Chapter 2

Swearing is going to be a thing in this story, violence more so. Don't own Naruto. Don't own Bleach. Enjoy.

Naruto let his head fall onto his desk with a dull thunk, the lecture on the history of the leaf village falling into a dull background noise around him. 'It's all so boring,' He thought as he fingered his pendant, watching its soft glow seem to rise and fall in some rhythmic pattern.

The blonde let the charm swing around his neck and let its gentle arc serve as a dull form of entertainment, trying to fight off the desire to play a prank on someone.

'I can't, Gramps won't let me practice if I get in trouble.' The thought made his stomach turn in a similar way as to when he had to be separated from his sword like he was now. His blade sat by the teacher's desk up at the front of the class, close enough to reduce the feeling of anxiety but not dispel it.

Naruto didn't need to look up to see the blade, he knew it was there. He could feel the presence of the blade, almost as if it called out to him.

A finger found itself in his side a few moments later, breaking the boy out of his thoughts and causing the boy to jerk his head to stare at the offender, who happened to be a pink-haired civilian girl. The green-eyed girl silently pointed to Naruto's desk, bringing his attention to the worksheet that had been placed in front of him. Naruto suppressed a groan as he pulled the paper closer and prepared himself for the upcoming struggle that was school work.

Naruto sighed as he felt an iron grip on his wrist, stopping the forward momentum of his arm and letting him recognize the cold sharp edge of his Tachi press into the side of his head, right above his ear.

"You need to be more patient." The voice of the rhino masked Anbu was even and void of emotion as he gently let go of Naruto's arm and took a step back.

The blonde sheathed the half-drawn blade and took a deep breath, drawing the blade more slowly and carefully, taking care to avoid his head with the draw. Naruto looked at the Anbu for a response and received a small thumbs up.

Smiling, Naruto repeated the process, gaining more confidence as he continued drawing the blade. Whenever he got too hasty the Anbu would stop the blade from leaving any deep or serious cuts, if it wouldn't be a serious injury they would let him nick himself.

When the blonde had asked about this, the Anbu on duty had replied with, "It reminds you to be cautious."

This is more or less how Naruto's 'sword training' went, he spent most of his day at the academy, came home and did his homework (Much to the boy's displeasure) and then would be allowed to work on his swordsmanship using the scrolls that the Third Hokage had lent him.

That's how the last week had gone, with Naruto still working on how to draw the sword and not cut himself, much to the blonde's exasperation.

Again, Naruto sheathed the sword and resumed his practice, patiently waiting for when he'd be allowed to advance to farther in his training.

Again Naruto found boredom taking hold of him as he sat in class, chin resting on the desk in front of him, eyes half shut as a bored scowl crossed his face.

The blonde stared daggers at the board in front of the class, the subtraction and addition he could vaguely understand, but the moment his teacher wrote a fraction on the blackboard he was completely lost.

Naruto tried and struggled to figure out the new form of numbers, but was met with only a headache and frustration.

This frustration only grew when his teacher wrote new problems on the board involving fractions for the class to solve, leading the young blonde to start thumping his forehead on his desk.

Like the day before the blonde found a finger in his side, and when he looked to the repeat offender he found her working on her work. Naruto gave the girl a confused halfhearted glare as he moved to resume his head thumping, and found a note on his desk.

'Do you need help?' Was written in neat handwriting that Naruto could only hope to one day have. Naruto looked back to the pink haired girl and found her looking at him out of the corner of her eye. The blonde gave a silent nod and watched as the girl quickly scribble another note.

'Stay after school, try your best until then.' Was what the note read. Naruto turned to look the girl in the eye and was met with an encouraging stare.

Naruto sighed in resignation, pulling himself up to focus on the work in front of him.

"Wow," Sakura simply said as she looked at the blonde students work, "You're really bad at this."

"It's not my fault, I have a hard time focusing," Naruto said trying to defend himself.

"This might be harder than I first thought," Sakura mumbled under her breath, but not quietly enough for Naruto to miss.

"Alright, so let's get to it."

"What's fourteen squared?" Sakura asked as Naruto moved through basic Kata.

"One-hundred eighty-two," Naruto grunted as he shifted poses.

"Wrong," Sakura said as she tossed a water balloon at Naruto, the blonde cutting it on reflex and covering himself in water. Thankfully it was a warmer day in the budding spring and the two were practicing in a nearby park.

"The answer is one-hundred ninety-six. Close, but still wrong." The pink-haired lass explained as she flipped through the book. "I doubt exponents will be on the test but best to still be sure."

Naruto grumbled under his breath as he continued his movements, the two had fallen into a nice rhythm after they figured out Naruto learned better while moving. Naruto would practice his kata while Sakura quizzed him on the various topics the two were learning in school. He was still at the bottom of the class, but only barely.

Naruto enjoyed the study sessions, he got to practice with his sword, he was finally understanding stuff in school, and he had a friend from the whole thing.

The blonde decided to ignore the fact that his crush on the pancetta may also have boosted his enjoyment. He didn't want to possibly push away his one friend that he had made in the last three years at the academy.

"How are you coming along on the Bunshin technique?" Sakura asked, causing Naruto to freeze in place, "That good huh?"

"I just can't mold my chakra enough." The blue-eyed boy defended himself. Sakura hummed grimly as she tried to come up with a solution, "Have you talked to Iruka-sensei about it?"

"He's told me to just keep practicing the leaf exercise." Naruto caught a leaf that happened to be floating down at that time, "I'm able to do it perfectly well." He placed the plant on his hand and swung it around showing it was stuck.

