18Chapter 1: Innocent Rebellion
Konoha was enjoying a sunny day when a certain pink haired girl was walking home, hand in hand with her mother, while a certain blonde haired, whiskered boy was waving goodbye to his new friend. The girl's mother glared at the bewhiskered boy, pulling the young girl away. "Sakura, I do not want you ever talking to that boy ever again. Do you hear me? Never! He is an evil child. An evil dirty little brat who will curse you and hurt you," Acacia Haruno screeched at her confused daughter.
Sakura interrupted her mother and asked, "but why mom? He seemed nice to me. I like him, he saved me from the meanies who made fun of my forehead." She looked at her mom, bright eyes shining with curiosity instead of fear. To her, Naruto Uzumaki was goofy, but cool. Plus, he played ninja really well.
Acacia looked at her daughter, unsure as to how to answer. "Well," she began hesitantly, "he just is. Now I don't want you seeing him ever again. Do you hear me?" Sakura didn't miss the hesitation.
Sakura glanced down, moping. "Fine mama." Sakura glanced back at the path they took, the Park long out of sight. She mouthed a silent goodbye to her first friend.
Naruto, as soon as Sakura disappeared around the corner of the street, dropped his goofy grin. His eyes dulled as once again he knew he lost another potential friend because of a parent's irrational hate for him. A short exasperated sigh escapes his lips as he turns around to go to the swings of the empty park. He sat down swinging slowly. His head down as he tries to keep the tears from falling. Despite his ability to fake his smile and hide his tears, for some reason today he is unable stem the tide of tears as they flood down his cheeks. Shaky, choking sobs escape him as the sadness overwhelms him. "Why…" he gasps out, "why me?"
He sat there, sadly swinging, letting his grief out. The sun set slowly, stretching the shadows over the playground as he continued to swing sadly. He tried everything he can think of in order to comprehend the reason for his pariah status. 'Perhaps,' Naruto thought to himself, 'my parents were traitors. It would explain everything. Perhaps they helped an enemy village, or went rogue and abandoned him.' This thought, despite its tragic implication, made him happy. Maybe he can meet them as a hunter nin and convince them to return home. The old man Hokage would surely allow them in once they apologize.
It was the only comfort he was afforded. Naruto, as the darkness grew, eventually went home to his apartment, to be greeted by the loneliness. Naruto fell into his bed and dreamed of him and his parents whoever they are.
Sakura was awoken the next day as the sun poked through her window. Groggily she gets up and goes downstairs to her kitchen where she finds a note from her mom stating that a council meeting came up. Sakura shrugs, used to making her own breakfast. She eats a small meal before she wonders what she wants to do. Despite her mother's warnings, she still remembers Naruto from yesterday and their promise to meet up today at the park and play ninja again. Sakura decides to go outside to play.
She grabs the door handle and hesitates. Should she really go against her mom? Sakura thinks for a second before coming to the conclusion that she'll be fine so long as she leaves for home early. She leaves and goes to meet her new friend. She just hoped he would show up too.
Naruto awoke alone. He got up, and ate alone. He was dressed already since he fell asleep in his clothes last night. He left his apartment alone. He walked the streets alone. He traveled to the park alone where he sat on the swing alone. Naruto Uzumaki was completely and utterly alone.
He sat and swung on the swings to pass the time. Not twenty minutes later, Sakura shows up and much to Naruto's surprise, walks up to him again and asks to play again. To say Naruto was ecstatic would be an understatement. He practically flew off the swing in joy, landing poorly in front of Sakura, causing her to giggle as he brushed the sand off of him. "That's great! Let's play more ninja! I need the practice since I'm gonna be the next Hokage soon!" He declared to her, brimming with such confidence and exuberance that she can almost see a shadow of the hat and robes shimmer around him. She can definitely see him as Hokage. Naruto turns around too quickly and trips over his own feet in his excitement. Sakura sweatdrops at that.
"So this is our mighty Lord Fifth, eh?" Sakura decided to tease the young boy, "might want to train on balance first." Naruto pouts at that and mumbles. Sakura giggles at that.
