Chapter Text
Izuku’s relieved that the day is finally over. He’s never more at ease than when he finally sees his apartment building become clearer and clearer in his line of sight. Today’s no different either. As he makes his way steadily to his apartment block, he recognizes the taller figure making their way onto the sidewalk.
Her long hair drapes over a plain white shirt and blue jeans as she pokes at the screen of her phone with her index finger, not unlike an extremely 21st century grandmother. He’s surprised to see her at this time of day. Typically he only ever really runs into her at night when he’s taking out the trash after dinner or on the weekends. Despite those brief encounters where she tells him to have a goodnight or shyly holds out her phone for him to help her find someplace she’d heard about, they’re always a highlight of his day.
Even now, when he’s feeling the dregs of another tough day at school seeping into his bones, he can’t help but to return her beaming smile with a happy little smile of his own when she spots him.
“Izuku!” She stops in front of him, glad to see him, “It’s great I ran into you. Would you mind helping me find this place I heard about?”
She drops her phone into his hand. He tilts it so that they can both see the screen (It’ll be like he never showed her how to navigate it in the first place. She’ll still ask him to do it the next time she runs into him). “Sure, but how come you still need help after all this time?”
“Well I don’t use it very much ya know, hehe…” she admits with a sheepish chuckle.
Izuku doesn’t know many teenagers who aren’t attached to their phones, let alone don’t know how to use one. It’s just another odd but endearing facet about his neighbor. One more being her little verbal tic, another being her whisker marks.
“Where are you going this time, Naruto?” It took him a long time to get used to calling her by her first name, but that’s what she insisted on. She looked so put out when he addressed her as Uzumaki-san. Conversely, he nearly jumped out his skin when she called out ‘Izuku, hey!’ the next time he saw her.
She inhales excitedly, as if she’d just remembered all over again the new place she’ll be going to. The way she becomes infinitely more dazzling when she’s excited makes Izuku's face feel as if it’s about to melt off. It’s easy to forget when she’s speaking to him so casually that she isn’t just his slightly odd neighbor, but his pretty, older, female neighbor. Averting his gaze with the excuse of pulling up the search engine he wills his hands to remain not sweaty. “I overheard someone at lunch mention a frog cafe! They have toads!”
And now the blood that was rushing to his face quickly drains away. He feels himself stiffen up at the mention of toads. “Oh—that sounds—nice.”
“Wanna join me?” Naruto tilts her neck to meet his eye better, a friendly smile still pulling at her cheeks. The drastic change of blood flow to and from his face is sure to have some effect on his health, but despite how flustered the invitation makes him feel, he would have never been able to muster himself up to decline it.
“S-sure!” He gets back to looking up the cafe’s directions (M.I.L.F’s is what it’s called, which stands for Man I Love Frogs, apparently) before handing her phone back to her. “Would it be okay for me to go and change?”
“Yeah, sure!”
Izuku invites her to come in and wait so she doesn’t have to just stand on the sidewalk until he comes back. She happily agrees and they both make their way to his floor. Once inside, while removing their shoes at the door, he greets his mom and informs her of company. Something falls to the ground before he hears her muffled footsteps. She comes out of her room with wide, shocked eyes. “Y-you brought home a friend?”
Introducing herself with a friendly grin, Naruto waves at his bewildered mom. “Nice to meet you! I’m Naruto, I live a couple of floors down.”
The recognition and confusion are easy to see on his mom’s face. He’s mentioned Naruto a couple of times before, but never told his mom she was a girl, he realizes. “O-oh! This is Naruto-kun? Nice to meet you, I’m Midoriya Inko.”
“I’m going to change and head to a cafe with Naruto, mom.”
“You are?”
“Yeah! Is that alright?” Naruto asks with a tilted head.
Izuku’s already making his way towards his bedroom as he hears his mom's delighted laughter. “Yes, of course. Would you like some tea while you wait?”
***
Izuku comes back to the living room to find his mother listening intently and nodding along with Naruto as she ends her tangent about how she’s been training toads lately. “It’s just an experiment, but I’m having fun trying regardless.” She turns her attention to him, “Ready?”
Ah, he would have liked to hear what his mom thought about that, actually.
As they begin their walk down the street, Izuku’s mind becomes saturated with conversation starters. He’s only spent minutes at a time with Naruto and he’s always wanted to know more about her. She lives alone, he knows, but she is obviously still in high school. He’s never asked, but he wanders what her quirk could be. Her arm is always bandaged up so maybe it has something to do with that or maybe the whisker marks on her cheeks. Those seem like terrible things to ask about out of the blue, though, so he drowns in his head while she looks at the directions on her phone.
