Chapter 7 - Classes

(Word Count: 2,342)

It's been a month since classes have started, and for the most part, it was just like school. There were a lot of boring classes. I mean, we've been learning how to read and write for crying out loud. We've also been learning basic math like counting, addition, and subtraction. The only somewhat interesting things at the academy were the history classes, which is sad if history is the interesting class, and when we went outside to practice taijutsu and shurikenjutsu.

So, yeah. I've been cursing my luck that I wasn't the main character of some fanfic, to be able to shadow clone my way out of school.

I did make the most of it though. Sometimes I bring my medical textbooks into class to study, and because I was the number 1 in the rankings for the entrance exams, a lot of my classmates would come up to me to talk. I was friendly with most of my classmates, except for the Hyuuga and the Uchihas, and I became good friends with Ayame, Kurenai, Ibiki, as well as two new friends Asuma and Genma. Asuma was the son of the hokage, so he was a bigshot in class, but he approached me. His dad probably asked him to be friends with me, but I won’t hold that against either of them. Asuma was just an innocent kid, and the hokage probably wanted his son to be close to some future influential people. He was cool anyway, so whatever.

The six of us would often head over to either my own house or Genma’s house to play or practice together. But I would more often than not be with Ayame practicing fuinjutsu, or Kurenai to help her with taijutsu.

Grandma was really happy for me, seeing the 5 new friends and Kakashi and Guy all crowded in our living room. It was a large group of friends, which made her proud. She was worried I would end up a loner.

For fuinjutsu, I finally started trying to make sealing scrolls and explosive tags. It turns out that if you mess up an explosive tag, it doesn’t explode but fizzles out. Under the guidance of Oshiro, Ayame’s father, I succeeded in making a bunch of them. With all my studying in theory, I’ve even learned how to “lock” the sealing scrolls with a condition, that being a specific chakra or motion to open it. I placed my timeline scroll into one of these that had the most complicated lock that I could muster, a combination of my chakra and a complex series of english characters and numbers like a password, and placed it back into its hiding space.

For taijutsu, I’ve been training on and off in the evenings with the Might family or with Sakumo when he was back from the frontlines. I’ve even been dragging Kakashi along with me to train with the Mights. It turns out that Kakashi and Guy both call me “big bro” and quickly formed a rivalry of their own. The Mights did try to get me to wear their green suit, but I refused emphatically. I did, however, start wearing some weights like they were to increase my training.

For iryojutsu, I’ve barely had time to study out of the textbooks now, besides the times I smuggle them into class. Unfortunately, the progress was slow, because I often had to stop due to not understanding something. I had to find time to go back to the library for the reference books.

Aside from that, I had hit a wall in my chakra control. I had no idea on what to practice next, because I could already move it as I wished and change the nature to earth, yin, and yang. That is, until I remembered rasengan. It’s supposed to be the pinnacle of shape transformation, so if I master the rasengan and its forms, then my chakra control will be at its peak, apparently. I don't know if I believe that though. That said, I actually found it hard to practice. I ran out of chakra rather quickly when I tried to get the required power output and I couldn’t sustain the rasengan for more than a second. So, I had to scrap it until I grew a bit older.

That led me to finally search the ninja library for some jutsus to learn in my spare time. I picked up some scrolls for the three basic academy jutsus first, the substitution jutsu, transformation jutsu, and the clone illusion. Then, I picked up the scrolls for three more jutsus: the chakra strings jutsu, which relied solely on shape transformation to create strings that could attach to things; the body flicker jutsu, a taijutsu that allowed for incredible speed; and the transparency jutsu, which allowed for invisibility.

I was actually very surprised to see this one in the library, because it was created by Jiraiya when he was a genin to spy on women bathing. Still, if you forget about the perverted origins, this jutsu could be insanely useful. I’m surprised no one else had developed it on their own. The scroll was hidden away behind the body flicker technique, probably by the librarian. She gave me a look of pure disappointment when I brought it to check out.

So, throughout the past month, I’ve been practicing those 6 jutsus. Usually, learning a new jutsu was something that was done over the course of an entire month by itself, especially if it required nature transformation. For example, Sasuke learning the chidori, or Naruto with the summoning jutsu. However, because I had become so skilled in chakra control, I was able to use them as soon as I understood the theory laid out in the scrolls. Though actually becoming proficient enough to use them in combat was another matter. It required a lot of practice.

I did take a look at the shadow clone jutsu, but reading through the scroll, I knew it would be a while before I risked using it to make even one clone. I didn’t have near enough chakra to take that chance.

At the end of the month, the teacher felt like the class had progressed enough in the basic taijutsu forms to begin sparring.

We were currently all assembled into the field beside the academy. The teacher was currently going over the rules of sparring. "Alright everyone, when we spar with our fellow shinobi, we must always begin and end with a seal of friendship. This is to show that there are no hard feelings about what occurs during the spar. There will not be any weapons or ninjutsu allowed. This will be taijutsu only. Understood?"

"Yes, teacher!" Chorused the class.

"Good! Now, let's begin with Yuhi Kurenai versus Matsutani Uta."

Kurenai groaned a little at having to go first. I nudged her shoulder. "You've got this, Kurenai." She smiled weakly at me. Taijutsu never was her strong point, but she's only just started learning it.

I look over at Matsutani Uta. She was one of the few civilians that made it into class A. She had straight black hair in a ponytail and black eyes. A classic Japanese girl. She, like many of the other girls in the class, were big fans of me, Asuma, and Genma. We were the popular strong kids after all. She looked over at me and Kurenai with a little jealousy. I gave her an encouraging nod. 

