Part 6

6 years of training and school in the academy taught Naruko lots of things.

True, the general subjects bored her and they were clearly below her academic level. Especially history and the overly simple math classes.

Sure, there was no computer to solve the math questions for her, but they were simple enough for her to actually do on her own and in a very short time at that.

But, the practical classes for taijutsu and weapon training helped her a lot.

She spent a few hours every day practicing her skills in taijutsu and she especially liked to play with swords. (Like, how could you not like the feeling of destroying things and swinging at things with your sword?*giggle*)

The amount of strength (chakra infused in her arms) she put behind her sword strike influenced the impact it had and the destruction it caused.

After some time, she decided to use a sword as her main weapon. Though, the swords made of metal were rather boring, she preferred creating chakra swords when no one was around, they could be infused with a variety of chakra natures causing its strength to vary.

She loved the fire sword! The way it made her hand feel warm and the way it burned all that she wanted to destroy made her feel strong. She could never force down a smile when she played with her fire chakra in the very flammable forests outside of konoha’s huge gates.

Also, the more chakra she concentrated in her sword, the heavier it became. Combine that with a gradual increase of chakra in her arms and she could (theoretically) countain infinite strength in her strikes … especially since her chakra pool was seemingly infinite too.

To be honest, she mostly used the nights where most people slept to sneak out of the village and try out new things.

Until now, Naruto had never asked her about it at all, so she figured that he didn’t know. If he asked her though, then she would gladly tell him. She just feared that he would feel sad that he couldn’t do the same as her and have many different swords.

Her body was different than Naruto’s after all, she had all of the basic chakra natures and as far as she could sense it, he only had affinity for wind.

They never tested their actual affinities, so she did not know what kind of affinity her body originally had before it was changed by her golden chakra.

She could, however, Shunshin him out of the village and take him with her for training in the night. Though, she doubted that it would benefit him much, seeing that he really needed the sleep he got at night and he already trained hard enough during the day.

Her time in the forest was mostly to play around and have some fun with more “magical” stuff like the 5 element natures (Fire, Water,Earth,Wind,Lightning).

The muscle training already ceased to do much for her, as her body could not be changed with just training anymore. She could only hone her reflexes and instincts. That’s why she took training with her swords so seriously.

She often created several clones during the day and had them fight herself, so she could practice her swordsmanship.

After nearly 6 years of continuous training, she would call herself rather advanced in the academy-style-swordsmanship. Though, she knew that it was not all that good. She’d need to study something else soon, otherwise she wouldn’t progress anymore.

For a long while, she had only been able to strengthen her instinctual attacks and defenses. She already knew all of the moves contained in the style and they were barely better than normal swings … but, they gave a certain stability and order to her swordsmanship that could be repeated thousands of times per day. That allowed her to burn the movements into her mind and after years of doing that … she developed a kind of natural instinct to defend herself if she sensed attacks coming at her. She also knew when to move in for the attack, that is, if the enemy had an inferior sword mastery than she did and showed obvious openings.

Kunoichi classes taught her how to identify a few flowers that she thought of as beautiful, though, she did not bother remembering every single one if they did not interest her. It was mostly due to Hinata’s help and advice that Naru was able to properly pass the tests.

During tea ceremony lessons, she learned how to brew tea in a way that made it taste good and stay heated for a longer amount of time. Again, Hinata helped her and gave her useful advice to easily pass the tests. She was also taught to move without making any kind of sound. This was especially beneficial during the nights that she sneaked out of the village.

She would conceal her chakra and mask her presence before silently using the “Shunshin No Jutsu” to reappear outside of the village.

After having her fun in the forests, playing in her fox form and swinging her sword around, she would just as silently move back into the village and sleep the rest of the night.

Though, if she had to name one thing that really stuck with her, then it was the one time they taught Kunoichi about what would happen if they were to be captured on the battlefield.

 

…

 

The kunoichi class’s sensei stood in front of them and asked them to welcome a guest.

“Okay class, today, please greet Miss Kurenai.”

Kurenai stepped into the room and the girls greeted her.

“Okay, today might be slightly unpleasant for some of you here, no, for every one of you here, actually, but, we, as kunoichi, need to know what could potentially happen to us if we get captured on a battlefield.” Kurenai said.

Already, some of the children’s faces paled. Some apparently knew what could happen and Naruko was certainly one of them.

Naruko could clearly imagine what would happen to them if they were to be captured. It was one of the things that she feared the most … especially after she nearly had to experience it during her second childhood.

When she was younger, some sick villagers tried to r*pe her, but an Anbu thankfully interfered before it was too late. She never quite got to thank that Anbu, but it certainly bothered her for a while.