“Hey, which school do you go to? Is it this one?” She turns the phone around so it faces him. A school is marked on the map in the direction they’re heading in but it isn’t his.
“No, I attend Aldera.” Oh, he thinks suddenly, this would be a good time to ask about her school life.
“Your mom mentioned you’ll be starting highschool soon. You’ve been in school so long,” she frowns sympathetically, “Three more years until you’re done. You’re gonna be so old.”
“Huh?” His previous thoughts are derailed.
“Anyways, I’m hoping they have ramen there. I know it isn’t really cafe food, but wouldn’t that be great?” The conversation moved on before I could ask, he complains in his thoughts.
“Um, y-yeah, I guess. Is ramen your favorite?”
“Uh huh. But there’s hardly any restaurants that compare to Ichiraku, ya know.”
“Is that so? I’ve never heard of it.”
“There isn’t one around here. It’s from back home. The best ramen in the village—no! In the world!” her smile that had been growing begins to shrink with something sad surfacing in her thoughts.
“I didn’t realize you weren’t from around here.” Although, it’s obvious now that he considers how terrible she is with navigating the city and using her phone. There’s also her unfamiliar accent as well. “When did you leave your village?”
“Around the same time I first met you.”
“Not that long then?”
“Ah, but time moves so much faster here. The days feel like they are eighteen hours long instead of twenty-four.” She heaves while placing her hands behind her head, gaze turning upward.
Izuku considers what it might be like to live on the countryside, in a village, far away from the hustle and bustle of a city where there’s always so much happening, nonstop. Looking around now, on their short walk to their destination, it feels like they’re passing by so much.
“Yeah, that’s an interesting way to think of it.”
“Scary is more like it.”
“What’s so scary about it?” Izuku and Naruto walk through the crowded crosswalk, halfway through the journey.
Once they safely make it across, Naruto stares down at her toes peeking through black sandals, the ones he always finds her in on the weekends.
“I’m just afraid all the people I left behind in my village will move on without me, that when I go back, there won't be anyone there who remembers me. All my friends…” She goes quiet for a moment but it doesn’t last long before she’s facing Izuku again with a smaller but genuine smile, “I’m making plenty of friends here though, so don’t worry. I’m not lonely at all.” She gives a thumbs up with her bandaged arm.
“If you don’t mind me asking,” he begins as they turn a corner, “why did you leave your village?”
Naruto’s smile freezes on her face as her eyes fill with panic. Izuku feels like he stepped on a minefield and wants to swallow his words back up as she stumbles over her own words frantically. “Oh, well, to be honest it wasn’t my choice to leave at all, ya know! It just turned out this way, really. It’s complicated!”
“C-can you not go back?” he asks a little apprehensively.
Facing forward again, Naruto seems to calm down a bit. “Nah, not yet. But I'll make it back to everyone eventually. Believe it.”
Once they begin to approach their destination, Naruto's steady walking gains a bit of a bounce as she gets more and more excited.
“This world has such amazing things! A frog cafe is genius, ya know!”
Once she makes it to the door, she swings it open and leads the way inside. The interior feels like they’re the ones inside of someone's pet’s enclosure. There aren’t too many people and the host greets them immediately wearing a green and blue apron covered in lily pads and a lotus flower head band. The moment they sit down at the table, right in front of the window, something hops out of a nearby tank and directly onto Izuku’s head, sending shivers up and down his entire body.
“Aw~ they must be attracted to your hair Izuku,” Naruto laughs pleasantly. Izuku has an idea of just what the 'they’ she’s referring to must be. “I’m kind of jealous. I’m ready to get my hands on one too.”
The hostess who was still nearby overhears this and approaches their table. She puts one hand in the front pocket of her apron before pulling it back out to drop something in front of Naruto. Once she steps away Izuku realizes it was a pudgy brown and black toad covered in warts. Naruto’s eyes sparkle as she scoops it up. “Hello~ You look like my friend Gamakichi~ Say ‘Yo,’ please.”