The two of them played games until it was time for Sakura to go. Him playing as Hokage and her playing as the Jonin commander to protect the playground from imaginary ninjas. Before Sakura left, Naruto spoke up. "We'll make a promise. I promise I'll become Hokage if you'll be my Jonin commander! That way we'll prove to the village that we aren't some useless brat and a girl with a big forehead! We'll make them all look at us with respect!" Naruto declared, pinky held up to Sakura, "promise?"
She takes his pinky with her own and shouting her own oath, "I promise to serve you well, Lord Fifth!" She giggles as Naruto beams a bright smile. They part ways that day with a spring in both of their steps. 'And to think I was just gonna waste this fun day by staying home,' Sakura thought as she skipped happily home.
It has been several months of Sakura secretly playing with Naruto since that day they met. They were best friends. Eventually Sakura introduced Ino who in turn introduced Choji, Kiba, and Shikamaru to the pair. While Naruto and Kiba proved to be little balls of energy, the rest tended to tire quicker, especially Shikamaru who only seemed to watch clouds. On this day however, Shikamaru did something seemingly out of character. He was excited.
"My dad recently taught me how to play Chess and I wanted to share it with all of you! It's so much fun. It'd be such a drag if I didn't have anyone else to play with so I'm teaching you all to play!" Shikamaru brings out three Chess boards with separate cloth bags containing the pieces for each set. "Now the rules are quite simple…"
After Shikamaru taught everyone the basics they paired off to play. Shikamaru crushed Naruto whom he played with first, while Sakura and Ino ended up in a long drawn out match ending in Sakura's Pyrrhic victory. Kiba lost soundly to Choji. Eventually they all swapped partners and played until sundown. Naruto seemed to have the hardest time getting used to it and only beat Kiba once and lost to everyone else. Sakura, as time passed, got better and better until she was forcing Shikamaru into elaborate traps that he struggled to get out of, though she never did win against him. Choji and Ino were middle of the road in terms of skill and so tended to have more fun facing each other. Naruto, despite having wanted to play more physical games, actually enjoyed playing Chess because Shikamaru seemed super excited by it which made Naruto happy that his friend was happy.
Soon enough, the time for the academy was upon them. Everyone was excited about the first day. Well, everyone except Shikamaru. But everyone knew that was par for the course. Sakura was getting ready for her first day. She read all the books in the civilian library about ninjas and knew that she would need strength and knowledge. Knowledge she had in spades and would gain more when allowed into the ninja section of the library. Though Naruto was the clear brawn of the duo, she was definitely able to hit hard when angry. Still, it was clear she was gonna have to help him in school. She frowned at that, still wondering why her mom hated Naruto so much. Even calling him a demon brat. She shook that thought to the back of her mind as she finished getting ready for her first day. Sakura ran out the door to meet Naruto at the entrance of the academy.
Naruto woke up excited to start his first step as the Hokage. He grabbed his school stuff, quickly ate an instant cup of ramen, before rushing out the door and heading towards the academy. Running all the way there, he almost bowled over Sakura who was heading towards the gate. "NARUTO!" Whack! Naruto was holding his head where Sakura whacked him hard for almost knocking her down while she was walking. "You idiot! You're supposed to watch where you're running!" she scolded him.
"Sorry Sakura, I was so excited I guess I wasn't paying attention, hehe," Naruto rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "Here I got you something to celebrate our first day," he started patting his belongings down trying to find it to no avail, "Oh no! I must have left it at home!" Naruto facepalmed at his own foolishness. "I'm sorry Sakura, I wanted to show you what I got you but forgot." A dark cloud of depression formed over Naruto's head. Sakura just rolled her eyes.
"Idiot, we can just stop by your place during lunch. Now get up and let's go in." Naruto brightened up at Sakura's words. He followed her into the class and they sat together in the row ahead of Shikamaru and Choji. A weird kid, with a long trench coat covering his body, sat in front of Naruto. Ino came in and sat across the aisle from Naruto, greeting Naruto, Sakura, Shikamaru and Choji. After a few more students started filing in, Kiba popped up and shouted his greetings to the group while Akamaru barked his own greeting with wagging tail, excited to start the day too. He sat next to the weird kid, in front of Sakura. The last to come in was a young boy with onyx eyes and black hair done up in what can only be described as a duck's butt. He looked a bit nervous but tried to almost successfully hide it. He sat in the last seat near the window where he looked out longingly at. Naruto craned his neck to try and see what he's looking at and spots a beautiful woman with long raven hair and onyx eyes waving goodbye. Naruto looked a bit enviously at the boy.
