A Mother's Love: A Naruto Fanfic

Chapter 5: The Change of Guard

A/N: hey! So first off, I just wanted to say because of the Christmas season and the storm in New York, like I said in another book, my stories will be updated once a week instead of once a month for the month of January! This story will be updated on Mondays for those of you interested.

Now for this story, it's time cut time! If you look up Naruto canon, Suzume-sensei is an actually character that appeared in the anime! She was just never given a personality besides hating germs, so I'm giving her more of one. In this case, she doesn't truly hate Naruto for having the Kyuubi, she just follows the grain that the rest of the Shinobi she knows does, and hopefully I can show that off. Also reminder, the Uchiha masssacre didn't happen until they were 7 so this chapter is set right before that incedent.

"Speaking"

'Thoughts'

*Actions (will not be used much)*

Formal Japanese Term(English Translation)

Japanese Jutsu Names(English Translation)

I do not own Naruto. All rights go to Kishimoto

*One Year Later*

A year into the Academy, Naruto had a pretty good grasp on the concept of the Shinobi Academy.

It wasn't that hard anyways. Show up, say hi to everyone, bother Ino and Sasuke (The boy who he learned was on the other side of him), and learn the lesson that Suzume-sensei was teaching that week. Throw in a few pranks here and there, a few nap days, and a few days every once in awhile where Anko let him play hooky and hangout with her. Take test, don't fall too far behind, ignore any attempts at sabotage by any other teachers, report issues to Inu-san/the Hokage, and try to enjoy his time there.

Yup, life at the Academy was fun.

He had actually met all of his classmates and made a few friends! Ino was talkative and fun like him, and the fact they had to sit next to each other made Suzume-sensei almost pull her hair out in annoyance. Sakura was Ino's best friend, and absolutely gorgeous, but was more interested in Sasuke. Speaking of, Sasuke was a little focused, but was always open to being pulled into conversation, even though Ino also told Naruto she thought he was cute. Gross. Kiba was fun but didn't wanna learn at all, more focused on bothering the teacher and playing pranks.  Naruto helped him slow down and appreciate the people he was around, and Kiba seemed to take that lesson to heart. He had attached himself to Naruto basically overnight, the two becoming inseperable as time went on. Something that frustrated Suzume-Sensei to no end. Shino was... quiet. Not in a creepy way, but more in a distracted kind of fashion. Choji and Shikamaru were bros but Choji was always eating and Shikamaru never actually wanted to do anything but cloud watch. If he wanted to be lazy he could watch clouds with Shika, and if he was hungry he could always hang out with Cho, but cloud watching got amazingly boring after a short amount of time and he couldn't really eat much when he wanted to try his Fūinjutsu; it was much easier to just let Ino yap his ear off about anything and everything or Kiba to hangout and talk about the kind of Nin-dog he wanted.

And obviously, Hinata was still Hinata.

Also, his Fūinjutsu was going swimmingly. His hand writing got to the level that Akari thought it was okay to give him "Fūinjutsu for Dummies"; he could be seen reading that in class on days where he already knew what was being taught. He was a Beginner level Fūinjutsu practitioner and was skilled enough to gift all of his friends two color coded storage scroll for their birthday, which they were all happy about. It got to the point where at the start of everyday the other students all closed their eyes as twelve kids in the class summoned their books, ink, and materials from their scrolls in poofs of smoke. The smoke always cleared up within thirty seconds.