Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, or any characters associated in my story.

On a similar note who owns Neptune? I'm thinking being the owner of a planet could be for me. If you happen to know, let me know.

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Naruto: Naruto-Sempai; Chapter; Pilot

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Rain. It was one of those days. The duller-than-silver clouds darkened the day, hailing the cool showers and soaking everyone unfortunate enough to be caught out in it. Hinata was sat at the back row next to the window. One of her usual spots for the academy class. She was currently looking out the window, her head supported by her head as she pondered how the weather reflected her life.

It was dull, full of cold people, and overall a bit miserable.

The class was beginning to fill, the newly arriving people making a show of how wet they got. They quickly formed into their little groups and clusters of friends and proceeded to laugh, joke, complain and comment on the things academy students would. Hinata, being the far-too shy, and utterly lacking in self confidence as she was, had no one to really talk to. Partly because of her unwillingness to reach out to people, partly because of her clans reputation of what people should expect were they to try to reach out to her.

Hinata's life had been a series of failures wrapped in a icy veil of loneliness. Her father had attempted to train her, but after he junior sister had bested her, even on a number of occasions he stopped 'wasting' time with her. Instead leaving her to the care of others. She joined the academy with no self confidence or self esteem, and predictably; failed to make friends and made progress at a worryingly slow pace. She was only lucky she began far ahead of everyone else in her skills, however she was seriously beginning to fall behind these days.

Suddenly the bell rang. Indicating everyone should return to their seats, or else be scolded by Iruka-sensei. By now it was routine, so everyone instinctively moved into place. However, it wasn't Iruka-sensei that walked into the classroom. In fact it wasn't any teacher they had ever had before. Everyone watched the stranger move to the front of the room, with a mixture of surprise, curiosity and a small amount of disbelief. Even the Uchiha Sasuke was watching with an agape mouth, and a look on his face that revealed every ounce of his surprise. The stranger dropped some papers on the desk before wheeling round on his heels and grinning at all the nonplussed faces of his students. He clapped his hands together, snapping them back into reality.

"Good morning class!" Naruto said with his trademark foxy-grin "Are we sitting comfortably?"

There was no answer to his question. Naturally, everyone was still in the state of wondering who this kid was. Probably someone from another class trying to be funny perhaps?

Though he was wearing the chuunin vest, something that prevented them from outright laughing at him. After a further few seconds pause Sakura rose her hand. Naruto looked over and nodded

"Yes?" he said eyes fixed on her. Sakura cleared her throat before speaking

"Excuse me but, are you actually our teacher?" She said, asking the question everyone else was. The whole room leaned forward, awaiting the answer with great interest. Naruto merely continued to smile.

"For today; yes" he said "It seems Iruka-sensei isn't 100% today, so I will be temporarily filling in" he finished. No sooner had he done so when a comment was shouted out

"But you're just a kid!" Naruto looked over towards the commentator.

"So are you. The difference is I know all my ninja training. Now would you like to learn yours, or are you just going to continue to state the obvious?" he said with confidence, diffusing the confidence of the would-be troublemaker. "I mean you could, but it's not the obvious you need to train to see in the ninja world" he finished utterly finalising that conversation as moved around the desk, scanning the papers left there by Iruka.

"Chakra control" he read out aloud, looking up waiting to be corrected, as he thought about the subject. "Chakra control" he repeated wondering exactly what level these guys would be at. After all, he didn't spend long at the academy at all, so it was hard to judge what a normal class would be up to at this point.

"Chakra control…. Chakra control" he continued to repeat. The class looking rightfully confused, even glancing at each other in doubt.

"Chakra control, I hope your getting all this down" Naruto commented "Right! Let's see what you know! The purpose of chakra is?" he said, looking around the room quizzically. Slowly Sakura raised her hand.

"Yep?"

"Chakra is an energy ninja use to perform ninja techniques." She said hesitantly stopping.

"Exactamundo… a word I've never used before and hopefully never will again." He said surprised at himself "One point to…" he said looking at her questioningly.

"Haruno Sakura"

"Okay, What is the purpose of hand seals?" he asked looking around the room. Only Sakura rose her hand "Someone else" Naruto said looking around the room, sharpening his gaze revealing his intent to pick on someone.

