Shiro is back by himself, back again. Lee´s parents were quite nice and he enjoyed his time with them, but he was happy now, happy for the oppertunity to sort out his thoughts.

His reality was again threatened.

He knew that the forest wasn´t a place to live, he merely used it to get by.

Had he stayed in that forest for a few years longer he surely would have starved, been eaten up by predetors and most inevitable of all gotten some disease his young body couldn´t handle.

Indeed death there was a certainty, even as a young boy he knew that, the only reason that he stayed there for all this time was that he was caged in the forest by his fear.

Looking back it seemed strange how afraid he was, but he had acted as tough not just his village was being atacked and instead as if the entire world might have been lost.

Now he felt the same feeling of being caged again, this time by his desire to be strong.

To be anithing more than a distraction and a quick kill to a shinobi he needed to get strong and to do that he needed to stay in the village.

Previously that didn´t seem like that much of a problem, the days when he might get dragged into wars seemed far away and the village was a safe place to stay.

Only it wasn´t safe...Itachi Uchiha had killed countless shinobi and civilians on a whim and nobody had been able to catch him since.

Itachi Uchiha had become a little bit of a obsession of Shiro and to his own shock a rolemodel.

Obviously he disagreed with everithing Itachi had done, but the possibility still fascinated him,

a boy only four years older than him had torn trough countless people that to Shiro had still seemed untouchable.

The next few days he was distracted from his studys, or to be more general he was also studying the life of Itachi.

What he found was a little dissapointing to say the least, Itachi was a genius who got enrolled early in the acadamy because of the war and he awakened the sharingan, a genetic power only the Uchiha possesed with eight.

In short nothing that could really help Shiro, unless his ancestry was more complicated than he thought.

With little hope of becoming a genius, or an Uchiha anytime soon he redoubled his efforts on all that he could affect.

Ninjutsu and chakra controle wasn´t the hardest thing to learn, there was little to explain, or maybe the teachers were just unable to explain, regardless since they got to the acadamy most progress anyone made was done by practical experience.

The only obstacles to training, were the timeconstraints and the way their bodys would be tired afterwards.

This way it was rather easy to train, do the hand signs and try not to collapse was the mantra that fueled Shiro´s improvement.

This way there was no real barier that might stop him from advancing and he slowly improved, getting on the same level as the rest of his class, tough of course he didn´t have any special clan technique like he assumed Neiji might have.

When he felt like he had both his time schedule and mental attitude regarding hard work down, he had asked Neiji if he would like to hang out anytime, with the hope of getting tutored in taijutsu by the best in class, but to his sorrow he was just ignored.

With the best in class having refused him Shiro decided it was best to make the rounds, he supposed that when the best wasn´t interested he should start with who he concidered to be the second best.

"Yo Fujikawa I was wondering if you would like to hang sometimes and do some training?"

A boy in red clothes turned around with a dazed look"Oh hello Shiro, you really wanna hang out?"

This wasn´t quite the response Shiro exected"Yeah why wouldn´t I ?"

"Well I guess you have always been a little quit and your not really bad at taijutsu are you?"

Shiro wasn´t sure if he had already been rejected, but as he hadn´t yet gotten what he wanted he decided to persue the matter"Well that´s why I talked to you, Im sure the others would be good sparing partners too, but going up against one of the best in class should be even better training."

Fujikawa nodded"Well I guess you wouldn´t be a bother since you can keep up. Tell you what you got time today?"

Shiro was almost sure he would be denied, so in a genuenly happy voice he said"Alright im game."

Fujikawa nodded"Cool."

Later on it was once again taijutsu practice, Shiro wasn´t sure if he had grown more aware of Fujikawa, or if he really was getting called upon more than usually today.

Regardless Fujikawa was once again fighting and his sparring partner was Lee wich made the entire match very uninteresting.

Shiro knew that Lee was very commited to improving his taijutsu and that he also had the willpower to keep up with his own training, but against Fujikawa he simply wasn´t a match.