She got over that after a few weeks, mostly thanks to the genuine support of Naruto, he literally showered her with affection, but if it ever really happened, then she wouldn’t know what to do. Honestly, the chance of it actually happening to her in particular is slim.

Her abilities are back, and she would never, NEVER let anyone treat her like that. And if anyone dared to try, then she would erase them. There would be no mercy for r*pists, not from her.

This one lesson left a long-lasting effect on the young girls.

It motivated them to work harder on their skills and it taught them to look out for each other. The class dynamic between the girls improved drastically.

It wasn’t just about boys anymore, instead, training and improving their skills were the main topics they talked about (but, yeah, boys were still a huge topic for them).

Naruko was never really part of any group, but she didn’t try to fit into any either. The things that most children talked about didn’t interest her much. Sure, sometimes she talked to some people about training or studying, but nothing deeper than that. These children were all still so innocent, they had barely seen anything that humans could do. Yet, Naru had seen some stuff she would never, ever, forget. Kurama’s memories held things that simply musn’t be put into words. The cruelty and all the bloodshed that people caused, for no reason but their own greed too … it is simply disgusting. She hated that side of humans and she was glad that she was not fully human anymore.

She was quite close to Hinata, especially because Hinata offered to help her with setting flowers and gave her tips on how to properly brew tea.

“Hinata isn’t a Hyuuga-Princess for nothing, hehe. Though she really should make a move on Naruto at some point, I’m sure he’d like her too!” Naruko couldn’t help but feel giddy inside, thinking about her brother and Hinata blushing at each other.

Hinata really was a sweet girl, Naruko had to admit that and she quite liked her.

 

…

 

During taijutsu class, Naruko and Naruto were almost unrivaled.

None of their peers could really keep up with them … for various obvious reasons.

Most of the students just didn’t put in the same effort as them. Naruto and Naruko practiced and trained for a few hours every day after all. Almost none of the other children bothered to work that hard.

Due to Naruto’s and Naruko’s diligent efforts to train their muscles, which they actually really did every day, they were able to easily overpower most of the other children. (Though it had mostly lost its effect for Naru)

Adding onto that, the huge amounts of chakra they both had strengthened their bodies at all times and whether they wanted it to happen or not, some chakra was always infused into their bodies making them and their punches faster and stronger.

Only some of the people called geniuses could even pose a challenge to them.

And honestly, that group only included Sasuke.

Naruko could feel that Sasuke worked incredibly hard every day because his muscles were highly developed, even for his young age.

She often caught herself looking at his fights and studying his body in higher detail.

She liked it when people looked strong, but not threatening.

Honestly, in her past life she was more interested in girls, whether that be romantically or sexually.

Her social environment just never seemed to say that it would be okay for her to explore her sexuality and she didn’t feel thrilled at having to explore it in a body that she did not want. She could not give the one that she loved a happy life, so she deemed it unfit for her to even try to love anyone. She would first need to love herself.

In this world, with this body, she managed to love herself. She values her own life and she managed to find people that mean more to her than herself and she would move the sky and the ocean for them if she so needed to. The list of people like that was short, but it had potential for growth.

Now, however, she was curious as to what she actually liked and what she disliked.

And she would explore her sexuality.

If there was one thing that she noticed about herself changing rapidly in concerns to her sexuality, then that was in the way that she looked at men, or boys (that always sounded cuter to her).

She liked watching boys work hard and she liked it when they had muscles.

She, more than once, felt herself imagine what it would feel like to kiss a boy and what it would feel like to kiss a girl. But she was bewildered at the fact that she was more interested in boys right now.

So … Sasuke actually fell right into that category and if you took all this into consideration, then it wasn’t strange at all that she would often catch herself studying him and looking at him with interest. (She didn’t know if she was just interested in his body, or whether she also wanted to try getting to know him on a deeper level. She’d need to figure that out later.)

She never, however, spoke with him. They just weren’t that close. And there was never any reason for them to speak. She certainly wouldn’t talk to him when any of his fangirls was near them, that would only bring unnecessary trouble towards her own person.

Those fangirls had established that whenever a random girl approached him alone, they would put her in her place.

 

…

 

Now, after 6 years of academy, graduation day was upon them.

Most of the students whose name Naruko didn’t bother remembering had, as she predicted, moved into different classes.

Those that remained were the 8 she knew would become genin with them and some random other people that were never focused on in the story itself, or so her memories told her.

Her memories told her that Naruto should have been a kid that was lonely and neglected. He should have liked to play pranks to gain attention.

The Naruto she knew, liked to joke around and pull pranks on others to get a good laugh out of that, but he did not do it for attention. He did not need their attention.