"Nope? Okay Sakura"

"Hand seals are used to shape and manipulate chakra in order to allow it to be used for something that would not otherwise be possible" she said

"Text book answer, two to Sakura. Okay Sakura, tell me this; What would the effect be if too much chakra was used in a jutsu"

"The jutsu would not function correctly, if at all. Not to mention it would be far more taxing on the user"

"What is your chakra element?" Naruto pushed, not bothering to tell her she was right. She knew she was, or should do with answers that were literally repeated as written in a textbook. By this point the class was looking in between Sakura and Naruto waiting for one of them to become stumped. At the very least Naruto's credibility was going up.

"Um… I don't know…" Sakura said, her voice quieting down along with her confidence. Naruto nodded, opening the drawers in the desk apparently looking for something. He reappeared with a frown. Suddenly a clone popped up next to him. Without a word or moments hesitation it spend off out of the room. The class remained silent. If nothing else the substitute was interesting.

"Excuse me, but how did you do that without forming a seal?" Sakura piped up again. Naruto sat himself down leisurely in Iruka's seat, looking up at her as he did so.

"I did form a seal" he corrected.

"But, I was watching…" She said trailing off. Hinata frowned, she agreed with her classmate. She too had been watching and listening quite intently, and she was sure he didn't make a hand sign.

"He was just that quick" Sasuke interjected. Naruto grinned at the prodigy with a slow nod "I saw it, but only barely" Sasuke explained, his expression one of surprise, a rarity for the usually very cool Uchiha.

"That's correct. No doubt you guys will be starting to get fast yourselves soon, but later one, when you have done your seals as often as I have, you get so quick the untrained eye cannot see them." Naruto said raising from his seat to stroll amongst the front.

"But you're our age, exactly how much experience do you have?" Sasuke asked rather forcefully, clearly irritated. Naruto looked at Sasuke, his smile fading a little but not completely

"Enough" he replied simply, as he did so, his clone returned a box in hand.

"Okay, let's do some fun stuff. I'm only here for today, so what say we make the most of it, yeah?" he said nodding with a grin to his face. Hinata couldn't help but smile a little too, his smile was infectious. Glancing around the room it seemed that was true, several others she could see also would faint smiles to fun blown smirks all over their faces.

"You know the 5 Chakra elements, yeah?" Naruto asked the class rather loudly. In response he got a murmur of an agreement

"Great, okay, you; Mr loud mouth from earlier, name one" he asked

"Earth" came back an answer

"Good, you, another" he said looking at Shino

"Water"

"Yep, another" he continued referring to another

"Lightning"

"Great, two more, what are they, Sakura?"

"Fire and Wind" she replied, with a hint of joy to giving her response.

"Fantastic! You know that atleast. In a moment I'm going to pass out paper that I will show you how to use to discover your natural element of your chakra" he said as his clone was sorting out said paper behind him

"While we wait for that, who wants to take a guess at my element?" he offered. He wouldn't like, he liked people guessing things about himself, it was so much more fun than just telling it them. Let's face it everyone does. A few elements were called out aloud

"What about…. You" he said looking at Hinata, who nearly visibly jumped at being picked on.

"A-Ano…..F-Fire?" she squeaked

"Fire? I see, think I'm hot do you? Can't blame you" he said, earning several groans from the class, and causing Hinata to rapidly begin to redden "Nah I'm just kidding, I won't hold it against you" he said with a playful wink. With a 'poof' the clone was gone, Naruto turned and picked up the stacks of paper, and handed them out one per person.

"Alright; Here's how these work" he said "Just hold it like so" he said, holding one up, showing them clearly "And focus your chakra in your hand. The paper is very reactive to chakra, If it splits in half, like this" he said as his own just was sudden sliced into two pieces "You are one refreshing dude like me, and have wind element chakra. If it becomes wet, you're water, if it burns up, you've got fire, turns to dust you've got earth and finally if it wrinkles up like the Hokage's face you're lightning. Well okay, your papers won't wrinkle up THAT much but… whatever" he said rather cheekily, smiling to himself over his rather witty comment, or so he thought.

