Hinata breathed in the cold morning air, taking in the fog-shrouded courtyard as she walked across the clan compound. These days, she walked a little straighter, made eye contact for longer, and was even trying to curb her constant stuttering. It wasn’t always smooth sailing, and there were days when her doubts voiced themselves louder than usual, but she felt proud of herself.

She walked across the polished wooden floorboards of the sparring room, where her father and Neji would be waiting. She had done all she could to avoid that hall after the unpleasantness of last month’s sparring but there was only so long that she could put it out of her mind.

A handful of weeks whizzed by since the incident with Naruto, and while she would have liked the surge in confidence to be a permanent thing, Hinata knew she would have to start from the very bottom: which meant being able to eat in the same room as her father without shrinking back from him.

It was hard, at first, and her desire to simply take her meal with Hanabi in their room didn’t make things easier. But there was one good thing that had come from eating with her father: he began to try and understand her. Months of her bowing her head at his disparaging words had left an unflattering impression of him, but the meals helped.

Compliments from him felt foreign, but he was beginning to look like more of a man and less of a statue. All of this and more wriggled in the back of her mind as she entered the room and laid eyes on him.

“Father,” she bowed.

His face was set in an ever-present frown but his eyes were appraising her. Life at the Hyuuga compound had shifted since the day Naruto had made his mark on her life. It wasn’t noticeable at first, but it all came to a head when she spoke back to Neji, pleasing the elders who often came to watch her spars.

Of course, it hadn’t helped the subsequent beating from her cousin, but because of it, her father and the elders hadn’t completely written her off. It was then that Hinata learnt the horror of the Caged Bird Seal.

She glanced at Neji. He glared at her over folded arms and, despite what she saw that day, her chest tightened in anger. It took a while for her to process what it was she was feeling – but she got there. Not only anger but frustration.

No matter how she felt about the Branch clan’s situation, she would not let him beat her senseless out of pity.

“Hinata,” her father nodded. “Today, you will take these past month’s learning of the Gentle Fist’s forms and spar Neji.”

“Yes.”

He looked at Neji. “It would do you well to remember that I will not tolerate a repeat of last month.”

Neji scoffed.

“The rules, as always, are simple. Fight until you can go no longer – or until I say so.” He took a seat at the end of the hall near the entrance. “Begin.”

Gathering her chakra, Hinata made a hand seal in front of her face just as Neji did. The world’s colour washed away, revealing all that lay beneath the surface. Neji took the initiative to put her arms out of commission for the fight – but she wouldn’t let it happen so easily.

Slapping away his lead hand, she just about deflected the other upward, forcing him to backpedal. Darting forward, a shot at his head turned into a knife hand aimed at his throat. He slipped it with a growl, driving a palm into her stomach. Hinata took it with a wince, trapping his arm in the crook of her elbow. She drove a closed fist into his stomach, manoeuvring a little around the locked limb.

He thrashed, in an attempt to escape her grip, breaking the hold without much effort. “Y-You little…”

Hinata backed away. Fuelled by rage, Neji threw himself at her, attacking between feints and fake-outs, and took advantage of every instance she fell for one to disable a pressure point so that he could prolong the punishment – all while taunting her.

“Is this how you expect to be the head of our clan?”

She barely blocked a side kick.

“Do you think you can change?”

He dodged three consecutive punches, rushing in until he was right in her face. Hinata braced for attack, eyes half-scrunched. Frustration, pooled in her until it burned too hot to ignore. Naruto’s words from the beginning of the winter break bounced around in her mind.

“Become strong where it matters. Carry yourself in a way that you can be proud of and people like Nobu will never bother you again.”

Gritting her teeth, Hinata rebelled against all her instincts and rushed towards Neji. He froze, not for long, but it was enough for her to start an attack of her own. She kept herself compact, weaving around to throw and dodge from different angles. The shock on his face gave way to anger as he trailed back, hitting her so hard that her guard crumpled.

It all went downhill from there.

A strike to the shoulder took her left arm out of commission. Hinata tried her best to keep her edge, but she couldn’t. Neji was bigger than her, stronger than her, and had so much hatred behind his attacks that she failed to mount any kind of defence.

She toppled and fell onto the cold, wooden floor. Neji stood over her, flushed and panting in exertion.

“If this is your limit, how do you expect to fulfil your destiny as clan head?”

She met his cold, imperious gaze with something of her own: defiance.

“H-How I fulfil my destiny isn’t up to y-you, Neji.”

Her legs shook as she rose, but she did it anyway. If not to prove to herself that she could, then to prove her father and Neji wrong.

Left arm hanging uselessly at her side, Hinata took a ready stance. “L-Let’s go again.”

“Y-You!” Neji bit down on his lip, the veins around his eyes bulging.

“Enough.”

Her father surveyed them from his seat.

“I believe this match has come to an end.”

Neji bowed stiffly and exited the room.