Izuku furrows his eyebrows confused, “Uh…” He’s coming to find that his neighbor is a bit more eccentric than he thought. She doesn’t pay him any mind and continues to make faces at the toad in her hands. Izuku decides to let her enjoy herself while he looks over the menu. He had even forgotten about the critter in his hair until it leapt down and made its way closer to Naruto. He realizes it was a small tree frog. He sighs at the sight of it and goes back to the menu. There isn’t anything very filling on the menu, which is to be expected and also probably for the best with animals capable of hopping into dishes around. He says as much to Naruto who grudgingly agrees that it would be a shame if one plopped into her ramen.
“Maybe I’ll come work here when I’m done with the stuff at U.A.,” she comments as another frog makes its way onto their table. Izuku straightens up at the mention of U.A.. He’s seen Naruto in uniform on a couple of occasions. With U.A. being his dream school and extremely competitive to enter, he can’t pass up the opportunity to learn more about it.
“W-what year are you in, Naruto?” she looks up at him from the menu, “And who is your homeroom teacher? Did you have a hard time getting accepted as a transfer student? Did you have to take an entrance exam? Are you taking the hero course? Or are you in general education? Did you know about U.A. before you moved out of your village?”
Wide eyed, Naruto’s mouth falls open just enough for one of the smallest frogs that were somehow attracted to their table to try and jump in. “Ack!” she grabs it off her face and stares at it incredulously.
“S-sorry! That was a lot…” Izuku mutters apologetically.
She chuckles and raises an arm to rub the back of her head, “Haha. It’s alright. I’m not really a student at U.A., it’s more like I’m being tutored by some of the staff.”
“Oh,” Izuku replies. “Then are you not interested in becoming a hero?”
“Mm… it seems that the tutoring I’ve been receiving is working towards that direction.”
“Then why don’t you just enroll in the hero course?”
“I’m twenty years old, ya know. A bit too old to be starting as a first year, which is perfectly fine by me.”
Izuku is shocked. He’d always known she was older, but he assumed she was a teenager! Six years older was more than he expected.
“Why do you wear the uniform then?”
“Oh! It’s just to help me blend in better. Since I’m not a teacher.” She rubs the head of a yellow frog fondly, thoughts seeming to go back to the frogs and toads surrounding her. Izuku offers to put in their order since she’s enjoying herself to which she gives him a delighted ‘thanks a bunch!’
On his way up to the counter he notices that all of the other people in the cafe are young boys or parents. He thinks he might even recognize one of the patrons as a guy from his school. His quirk makes him turn different colors if he’s not mistaken. It seems he gets along well with frogs , Izuku thinks as the guy turns a shade of green to match the frog he’s feeding. He gets to the counter and peruses the sweets on display for a moment before he asks for two C options with melon soda.
When he gets back to the table, Naruto has her phone out to take pictures of the toads she has stacked on each other from biggest to smallest. He’s thoroughly surprised skittish animals like that would even allow that, but by the way they all seem so attracted to her he figures it’s a mutual respect type of thing. He slides back into his seat just as she puts down her phone.
“I heard you mention to my mom you’ve been training toads. What exactly are you training them to do?”
“For now I’m trying to teach them how to talk and then later, maybe how to make themselves big and strong, like a mountain!”
Izuku imagines a mother-toad Naruto nursing her tadpoles and teaching them the alphabet and feeding them their veggies. He can’t help but giggle. She looks at him with a half confused, half amused smile.
“Sorry, I was imagining something silly.” He clears his throat, “Ahem. Anyways, I’ve always wondered,” his eyes flit down to her bandaged arm and back up to her eyes, “Why do you keep your arm bandaged? Does it have something to do with your quirk? And what exactly is your quirk? Does wrapping your arm up keep it under control?” Naruto’s eyes begin to gloss over so Izuku forces his mouth closed.
“My quirk?”
“Yeah…”
She drums over fingers on the table. “I’ve been told to call Chakra.”
‘I’ve been told?’ he repeats in his head. Aloud he asks, “How does it worK?”
She picks up an unsuspecting toad, staring it in the eyes as if she’s speaking directly to it instead of Izuku. “I can combine my spiritual and physical energy to do all sorts of things—it’s super versatile I’ve been told.” Pitching her voice down a bit she says specifically to the toad in her hand, “You should try it. If you learn how to use it, I'll buy you snacks.”
It only croaks in response, but she smiles as if it gives her a resounding ‘Yes!’
