Kaze no koibitō

4

Walking to class was somewhat of a chore for Naruto. It seems that people had heard of his speech to his students and the results were mixed. Most of the ones who he assumed were parents, or people who were the age of the parents of his students, gave him dirty looks. The older folks and ranked ninja gave him appreciative looks. Apparently, being spontaneous and brash was a double-edged sword when it came to teaching. At least they didn't outright hate him.

Walking peacefully was another new experience to him. In fact, most greeted him or gave him a polite nod. Having the Kazekage as a friend was a good benefit apparently. He thought back to the night before and Temari. She had smiled at him more than she usually did and had destroyed his dessert with passion, even growling at Gaara when he tried to take the last piece. Naruto smiled in spite of himself. It wasn't every day you saw Gaara startled like that.

He stepped into the school and greeted everyone he met with a smile. One of his fellow teachers walked up to him and stuck out her hand.

"Hello there. I'm Urameshi Kari. My class is the one down from yours. I have to say, your little...demonstration...yesterday was quite a shocker."

"Is that a good thing or a bad thing Urameshi-san?"

"Kari, please, and that's a good thing. It's nice to have a teacher that the students actually look up to and don't disrespect."

"Look up to? Heh, if they look up to me, they don't know me yet. My students will hate me by the time I'm through with them."

"Why's that?"

"Because of the regimen I'm going to put them through. I'm sorry to cut our conversation short Kari-san, but I have to get to class and so do you. I look forward to speaking with you again."

Kari watched as he paced on down the hall, the heels of his shoes thumping against the wooden floor.

'Interesting guy.'

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Naruto walked into his classroom and took up his position at the desk again. He was pleasantly surprised to see that all his students had shown back up. They were indeed a surprising bunch; he'd expected at least four or five to not come back. He smiled at them and walked to the black board.

"Good morning class."

In unison, they all chanted 'Good morning Naruto-sensei.' His smile grew a little wider. Naruto-sensei. Yeah, he liked the sound of that. He faced them again and put his hands behind his back.

"Now do you all remember what I spoke of yesterday? Good, good. Today will be our first official day of training. I will be with all of you and will do an assessment of your skills. But first, let's all go outside. Follow me."

Opening the door, he turned to see them still in their seats and raised an eyebrow in annoyance.

"MOVE YOUR LAZY ASSES AND GET OUTSIDE!"

They all squeaked and flew past him. Chuckling to himself, he followed them out and found them in a line, facing the building.

"Ah, excellent form. I'm glad that you all know how to stand at attention. Now, to begin you're all going to do five laps around Suna. Once you're done, we'll begin with a few light calisthenics and then you'll sit as I lecture on a topic. Once I'm finished, and it'll be brief since I hate to sit still, we'll begin working with each of you individually. This will be our regimen for the mornings. Now let's go. Follow me."

He heard little to no grumbling as he jogged away. That was good. It seemed that these kids took him seriously. He smirked as he led them on their run around the village, which he was sure would wear them all out. What they didn't know was that their training had already begun. This was to build their endurance. The light calisthenics when they got back were to stretch their bodies out before they got into the heavy stuff. The lecture was because he hated to read textbooks. If his former senseis had only used the approach he was going to use, he wouldn't have been half as pathetic as he had been.