Hinata looked down at her own paper. Water, Earth, Fire, Wind or Lightning. She hadn't really thought about it before, but she found herself oddly excited to find out what she was. Perhaps it was just the idea of learning a little something about herself. She held the paper, and closed her eyes, then focused on gathering her chakra.

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The day had flown by. Before she even knew what was what it was time to go home. Hinata found herself not only disappointed but slightly saddened, though for massively unusual reasons than the normal ones. The first was that she wanted it to last so much longer. She felt that she made some real actual progress today. She felt sad that she knew this was a one day deal. She respected and liked Iruka-sensei very much, but Naruto…. Had a gift. Or at least a way with her, she found him very easily to listen to, and learn from. She didn't know if it was she was just relating better to him, given his age, or than it was his sheer energy that radiated from him at all times. Whatever it was, it helped her. She was deliberately slow in packing things away so she could speak with him, at the moment most of the class were saying there fair wells.

Naruto was really a hit, despite the seeming rock start. She even noted Sasuke seemingly enjoying himself today, something which was so odd it bordered on the unnatural. As she was lost in her thoughts the last of the class exited to the room leaving just the two of them. Naruto, seeing very clearly she was procrastinating her leave hopped on the desk in front of hers.

"Anything you want to ask, or talk about?" he said, alerting her of their privacy. After confirming it, she looked up at Naruto with uncertainty, a nasty habit of hers.

"W-Well I, ano…" she paused. Naruto was rather sympathetic to her. He didn't know much of the Hyuuga clan, however he knew lack of self confidence when he saw it. So he sat there waiting patiently for her to say her part

"I-I just w-wa-was wondering… D-Do you ano… A-Are you… available?" she asked. Naruto processed what she said, his eyes betraying his level of shock. Hinata, at the same time realised how that sounded

"Aahhh!" she squeaked "Nonononono, I mean, do you do privately! I mean, do you do one on ones?" she continued very panicked and very quickly, the shade of her cheeks revealing her complete embarrassment "For training!….a-assuming you won't b-be back to teach…" she said looking anywhere at all but at Naruto, who was just focusing on trying dearly not to laugh, however funny it might be he was worried her fragile confidence would shatter.

After regaining control of his throat he spoke

"Well, not on record" he said studying her reaction "Iruka-san is your teacher and I'm quite sure he would like you to approach him if you feel you require additional help or attention in any area…" he explained, taking a note of her disappointment.

"However. If you feel you require extra-hours mentoring" he said, giving Hinata enough how to get her to look at him "You can request aid from either Iruka or the Hokage directly" he said. Seeing Hinata's reaction to this he considered. Clearly she wanted to avoid having to ask Iruka for someone else's help, he could understand that. And it might be a hassle for her being a Hyuuga to go to the Hokage. He smiled

"Tell you what, leave it with me" he said with a reassuring grin "I'll pop in tomorrow to fill you in on what I can do for you. Alright?" he said, earning a small smile, and a short nod from the embarrassed Hyuuga. With her objective complete, she hurridly made to leave the room, as she got to the door Naruto spoke up again.

"By the way Miss Hyuuga." He said standing and looking at her with an expression of mild seriousness "While we spoke at the start of class about you thinking my being 'hot' perhaps discussing my 'availability' might be slightly premature" he said with a wink and a giant grin.

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Auther Notes: Pilot Episode, you know how this works, R&R or it's a flight that isn't taking off.

Two questions I will answer now;

Is this a 'powerful' Naruto story?

No, it isn't. He is more powerful than the rookie 9(or 8 in this case), obviously. But he's not stronger than for example Kakashi. So yes he is stronger than normal, but not so much so that there's no point. As personally I feel too many stories have an indestructible Naruto. But that's me and my tastes, not criticising those of you who have a powerful-naruto story, but that's not how I roll.

What is the Naruto to Hinata Relationship here?

Naruto will effectively Hinata's Sempai, I wouldn't say Sensei, because he'll not be clearly above her as a sensei would be. Naturally Hinata does not currently love Naruto, this will be the first time she's met him, so how could she? That will be the room for story and character development here. But yes, this will ultimately be a Naruto Hinata pairing. I appreciate some of you folks aren't into pairing, and that's fine, the pairing won't be the only thing going on here of course. So if you like how it reads so far, don't fret, it won't turn into a hardcore fluff-fest.