He considers her words. Physical energy and spiritual energy? He wonders if the way all the animals in the cafe have been flocking towards her has anything to do with this energy. Does it make her emit some type of pheromones? Or make her emit more heat than usual? Or is it the energy itself that they are attracted to? What exactly can she do with spiritual and physical energy? Is it something only she has or does everyone have it and she’s the only one that can combine and utilize it? Is she able to emit chakra? How is a quirk like that considered versatile?
“...Izuku, your muttering is a little disturbing…”
“S-Sorry! Again!”
Naruto huffs and waves him off, “What about you, Izuku? Are you interested in becoming a hero?”
Izuku feels himself sink. “I am…”
Conveniently, their order arrives at their table. Their drinks are placed down followed by their dessert. The employees take a couple of toads and frogs away to make room. When they're alone again, Izuku releases a breath.
“I really want to be a hero.”
“Then why do you sound so sad about it?”
“Because I don’t have a quirk,” he admits quietly.
The silence between the two of them lasts for a moment before Naruto, with furrowed brows and a shake of her head asks, “And?”
Izuku’s heart thuds hard in his chest. “So how could I ever become a hero?” His thoughts turn to Kacchan, “There are so many talented geniuses in the world all aiming to become great heroes. How could I ever do anything without a quirk?”
“Ya know, you seem to ask a lot of questions Izuku, but you aren’t really asking the right one.” Naruto stares him in his eyes, cerulean blue meeting viridian green, “What you should be asking is ‘what can I do to make it happen?’ If you’re not talented, if you're not a genius, that just means you have to become a genius of hard work!” she gets a faraway look in her eyes before she breaks out into a big grin. “You can definitely become a hero, Izuku. Don’t underestimate yourself.”
Izuku’s lips wobble as his eyes fill with tears. “Woah! Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you cry, ya know! How about we dig in, haha!”
Izuku takes his first bite of his cake after laughing softly at the nervous chomps of cake Naruto takes. It’s incredibly sweet.
***
The next day, when he finally makes it home after an extremely eventful day, after fighting a villain, after being accepted by All Might as his successor, Izuku ends up running into Naruto outside of the apartment complex.
“Izuku, what are you doing coming home from school at this time of day?”
Izuku meets the eyes of his neighbor, and he knows he’s standing the straightest she has probably ever seen him.
“Naruto! I’m going to do it. I’m going to become a hero!”
She’s surprised by his outburst obviously but once the words register she breaks out into a big smile. She puts her fist out. Izuku looks at it, then back at her, and then the outstretched fist again before bumping his own fist against hers. She chuckles a bit before tilting her head, still smiling big. “Believe it!”
***
He doesn’t see her too often after that between his training with All Might, school, and studying for the entrance exams. It’s a long time before he gets more than a passing glimpse of her out of a window or a conjured memory of her after seeing another toad (there seems to be so many wandering around their building these days).
After a late night on the beach, he comes home to find her sitting on the ledge of the building. He nearly fainted on the spot before his rationality got a hold of him. From the sidewalk he could see her face reflected by the full moon. He thinks back to that day, when she looked almost brittle talking to him about the people she left behind in her village, and can see that brittleness even more clearly now; that loneliness she said she didn’t feel. Although he hadn’t seen her in such a long time, he lets the moon continue keeping her company; the moment seems too fragile—too intimate for him to interrupt.
He doesn’t see her again for a while after that, but when he comes home from the entrance exams, mom informs him that Naruto came by to wish him luck. It cheers him up a bit after not being able to get a single point. Just a little. But it also makes him hope he doesn’t see her for a while longer so he doesn’t have to disappoint her with the news.
On his first day of school, however, his mom passes him a note that had been slipped under the door. He opens it and reads it aloud for his mother, both of their eyes watering with wobbling smiles to match.
You’ll do great!
—Naruto
***
On the train, Izuku does as he has been doing for several months now, and that is zone out for the entire ride. There hadn’t been much on his mind except for training and schoolwork, and even his usual pastimes have been neglected. Riding the transit these days have been like taking an open eyed nap, almost; a chance to quiet his brain.
In the middle of zoning out, he gets jostled a bit by a stranger eagerly reaching in their pocket. He pulls out his phone, still engrossed with his conversation with his friend on the other side of him. The conversation is low; Izuku hadn’t even noticed they were chatting until he was jostled.
“I’m telling you, she was amazing. She got to me so fast! Otherwise I would have been a smear on the ground. And I’m not light either but she held me in her arms, no problem.”
“Sounds like her mesh top really did it for you, huh?”
“No,” he answers with a growl.
