumo?"
"What in the...wait...this is Kotetsu, isn't it?" said the other voice suspiciously. "Was that supposed to be your impression of Iruka? I'm right, aren't I?"
"Uh...ahaha yeah, you, you caught me."
"Absolutely terrible, man."
"I'm a bit rusty, I suppose."
"Rusty? That doesn't even cover it. Iruka doesn't stomp around like that, he kinda walks with – with his hips moving like this."
There was a rustling sound.
"Uh...like this?"
"Yeah, exactly! Spot on. See, you can do this..."
The voices faded away.
After a few minutes, his heart still thudding in his chest, Naruto finally jumped out. It'd been nerve-wracking hiding the whole time, but he couldn't believe his luck at coming across such a vital piece of information – the Library! That was it!
His mind racing with the possibilities, Naruto rushed home. If he had stopped even for a minute to retrace his footsteps, he may have found the conversation rather odd, as though performed for his benefit rather than a truly organic dialogue; instead, he turned in for the night extra early, practically flying under his bedcovers in his excitement.
As tends to happen however, he found himself watching the glow of his alarm clock for half the night, willing time to speed up to whole while, and when he finally woke up the next morning – not having even realized when he had fallen asleep – he bustled around his apartment getting ready, with more energy than he'd had the entire past week combined.
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