Usually fights didn´t involve any jutsu, mainly because they didn´t have any damaging jutsu (unless you counted the weak clones some of the more talented students could already make), but also because the time needed to focus and make a jutsu.

Regardless the possibility of them getting used and the ways the others might use them usually made most of the kids pay attention to the different fights, sadly this wasn´t a problem with Lee.

The fight went over rather quickly, Lee used the techniques he had gotten down, but he neither was varied nor fast enough to keep up with Fujikawa.

"Fujikawa wins."there sensei interrupted when Lee got knocked down one too many times, this was the third fight Fujikawa had won today.

Shiro of course also got called up twice, winning one fight against one of the weaker students, but loosing against Tenten.

The rest of the day went relatively normal, he used the given time to practice ninjutsu and took on all the knowledge he could gain from his teacher, doing his best not to drift off in class so he wouldn´t make Lee too much work.

After school was over he noticed that Fujikawa hadn´t told him when or where he should go today, so he went over and asked him.

"Oh right you haven´t ever been over at my place."the red clothed boy answered.

Shiro nodded"Yeah sorry for the troubles."

The other boy scoffed"Don´t apoligise, just follow me, it doesn´t start till later, but it´s not that much longer."

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Shiro wasn´t quite sure what the boy meant, but since he had already told him he wanted to train he simply nodded.

They walked together south of the acadamy, with Shiro trying to memorise the way as best as he possibly could.

"So Shiro why you wan´t to train with me all of a sudden?"Fujikawa finally asked.

Shiro nodded, he had already formulated a justification incase this would be asked

"Well I already spent almost all my time training in some way or another, but since im not the

best in class and im not gonna drop my ninjutsu and kunai, or shuriken training I thought there might be some merit in training with some of the pros and when I asked Neiji he..."

Fujikawa instantly interrupted him"I think we both know what Neiji would answer."

Shiro agreed"Yes I also asked him today, but he was as arrogant as usuall."

Fujikawa looked a little dispirited then mumbling"I swear if he would ever smile I would wipe it off his face faster than even that stupid Byakugan could see...."

Shiro chuckled at him"Well im cheering for you, tough I guess he hasn´t done anithing bad...atleast to me."

They continued on trough the maze of apartmant blocks, tough they luckily only needed to take a few turns, after about half an hour at walking speed they finally arrived at a building very similar to that of Lee´s parents.

Shiro also noticed that it seemed a bit bigger and more luxurius, but regardless it was still build in the same style.

"Hey Fujikawa are all shinobi homes build to code or something?"

The other boy looked at him"No why would they be and by the way you can call me Fuji now."

Shiro nodded at the shortform of his name, tough somehow Fuji didn´t quite sit right with him.

Fujikawa....Fuji spoke to him"Wanna head inside?"

"Yeah sure let´s go Fuji"Shiro responded trying to familiarise himself with the name.

Going inside it once again looked like a carbon copy of the Lee´s house, tough even the backyard was a little bigger and he was fairly certain that the Lee´s didn´t have any stuffed dearheads over their fireplace.

Fujikawa got them some water wich Shiro garciously accepted and he also offered him some of the food wich he apearently didn´t touch even after taijutsu, but since Shiro still had some leftovers he declined.

It got a little silent so Shiro finally decided to ask"Aniways you said we were waiting for something to do the training, for what and why?"

Fuji smiled at the oppertunity to sound wise"Not somone my future genin, somebody 2 of them to be exact"he said giving his best impression of sensei Yuudai, even if their sensei never sounded that pretentious to begin with.

He went on"We´re waiting for Tenten and Goda, be honored your the first addition to the founding trio."

Shiro nodded while mentally giving note to how allmost all the kids with shinobi parents had banded together"Yes honored indeed!"he responded while smiling.

Fuji then went on a bit of a sidetrack"By the way Shiro don´t you dare feel bad for having lost to a girl, even yours truly has lost to her so it´s fine."

