Chapter Text
That day the energy was high as young children of varying ages either returned to school or set their first foot inside the academy.
You could tell who the new students were. Many still clutched their father’s hands or their mother’s skirts. Some looked scared, but just as many appeared excited.
As the bell rang the older students left to go to their classrooms and the younger ones were herded to stand around two chūnin teachers who spoke to them and their parents.
“This is your first day at the shinobi academy. You will be split into two groups, which you will stay in for the remainder of your time at the academy. Myself and my colleague will call out your name and you will go to us, and we will be your senseis for the rest of your school career. My name is Iori Roku. You can call me Roku Sensei, and this is Komori Tatsui.”
“You can call me Tatsui Sensei.” The younger looking teacher nodded and gave them all a smile.
Minato turned to the girl next to him. Their hands were clasped together, and Rua was already returning his look. He smiled reassuringly at her and she smiled back. They were both thinking the same thing. That they wouldn’t get separated.
“Once you are separated into your two groups we will give you the tour of the academy in those groups, which parents are encouraged to come along on, as there will be a presentation for the parents following afterwards about what your children will be learning in the academy, something you all will be told by your sensei once you are all settled in your classrooms.” He addressed the children at the end.
Roku Sensei then started calling out names, and Minato gripped Rua’s hand tighter as they waited for either of their names to be called. The man got to the M surnames and they both listened in suspense until he finished with the N surnames and neither of their names had been called out. They grinned at each other.
“Now that we have everyone, we can start on the tour. If everyone will follow me.”
“That means the rest of you should be in my group.” Tatsui Sensei smiled at them and Minato and Rua unanimously decided they liked this teacher. “I’ll call out the names. Once your name has been called come and stand over here.” He gestured to the side of himself where there weren’t any people standing. “If anyone isn’t on the list, we’ll sort that out by the end of the day.”
They waited for their names to be called.
“Murakami Rua.” Rua looked at him and nervously let go of his hand to make her way over to the other side.
As soon as their sensei had seen her respond to the name he called out the next one.
“Namikaze Minato.” Minato grinned and ran to grab Rua’s hand, pulling them faster to where the other students whose names had already been called were waiting.
Things progressed quickly after that. The tour wasn’t too long, and the children split from their parents fairly quickly, Minato and Rua not paying much attention, long used to not having parents, happy to be with one another rather than lamenting the fact they were orphans among many families.
Tatsui Sensei turned out to be nice as they had predicted. Unfortunately, he was also as strict as he was nice, which meant despite him treating them nicely, the students that talked over him quickly learned he had a glare that could freeze you in your seats.
By lunch time Minato and Rua were glad to get outside and run around. They weren’t used to being sat down for so long. At the orphanage the matron generally let them do whatever they wanted as long as they were there for mealtimes and back by dark. There was a park by orphanage they spent most of their time at and the matron had given Minato a watch and made them learn how to read it so they didn’t have the excuse of getting home late (she hadn’t given it to Rua because Minato was the more careful out of the two of them).
For the first couple of weeks they didn’t do much more than they had in their pre-school classes. Basic literacy and maths. Although after the first day Minato and Rua were happy to find there wasn’t as much sitting in classes as they’d first thought. Multiple times a week they spent a few hours in either the morning or the afternoon doing things like running and seeing how far they could jump and practicing throwing. Only with soft objects, but they had seen the older years practicing with actual throwing things.
They soon learned in the following weeks they were called kunai and shuriken, although they were only allowed to use wooden ones at their age to get a feel for the weapons.
Unfortunately, they did spend the rest of their time in the classroom and although they enjoyed learning (Minato more than Rua, she was more of the active sort), it forced them to extend their patience and ability to sit still and not get off task.
Which was hard, but a threat from their teacher of separating them if they didn’t pay attention helped focus them.
“Are you two siblings?” They were three weeks in, it was lunchtime and so far there had been surprisingly little confrontation between any of the students.
The tone of the question chaffed at both the small children slightly. Especially seeing as it was obvious they weren’t. Minato had spiky yellow-blonde hair, blue eyes and pale skin. Rua had curly brown hair, purple eyes and brown skin.
“No.” Minato stared at the kid that had asked them, Rua beside him on the wall trying not to pull a face at the intruder.
