Ant-like figures scuttled about in the distance, vanishing under the tiled roofs splayed across the horizon. There was a cold edge to the air and people were slowly beginning to roll out of bed and get ready for the day ahead. It being summer, the sun rose a full three hours ago, so there wasn’t any gloom to keep people in bed.

The Academy had wrapped up its second year a month ago, leaving me with six weeks of freedom to do as I wished: working and training. Now that I was five feet tall, I could do a lot more—like cooking, when the situation allowed. Taijutsu-wise, I was in top form, but my spars with Hinata grew infrequent as the academic year went on, almost stopping completely.

I supposed her clan upped her training regimen or something, which was fine by me. The sun arced over the village with its golden brilliance and I let its warmth dance on my skin for a heartbeat before flying down the hill—my legs did the running themselves. Reaching the bottom, I stopped myself from falling face-first, my head pulsing with heat.

“What’s taking him so long? I know he’s not expecting me, but…” I looked about for my running partner and as the question hung in the air around me, he rounded the corner, wearing a loose t-shirt and shorts. “Choji! Hey, I’m over here!”

He looked about first and then froze when he noticed me, racing over in less than ten seconds, flushed and already sweaty. I bent down to pull up my socks and debated if we should run up the hill but decided against it. My first run in a week being an uphill sprint probably wasn’t the smartest thing to do.

We ran side by side, jogging to the left of the street and circling stalls, bins, and lampposts.

“Why didn’t you come last week?” he asked through light breaths. “I waited for fifteen minutes every day.”

“Sorry, man. I was really busy but I’ll make it up to you. Dango?”

“Hmm. ...Three sticks?”

“I’ll do you one better,” I smiled. “Four sticks.”

Choji’s face broke out into a broad grin. “No take-backs, right?”

I wriggled my upper back free of my sweaty shirt and rolled out my shoulders. “Nope. I’ve kept up my physical training, so this run shouldn’t be so bad. How about you?”

“You’re not beating me, Naruto. Not after skipping a week. I’ve been eating hard, training hard, and resting hard,”

“How do you even rest hard?” His grin was smaller and more confident; a strange competitiveness grew within me—the simple desire not to lose, even though I’d gain absolutely nothing by winning. “Fine. First to the Hokage Building?”

“You’re on!”

I pulled ahead of him and stretched my legs as far as they could go. The morning wind ripped its way through me but I paid it no mind. Tearing down the street, I dodged people going about their mornings—until a woman and her dog rounded the corner, one chasing after the other. They veered right in front of me, going stone still in panic. I couldn’t stop and threw my head back to Choji, who wasn’t too far behind me.

There was enough distance for him to stop in time… but I couldn’t say the same about myself. I cursed and soared over their heads while my hands looped around one of many street lamps towering over us. I used the momentum to flip upright and balance on it, even as it dug into my calloused hands and wobbled dangerously.

Thanks to chakra adhesion, I wasn't in any danger of falling.

Choji skidded to a halt before, going around the woman and her dog and folding his arms. “You didn’t say we were allowed to leave the ground!”

“We’re not,” I scratched the back of my head. “Thing is, I would’ve run into the lady and her dog otherwise—you’re welcome, by the way.”

I hopped down and the brown dog tilted its head curiously. I blinked at the lady—who was irritatingly taller than me by a handful of inches—and gestured to it. She nodded dumbly and I rubbed its head, giving it a few scratches behind the ears.

“Come on!”

Standing straight, I raised an eyebrow. “Alright, alright, calm down… ready—set—GO!”

We lurched over, catching ourselves with a solid step and blasting off the ground in a dash. The woman’s dog yipped excitedly from behind us and, by her startled cry, was chasing us. Buildings and people blurred past and I could feel my heart pounding at the base of my throat as the flat street gradually shifted into an incline.

Red-faced and huffing and puffing, we continued to climb until gleaming silver peeked over the horizon. I stood still and looked onto the decline sprint and then beyond at the four stone-carved faces staring down at us.

Choji gave me a two-fingered salute. “Good luck.”