“Why'd you even bring that up then? Admit it Tanaka, you have a fetish for women who can beat you up. That’s why you’re obsessing over her.”
“Kaido—” Tanaka looks around to make sure no one has heard. Izuku quickly faces the other way before he can be thought to be eavesdropping. “I’m not some perv, I just thought it was cool she was wearing chainmail not mesh. I’m telling you, she had the potential to make it into the top twenty.”
“Yeah, alright. What’d you say her name was?”
“She said her name was Uzumaki Naruto.”
“What kind of hero name is that?”
***
Whining for the third time this morning, Naruto begs pitifully, “Please, just call me Naruto, Aizawa-sensei.”
“You have to get used to it.”
“No I don’t. At least not from you. There’s no reason for you to call me Uzumaki-san.”
“And there’s no need for you to call me sensei, but you do.”
“I have no problem referring to you as just Shota, but you looked like you wanted to murder me with your eyes the first time I tried.”
“I’m talking about the sensei part.”
Naruto rests her head on her fist, “But you’re a sensei?”
“Not yours.”
“You were, though! I learned so much from you. And I’ve had my fair share of senseis, ya know.”
Aizawa sighs, a common occurrence around the busy-body that was Uzumaki Naruto. “Just get used to it. I don’t want the students to think that it’s alright to call you by your first name.”
“But it is alright! That’s my norm!” Naruto watches as he rolls over in his sleeping bag, obviously done with the conversation. She’s tempted to keep it going, but allows him to have his nap in peace.
Despite Nezu being the one who forced her to attend U.A. in the capacity that she had been, she’d only spent the first week under his ‘tutelage’ before he passed her off to a few other staff members. Aizawa-sensei was one of two that were aware of her origins. He was also the one she spent most of her time with due largely to him being an underground hero, thus, easier to shadow without too many questions. Oddly enough, he is also her favorite. She shared this with Kurama on one of his rare awake windows, to which he pointed out that Aizawa somewhat favors Kakashi-sensei. Naruto, however, doesn’t see any similarities between them outside of that lazy front they both put up.
With her being closest to Aizawa-sensei, it also meant that once she was allowed to (she doesn’t understand the strings that were pulled to get her a hero exam so she could be licensed), she patrolled with him. Aizawa kept late hours, which was fine by Naruto since, even after all this time, her body still hasn’t adapted to how fast the time seems to move in this world. She has become a borderline insomniac herself. They’d spent the entire night patrolling the seedier parts of Musutafu before splitting up to get a few hours of rest before having to meet at U.A. for a first day huddle. Last year she had attended the huddle as a ward being introduced to the staff. This year she attended as a teacher’s assistant; another thing that was insisted upon by Nezu in exchange for his support.
He stated that she is plenty familiar enough with the way the world she landed into works and thought her talents could be used to join the ranks of both heroes and as a ‘sensei of sorts’ for heroes to be. How he made such a conclusion is a mystery to Naruto, but she depends a lot on his help, so feels it only fair to do her part.
Since she doesn’t have a teaching license, everyone has been referring to her as a teacher’s assistant. She’s meant to help out with sharpening the hero students' combat ability with their quirks (but mostly without), against large numbers (because of her clones) and any other way that her being a ninja would help.
Right now she’s looking over the list of first years. There isn’t a need for her help today, at least not for Aizawa-sensei’s class since he’ll be doing assessments. And All Might, who she has recently met, is doing an exercise that doesn’t require her to be present. Tomorrow she’ll have her time with class 1A and 1B, but today she’ll just be running errands and working with the upperclassmen.
Aizawa-sensei’s alarm goes off informing them both that his cat nap is over. He doesn’t bother to stand on his feet, but instead rolls out the room still in his yellow sleeping bag. Naruto chuckles to herself and continues looking over the students.
“Shoto. I mean Todoroki-kun.” Learning to address people by their family name wasn’t a super big necessity in acclimating Naruto to Japan, but everyone agreed it would help her fit in better. She hardly called people by their names back home, though, so the formality was a bit of a pain in the neck. “Hot and cold? Oh, he makes ice. I wonder how his ice would compare to Haku’s… Eh? Big hands? Like Choji! Oh, a copy quirk~ He’s kind of like Kakashi-sensei. Probably not as cool as the Copy Cat Ninja though.”