Shiro had of course already seen him get beaten by her, but regardless he went along with his point

"Yeah I know she really got it down, but still can you blame me for not being satisfied with a loss?"

Fuji nodded"Yeah I guess that´s the spirit, but all im saying is that it shouldn´t get you down so

don´t sweat it."

Then the hunger crept up on Fujikawa and he finally had to break his bad eating habits when he looked at the sandwich, wich he so carelessly offered Shiro only minutes ago.

Shiro took a few bites with the boy, but he had already eaten so he mostly just looked at the boy in red as he was gulping down his sandwich.

After that they heard voices"Why do you just bring a new member without telling anyone, thanks for not giving notice to Fuji and me ahead of time!"

Then a female voice"Come on he´s obviously more skilled than us, maybe he can help us all."

Shiro and Fuji looked at eachother as the sound of the voices was quickly aproaching, then the door seperating both rooms finally opened.

Goda´s shoulders instantly wen´t down when he saw Shiro"Even you Fuji?"

Tenten gave a triumphant laugh"Looks like it´s 2 against one, doesn´t it?"

Shiro looked at them and was surprised to see Neiji behind Tenten and Goda, then quickly giving a greeting"Yo Neiji looks like we´re training afterall, huh?"

Neiji calmly looked at him then giving a neutral response, tough his face obviously looked a little annoyed"Im only here so this one stops bugging me for a while."while placing his palm on Tentens shoulder.

Tenten now with a slightly redenned face went off on him"Dammit Neiji can´t you say that a little nicer, you sound like you don´t even want to be here."

Neiji laughed at this"Maybe because im not? Aniways let´s get this over with."

Tenten´s face got even more red from the embaressment"Fine, if you really hate being with us so much then fine."

Afterwards she finally took notice of Shiro"By the way...Hi, crazy to think a majority of us decided to bring in new members right?"while giving Goda a very smug smile.

Shiro didn´t really feel spoken to so he gave a simple reply"Yeah crazy..and nice to meet you."

Neiji very obviously annoyed"Let´s GO!"

Reluctantly the group went along with Neiji in the garden, from then on the rules essentially were the same as in the acadamy:Fight till the judge decides one obviously has the upper hand and they could also fight with ninjutsu.

The first fight was Shiro against Tenten, after he had asked her for a second round since he had lost in the acadamy.

Tenten started the fight the same way she started all the fights against a somewhat comparable oppenent"Ram,Snake,Tiger"to summon a clone that could potentially secure victory, at least if the fight was really close.

Both versions of tenten sprinted at shiro, while Shiro took out a shuriken.

Throwing a shuriken was risky buisiness, if the enemy was to far away they could easily dodge the projectile weapon, but if they were to close he would become passive to an enemy with initiative, because of this he only hits clones about half the time.

Regardless he threw the shuriken fast enough that dodging was impossible for Tenten and he still had enough time to get back into a fighting position.

Then he countered the flying kick she lunched by blocking the leg with his elbow and trying to push the flying kunoichi so that she might loose her balance.

Tenten quickly tried to counter the hand to the best of her ability, but Shiro moved fast enough that she couldn´t grab onto his arm.

She got angled in a way that most other 9 year olds would have fallen and most likely cried, but the child solider in training masterfully used her momentum to roll backwards and she avoided Shiro as he was chasing behind his fallen enemy.

Catching up to her he tried to knock her of her feet with a punch to the head, to counter Tenten swayed to the right and he missed by a hairs breath.

When dodging she had however once again lost her balance, in order to not hit the ground she placed all of her weight on her right arm while coiling her leg backwards for a kick.

Before Shiro could react she sweept his legs with hers and he had fallen backwards, then she had him.

Shiro was about to resign when he realised what kind of grip Tenten had used, a strenght based grip.

With a confused look he countered and his arms bulged as much as could possibly be expected of a 9 year old.

She struggled with him, but ultimately she just wasn´t as strong as him and seemingly he had a lot more experience in wrestling then she did so his victory from then onwards was almost predestined.