“How come you’re always together then?” The girl next to the boy asked.
“Cus we’re friends.”
“Duh.” Rua tacked on to the end of his reply.
“You’re from the orphanage, aren’t you?”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Minato frowned at them and glanced at Rua who looked like she normally did when she wanted to hit someone. Brow furrowed and staring heatedly at the three children in front of them.
The one that had asked the question shrugged.
“Just asking. No need to get all offended.”
“We aren’t. There’s nothing wrong with being from the orphanage.” Rua glared at them from where she was still sat on the wall. They had just been eating their lunches.
“Exactly. Like Rua said. Now go away.” Minato stared at the person who seemed to be the main one.
It turned out they weren’t willing to start a fight themselves, so seeing as neither Rua nor Minato had risen to the bait, they turned to go and bother someone else.
“What dicks.”
“Ru-chan.” Minato gave her his best scandalised look. “You know Michi-basan told you not to use that word.”
“Shush Mina-chan,” Rua stuck her tongue out at him. “She’s the one that taught it to us in the first place.”
“Accidentally. She didn’t expect us to hear her.”
“I’m adding to my vo-vocabulalary?” Rua lost control of the last word, looking to him for help.
“Vocabulary.”
“You’re cleverer than me.” Rua pouted at him.
“No, I’m not.” He protested, his young voice squeaking.
“Yes, you are.” She paused to pout at him more before letting it go and laughing. “But that’s okay as long as you let me copy your answers.” She grinned cheekily at him.
“Of course I will.” He headbutted her lightly. She grabbed his head and ground their heads together.
“Ow! Stop it!” He giggled as she pulled away with her hair all stuck out above her dual ponytails. “Now you look stupid.”
“You always look stupid.”
“No I don’t!” He moved to whack her and the rice ball he’d managed to hold onto through the past two minutes went flying out his hand. “Ah! Catch it!”
Surprisingly, she did.
“Oh. I wasn’t expecting that.” They both blinked before Rua grinned.
“It’s my super-fast reflexes.” She then put the rice ball in her mouth.
“Hey! That was mine.” Minato did whack her this time, which dissolved into a small squabbling fight until Rua’s bento was almost knocked over and they called it a draw as long as she gave Minato some of her tamagoyaki. Which she did easily.
That wasn’t the last time anyone tried to bother them about their backgrounds. It happened two more times before the rest of the children realised it wouldn’t make them rise to the bait, so from that point onwards the others left them alone about it and moved on to easier targets.
They moved on in their studies and soon enough Rua wasn’t the only one thinking Minato was clever.
By their second year it was generally considered Minato was a genius and they were banned from sitting next to each other during tests.
Not that it stopped him from giving her the answers. On one notable occasion when they were seven Minato looked over to her during the exam and she was stabbing her pencil into the sheet with such frustration, Minato could tell she was close to tears. He’d asked for a second sheet, citing he’d run out of space and gone over the questions on his own. He’d imitated her handwriting and when it had come time to hand them in, he’d walked up at the same time as her, standing beside her in the line and passing her his second sheet to hand in.
Tatsui Sensei had handed their exams back with suspicion, staring pointedly at Minato for a long time but nothing had been said about it.
After that both the children decided to learn the other's handwriting, changing it as the other did until eventually they merged together until both children had almost identical writing, with Minato's being slightly taller than Rua's, but he could replicate hers with ease and she could do the same with his.
Her lack of academic achievement in comparison to him often made her frustrated, but she was so determined in achieving Minato always insisted it didn’t matter, it wasn’t like she was underperforming, she just wasn’t a technical genius, and she was one of the top in the class overall despite only being averagely high in a classroom alongside intensely intelligent children such as Minato and then the high-achieving clan children such as the Hyūga twins and the few Uchiha's in their class.
But like he’d told her, he was more than willing to give her the answers in class when she couldn't figure them out herself, it wasn't the end of the world if she didn't know how long the first shinobi war lasted, if she ever needed to know anything she couldn't remember herself then he could tell her, him giving her the answers was just a reflection of how they worked in real life so Minato didn't call it cheating.
As long as Minato could help his best friend then he would. That's just how they were.