Moon of the Leaf

In this story The Leaf 11 and Sasuke (Leaf 12) are all of the same year so there will be 4 graduating teams instead of 3. They will be known as the Rookie 12. Slight AU.

Pairings: NaruHina, SasuSaku, NejiTen, ShikaTema, and ChouIno, as well as OC pairings.

A/N: on a side note, I am a very big follower of the American dub, so I will be using terms and jutsu names in their English dub versions unless it hasn't been translated in the dub or was never translated. If that's the case, I'll use the literal translation of the jutsu. If it's a made up jutsu it will be in English too.

There are things that will not be translated, instead their Japanese names will be used, but I can't tell you what they are because I don't want to spoil future chapters.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any other subject matter that is already owned by someone else

Thirty academy students sat down in their classroom waiting for Iruka Umino, their sensei, to begin.

In the back of the classroom sat a short blonde boy with his friends. His name was Naruto Uzumaki. He wore black baggy cargo pants, a plain orange t-shirt, and black ninja sandals. His eyes were bright blue and he had blonde, spiky hair.

To Naruto's right sat a boy with shoulder-length, shiny black hair. He had big bug-eyes and huge eyebrows. His name was Rock Lee. He wore black trousers, black ninja sandals, and a white karate shirt that was tied with a black belt.

To Lee's right sat a boy with a bored expression on his face. His dark-brown hair was styled into an upwards ponytail that made his head resemble a pineapple. He wore brown trousers, a fishnet shirt, and a sort, green and grey jacket. His name was Shikamaru Nara.

Sitting next to Shikamaru was a chubby boy who was eating potato chips. He had brown, spiky hair that stood straight up. He wore a white scarf around his neck, dark-grey shorts, a white t-shirt with the kanji for 'market', a green, short sleeved jacket, and bandages wrapped around his arms. His name was Chouji Akimichi.

And finally to Naruto's left sat a shy-looking girl with shoulder-length, indigo-colored hair. Her skin was as white as snow and she had white, pupil-less eyes with a tint of lavender, signifying that she was of the Hyuga clan, Hinata Hyuga to be exact. She wore a baggy, tan-colored jacket, that had what looked like fur in the hem, and she also wore dark-blue trousers that went just past her knees.

These were Naruto's first and only 'real' friends.

Naruto met Lee during his first year in the academy. Lee was his first friend. When they met, Naruto was treated like an outcast and Lee claimed that they should stick together because they were the same. Outcasts who wanted to prove themselves to the world.

Later in the same year, Hinata became his friend. Her reason was that she secretly had a crush on the blonde boy. She never said this to anybody, but it was ridiculously obvious to everyone but Naruto himself.

Throughout that entire year, Naruto was a troublemaker who pulled pranks to get attention and thus he was one of the worst students in his class. The other failure was also, and still is, a troublemaker by the name of Kiba Inuzuka, who also became Naruto's friend because they often worked together to pull pranks and were both considered failures, but that friendship didn't last long.

At the beginning of the second year, Naruto came back with a whole new outlook on life. He never told anybody what caused the change, but he claimed if being a prankster was making him get noticed in a negative way, then trying the opposite would get him noticed in a positive way. So in turn, he became a hardworking student who steadily improved and was soon at the top of the class along with the two resident geniuses Sasuke Uchiha, who Naruto developed a rivalry with, and Neji Hyuga, Hinata's cousin.

Seeing Naruto's change, Kiba became jealous and angry at Naruto, who he believed would become a snob and a prick like Sasuke and Neji, respectively, which caused them to become enemies, even though Naruto wished otherwise.

Sasuke was indifferent to Naruto's improvement and didn't really care, since he still believed himself to be the best which started their rivalry.

Neji was a different story though. Despite Naruto's improvement, he still considered the blonde boy a failure for being friends with Hinata and Lee, whom he also considered failures. Naruto ignored him for the most part, and said that he didn't care what Neji thought about him.

Impressed by the turn around, Lee decided to, in a sense, worship Naruto and follow his example, but he soon learned that a problem in his chakra network prevented him from using ninjutsu or genjutsu. Despite the setback that would normally make someone give up on becoming a ninja, he still strived to follow in his friend's footsteps. According to Lee, Naruto has proven that "even a loser can be a genius through hard work and determination."

Hinata thought likewise and soon found she was falling in love with the unexpected prodigy, but little did she know that Naruto had a crush on her. Just the mention of his name would make her blush and put her in cloud 9.

As much a genius as Naruto was now, he was still unaware of Hinata's feelings, and ironically enough, even Hinata wasn't aware of Naruto's feelings. The reason why they didn't know was because neither of them had the guts to tell the other. But of course, everyone else, even Neji and Sasuke, could tell that the two liked each other.

At around the same time, Sasuke's older brother, Itachi Uchiha, murdered the entire Uchiha clan except Sasuke. Nobody knows why he did it, but the event made Sasuke worse than before and he would often pick fights with Naruto to "test his ability." Their "little" spars would always ended in ties.