"Shiro wins."Fujikawa excitedly shouted out.

Tenten almost looked heartbroken"Dammit I lost again."

Shiro got even more confused at her statement"What do you mean, you already won this morning."

Tenten looked at him"Yeah, but not the right way."

Fuji looked at her understandingly"Tenten loosing the "right" way won´t make you any stronger either, your already amazingly powerfull, you don´t need to be literally strong."

Tenten shrugged.

Neiji finally spoke up"Now then, Fujijkawa let´s fight so I can finally get out of here."

Fujikawa looked more than a little insulted"So people like you can´t even play nice, huh?"

Neiji looked at him"And what exactly does people like me mean?"

Fujikawa looked very satisfied with himself"Nothing, now let´s fight."

Shiro was assigned as the judge since he won his last fight.

Tough Fuji seemed to be in high spirits the fight didn´t go any differently than all the previous fights of the classes number 1 and number 2.

There were some close calls, a hit that almost happened there, a kick only barely caught here,

but ultimately Neiji didn´t get hit a single time and Fuji got lots.

"NOW stop bugging me to join your stupid little club!"Neiji shouted as he looked over at Tenten, who flinched a little.

Shiro looked over to Fuji"You gave it your all that´s all anibody can expect the winner is..."

Then he was interrupted by a shuriken thrown at the back of Neiji´s head, Neiji had plenty of time to react, but for some reason he didn´t only being saved by Tenten who pushed him aside.

"What the hell Fuji what if that had hit?"Goda shouted on the boy still lying on the ground.

"Oh come on we both know that he could see that, he probably only wanted to show us how fast he is by dodging at the last second."Fuji confidently said, wich was promptly greeted by a fist to the head.

"What the hell is wrong with you?"Neiji screamed at Fuji.

Shiro quickly called the match off"Neiji wins, now get away from one another."

Neiji however had absolutely no regard for Shiro´s words"So as soon as there is no one around that can block a weapon like this you try and kill me with it?"

Shiro had to agree with Neiji on this one, if Fuji thought that Neiji would dodge why would he throw a shuriken much less one aimed at the back of his head.

Neiji´s first strike was justifiable to anyone around them, the second and third were understandable, but as the beating went on, Goda and Tenten flinched.

Finally even Shiro disagreed with the amount of punishment Fuji was taking"Ok Neiji, we will all make sure he doesn´t forget this lesson, please get off him now."

Neiji looked at him as he continued his pinpoint beating"Make me."

Shiro was a little undecided, but as he glanzed over to the boy now bleating from at least 7 orifices, he decided that quick action was needed.

He thought about throwing another shuriken at Neiji since that seemed to work, but since that got them in this mess in the first place he simply charged.

Of course he knew that he couldn´t beat Neiji, but that wasn´t the goal, with maximum speed and power he delivered a right hook to Neiji, while ignoring pain breaking out from his liver and kidney

from at least 2 of Neiji´s punches.

The hit didn´t really land, but regardless it had ended the beating, or to be more specific it had ended Fuji´s beating.

"You...BASTARD."Neiji screamed as he experienced pain for the first time that day, Neiji had now completely shifted his attention to Shiro.

Shiro wasn´t sure how much Neiji would have beaten on Fuji, but he was sure he wouldn´t have beaten him to death, as such maybe 2 teeth was a price too high for his tastes, at least to just to stop anothers beating.

Of course he wasn´t able to think any of that till later, Neiji had already acted.

Tenten screamed horrificly"Neiji get off of him!"

To Shiro´s surprise Neiji actually did get off his body.

Neiji quickly got apart from them as he said

"Of course if any of you try to get me in trouble I will be more than happy to break the news of who tried to kill me and as for you"he said while looking at Shiro"those were only baby teeth so don´t look so shocked."

With that Neiji walked away and to everibody´s shame right out of the front door.

After that Neiji did not get reinvited.