"Uzumaki! Go run laps around the academy at once!"
Sakura wished she could be surprised that would be her mother's first order when they got into the classroom.
"How many?" The six year old orphan asked, plainly expecting not to like this as he knew the woman didn't like him.
"I'll tell you when you can stop." The woman smiled evilly.
"C'mon, Naruto. I'll go with you. You can bring me back when I get tired." Sakura joined the blond boy as they both trudged out of class together, catching the chagrined face of her mother as they left. It was easy to see she'd intended for Naruto to be out there all day, running ragged, learning nothing and never allowed to stop, but had not had the least impression she'd catch her own beloved daughter in this punishment too.
Really, this would be easier if the illusions the girl used to nudge her mother's behavior were instead a little stronger, but nothing short of a total personality transplant seemed to work, and that would be noticed.
Sakura had all sorts of idealized pictures of her mother that time travel had been ripping to shreds. Really, the woman was a stone-cold heartless bitch. If something didn't impact her or anyone she cared about, she was fine with hurting anyone. And she'd been one of the Uchiha's biggest cheerleaders on the council when she'd joined it in a few years, as well as a hard-line Naruto hater.
She still was the latter.
Really, it had been no wonder Sakura had turned out to be as big a fangirl as she'd been with her as a role model. She'd been the one advising diets and whatnot, too, as the way to 'catch her man'. Meaning Sakura's physical conditioning had been shot until Tsunade taught her how to use chakra instead of muscles to achieve it.
Speaking of that, in the two weeks she'd been back there hadn't been any time to get in any more than the most rudimentary exercising, so the former/future Hokage was exhausted halfway through their first lap together with Naruto, having refused to use advanced chakra techniques to cheat (and possibly get caught) at something she really needed to do the right way anyway.
So, panting and trembling, with a concerned Naruto and totally fine sticking right beside her, the girl stumbled down to rest (and what was she supposed to call herself, anyway? She couldn't call herself Hokage, although that's what she technically was, nor could she really call herself a former Kage as technically that hadn't happened yet either. And she had no intention of getting the job again. So what did that make her? The Once and Future Kage? She'd been one once, but that was in the future, and... ARGH!)...
Huffing and puffing over an exercise that even she could have managed as a genin, Sakura didn't feel like much of anything except Naruto's friend, as he stood there hovering over her radiating helpless concern. Hadn't he ever seen anyone tired before? The boy looked as concerned as though she might die!
"Don't worry, Sakura! I'll make it better!"
The girl nearly giggled to herself over the boy almost forming a halo over his head at the sincere intention behind his words. She waved him down. "Don't worry about it, Naruto. I'm just weak. Weak people get tired. You'd have to be the best medic-nin in the world to do something about that."
She'd meant nothing by that statement, just reassuring him that the problem was out of his hands. And she spoke in medic-nin terms because that's who she was, and a large portion of who she'd hung out with for much of her career. Between that and illusions you'd captured most of her specialty - which was a part of why she'd felt so ill a choice for Hokage, given that so many of their enemies had bloodlines that made them illusion-immune.
However, as the boy sparked to activity beside her, he seized on the idea of a medic and declared, "Then I'll be the Best Medic in the whole world!"
Salura looked up at him, stunned, suddenly recalling that he'd never once yet, in this life, said a word about being Hokage. She realized then that at some point in his far distant past, probably in a moment just like now, someone must have made some chance comment or other about the Hokage fixing things - and he was faced with so many problems, and so determined to make them right, that he'd taken making things better as his life's goal, and on hearing that put that dream in the shape of being Hokage.
Only she had inadvertently replaced that dream with another.
Oops.
Oh well. In her past, two of Konoha's seven Hokages had been medic-nins. So they weren't mutually exclusive. He could still land the job. Although with the sheer amount of book work and intensive chakra training involved, both weaknesses of his, he'd need more than one lifetime of practice getting either one down. And that was if he didn't have teachers sabotaging him.
Hmm. There was an idea. Two, actually.
She held her arms up to the boy. "C'mon, Naruto. Give me a hug. Then I'll show you this cool jutsu someone was talking about in the women's bath. It's called Shadow Clone, and the handseals go like this..."
If he needed more study than one lifetime could provide, he'd have it via his clones. As for the other...
Iruka was nearly done cleaning up Mizuki's blood off the floor when a couple of late arrivals came in. He didn't think anything of it when he directed the parents to register their children at the desk, or when both couples deposited their youngsters in the classroom that nice woman was minding for him, then left with cheerful farewells.
Overworked, exhausted, and already behind, when he finally got the job done (and swearing the whole time he'd bug someone for a water jutsu to making cleaning tasks like that go faster in the future) Iruka barely gave the assembled stack of registration papers a glance, just jotting down names to make a class roll out of, before hurrying off to take up his position as a teacher and let the civilian woman babysitting his students for him step down from a job she really wasn't suited for in the first place.
