Chapter Text
“I’m at the end of my rope, Naruto.”
It was the final review day at the Ninja Academy for academy students, the last day of instruction before the final exam to graduate. To graduate and officially become a ninja of the Village Hidden in the Leaves. Or, at least that’s what everybody else’s plan presumably was. Amaya Korihari wasn’t as lucky as her other classmates. After she graduated, that would be the end of her Ninja journey.
Letting her bangs shake with her head, she tried her best to clear her mind. Moping around in self pity wasn’t the way she wanted to spend her last day in class. Leaning forward so she could rest her head on her arms, she refocused on the show being put on in front of the class.
Sitting tied up in front of Iruka Sensei, was none other than the infamous class clown, Naruto Uzumaki. No doubtly in trouble for some other stupid prank. She had overheard two of her classmates, Sakura Haruno and Ino Yamanaka, talking about how he had painted over the stone Hokage faces. She felt her eyes roll into the back of her head, a small smile tugging at her lips. Only Naruto would risk bodily harm for such a stupid prank. She had to respect his dedication, if nothing else.
“You failed the graduation test last time and the time before that.” Iruka Sensei scolded, his arms crossed tight. Tomorrow, you’ve got another chance, and you’re messing up again!”
Her mesh elbow-length gloves were digging into the skin on her cheek. She tried to readjust to get more comfortable. In the front of class, Naruto let out a loud scoff, throwing his head to the side. Such a kid…
“Fine!” Iruka Sensei said, throwing a finger to the rest of the class. “Because you missed it, Naruto, everyone will review the transformation jutsu!”
The rest of the class let out a chorus of loud moans before reluctantly getting out of their seats to form a line. But, secretly, Amaya was happy because after she graduated tomorrow, she wouldn’t get many opportunities to perform this kind of jutsu. So, any experience she could get to feel like a normal upcoming Genin like the rest of her classmates, the better.
She got up out of her seat, trying to be as subtle about her excitement as possible, and hustled to get a spot in line near Naruto. The kid may be a crazy lunatic always acting out for attention, but he was funny. And pretty cute, if she had to admit it to herself. Even if he had whiskers. It certainly brightened her days whenever she saw them.
She ended up next to a different classmate, Shikamaru Nara, but she was close enough.
“All right, Sakura here.” Sakura introduced, forming the ram hand sign. “Let’s do it. Transform!” Then, in an eruption of smoke, a brand new Iruka Sensei emerged.
“You transformed into me. Good.” Iruka Sensei commented. He made a quick note on his clipboard.
“Yes, I did it!” She exclaimed after de-transforming. A huge grin overtook her features as she indulged in a celebratory dance. “Sasuke, did you see that?”
Amaya saw Sasuke roll his eyes out of the corner of her eye, and couldn’t help but agree with the sentiment. When she wasn’t complaining about Naruto, Sakura was talking people’s ears’ off about how cool and great Sasuke, the class hotshot, was.
“Next, Sasuke Uchiha.” Iruka Sensei called.
Wordlessly, Sasuke stepped forward, and with a quick hand sign, he soundlessly transformed into Iruka Sensei too. He disappeared in and reappeared out of a cloud of smoke with Iruka’s approval, and made his way to the back of the line.
“Next, Naruto Uzumaki.”
Next to her in line, she could hear Shikamaru lean over and say, “This is a total waste of time, Naruto.”
Next to him, Ino piped up. “We always pay for your screw-ups.” She then threw her nose up and firmly planted a hand on her hip.
Sure, Amaya could see the drag of having to drill the transformation jutsu, but it wasn’t Naruto’s fault that Iruka Sensei decided to punish everyone else for his petty pranks. And, if she was being honest, a lot of her classmates could use a refresher before tomorrow’s exam. Some of them could only create one replication. Others were just as poorly prepared as Naruto.
With unwarranted confidence, Naruto stood before the line, formed the ram hand sign, and shouted, “transform!” A dome of chakra encased him, blowing his already wild hair. His face was screwed up in concentration, and then finally, a cloud of smoke erupted, enveloping him.
But, what emerged from the smoke was a long legged girl with huge blonde pigtails, with only thin trails of cloud covering her modesty. She was making all kinds of moaning noises, and then blew a suggestive kiss Iruka Sensei’s way.