She idles her time away in this fashion until it is almost time for lunch. She picks her phone up to make sure she hadn’t missed any messages in her time spent holed up. Right as she does, she receives a message from Aizawa-sensei asking her to bring back something light for him to eat. It starts a short squabble between them about how he needs to eat more than rabbit food and jelly packets if he wants to survive any longer.
Aizawa-sensei:
I could say the same about you and ramen.
Me:
no way it has all the food groups
Aizawa-sensei
Sure.
As she looks up from her phone she notices it’s no longer just her making her way towards the cafeteria. There are a few curious glances thrown her way, much more than she received last year when she wore the school uniform. She suddenly thinks that Nezu was right about ways to make her blend in, but she’ll never admit it to him.
The din of the cafeteria distracts her from those thoughts. The best thing about spending the majority of her time at this school was the food. Lunch Rush’s food was one of the things that helped her cope with being so far from home. For a moment, when she is enjoying a hot bowl of his ramen, it’s almost like she’s back at home being served by Teuchi and Ayame. She wishes he’d let her eat it everyday, but the guy is of the same mind as Aizawa-sensei and insists she needs variety in her diet. He’s merciful today, however, and while everyone else is handed food from today’s menu, he quietly hands over a salad for Aizawa-sensei and a bowl of tonkatsu ramen for her. She thanks him and carefully begins her trek back to the staffroom.
On her way out, she spots a head of familiar green hair. She hadn’t seen much of Izuku since the day he declared he would be a hero. She’s extremely excited that he took that step to make his dreams come true. She wishes she could have seen him more often, but it seemed they both got much busier with their separate journeys of heroism. She was pleased to see his name on Aizawa-sensei’s roster, but was thoroughly confused by the quirk that came after it. She didn’t really question it, though, not as acquainted with quirks and thus not too alarmed that he has one all of a sudden.
‘As long as he didn’t pull a Sasuke,’ she thinks to herself.
She makes a quick detour to say hello. She places the food tray on the table and grabs Izuku by the shoulders to pull him up. ‘I wonder if I need to start calling him Midoriya… but we’re familiar with each other so it should be okay.’ It’s been ingrained in her to make people around her ask as little about her as possible. But an unlikely friendship with a student shouldn’t be too questionable, right?
“Wow, Izuku! You look much more awesome in that uniform than I did!” she pats him on the shoulder, “I always felt like I was being strangled, ya know!”
With Naruto in front of him his thoughts go back to that conversation he overheard on the bus. He hadn’t gotten a chance to check online if Naruto had really debuted as a hero, but he forgot that he’d be seeing her eventually since she said she was receiving tutoring of some sorts from the staff. However, after moving his eyes away from her face, he realizes that she is in fact not wearing a uniform anymore. His eyes lock on her chest directly in front of him and he recalls the other part of that conversation he’d heard.
“C-chainmail?” He’s especially happy that she is wearing her long golden hair down today, covering most of her chest.
“Excuse me!” Iida stands up from his seat, gesticulating with his arm, “You can’t just accost a student that way! And where is your uniform? If you’re not in hero training, shouldn’t you be in your uniform?”
Naruto raises her hand, the bandaged one, to scratch at her cheek. “Well I’m not a student, ya know.”
“Oh.” A pause that’s probably only awkward to everyone else except for Iida. “Well in that case, please pardon me.” Ochaco laughs into her lunch, avoiding looking up at Iida who just pushes his glasses further up his nose before taking his seat.
“Yeah, sure,” she looks back at him, a small grin making its way across her face, “Are these your new friends, Izuku?”
“Allow us to introduce ourselves,” Iida insists, “My name is Iida Tenya, pleased to meet you.”
“I’m Uraraka Ochaco!”
“Uzumaki Naruto! Nice to meet you guys.”
“Um, Naruto, are you still being tutored?”
“Nah, I’m officially a teacher’s assistant now, so I’ll be around to kick some students around—including you, Izuku.” She drops her right hand on top of his head before scrubbing it lightly, “I hope you’re ready to give it your all.” She turns to pick up the food she’d set down before waving a goodbye over her shoulder.
Watching her go, Izuku mulls over what she’d told him that day in the cafe. A genius of hard work! He thinks with a nod of his head. He’s frightened out of his thoughts by Uraraka as she pokes him in the side. “How do you know Uzumaki-san?”
He slides back down into his seat, “We’re neighbors.”
“Is she a pro-hero?” Iida asks. Izuku thinks over the conversation again.
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen her in a while,” he admits.