Since they first entered the academy, Sasuke was the target of crazy little girls who wanted to "be" with the young Uchiha. A.K.A. Fangirls. When Naruto was recognized as 

talented, he was the second pick. You would often find the two young boys running from the same group of girls, much to Lee's amusement and Hinata's anger. The only other girls who didn't seem to have a thing for Naruto were TenTen and Sakura Haruno. TenTen was a girl with brown hair that was always styled into two buns on her head and Sakura was a pink haired girl with a rather large forehead who was also a Sasuke fanatic. TenTen would often be found looking at Neji though. They were the only two girls who didn't bother Naruto and instead, respected his ability.

When it came to Shikamaru and Chouji, the story's completely different. One day, during the third year at the academy, Shikamaru and Chouji were playing Shogi, and as usual, Shikamaru was winning and Chouji didn't care. While they played, Naruto and Hinata were walking by. Naruto saw them and wanted to talk to them. When he got to them, he challenged Shikamaru to a game.

"Checkmate," Naruto said as he won the game.

Shikamaru was really impressed, as he had never lost, except to his dad. Through that game, Shikamaru became Naruto's friend. Unfortunately, for Naruto, that was the only game that he ever won against Shikamaru. The lazy boy always beat him afterward. They were still friends though. Chouji became his friend since both he and Naruto loved to eat ramen.

Having friends was very important to Naruto, since he had spent his whole childhood being shunned by many of the adults in the village. He was an orphan and was always alone. At first, many of the other children wanted to do anything with him since they followed their parents' example and shunned him as well. Changing himself managed to get him some respect from his peers, but the adults remained the same. He didn't even know why, but then he didn't care. He only cared about his friends and Iruka, Naruto's favorite teacher, who he looked up to like an older brother.

Remembering all the experiences that they had been through up to that point, it was finally time to start the academy graduation exams, which they would have to pass in order to become genin.

"All right guys settle down," Iruka said at the front of the class, gaining the students' attention.

"Today's the day in which you will take your genin exams," Iruka began stating the obvious, "The exam will consist of you performing a jutsu in front of three teachers," Iruka continued, "The jutsu being tested will be the Clone Jutsu," He concluded, Lee put his head down believing he wasn't going to pass.

"Rock Lee, you will be taking a different test because of your condition, so as long as you passed that you'll be okay," Iruka said reassuringly alarming Lee.

"Thank you sensei!" Lee answered while having tears roll down his cheeks anime style. Neji scoffed at this while Sasuke just shook his head. Shikamaru just scratched his head.

"Man, what a drag," Shikamaru said as he yawned.

"Oh, don't be an ass, Shikamaru, it's a good thing for Lee, you should be more supportive," Naruto said while Lee, Chouji, and Hinata nodded in agreement.

"Whatever, just let me know when he calls my name," Shikamaru responded putting his head down and going to sleep. His friends sweat dropped at his actions.

Iruka called the first name and the test had started.

Several minutes had passed. Chouji, Lee, Shikamaru, and Hinata had passed their exams and it was finally Naruto's turn.

"Naruto Uzumaki," Iruka called out from the other room.

"Alright, wish me luck guys," Naruto said to his friends.

"Like you need it," Shikamaru said with a smirk on his face.

Naruto nodded with a grin on his face and walked to the testing room.

In the room was a table with a bunch of brand new Leaf head bands and next to the table was a bigger table where the instructors sat. Iruka, Mizuki, and another chunin sat there waiting for Naruto with smiles on their faces.

"Okay Naruto show us what you got, you have to make three clones in order to pass," Iruka said as Naruto got into position.

"Does it matter which jutsu is used as long as three clones are made?" Naruto asked startling the three chunin.

"I don't think so, why?" Iruka responded but got his answer when Naruto put his fingers into a cross-shaped hand sign.

"Shadow Clone Jutsu!" Naruto exclaimed as three solid, identical, and perfect clones appeared in a poof of smoke.

The instructors were completely thrown into a loop. They all had the same thought going through their heads.

"WHAT THE HELL!"

"W-where did you l-learn that technique?" Iruka said, barely regaining his composure.

"I can't tell, I promised that I wouldn't and I'm not going to go back on my word," Naruto said crossing his arms and dispelling his technique.

"Well, you pass then!" Iruka said, laughing and handing Naruto his head band.

At the Hokage's office

The third Hokage was sorting through some papers when he heard a loud noise that said, "I passed! YES!"

The old man simply smiled and looked in the direction of the academy.

"Good job, Naruto," he said in a proud voice.

Well that's the first chapter.

This is my first ever fanfic, but don't hold back.

I'll take anything you can dish out. Compliments, Flames, Criticizing I don't care just let me know. Thank you for reading and please review.

PEACE OUT!