Another path

A brand new life

Naru was currently twirling around on one foot to admire how her yukata moved. It reached her knees and was white with a beautiful crimson camellia pattern on it. She had a light green obi to tie it in place. Underneath her top, she wore black legging that reached down to her ankles. She had black shinobi sandals.
Her knee-length blond hair wasn't tied aside from two shorter bangs framing her face that she braided.

Uzume took a good look at her daughter and kissed her forehead in satisfaction. The little girl then noticed her brothers in the hall waiting for her. She ran to them to show them her new attire. Shisui said she was very pretty like this while Higure just smiled at her.
Uzume handed them their lunches, telling them to be careful at school, to listen to the teacher and so on.
Naru was literally skipping down the road. The villagers sent her strange, wary looks but they didn't dare utter a word in the presence of two Uchiha, one being a "prodigy" who was already a jônin despite being only fourteen. They soon arrived at the entrance of the Academy.

All the pupils and their parents turned to look at the three newly arrived people, most of the faces quickly morphing into a scowl. Said scowl disappeared quickly as a sickly sweet-smiling Uchiha started emitting Killing Intent matched only by a Kage.

This is the moment Ryūketsu Hayase chose to enter the classroom. She was a beautiful woman in her mid twenties with wavy mid-back length sandy hair and purple eyes. She had a fair skin, along with a slender body though her standard Chūnin uniform didn't show much of it. She stood in front of everyone at her desk and started talking.

"- Alright. Good morning everyone. My name is Ryūketsu Hayase and I will be your teacher for the five years to come. I hope you lots are motivated to become shinobi because this is no easy path you've picked so make sure you have actual reasons to be going down it. If you do, then welcome to the Academy. You will be taught all the basics of being a shinobi, namely chakra and how to use it, bukijutsu, taijutsu, ninjutsu and genjutsu. You are of course expected to attend and do your homework, but also to train on your free time to get all those basics down. You will be regularly evaluated in each discipline, both on your theoretical knowledge and physical abilities. Any questions ?

- Actually, yes. The civilian children have a huge gap in terms of knowledge and training considering the shinobi ones have been trained since they were very young. How will this be taken into account ?

- It won't be. Students are evaluated on performance and progress as well. Which means that civilian children, if they work hard for this, can be on par with any "shinobi kid". Anything else ?

- Will there be a... selection... on who can attend the classes ?
Everyone turned to look at Naru who looked at the floor in shame while her brothers snarled at the other people in the room.

- Whoever is to attend classes at the Academy is chosen at the discretion of Hokage-sama. Every child in this room will be treated and taught the same way.

Everyone looked baffled at her, not expecting such an answer. Shisui uttered a short "hn", satisfied with this. Naru smiled at her new sensei and was surprised when she smiled back at her.

After this, all the parents left the room so the classes could start. Hayase first made a quick check of every kid's abilities. As expected, they didn't know much aside from the members of clans. In just one day, she went through all the basics, explaining what chakra was, showing them how to use it and increase their reserves, and teaching them how to throw kunai and shuriken without hurting themselves.
By the end of the day, all the civilian had to do was training to catch up with the more advanced kids.

However, not much of them really went through the trouble of training. So when Hayase made a surprise test one week after their first day, almost all of them failed very badly. The teacher didn't get mad though. She just told them to train harder. Noticing that those that had actually trained were faring better than them, some more children decided to do their work seriously and slowly almost all of them were working decently.

At the same time, Naru had been getting very good grades on both physical and theoretical tests. Shisui and Jun'ichirô made sure she would learn about the principles ruling the shinobi world so while she wasn't as good as Higure at this, she was still pretty good.
The children around noticed how the supposed demon was not as dumb as everyone in the village said she was. Moreover, she was three to five years younger than most of them and could still beat their sorry asses like it was nothing. Even their resident Hyūga, Seido, couldn't do better than a draw when facing her.
With the passing months, all the kids got to acknowledge Naru as a great shinobi-hopeful and eventually as an individual. And from the stories they shared, so did their families and friends. Albeit a very small one, it was still a progress for Naru.

They were finally envisioning a future where she could be accepted in this village.
Too bad good things don't last.

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<Hey ! I might draw a picture of Naru and add at the beginning of the chapter but I can't promise anything. I will try though ! Have a nice day.>