I watched him shuffle to the edge and snicker to himself before he started running, and then laughing loud and clear. Following suit, I rushed down the hill and began to close the distance. There weren’t many obstacles besides the odd passerby but since they could hear Choji before they saw him, we didn’t have to slow down.

He pulled ahead as the gap between us widened and I realised I wouldn’t make it in time. Eyes darting about, I jumped directly at a wall and righted myself, running onto its roof and soaring onto another. Choji hadn’t noticed me yet, too busy sprinting for his life. Grinning to myself, I passed gaps that he needed to turn onto side streets for and stayed close enough that he wouldn’t grow too suspicious.

Looking over the ledge, I spotted him turning left and going hell for leather to the front gate. I scrambled onto my hands and knees and slid off the ledge until I was hanging by the fingers. He blasted past my alleyway just as I fell into a crouch behind a bin. My feet pounded into the dirt and I caught up—close enough to tap his shoulder.

Still, he made it to the gate first, on his hands and knees for air. I swallowed deeply. My pulse beat madly in my chest and each breath I took left my lungs burning for more. There was a heavy, sweaty silence as we struggled to wrangle our breathing into control.

Choji straightened and grinned up at me, cheeks dimpling. “Naruto!”

“I know.” My mouth twisted up; despite my cheating, he still won. I didn’t know what his family was feeding him, but it was clearly doing him some good. “Well done. Meet me in front of the Academy in a little while, I’ll bring the dango.”

He nodded, and we walked together until the intersection, exchanged a fist bump, and went our separate ways.

I took to the rooftops to get home, enjoying the cold chill in the air as I walked across washing lines like they were tightropes. My shower was quick and to the point—we were meant to be at the Academy soon, and I only had an hour to make breakfast, and grab the dango.

Scarfing down the last of my cereal, I washed my mouth out with some water and flew out of my door. The dango shop was barely a five-minute walk away from my place. I entered an alleyway a street away and formed a series of hand seals, focusing very carefully on moulding my chakra and what exactly it was that I wanted to change.

There was a whole lot of theory that came with the Transformation Jutsu, and by the time we’d leave the Academy, Iruka told us we had to be well-versed in the ins and outs of the Seven Ways of Going, which were seven identities we’d learn to assume seamlessly when infiltrating enemy territory: clergy, samurai, merchants, craftsmen, performers, farmers, and beggars.

It would involve lots of field trips to temples, the village’s seedier districts, work experience weeks, picking up at least two instruments, and I was looking forward to all of it. For this, though, a simple disguise would be enough. I pulled a handheld mirror from my pouch to examine my features.

There wasn’t a massive change; my telltale whiskers were gone and my sunny-blonde hair was a darker, sun-kissed brown. Smiling to myself, I slipped the mirror into the pouch at my back.

“Welcome, welcome!” the store owner—a bronzed, wrinkled old woman—smiled. “What can I getcha?”

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“I’ll have,” I clutched my chin and counted, “seven mitarashi sticks, please.”

She gave me another grin and passed me a paper bag, palming the money. Once I was back in the alleyway. I dispelled the jutsu by disrupting the constant chakra flowing to my hair and face.

I tossed my wallet into the air and caught it firmly. “Man, I love the Transformation Jutsu. Makes living much easier on the wallet, isn’t that right, Froggy?”

----------------------------------------

Clusters of huddled families scattered about the Academy’s massive red gates; their nervous energy stuck to them like ominous dark clouds. I was further back in the shade, near the benches all the first-years and their parents completely ignored.

To my left was the slightly damp paper bag; six skewer sticks poked out the top. I clamped my teeth around the last ball, tasting the sweet and somewhat smoky soy glaze with the tip of my tongue. My cheeks tightened at the taste and my tongue went completely numb with pleasure as I twirled the stick between my fingers.

Popping the skewer into the bin, I absentmindedly traced the swirls of one of the Hidden Whirlpool emblems stitched into both shoulders of my black long-sleeve.

“Hey.”

I looked behind me to see Shikamaru wearing a cream t-shirt and baggy jogging bottoms. “Hey yourself. You didn’t come with Choji? I swear you guys are basically neighbours.”

