A day passed.
And...
"Well, here I am."
Here stood Naruto, staring at the entrance of one classroom. The bustling noise was heard from beyond.
It surely felt strange to him, attending to a kid's school once more at a mental age that surpassed kid's age.
Chuckling, Naruto dismissed the thought and pushed the door open.
Kids. Kids. Kids everywhere. All of them looked at him upon his entry.
The room fell silent before they returned to whatever they were doing, pretending as if Naruto didn't exist.
Standing and observing the environment, Naruto located an empty seat next to a timid-looking girl with glossy eyes.
Squinting his eyes at the girl as he walked to the seat, Naruto thought,
'...I swear I saw that one before in somewhere.'
Turning around, Naruto found Shikamaru and Choji, sitting next to two other boys who appeared quite unique.
One had a spiky black hair, had strange red marks on his cheeks, and was wearing a hoodie. The other one, on the other hand, was wearing a freaking sunglasses in a classroom.
Shikamaru seemed to have noticed Naruto, for he nodded slightly. Taking his hint, Naruto nodded back before taking his eyes off of them.
Seeing that there was no other seat available in a classroom full of bustling kids, Naruto ended up taking a seat next to the lone girl.
The girl seemed surprised and scared even, flinching before she hurriedly shifted her eyes away from Naruto.
And just like that, awkwardly, Naruto stared ahead, zoning out of the scene.
"..."
Time flied. After who-knows-how-long-passed, an adult shinobi with a scar on his nose—wearing the standard uniform of Konoha's ninjas—entered and clapped his hands together to garner the attention.
Of course, such effort wasn't enough to stop the kids from doing whatever they were doing,
"QUIET!!!!"
Until said shinobi's head suddenly enlarged much to Naruto's disbelief.
'What just—'
In a blink of an eye, the shinobi's head was back to its normal size.
However, Naruto knew that what he saw just now wasn't a dream, because everyone has fallen silent.
"I'll be taking an attendance now. Respond when your name is called!"
'Oh, right.'
Waking from his daze, Naruto focused, knowing that he needed to learn the name of others.
And so, the names were called. Students raised their hands and spoke back.
'Aburame Shino... Inuzuka Kiba?'
Naruto groaned inside, finding himself unable to memorize all names.
'But I did learn,'
Looking at the quiet girl, Naruto thought,
'that this girl's name is Hyuga Hinata.'
"Uzumaki Naruto!"
Raising his hand lazily, Naruto turned to look at the brooding black-haired boy whom he met a day ago,
'And that guy's name is Uchiha Sasuke.'
Finally, Naruto looked at the shinobi/instructor who just called out his name,
'Umino Iruka.'
Surprisingly, Naruto found it quite easy to memorize these japenese-styled names, not that he minded much about it.
__________
"Huh."
Naruto was amused.
There were those classes that was normal for any academy, which Naruto paid attention on to acquire the information of the new world.
Then, here he was now, in a barren floor named 'training ground'.
There were basic stretches, light jogs, and lesson on basic attacks. Then, a taijutsu spar, instructor Iruka said.
The names were called out in an order and students sparred.
All those were understandable. What he found amusing in particular, was the fact that his sparring partner was none other than 'Uchiha Sasuke', the brooding boy.
"Kyaaa, Sasuke-kun!"
"Beat his ass, Sasuke-kun!"
The students surrounded them. Some girls in particular seemed to be endorsed with Sasuke, cheering for his win.
'Blonde and pink... Yamanaka Ino and Haruno Sakura if I remember correctly.'
As Iruka stood in the middle as the referee, Naruto formed a seal of confrontation as the sign of respect.
Sasuke seemed surprised by such action from Naruto. Calm, reposed, and non-reactive unlike the loudmouthed fool whom he's been seeing for some time, that's whom Naruto's been being today.
Eventually, Sasuke too formed a seal of confrontation as he viewed Naruto stoically.
"...Start!"
Upon Iruka's call, Sasuke dashed immediately—at a speed enough to surprise Naruto.
A shoe suddenly appeared in front of Naruto's eyes. Instinctively, he jerked his head backward to barely dodge the kick in time.
Retracting his leg and using its momentum to spin his body, Sasuke then punched straight at Naruto's face as if trying to cause Naruto to fall.
"Ugh..."
However, Naruto didn't exhibit any form of fear whatsoever. Instead, taking the fist at his face, Naruto simply frowned in pain and persisted, not even taking one step back.