"Have you tried using more leaves?" Sakura asked as she looked up thought, "Or moving the leaf around with your chakra?"

"You can do that?" Naruto gave the pink haired girl a perplexed look.

The green-eyed girl shrugged and plucked two leaves from a low hanging branch and placed them on her arm, getting them to slowly move around in a circle.

"Cool," Naruto said with wide eyes as watched intently.

The boy plopped in front of his friend as he focused intently on his own leaf, trying to get it to move.

"What's twelve times nine?" Sakura asked as she decided to resume the math lesson.

"One-hundred and six," Naruto answered not looking up.

"Wrong," Sakura said as she gently smacked Naruto on the head with the spin of her book.

"Damn it!" Naruto shouted as he rubbed his head.

"Language."

Naruto anxiously fingered his pendant and bounced his leg, sweating nervously as Iruka passed around the final written test for the class. The blonde knew he wasn't the smartest in the class, being bottom of the class consistently over the last four years, even with the tutoring he had received from Sakura. Each year he barely passed, and this was supposed to be the test that separated classes out into genin and failures.

Iruka gave the blonde an encouraging smile as he placed three tests in front of Sasuke, who passed them along apathetically. As Naruto handed Sakura her test she also gave him a reassuring smile.

Naruto returned the smile, deciding to bury his anxiety deep and focus on what was before him.

Now came the hard part Naruto thought as he stood at the front of the room and prepared to take the jutsu part of the test.

He stood alone in the class with the exception of the two teachers, the order of the students being tested having been there ranking in descending order.

"Show us you're Henge, Naruto," Iruka said fully in teacher mode.

Naruto nodded as he went through the necessary hand signs and molded his chakra, taking the form of Iruka with a cloud of smoke.

"Good, Now the Kawarimi," Iruka said gesturing to a block of wood set in the back of the room for the blonde to use.

Again Naruto nodded and went through the hand signs, albeit a bit slower than the Henges. The blonde disappeared in a cloud of smoke that cleared quickly to show the log in question. Naruto smiled triumphantly from the back of the room.

Mizuki muttered a prayer and something about heathens, which Iruka either didn't hear or chose to ignore.

"Satisfactory, you need to work on speed though," Iruka said jotting down notes, causing Naruto's smile to falter. "Now the Bushin."

Naruto's smile disappeared as quickly as it had formed as he swapped with the log again, placing himself back in front of the two teachers. Naruto inhaled a deep breath as he tried to calm his nerves.

The blonde made the first-hand sign of the technique, as he focused all of his focus on molding his chakra.

Ram.

'Control.' Naruto commanded his body.

Snake.

'Too much.' He tried to stem the flow of chakra.

Tiger.

The cloud of smoke didn't clear fast enough for the blonde as he watched on with anxious eyes. When the cloud did finally clear he let out a sigh as his clone stood next to him, only to softly gasp when he looked closer at the clone.

It looked sickly, barely able to stand, its colors muted and its skin pale. After a moment the clone collapsed and disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

Naruto slowly turned to look at his teachers, worried at what he would find. He was only met with neutral faces, unable to show even the slightest bit of what they thought.

"That will be all." Iruka said in a professional tone, "Go wait in the courtyard, we'll call you in when we have reached a decision."

Naruto slowly slumped his way through the academy entrance, scowling softly at the ground.

"Naruto!" Sakura called out as her spot the blonde, sprinting towards him. "How do you think you…? Did?" She hesitantly asked as she saw the look on his face.

"Not good." The boy said, a smile split across his face, "But I'm sure I passed!" The boy said in a false cheerful tone, almost as if he was trying to convince himself as much as Sakura.

"Well, that's good," Sakura said softly.

"How do you think you did?" Naruto asked trying to change the subject.

"Pretty good I guess," The pinkette said shyly, softly blushing, "Probably not as good as Sasuke though."

Naruto rolled his eyes at the mention of the Uchiha, "He's a show-off." He dismissed, "You're at least humble."

"Where is he anyway?" Sakura asked, unintentionally ignoring the blonde's compliment.

Naruto scanned the crowd of pre-teens, searching for the spiky black hair that belonged to the last Uchiha.

Naruto spotted the fellow orphan beneath the shade of a tree, one with a swing on it. Before he could point him out to Sakura, a voice rang out from the entrance.

"Sasuke Uchiha!" Iruka shouted, earning the yards attention only being shifted by said Uchiha walking back towards the building in a steady gait.

"They seem to be calling in the people in the same order that they tested us in," Sakura observed.

"Damn it!" Naruto swore under his breath, only to do it a moment later as Sakura smacked him on the back of the head.

"Language." She said with a twitching brow.

"But I'm going to be waiting here forever!" Naruto whined.

"Oh calm down, it won't be that long." Sakura tried to reason with the blonde.

"Say's you, your next!" Naruto argued right as Iruka returned and called for the green-eyed girl.

"Good luck," Naruto said to the departing girl.

"Good luck to you." She said before sprinting to the academy entrance.

Seeing that Sasuke hadn't come out yet, Naruto went and sat on the sole swing and watched the dwindling crowd in the courtyard over the course of the next hour, until finally…

"Naruto Uzumaki."

Sorry, I took two months to write this, I got lost on the road of life. A.K.A. I'm lazy.

I'll try to update this story more often, or at least regularly… No promises…

I also might just start spitballing various story Ideas and work on them when the inspiration hits. Don't worry, at least two of them are Naruto related.

Have a good whatever now!