Deactivating her Byakugan, Hinata prepared herself for the usual tongue-lashing. She straightened her posture and folded her arms in front of her. He towered over her, dark green kimono taking up the breadth of her vision. He raised his hand and Hinata squeezed her eyes shut to not see those judging eyes.

A strange weight settled on the crown of her head.

“Well done, Hinata.”

She opened her eyes. Her father was smiling and he was smiling at her. It wasn’t a big smile, barely an upturn in his lips, but the look in his eye was infinitely warmer than usual.

“Well done.”

Gasping in disbelief, Hinata hid her grin.

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Shikamaru was bored. Not that it was anything new, but the thought came to mind more frequently these days. The novelty of starting school had worn off completely after the open day – which was just about the most interesting school had been. After the holidays, the focus had shifted more towards the shinobi side of their education, which was all well and good, but as the heir to the Nara clan, there wasn’t anything taught so far that he didn’t already know.

Even chakra theory.

That being said, today’s lesson was bound to be the least boring so far. After weeks of mind-numbing meditation in smoke-filled rooms with special chakra-conductive incense sticks, they were ready to begin doing chakra exercises.

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He looked around from his seat at the very back of the class. The excitement in the room was loud to a bothersome degree. It only grew when Iruka walked around with a tray full of leaves. Now that it was spring, a little greenery had returned to the village, which he supposed was why Iruka had picked now to begin with chakra exercises.

He was a little interested in seeing what they’d be doing since his father promised to teach him the Shadow Imitation jutsu – or at least get him started on it – when the Academy got him started on chakra exercises.

Iruka cleared his throat from the front of the class. As usual, no one listened. Shikamaru covered his ears and counted down in his head.

“HEY!”

The classroom plummeted into silence.

“Thank you.” Iruka put the tray on the front table. “You know I don’t like to yell at you all, but you give me no choice sometimes.”

Shikamaru sighed.

When would the man learn that softening himself to the class would only let them take even more liberties with him? He shook his head and leaned back, forearms crossed and nestled beneath his head.

It was none of his business anyway.

“Now that all of you have come into contact with your chakra thanks to the incense sticks, we’ll be getting started on some chakra control exercises. I understand that not all of you will be able to do it at first – I’ve not brought incense sticks for a reason after all – but all of you will get it eventually.”

Choji hummed from beside him. “Hey, Naruto? Do you think that’s true?”

“Hm?” Naruto looked up from his notebook. “I… guess? Everyone managed to find their chakra with the incense sticks. The more chakra you have, the easier it is, but that wasn’t a big problem before. It might take a while, but I don’t think it’ll be one now.”

He didn’t look convinced and chewed his thumb nervously.

“Troublesome guy,” Shikamaru muttered. “Choji. Your clan’s sort of famous for having more chakra than average and you found your chakra pretty quickly before. Why are you worrying?”

“But what if,” Choji’s worried brown eyes flashed. He leaned closer, “what if I can’t find it without the incense?”

He furrowed his brow in irritation. Sometimes, being Choji’s friend was really, really annoying.

Naruto patted his shoulder, “Don’t worry. Worst comes to worst, I’ll help you.”

“Promise?”

“I promise,” he grinned.

When Iruka reached the end of the classroom, he placed a small tray of leaves in the centre of their row. There weren’t enough people in the class to fill out the massive auditorium, so they got the entire row to themselves.

He smiled at three of them before stopping at Naruto.

“Listen,” he whispered, careful not to raise his voice. “Don’t be too upset if you don’t take to this so easily. You have larger chakra reserves than normal, so you’ll find these next few months to be a bit harder than others. It’s hard to control that much chakra at first.”

“I know, sensei,” said Naruto. “It’s nothing some effort won’t fix, right?”

Iruka smiled.

“I guess I didn’t have to worry, then.”

Shikamaru watched the exchange out of the corner of his eye, more bemused than anything else. With nothing to do in school but watch people, there were things he’d seen that most didn’t. Their teachers – Iruka included – all had it out for Naruto at the beginning of the year.

Some more vocally than others. Only Fujino went against the trend, but since they returned from the winter break a few months ago, she avoided him like the plague; Iruka did too until after the winter break. That entire deal confused him. Some teachers went from not liking him to liking him, some the opposite, and others made it clear they had a bone to pick with the blond.

Of course, all of this could be solved by just asking Naruto, but Shikamaru didn’t want to. That would turn this from a headache into a full-blown, skull-squeezing migraine. If he wasn’t in any immediate trouble, he wanted no part in it.

Leaning over to Choji, he asked, “What did Iruka say about the leaves?”

“We’re meant to… stick them to us using chakra.”

His eyes widened in disbelief and sought out Naruto’s for reassurance, only to find amusement.

“So long as you find your chakra again, you’ll be fine,” he said. “Oh? What’s wrong Shikamaru? Isn’t your clan famed for their chakra control? This shouldn’t be hard for you, right?”