“Sort of. He was in the shower or something and I got bored of waiting.” He nodded at the paper bag. “Those for him?”

I patted the seat beside me, and he swung his legs over the raised stone slab and took a seat. “I promised him four and bought you and Hinata one skewer each. These are mitarashi dango, so they’re grilled and have soy sauce on them.”

“Didn’t need to hear all that,” he said through a mouthful of dango balls. “Dango’s dango.”

Just like always, he'd framed his answer in the perfect way to elicit frustration—and the little prick knew it too. I sighed my frustration away—at least, I tried to—and shifted my focus toward dislodging an annoying clump of dango from the back of my mouth.

Shikamaru finished his skewer and leaned back to rest on his palms, casting his gaze skyward. Nothing new was happening near the crowds of first-years, so I looked up too, fixating on a dog-shaped cloud chasing an undefined white mass. I lost sight of the dog and tried focusing on its shape to no avail, so I gave up and started looking around again.

“Hinata, Choji, we’re here!” I waved them over as they came into sight. Choji marched towards me, looking down at the paper bag, and giving me a slight nod. “Take them, but give Hinata one. We’ve already had ours.”

Clutching the paper bag in one hand, he pulled out a skewer and passed it to Hinata. She smiled and pulled the topmost ball of the stick. “How’ve you been, Naruto?”

“Really good, actually. I’ve been on lots of runs with Choji and played some shogi with Shikamaru.”

“You suck, by the way,” said Shikamaru.

“I know,” I replied and jabbed a finger at her. “Anyway, you need to come out more.”

“Father has me busy training all the time and if it’s not that, I’m doing one thing or another.”

I sighed. “Don’t worry about it. We’re getting our results today—know what that means?”

“...No?”

“You’ll have a very powerful bargaining chip when you go home,” I said. “They’re definitely better than last year’s, so you can wrangle yourself out of your dad’s grip for a few hours at least.”

She smiled and said, “Perhaps you’re right.”

Choji stiffened at the mention of grades. He nibbled at his third dango stick and stared intensely at the Academy’s front gates. Exams were never his cup of tea, even if he’d slowly been growing in confidence and skill. Whenever we’d have mock exams—let alone the actual end-of-year ones—he’d turn into a tightly wound bundle of nerves; it was obvious to anyone who knew him.

The kid liked to eat, but when he was nervous, he’d eat a lot slower than normal and, sometimes, he wouldn’t even eat at all.

“Listen,” I patted his shoulder, “you’ll be okay. You did everything you could.”

He pulled his gaze away from the doors and nodded to himself. “That’s right, I did my best. …I just hope it’s enough.”

The heavy twin doors swung open and dug shallow grooves into the soft earth, kicking up ankle-high dust clouds. Children swarmed in, leaving their parents behind and heading towards the various entrances littered about the ground floor. We waited until the front gate was a little less congested before heading in.

Iruka was already in the classroom when we arrived and so were a few others. He looked up from the podium where he was sorting our reports and shot us a warm smile. “Morning, you four. Have you had a nice break so far?”

“Yes, sensei,” said Hinata. “Have you?”

“Well,” He scratched the back of his head, “I’ve had to do a lot of marking, but it’s been restful.”

“I’m never becoming a teacher,” I said, shaking my head. “Way too much marking. You’ve got your own class, and then there’s moderation between teachers of the same grade—and that’s ignoring dealing with marking for teachers who aren’t able to do their own for whatever reason.”

My friends looked at me strangely and Iruka chuckled. “I understand, but for someone so adamant about not becoming a teacher, you seem to know a lot.”

“...I pay attention,” I replied dryly and took my seat in the first row.

The classroom grew louder as the room filled up. People who hadn’t seen each other in weeks grinned and talked a little too noisily for my liking, but I couldn’t blame them for it—they were just kids and I knew some adults who did it all the time. By quarter-past-ten, everyone had arrived and Iruka called for silence. It took him yelling for everyone to hear it, but the loud conversations turned into whispers in the end.