It always surprised me how quickly kids in Naruto would develop crushes. They were 4-5 years old. And I didn't really know what to feel about being the popular kid. In my previous life I was always the loner, so all of this attention was new to me. So, I pulled a Sasuke and ignored their feelings as best as I could. Though I did try to just be friendly with everyone, there was no way I was reciprocating anything. 

Kurenai and Matsutani faced each other in the ring. “Make the seal of friendship.” They locked their point and middle fingers together, making the sign. “Now, begin!”

Matsutani immediately rushed forward, throwing a punch right to Kurenai’s face. She blocked the punch with her forearms and tried to strike back, but Matsutani pivoted and landed a hard kick into Kurenai’s side. She was thrown to the ground with a cry, and she laid there clutching her side in pain.

“Enough! The winner is Matsutani Uta.” The teacher called out, ending the match. 

Matsutani smiled and jumped excitedly. “I won! Hehehe” She giggled. Then she turned back to Kurenai and helped her up. “Hey, no hard feelings though, right?”

Kurenai stood up sadly. “No, I just wish I managed to at least do something though.”

The teacher butted in. “Now make the seal of friendship so we can continue with the next pairing.”

They did so, and exited the ring. Kurenai came up to us with tears in her eyes. I comforted the little girl by patting her head. “Hey, it's ok. We’ll keep practicing and we’ll keep getting better and better. So there’s nothing to worry about.”

She sniffled and gave me a hug. “It’s just so frustrating. Taijutsu sucks, genjutsu’s so much cooler!”

“The next match is….” 

And so the class continued on, with kids getting paired off to spar. Most of them were pretty basic, with the most interesting one so far being one of the two Uchihas in class paired against one of the Hyuugas. They were actually really skilled and they traded blows for a while. The match ended when the Uchiha tried to gain some distance with a backflip. The Hyuuga just rushed in and landed a solid blow right in the kid's diaphragm and he ended up on the ground unable to breathe for a while.

The next most interesting was the second Uchiha, this one a girl, paired against the only Inuzuka girl in class. The Inuzuka kid didn’t have her own ninja pup yet, so she was alone. They continued trading blows until Uchiha landed a kick to Inuzuka’s face and she was actually knocked out. These girls were vicious.

Then the teacher called the next pair. “Next is Norihide Sakai versus Hyuuga Renjiro.”

I sighed. Great, one of the Hyuugas. They hated the fact that I was number 1 in class, so any chance they got they would antagonize me. The Uchiha’s weren’t friendly either, but they at least respected my strength and tried to better themselves instead.

We made our way into the ring. As we made the seal of friendship, Hyuuga gave me a smug smile. “Hmph. I’ve seen you practice before, Norihide. You practice the Strong Fist, yes? The Hyuuga’s Gentle Fist style directly counters the Strong Fist. My victory is a foregone conclusion. You might as well give up now.”

I look at him, amazed. “Wow. The little boy is using some pretty big words! You’re pretty smart, aren't you?” I patted him on the shoulder encouragingly and walked to my side of the ring. Hyuuga’s face contorted in rage. Which, for a Hyuuga, was a slight scowl.

"I'm older than you!" He yells behind me.

“Ah.”

“Begin!” The teacher called out.

We both rushed each other. He struck out with his palm, the other already poised for the next strike. I dropped beneath it, pivoted, and kicked him in the stomach.

At least, that was the plan. He deflected the kick past him. He struck the side of my leg, pushing it away from him.

I used the force to spin quickly into a low sweeping kick which made him back off.

He paused for a moment, then said “Hmph. You’re good, I’ll give you that. But let's see how you handle this!” and he lunged forward again, with a palm strike at my chest.

Instead of backing off, I stepped into his reach, deflected his strike away using my left hand, and punched him solidly in his stomach. He lost all his air from his lungs and he collapsed onto the ground struggling to breathe.

“Winner, Norihide!” The teacher exclaimed. The class burst into laughter. For all the arrogance of Renjiro, he didn't last very long. 

I looked at the downed Hyuuga, then at the teacher. ‘That was it? He was talking such smack earlier.’

I crouched down by Hyuuga Renjiro. “Hey, you okay?”

He groaned and glared balefully at me. Again, for a Hyuuga, it was a slight scowl. “I’ll…. get you for this, Norihide.” He gasped out.

I patted him on the shoulder. “Dude, you’re four. You need to chill out a little. You know, you were pretty good. Why don’t we practice together sometime? We can even get some barbeque or ramen afterwards.”

I then helped him up. I didn’t really take any of his smack talk seriously. He was four afterall. I thought his bravado was kinda funny. I also felt more than a little pity for Renjiro. He was a branch family member, so he was essentially born into slavery. His life must suck.

At the mention of barbeque and ramen, I could have sworn I saw a hint of pink in Renjiro’s cheeks. “Hmph.” He shook himself out of my hand that was supporting him. “I suppose I could consider it.”

I smiled. “Good. I usually practice taijutsu in the evenings in training field 20. You’re welcome anytime.” He said nothing in response, so we made the seal of friendship and returned to our spots.

Both Ayame and Kurenai hugged me. “You rocked, Sakai!” Ayame said, roughing up my hair.

“You were amazing, Sakai!” Kurenai said.

Asuma and Genma both pounded me on the back, grinning at me. “You really showed that Hyuuga who’s boss!” Asuma said.

“Did you really have to invite him though?” Genma said.

“Ah, don’t say that. He’s really not that bad.”

“Next match is Sarutobi Asuma, and Shiranui Genma!” The teacher exclaimed.

Asuma and Genma looked at each other. “You’re going down, man!” Asuma exclaimed. 

Genma scoffed. “Dream on, I’m gonna win!”

The match wasn’t anything fancy, and Asuma ended up winning by a narrow margin.