Instead, he also liked pulling pranks on the villagers that he remembered had beaten them when they were younger. It was his way of getting back at them. (Naruko could feel his hatred towards them, but it did not make him go against his ideas of what is right and wrong. He did not want to kill them. He would however, not show much mercy if they decided to come at his loved ones again.)

By now, none of them could even touch Naruko or Naruto … they would be lying if they said they did not break the arms of the people that tried in the past few years.

Like … why would a civilian try to hurt “the reincarnations of the fox”. Yes, almost nobody knew that there were two foxes on that fateful day. Naruko guessed that not even Hiruzen knew of it. She did not remember seeing him on that day.

She guessed that they believed that one child held the yin- and one the yang-side.

It was all purposefully kept under wraps by the village council. Why exactly? Naruko didn’t know and she did not care. It hadn’t really worked anyway. Everyone knew to hate them, not many knew the reason for that, but they were just told that Naruto and Naruko were demons.

At some point, Naru just decided not to care about most of the villagers anymore. She was strong enough now … if they try to attack her, she will retaliate. And she will hurt them 10 times as bad as they could have ever hurt her. Which essentially means that they’ll at least lose an arm or something *snicker*.

She would not be kind towards her enemies. And she would not be self-conscious when fighting. She would not be embarrassed while fighting. She couldn’t do that, her instincts did not allow her to feel these things during fighting, instead she would be excited, only slightly though, her brother was usually much more excited than her.

She was free. She would do what she wanted. And once the seal in Naruto started leaking more and more of Kurama’s chakra, she would enter his mindscape and ask her Nii-chan whether he wanted to get out or not. The higher the amount of Kurama’s chakra flowing into Naruto for him to use, the weaker the seal.

If he wanted to get out, then she would help him find a way to leave Naruto and not cause the latter’s death.

She valued both Kurama and Naruto and she wouldn’t kill the other in order to save one of them. She loved both of them equally. Even if she spent more time with Naruto, she knew almost everything about Kurama, she would never let him live in pain.

She knew that he was trapped, but she also knew that Kurama was safe. That was important. They were both safe in their current state.

Perhaps, at some point in the future they’d find a way for Kurama and Naruto to coexist without needing to fight for dominance over the body, the world kind of pushed them towards that though. It was something she had not managed to do with Kurama before.

And it certainly wouldn’t be easy to forcefully take Kurama out of there without hurting Naruto. Naruto would most likely die if they did it the normal way, just like Kushina did.

Uzumaki were strong, they healed better than normal humans, but they also had a limit.

Naruko vowed to find a way to make sure that both of her brothers lived in peace and survived for a long, long time. Perhaps she could help them partly fuse together? It would make their existence unique and they’d be strong partners in battle. She knew that Kurama wouldn’t object, he was naturally lazy and liked sleeping in one place for a long time.

Of course, every once in a while, he enjoyed running around the forest or bathing in lakes, but from the memories she had seen, Kurama liked to relax in soft grass and sleep/rest for prolonged amounts of time.

 

…

 

But now it is finally time for the academy to end.

The graduation exam consisted of three parts.

1. A written exam (it was going to be ridiculously easy)
2. Transformation Jutsu demonstration
3. Clone Jutsu

Naruko and Naruto would easily pass the 1st and the 2nd parts … but, Naruto had huge problems with creating multiple fitting clones. She couldn’t quite understand why it was so hard for him … it was easy for her.

As with other Jutsu, she did not really need to use hand signs, it just helped her convey her intent to her chakra.

She just needed to think of what she wanted to do and it would happen. Though it was still a bit harder than that.

Of course, the chakra needed to be guided from her body to her hands or whatever thing the jutsu focused on and she needed to have a clear image in her mind.

Speaking the name of the Jutsu helped tremendously and for appearance’s sake, she chose to do the hand signs too. No student of the academy and not even a genin could do these jutsus without any kind of hand signs.

So, the only concern was Naruto’s inability to create correct clones … he would most likely fail, and if he did, then she would repeat a year with him. She did not mind, even if she did not see the faces she had grown used to anymore. She was only a bit closer to Hinata and that was all.

 

…

 

A/N: I have a feeling that I have some trouble with staying in the bounds that I set for my character. At some point I will create a full description of her character. Probably tomorrow and then I’ll try to do this “letting the character say things that conform with their personalities”. I’m going to put extra focus on Naruto and Naruko while doing that.

I appreciate any feedback! Currently chapters are coming whenever I have them ready (if I feel that they are ready?). School will begin for me next week, so I’ll most likely not be able to upload several chapters like I did the past two days. I spent almost all day today, yesterday and the day before that writing all of this. Honestly, I need to figure out where to go from here, the next chapter will be kind of experimental, especially since I’m trying to show Naru-chan’s personality and what makes her, her.

Again, I appreciate any criticism, there’s no need to be mean though, okay?