Which was a real shame, as that meant he'd missed the artistry of Sakura's forgeries as she'd registered two of Naruto's clones down as new students, with very convincing supplementary information.
After all, if a Hokage didn't have the knowledge to register a student for the academy properly, who did?
Naruto was feeling odd.
Inwardly he was head over heels rejoicing. Sakura had shown him TWO techniques! That was awesome! A really neat Henge and this Shadow Clone thingy. And he'd gotten them both right on the first try! He was going to be the best ninja in the world in NO time!
Of course, the little boy had no way of knowing that she'd learned both of those techniques from him, that they required massive chakra supplies and virtually no control, so were ideally suited to him, and, in fact, had been among his signature techniques before her trip through time.
She'd also explained them rather well. Something almost unheard of until she'd entered his life.
Just as Sakura predicted, when he brought her back to the classroom and she slumped down into a chair exhausted, her mom sent him out on running laps again, this time being careful to exclude Sakura from going with him, although that wasn't necessary as the girl was still breathless anyway.
So, just as they'd planned for the prank she'd suggested, the clone that looked like him went out running slow laps, while the real Naruto was in disguise as another boy, although he felt like he had a mind stuffed full of cotton. No, glue would be a better way to put it. Clear jello. Everything was kind of still inside. The usual hyperactivity his mind went through was temporarily absent. Even the leaping flips in joy part of him was muted. In fact, it didn't seem like he was thinking at all, just sort of observing everything like a set of eyes disassociated from his surroundings.
He had no way of knowing he'd been put under a jutsu invented by Tsunade for getting through paperwork faster, adapted from one she'd used to cure headaches and hangovers, and once invented had been used as a substitute for coffee around the Hokage tower, once supplies of that luxury got cut off.
It was helpful for placing the mind in a state ideal for memorizing large blocks of information, thus getting Tsunade around her stacks of paperwork faster.
Handed a copy of the textbook everyone else was using, and that had not been offered to his real self in this or any other life, Naruto sat and quietly contemplated the cover a moment, before opening it and following along where Sakura's mom was reading, having finally settled the class down to where she could begin. Thus, due to this new behavior he was being passed off effortlessly as a quiet yet intelligent boy - something no one could possible suspect was Naruto under a disguise, even if they caught on to the fact that the one running laps was a clone.
The other clone of him was under a jutsu invented because sometimes threatening to make pushy guys believe they were a six year old girl with pigtails wasn't enough, unless you could actually do it, that is.
Of course, being six, that clone wasn't noticing as much of a change as a grown jonin would. So all that stood out was the pigtails and the acting like a girl, which blended in nicely with half the class, actually, and was another disguise no one would ever see through.
So if the one looking like Naruto was going to be running laps and missing classes all day, he'd catch the lessons anyway. Sakura would see to that.
Sakura's mother was, to her own surprise, enjoying herself. Once her daughter returned and the demon boy got sent out again, she was able to get started, and she found the book both simple and interesting. In fact, having read to Sakura stories at bedtime for many years now, she knew how to vary the tone of her voice, read ahead with her eyes a few sentences from where her mouth was working, and thus know how to accent and pitch what she was saying to best effect.
Also, being groomed by Danzo as an up-and-coming council member, had grown accustomed to public speaking. In fact, she was pleased by how normal the whole thing seemed, once everything got started, and had caught the attention, not of half the class as he'd suggested, but a good three fourths.
So it was with disappointment, rather than relief, that she greeted Iruka when he appeared, offering to let her step down.
This time Sakura didn't need to influence her mother. "Are you sure?" she asked the ninja, rather than accepting his offer at once and scooting, as he'd been expecting. "So far this is just the history of Konoha, and one doesn't need to be a ninja to know or teach about that. The class is well under control. Why don't you take those papers you need to work on in here and use the desk right behind me? That way you have the time to catch up properly, and if anything should go amiss you'll be right here to contain it."
Iruka's smile was one of guilty relief, as he rubbed the back of his head. "I wish I could take you up on that offer, but..."
"Of course you can." She interrupted perhaps a bit more sharply than she'd intended, her training to influence council votes in Danzo's favor showing through here as well. "You already said you are short-handed, and don't know when another teacher is going to get appointed. So when are you going to catch up if not now? Someone has to take up the slack, and with the village in crisis it rests upon her citizens to do everything they can to pitch in and help. This is no trouble, and I have no better uses for my time until the council reforms and needs assistants again. So you just bring your paperwork in here where you can step in if I get into any trouble. Now shoo! And bring back those papers to work on. I have more history to read."
Iruka rather gratefully scooted.
Sakura groaned. Making illusions that a Sharingan couldn't see through was a PAIN!
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(Posted Wed, 02 Feb 2011 09:26)
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