The teacher came in smiling with an assistant, scanning the classroom. His smile vanished and was replaced with a glare when he saw Naruto. After a small moment his smile returned, albeit fake. "Well class, welcome to the first year of Konoha's Ninja Academy. I am Koda Kobachi, and this is my assistant Mino. Here you will learn how to be the best ninja you can be," he paused, "and the first step is getting out your history books and turning to page 25." Everyone groaned at that, but did it. Naruto did as well and started reading.
It wasn't a quarter of an hour in when Koda singled Naruto out and kicked him out for goofing off. Naruto was having trouble reading and retaining it due to being distracted by his surroundings. He hadn't moved off of page 25. He was forced to stand outside by himself. Sakura frowned and wasn't quite sure what happened, but didn't say anything because she knew that Naruto sometimes goofed off and the teachers were probably more keen eyed than her when she was focusing on her reading. Mino grabbed Naruto's things and brought them to the front and hid them behind the desk. After that was done, Koda gathered everyone's attention and started teaching the basics of chakra control and unlocking it. Naruto was forced to sit out there until lunch where he was lectured about not goofing off for about half the lunch period.
Sakura sighed as she was sitting with the usual group, minus one wayward blonde, eating a bento her mom made her. "Day one and our hyperactive blonde has already gotten himself in trouble." Sakura looked at Ino, who was staring at the boy in blue with a Uchiha crest on his shirt and a duck's butt haircut. "Ino, what are you doing?"
"I think I'm in love," Ino sighed dreamily. She stared at the Uchiha who was eating a bento. Shikamaru rolled his eyes. Sakura looked at him for the first time. Her heart skipped a beat when she saw him.
"Wow…" Sakura gasped in surprise. She too suddenly became infatuated with him. Being around Naruto must have rubbed off on her, because she started moving without thinking, stopping in front of the boy. "Um…" she was nervous, "do you want to join us and be friends?" The boy was shocked but nodded, trying to act nonplussed. When he followed her back to her friend group, Sakura spoke again, "I'm Sakura, what's your name?"
"Sasuke Uchiha." The boy spoke in a cool manner. Once they reached the group, Sakura introduced Sasuke to everyone. They chatted and got to know one another. Naruto eventually got out and joined the group.
"Sakura! We got a few minutes, I think we can make it there and back quickly! Come on!" Naruto started pulling Sakura with him. Sakura sighed and said she'd be back. Naruto started running with Sakura in hand desperately trying to run fast enough to keep up. They reached his apartment while Naruto ran inside to grab the gift. He found it on the table in the kitchen. Grabbing the two pouches, he rushed out the door. He handed Sakura a ninja pouch with her name inlaid with gold thread. Naruto had the same thing. Sakura stared in joy and wonder at the pouch, which was filled with weapons. "I found the shuriken and kunai at the training grounds," Naruto rubbed his head sheepishly, "and Old Man Hokage took me to a shop that customized a few ninja pouches for me."
Sakura gave a smile and hugged Naruto, "thank you, I love it. Now let's get back before we're late!" They ran as quickly as they could back to the Ninja Academy, with Naruto blushing slightly, not expecting that.
At the end of the day, all of the kids were picked up or walked home from the academy, except for Naruto, who stayed behind to get his bag from the teachers.
Naruto walked up to Koda sensei. "Sensei, I need my bag." Koda looked at Naruto with scorn. He reached behind the desk and handed the empty bag to Naruto. "Wait, where's my books and stuff?"
Koda snorted in derision, "how should I know? It's your bag, not mine. Make sure you bring your stuff to class next time." Naruto huffed in annoyance and left, slamming the door shut behind him. Naruto ran home angry. When he got home, unable to do any homework, he decided to make a straw dummy from and painted a face on it that was supposed to look like Koda's but was mostly lacking in detail and skill. Afterwards he practiced hitting it till it was night time. He stopped and went to bed, ready to get up the next morning for another day at the academy.
The next three years were going to be a pain in the ass.