The guardian chronicles : Nirvana (Todoroki Shoto x Uzumaki Naruto)

Chapter 41

I'm going to become the strongest shinobi in the world and I will prove to them that a girl can become Hokage.

Naruto clenched her hands against her shirt, blue eyes fixated at the portraits of the Hokages that had come before and after the Third Hokage. All four of the previous Hokage had been men with not a single female photo clinging to the wall. Her blue eyes lingered on the Fourth Hokage, tracing the appearance of the man who gave his life to kill the Kyuubi.

The Third Hokage stared at her, dark eyes darting from her to the windows and then to the photo of his successor and predecessor. The Fourth Hokage has the same hair colour as me. As soon as the thought came, it faded in Naruto's mind as the old man took out his smoking pipe from his drawer.

"How was your first day back in the Academy, Naru-chan? How is your new teacher?" The Third leaned back and looked down at her, lips curled into a smile and Naruto forced herself to smile. Hiraoka-sensei was fired for some strange reason and the school replaced him with Iruka-sensei and Mizuki-sensei.

'Tell me your dreams.' She didn't actually have a dream but people had been staring at her and Naruto couldn't stop herself from shouting out the first two thoughts to the whole world. I thought it would impress them. She curled her lips into a scowl and the Third Hokage looked out at the window, his hands making some strange hand signs.

Naruto thinks it was like the Third Hokage had a secret language to himself because the hand signs looks nothing like what they were taught in school. I wanna make my own language. It would be a good way to communicate with Hinata-chan and Sasuke without the teachers knowing what they were talking about.

"Did something happen today in school, Naru-chan?" Naruto jerked her head up as the Third Hokage leaned forward, brown eyes boring right into her own blue eyes. She chewed on her bottom lip and thinks that the Hokage wouldn't want to hear about her issues. She didn't want to tell him but he was the Hokage and he would be able to tell her if she was wrong.

"My classmates are mean and stupid."

The Third raised his eyebrow, lowered his pipe and pressed his lips into a thin line. "Naru-chan, why do you say that?"

"Because they say I can't ever become Hokage because I'm a girl!" Brown eyes widened and Naruto puffed her cheeks before fixating her eyes onto the photos of the various Hokage. Her eyes lingered the most on the First Hokage and then it flickered to the Fourth Hokage. "Those assholes says a girl can't ever become Hokage because they are weak."

She grinded her teeth together, lips curled into a scowl and Naruto folded her arms against her chest. She hopes and prays the Hokage would tell her that a girl can become Hokage...that she can become strong. What was the point of being stronger than the average seven-year-old if no one believed in her? For a brief moment, the slight coldness in the Hokage's eyes faded, replaced with warm eyes.

Sometimes Naruto thinks that the Third was torn between hating and loving her.

(She understands when she turns twelve that even the Hokage was human and that he also allows his own grief to cloud his own judgment).

"Naru-chan, do you think my daughter-in-law is weak? Or even Mikoto?" The Third tapped his pipe against the table, brown eyes focused on her. Naruto tilted her head, eyebrows scrunched together before she shook her head. The Third smiled at her, looking at her like he was proud of her. Her heart swelled up and like always, she begin to explain her reasons.

She longed for him to continue giving her those looks.

"Mikoto-obaachan is a jounin, right? And Jounins are just below you in ranking," Sarutobi smiled and brown eyes twinkled with mirth as Naruto bobbed her head. "Kotone-obaachan works in ANBU, doesn't she? Sasuke tells me that only the strongest shinobi works there."