Shikamaru’s head slumped against the desk. His defeated groan came out muffled between his arms.

“There, there.”

Choji patted his back, but it only made things worse. Scratch the day being boring. Now, it had just taken a downright troublesome turn.

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After eight years of frolicking among weaklings and sycophants by day and running himself into the ground by night, his lifelong ambition was taking shape. His progress wasn’t as fast as he would’ve liked – it wasn’t fast at all – and while being the strongest among his age group would have been something to take pride in… he wasn’t.

When afternoon came and it was time to gather on the trackfield for shinobi exercises, Sasuke made sure to bring his A game. Nothing less would suffice; not against Naruto Uzumaki. His face tugged into a frown; not being the strongest was a pill that he couldn’t manage to fully swallow.

Sasuke deserved that, at least. He was the only one who dragged himself to the depths of exhaustion after class, conditioning his knuckles on training logs until his shins were clumps of angry, purple bruises and his knuckles were raw and bloody. Naruto, meanwhile, looked as if he hadn’t a care in the world. He completed every task set to him with such laughable ease that Sasuke felt like he was doing everything wrong – he hated it.

He hated how far above him Naruto seemed and not just him, but the entire class.

Gathered in two lines, they stood before Iruka and Mizuki. It was the former who spoke first.

“Afternoon everyone. Today, we’ll be taking a break from the sparring and taijutsu training to start on something new.”

He waited for the buzz to die down.

“Shuriken and kunai training.”

Immediately someone raised their hand.

“Sensei!”

Iruka nodded.

“Do we have to learn both?”

“No,” he replied. “But be careful of which you pick. After next week, you’ll effectively be barred from choosing a different one until next year – well, you won’t, but for your own sake, I strongly advise that you all pick one and stick to it otherwise the final exams will become even harder.”

After answering a few more asinine questions, he took the kunai group to one side of the field whilst Mizuki took the rest. The blue-haired Chunin gave a basic demonstration of proper throwing technique to their group.

Sasuke waited impatiently for it to be over. When it was his turn, he took a handful of blunted shuriken out of the wooden box and stood at the front of the line in front of the three target logs. He scanned over the white outline of a human torso painted on the log, picking out his targets.

All lethal.

“Sasuke,” Mizuki said. “Why don’t you give us a demonstration?”

He smirked at the rising excitement from the sycophants behind him. If they wanted a show, then that’s what they’d get. This wouldn’t take long. He readied himself to throw, two other shuriken already prepared in his left hand.

Sasuke froze the the surge of excitement from the other group.

“Oh, wow!” “Amazing!” “Three kunai?”

His head turned against his will. He walked in the direction of the cries and the rest of the group followed him out of curiosity – Mizuki included. They left the shade-covered grove and walked into the early summer sun across the field to the set of logs near the shrubs.

“Well done, Naruto,” Iruka smiled. “This can’t have been your first time wielding kunai.”

“Nah, I’ve been practising with them for a while now. It’s a shinobi’s bread and butter.”

Sasuke looked at the log to see three kunai embedded in the painted man’s head. They were arranged neatly in a single line, blades plunged into the wood.

“But you threw those simultaneously. I think you’ve been practising for more than “a while.”

Naruto laughed and rubbed the back of his neck, smiling at the praise heaped upon him by their mindless classmates. Sasuke walked away, seething. Seeing Naruto so proficient with kunai brought an unpleasant memory to mind. He tried to cast it away but it came back, creeping from the dark recesses of his mind.

These days, Naruto reminded him too much of his accursed older brother. He treated everyone around him as if he knew something about the world that they didn’t. It hit too close to home and the blond being so proficient with kunai only cemented the comparison in his mind.

The facts were laid bare to him over the nine months he had attended the Academy: Naruto was better than him; he was smarter, faster, stronger, and more skilled.

Sasuke marched back to the alcove, followed by a quarter of the previous group and Mizuki. The targets he’d picked for himself seemed just a little further away than usual. He drew his arm back to aim, the shuriken’s weight a tad more noticeable than before.

He threw and embedded it more left than he would’ve liked. Grabbing two, he threw again, hitting the target straight in the head – he had aimed for the chest – and the throat. There was a quiet round of applause by the few stragglers who had returned with Sasuke.

Mizuki walked to the log and dislodged the shuriken, returning them to the box.

“Well done, Sasuke. Your clan was famed for their shuriken techniques so I thought you’d be an exemplary example.”

Sasuke’s mouth tugged down at the reminder of Itachi. His gaze flickered towards Naruto who was still smiling away the praise and adoration. A bitter taste filled his mouth. Mizuki’s next words barely registered, his eyes boring intensely at Naruto until he felt sick to the stomach.

He scoffed and moved to the back of the line, watching his classmates miss the targets one after the other. Any superiority he felt over them was dwarfed by Naruto and not so far away.

Each cheer for him boiled his blood. No one could be that flawless. No one.