The True Shinobi

Chapter 3

Naruto Uzumaki: Age 5

"My name is Naruto Uzumaki, it's nice to meet you all." Naruto said softly. The first day of the shinobi academy was upon the boy, and he was very excited.

"Why do you have four arms?" A child in the front of the room asked, gaining nods from the rest of the class who wanted to know.

The chunin instructor named Iruka, at the front of the room frowned, but said nothing.

"I don't know, I've always had that many." The blonde replied, slumping down in his seat.

"Let's start the lesson. Who knows the name of the current Hokage?" The innstructor asked.

Naruto raised his hand, however the teacher looked around before sighing and calling on him.

"The current Hokage is Hiruzen Sarutobi, Third Hokage of Konoha." The blonde said confidently.

"That's right. Lord Third's name is Hiruzen Sarutobi, and he is known as the Professor because he knows all the jutsu of Konoha that aren't clan specific jutsu. Now..."

Naruto tried to listen to the the teacher, but his voice was so droning and stale that he just couldn't. He was snapped out of his stupor by said instructor calling his name.

"Naruto! Did you hear what I just said?" His grin was barely there, flickering for only a moment, but Naruto saw it.

"I... no sir, I didn't." Naruto frowned.

"I said that all the previous Hokage were the strongest ninja of their time. Please pay attention, I don't like repeating myself."

By the time lunch had rolled around, Naruto was already disliking his sensei. He seemed to single him out for the smallest of things, even though other students were doing the same thing.

Naruto pulled out his bento and opened it, finding a tasty lunch of a sandwich and onigiri. Just as he was about to eat, he saw a brown haired boy being picked on. He put his bento away and walked over.

"Hey, what's going on?" The blonde asked, gaining sneers in return.

"Its the freak coming to help bug boy!" A pink haired girl exclaimed.

"That's not nice Sakura. It can't help being a freak." The blonde girl next to he responded.

"Come on Ino, let's go see Sasuke. I don't wanna look at these things..." Sakura said, pulling Ino to a black haired boy's desk.

Naruto frowned, but decided not to let their comments get to him. Instead, he looked over to the boy they were picking on before he walked over.

"I'm Naruto, what's your name?" The boy looked up. He wore black sunglasses and a green high collared coat.

"I am Shino Aburame."

Naruto sat next to Shino and opened his bento. Soon, a small bug landed on the blonde's hand. Instead of swatting it, he carefully let it crawl to the tip of his finger and held it out to Shino.

"Is this one of yours?" Naruto asked politely.

"Indeed it is. Thank you for not killing it." The bug started flying over and landed on Shino's neck entering his skin.

"I assume those girls were calling you bug boy because your clan uses kaichu in battle. My... my dad told me that when people are born in the Aburame clan, a hive of them are put in their skin and they feed on your chakra. Is that true?" Naruto asked, taking a bite of his onigiri.

"That is true. My bugs are a specific breed called Kikaichu. There are other types, but those are used at birth to acclimatize our bodies to having bugs in them." Shino seemed happy to talk about bugs, so Naruto asked another question while Shino ate a piece of lettuce.

"What do some of the other types of bugs do? Unless that's a clan secret, I don't want to pry."

"Well, there is a breed called the Kochu, which is very poisonous. My father says that they are very picky about who can host them, though I have been told I might be able to eventually."

"Man, that's so cool." Naruto said, picking up his sandwich. "All I have is extra arms. Though it isn't all bad. My dad made me do some training the other day and the push-ups were pretty easy."

Shino nodded. "You do have more muscles, so it would make sense that doing push-ups would be easier because you can spread it out between all your arms instead of just two."

Naruto nodded. "Maybe I should switch arms when I do them next time so I can get stronger. What do you think?"

"That might be beneficial." The Aburame nodded.

The pair ate the rest of their lunch in relative silence. Although it was slightly awkward, Naruto got the sense that Shino just wasn't a talkative person, so he didn't want to push further. He seemed like a good person, somebody Naruto could see being friends with.

Eventually the lunch time ended and Iruka got the attention of the class.

"Alright students, let's go outside for your first lesson in shinobi tools." This got a cheer from the children, especially the ones from shinobi clans as they knew a decent bit already.

Iruka led the children outside to a large table facing an array of dummies and targets. He picked up a kunai and a shuriken.

"Who knows what these are?" The chunin asked, to which Sasuke raised his hand. "Sasuke."

"The knife is called a kunai, and the other tool is called a shuriken." He smirked.

"That's good Sasuke. The art of throwing these tools is called bukijutsu. Does anybody know why that is?" Iruka looked around, finding Naruto looking right at him with a small grin. "Naruto."

"Its called bukijutsu because before kunai existed, a similar tool called bo-shuriken were used instead of them. After the Warring States period was over, kunai were used because bo-shuriken were harder to make." The blonde answered confidently.

"Correct. I am going to demonstrate how to properly throw both kunai and shuriken, then I will call you up individually so you all get a basic understanding of what to do." Iruka turned toward the targets and threw the kunai with it sticking into the wood dead center. He then threw the shuriken and it stuck just below the kunai.

It took a while before Naruto was called up. When he walked forward everybody went silent. He took a kunai off the table and aimed at the center of an unused target. He threw, and as the knife sailed through the air, Naruto could see that it wouldn't land where he wanted it to. It landed just to the right of the bullseye.

Picking up a shuriken, he found it to fit more comfortably in his hand. He launched it and it stuck dead center. Naruto smiled to himself, looking up at Iruka next to him.

"Very good, but you should practice with kunai more." The man said, gesturing for Naruto to rejoin the class.

"Iruka-sensei, Naruto cheated." Sakura screeched. "There's no way he can do as good as Sasuke!"

At this, a boy with red marks on his cheek scoffed. "How can somebody cheat at throwing kunai?" He said, crossing his arms and turning to Naruto. "I thought it was pretty cool. I'm Kiba Inuzuka by the way."

"Nice to meet you, Kiba. Thanks for sticking up for me. I just don't get what's so cool about Sasuke." Naruto replied, shaking his head.

"I don't either. Just because he's an Uchiha doesn't mean he's cool or something." Kiba smiled. "I saw you talking to Shino at lunch. He's an Aburame, right?"

"Yeah. He's pretty cool, likes bugs a lot, but that's his clan's whole thing. Want to see if we can all play after school?" Naruto asked, to which Kiba smiled.

"Heck yeah! That sounds awesome. We can ask our parents when they come to pick us up."

After talking to Shino, they made a plan to ask their parents about playing at the nearby park after school.