“Good morning, all.” He held up a stack of paper. “I have your grades, but before I hand them out, I’ve got a few announcements to make. This’ll be our homeroom for the third year so make sure you come to the second floor and not the first. Next, there’ll be some changes to sparring from now on. The other teachers and I have reviewed your recent exams—it’s the end of the taijutsu-only spars. This year, and every other year moving forward, you’ll be allowed to use everything at your disposal—it’ll be true shinobi kumite.”

…This would make things harder. After all, I’d been able to maintain my lead over everyone by taking advantage of the limits placed on us during sparring. Now that it was gone, I wasn’t so sure if I’d be able to keep my top spot for the third time.

“That’ll be all,” said Iruka, stepping down from the podium and handing out the reports.

I turned mine over and smiled happily at the results. Grades were scored similarly to threat assessments in bingo books; they went from D-rank to S-rank, with D-rank being the equivalent of the very minimum passing grade—it was basically a fail, to be honest.

Academics—reading, writing, mathematics, and world history—were scored separately from shinobi studies. Both had an overall grade for each category calculated using the individual grades of each specific subject in said category. My ranking in our year cohort was boxed in the top right of the report—and just like last year, I was 1/56.

“What did you get?” I asked Shikamaru.

He yawned. “Same old. S-rank in academics, D-rank in shinobi studies.”

Ignoring the fact that he’d skimmed over a failing grade like he hadn’t a care in the world, I turned to Hinata.

“I scored B-rank in academics and A-rank in shinobi studies,” she said.

“Nice,” I replied. “What did I tell you? I’m pretty sure you jumped an entire grade for both.”

She nodded happily.

Choji clutched his report tightly in his hands and Hinata held her hand over his shoulder before she tapped it a few times; he looked at us with wet eyes and gulped hard.

“...Are you okay?” I asked.

He rubbed his eyes against his forearm and passed me the paper with a gasping laugh. “I-I did it!”

I looked over the paper and could feel Shikamaru and Hinata doing the same over both my shoulders. I looked at the grades for each subject and then at his overall for academics and shinobi studies—C-rank in academics and B-rank in shinobi studies.

Hinata gasped and enveloped him in a hug and I grinned and ruffled his hair. “What did I tell you?”

Shikamaru poked his arm between us and offered something to Choji, who asked, “What’s this?”

“It’s… you know,” Shikamaru said as he looked away, “...the limited edition version of those crisps you like to eat.”

“...As in the ones you can only get in the Land of Lightning?” Choji's eyes widened. “No way, dude, c’mere!”

As Shikamaru backed away, I snorted and grabbed his shoulders, steering him towards Choji, who wrapped him in a tight hug.

“Thanks, Shikamaru.”

Shikamaru struggled for a little bit and then gave in, returning the hug. “Don’t worry about it. That said, I had to promise my parents to clean my room for three months to get my hands on those—my mother won’t be happy that I basically failed shinobi studies either. Sure, the S-rank averages it out to, like, a B or C-rank, but she knows I didn’t try.”

“And you’ve only got yourself to blame for that,” I replied but instead of scoffing and rolling his eyes… he looked down at his grades, frowned, and then glared at me.

He opened his mouth to talk but was interrupted by Hinata; she gagged and leaned away from him. “Wait, you’re telling me you never cleaned your room before that?”

“No?” he tilted his head. “The longest I went was a month before my old lady did it for me after a lot of complaining.”

She wrinkled her nose.

Choji laughed and released him. “Enough about that—listen, my parents are going to celebrate this in style—you’re all invited. I’ll get my dad to talk to yours if I have to, Hinata.”

She blinked at him in surprise and then smiled. “Thank you, Choji.”

“No problem,” he said, looking around our emptied classroom. “Now, let’s go. I’ve got to break the news to my parents.”

I waited for all three of them to leave the row before I followed them out of the door. Shikamaru made it a point to storm past me and keep Hinata and Choji between us.

I sighed, falling back a little but still keeping them in sight. They rushed past Sasuke, who stared challengingly at me as I walked him by. It could’ve been because I’d stopped him from being ranked as Rookie of the Year for the second time now.

Either way, something told me the coming year was going to be a tough one.