Tale of the Setting Sun.

Shinobi III

Chapter 3: "Dream and Determination"

"And the winner is...Sasuke!"

As the watching students cheered, Naruto, lying flat on his back, looked up at the sky. It was a nice day, he thought, with only a few clouds in the sky. After a few seconds passed, dredging up the last of his willpower, he clambered up to his feet, ignoring how sore his body felt. Brushing the dirt off of his pants, he walked to the edge of the wooden platform and leaped heavily down.

"The next bout will be between...Sakura and Ino!" He heard Iruka call out, and two squabbling girls jumped up to the platform.

"Nice one, Naruto," a boy called out. Without responding, Naruto passed him by, but not before he heard the boy add, "You lasted almost ten seconds up there!"

The children standing near them laughed, and feeling the tips of his ears beginning to burn, Naruto abruptly picked up pace and ran back inside the Academy building.

His footsteps pounded loudly through the hallway, and even though he knew he should be practicing how to run without making a sound, he couldn't bring himself to care. The door to his classroom opened with a clatter, and straining on his tip-toes, he grabbed his bag from his cubby near the end.

Naruto knew it was wrong to leave when Academy wasn't even over, but the only thing they were doing for the rest of the day was the one-on-one taijutsu fights. No one would notice him gone...except maybe Nogi and her friends, anyways.

Just as he neared the open doors to the front exit, Naruto heard the sound of adult conversation, and skidded to a halt. His heart pounding in his ears, he looked right and left, looking for a place to hide. As the sound grew closer and closer, he chose the first thing he'd noticed, dashing into the niche between the door and the wall.

"...the students coming along?"

"They're very promising. We're conducting this year's first taijutsu tournament today, and they're all performing excellently."

Naruto's eyes widened, as he recognized Iruka's voice. Hadn't he just been back at the arena? What was he doing here now? Had he noticed Naruto was gone?

Unable to put aside his rising curiosity, he put an eye to the crack of the door - and then seeing the person beside Iruka, he felt his heart skip a beat.

The Hokage was standing right in front of the very door he was now quivering behind.

"Ah, Fugaku's younger son is in your class, no? Quite precocious, isn't he?"

"Actually, while I'd hate to see him go, I think that if he continues to perform as well as he is doing now, transferring him to a more advanced class wouldn't be out of the question."

"They are brothers after all..." the Hokage chuckled. There was a short pause, as the Hokage seemed to be surveying the Academy building. For a horrifying instant, Naruto thought that the elderly ninja's gaze had paused on the sliver of his face, and had to fight the urge to run. But then he turned away, and Naruto felt some of the feeling begin to return to his face.

They resumed talking, but began to move away in the direction of where the other children were, and after a short while, Naruto finally came out from his hiding spot.

His head turning back and forth rapidly to survey the empty lot, Naruto ran as fast as he could, only coming to a stop when he reached the cover of a patch of trees. Panting, he rested for a few minutes against the trunk of a cherry blossom tree.

Two weeks had passed since he'd joined the Academy, and Naruto had quickly learned that it wasn't just basic ninja knowledge that he was behind in. Many of the other students were from clans or had ninja relatives, and they had been training since well before joining the Academy. It was all Naruto could do to keep up with the daily physical exercise, and he was completely out of his depth when it came to actual taijutsu. While the other children were flipping through the air and flowing from one stance to the next, Naruto was still struggling to follow along without landing flat on his back. He desperately needed more instruction, but Iruka only had so much time to spend on him before he had to move on to the other children.