Many were surprised by this. Some even winced, imagining how painful it must've been.
To Naruto, it wasn't that much, however, with him having taken numerous blows from those civilians by now.
Then, Naruto grabbed Sasuke's wrist.
"...!"
Out of panic, Sasuke attempted to pull said arm out but to no avail; Naruto's raw strength was surprisingly strong.
Naruto yanked Sasuke's arm toward him, causing the latter to lose the balance and fall toward Naruto.
Letting go of the arm and stomping his foot atop Sasuke's back, Naruto brought Sasuke to the ground.
"...Huh?"
The entire class seemed dumbfounded by the turnout of the event.
Sasuke's eyes widened as he realized what just happened. Gritting his teeth and pushing his body up immediately with enough force to resist Naruto's foot, Sasuke brought himself into a particular taijutsu stance unlike before.
Seeing that, Naruto scratched his head in a confusion.
'...He wasn't going all out?'
Sasuke then dashed at Naruto once more. Seeing that, Naruto bent down and grabbed a batch of sand.
Now, Naruto admit, that Sasuke is fast. Much faster than him. Furthermore, Naruto could tell that Sasuke was trained; there was no way he could pull out those moves which he's only seen in movies in his previous life.
But in the end, kids were only kids. The instant at which Sasuke saw Naruto taking a hold of sand, his eyes were directed to it. As he dashed, his mind subconsciously locked its focus on Naruto's clenched hand full of sand.
'Classic misdirection, bitch.'
Sasuke watched as Naruto's sand-held hand was cocked back, before,
"...Eh?"
another fist of Naruto suddenly came in flying straight at his chest.
With widened eyes once more, Sasuke managed to react at the last second, leaning down to let the fist fly past him.
Simultaneously, Naruto sprayed the sand onto Sasuke's face.
Sasuke closed his eyes, and Naruto, in this gap of time, tripped the former by sweeping his foot.
For the second time, Sasuke found himself kissing the ground.
Everyone stared at Naruto in shock, including Iruka. As Sasuke remained on ground, full of embarrassment and disbelief, Naruto simply looked at Iruka expectantly.
Waking from the daze, Iruka called,
"...Naruto wins!"
Looking into his note and making a few checks, he stated after,
"Now, both of you make the seal of reconciliation."
Sasuke slowly stood up and dusted off his clothes. And as he looked up to gaze at Naruto, there seemed to be... a fiery gleam in his eyes?
Naruto raised an eyebrow as he formed the seal told by Iruka.
"Sasuke?"
However, Sasuke didn't form the seal. Instead, he glared at Naruto for a while before turning around and leaving.
"Sasuke, come back here!"
Iruka called him out angrily, but Sasuke didn't listen. Eventually, Iruka held his forehead and sighed, while Naruto tilted his head in confusion.
"...You cheated!!"
Then, one kid started flaming Naruto.
"This is meant to be a pure taijutsu spar, and you used sand!"
"Booooo!"
It quickly spread and before Naruto knew, most of the kids who were witnessing the scene began to trash-talk him.
"Go and apologize to Sasuke-kun! You lost!"
Naruto rolled his eyes before looking at the loudest of them all, the pink-haired girl named Sakura.
"You think you won? If deceits were allowed, Sasuke-kun would've done bett—"
Naruto felt as if his ears were ringing.
'This fucking village, I swear...'
He couldn't help but speak up,
"Sakura."
"—er... w-what?!"
"Shut up."
"H-Huh?"
"Your screeches are killing me. In fact, it's so painful that it may be better for you to keep your mouth shut your whole life."
Sakura seemed shocked, frozen on the spot.
Iruka was taken off guard by Naruto's harsh words at the girl whom he thought Naruto had a crush on, but he immediately interjected,
"Alright, everyone calm down! Sakura, you shouldn't have said those things to Naruto! Naruto, those words aren't appropriate, where did you learn that from?"
"Hey!! What did you say to Sakura just now, huh?!"
Ignoring Iruka's words, the blonde girl, Ino, shouted.
"Hmph, apologize! If you don't..."
Naruto frowned.
"If I don't, then what?"
"T-Then... I-I will..."
"Ino."
"W-What?"
"Shut the fuck up, bitch. Is screaming like maggots the only thing that your parents ever taught you?"
That day, Naruto sent two girls home, crying miserably.
"...Damn."
And meanwhile, the hoodie boy, Kiba, seemed impressed by Naruto's cussing.