It didn’t take long for streams of blood to spurt out of Iruka Sensei’s nose, which caused Naruto to laugh so hard he de-transformed. “Gotcha!” He laughed, a hand clutching his stomach. “That’s my sexy jutsu!”
“Cut the stupid tricks!” Iruka Sensei yelled, sounding nasally because of the wads of tissues stuck in his nose. “This is your last warning!”
Amaya couldn’t help herself. From the safety behind Shikamaru, she let out a small chuckle. Not only was it a funny jutsu, but the fact that Naruto created it was even more impressive. It took a lot of skill to create a jutsu, even one that ridiculously stupid and useless. No one else in her class had successfully done it, not even the prodigal Sasuke. She had tried one or twice to create a jutsu that would let her encase her hands in fire, but the closest she ever got was a couple of pitiful puffs of smoke. Of all the jutsus she ever attempted in class, for some reason, fire jutsus were never her thing. Which was a shame, because fire jutsus were her favorite.
After running through the rest of the students, Iruka Sensei dismissed the class early for the day so he could personally see to Naruto’s punishment. Groups of students began to split off and walk home together: Ino and Sakura, Shikamaru and his best friend Choji Akimichi, while others walked home alone. Quieter students like Hinita Hyuga and Sasuke both always walked home alone. Sometimes Amaya would walk home with Hinata, but she was pretty hard to talk to. She would always be really skittish around Amaya, no matter what she tried to talk about. And the one time she tried to befriend Sasuke, he just shrugged his shoulders and continued to walk towards the outskirts of town where they coincidentally both lived.. She wasn’t sure if that was an invitation or not, so she decided to play it safe. Sasuke was well known to be quite stand-offish.
So, just like she did every other day, Amaya left class and walked home alone.
It’s not like she minded being alone. She almost preferred school to her home life. Her home life was nothing traumatic, but it was just her and her mother, and occasionally her mother’s neighbor/caretaker Minaka-san. Her father was nowhere in the picture. She had never even met the man. Whenever Amaya tried to ask, her mother would just swiftly redirect the conversation. But she knew something wasn't right about him. At night when Amaya worked herself up into an anxious frenzy over him, she could hear frenzied whispers between her and Minaka. There were mornings where they exchanged one too many looks, and Amaya had a feeling that every time, they were about her and her father. And it had been like that for years.
“Hi there, Miss. Korihari,” Teuchi, owner of Ichiraku Ramen, greeted as she walked up. “Just the usual for you?”
“Good afternoon Teuchi-san,” she greeted with a smile, taking a seat on one of the stools. “Yeah. And if you could put an extra egg in my mother’s ramen? Oh, and maybe some barbeque pork on the side? She’s been a little low on energy and I think some protein will do her some good. Plus barbeque is her favorite.”
“Sure thing,” he said, opening up his vat of hot water. “Coming right up.” As he was preparing her food, he looked over at her, and must’ve seen her drop her head to her hand, lost in space. “You’re out early today,” he noted conversationally.
Her eyes traveled over to the Hokage faces, where a platform had been suspended in front of the first Hokage’s face, presumably with Naruto on top of it, scrubbing paint off. “Yeah, Iruka Sensei had other things to attend to.”
He followed her line of sight and let out a good-natured chuckle. “That Naruto, always getting into trouble.”
Instead of responding with something idle, Amaya just let out a hum of agreement. For as long as she’s lived in the leaf village, every resident has complained about Naruto and his antics at one point or another, some even goes as far as to outwardly hate him. Either from his pranks or his relative disruptive nature, she had heard nothing but complaints from the adults about him. Even a lot of the students her own age complained about him. But, it’s not like she could really blame Naruto for his actions. She did the same sorts of things growing up, pulling up her mother’s flowers or making a mess in the kitchen just to get her attention.
But Naruto didn’t have the same sort of luxury she did. He didn’t have anyone to annoy when he went home. She got the privilege of growing up with a mother, and a phantom father that got to dictate her every move. Never met him, but always had to live by his rules.
“Alright, Miss. Korihari,” Teuchi said, handing her three bowls of ramen in a bag.
“Thank you,” she said, pulling out her nearly depleted coin purse and pulled out what she owed. After waving goodbye, she took the paper sack by the handles and started on her way home.