He’s tempted to add more but decides against doing so. After all, he doesn’t want to make things awkward for Naruto if she was attempting to remain under the radar again.
He doesn’t have another chance to wonder about Naruto until she makes another surprise appearance again during All Might’s foundational hero course. There are some new additions to her wardrobe this time around. She’s wearing an orange and black cropped track jacket that seems to be a set with her black shorts and her long black sandals. From this far away he notices she also has a thigh pouch attached to one leg, fastened snugly on top of bandages that are similar to the ones she wears on her arm. There is also a black headband tied across her forehead with a symbol etched into the metal plate that he can’t quite make out. On top of all that she wears a red and black, short sleeved robe.
“Miss Uzumaki! Are you here to lend a hand in today’s exercise?”
“Nah, just bringing you your flash cards,” she answers with a laugh.
All Might coughs twice before taking them from her. “Thank you for your help, Miss Uzumaki.”
She laughs a bit more, “Sure thing! It’s what I’m here for, ya know.”
All Might coughs into his fist once more, “Have you met Class 1A yet?”
“Not officially, no. I’ll be getting to know everyone tomorrow.”
“Sounds exciting!”
“I guess so. Anyways, have a good class, gramps,” she curses under her breath, before rubbing the back of her head bashfully. “I mean All Might. Sorry, bad habit I’m trying to break. Don’t tell Aizawa-sensei.” And then she quickly disappears back the way she came.
The class breaks out into chatter, some of them wondering who she is and what class she might be teaching.
“Uzumaki? I feel like I’ve heard that name before,” Yaoyorozu states, a hand under her chin.
“I think I’ve seen some pictures of her,” Mineta adds in a daze.
“Is she a hero who just recently debuted?” Kaminari asks.
“You all will have a chance to meet the new TA tomorrow. For now let's begin!” And Izuku’s day gets even more chaotic.
At the end of it all, after parting ways with Uraraka and Iida, he makes it home with his thoughts full. He looks up at the roof of the middle complex, hoping to find a pair black sandals dangling off the ledge, but there is no one there.
***
Naruto keeps one ear open to the chatter on the bus while the rest of her mind is consumed in her thoughts. Today was meant to be the day she would start her hand to hand combat training for classes 1A and 1B. Instead she’s been asked by Nezu to fill in for All Might who is running too behind schedule for the rescue training at the USJ. Nezu gave her a rundown on the layout of the place, and she started to look forward to seeing it for herself. That was until Nezu (who never wants Naruto to know peace apparently) encouraged her to think of ways to incorporate herself in today’s lesson. It was her understanding, however, that thinking of lesson plans would be something she’d never have to do herself. Teaching kids how to throw a punch is one thing. Beating the crap out of them with her clones; pitting them against her world class stamina; all the basic shinobi business, she could totally handle. But coming up with a lesson plan on the fly? Is that rat bastard getting a kick out of messing with her?
She met up with 1A before while they were waiting to board the bus. Her thoughts were a little too frazzled to explain her attendance to Aizawa-sensei, but he still took it upon himself and informed the class that she would be joining them and reminded them all to give her the proper respect as an instructor. She almost forgot how intimidating a teacher he could be after seeing him act in the capacity of intimidating Pro Hero over the last few weeks, but she’s quickly reminded when he uses the same voice on them that he used on her when he learned she was using her clones to go to some of her meetings (before he realized they shared memories with her of course).
“Feeling anxious?”
Naruto turns her head to meet the unconcerned gaze of Aizawa-sensei looking down at her. “Huh?”
“You’ve been bouncing your leg for a while. Are you feeling anxious?”
She’s not willing to admit it, so, brushing off the jitters, she says, “Not really. Just ready to get off this bus.” And it’s not untrue. Naruto hardly ever travels using public transit, and especially not buses. She finds that it’s much faster for her to get around by rooftop or running than it is by a bus. Aizawa-sensei of course disapproves this habit of hers unless she’s on patrol, and even then, he thinks the rooftops should be for emergencies only. He says she’ll never learn the streets if she doesn’t use them.
Her thoughts are interrupted by the shouting. She cranes her neck to see what all the fuss is about and finds that one kid, the one with the explosions, shouting at his classmates. He kind of reminds her of herself, so she can’t help but to chuckle before sitting back again. She catches the eye of Izuku and gives him a cheeky smile with a thumbs up.
The girl sitting next to him lifts a finger to her lip and calls out to her. “Uzumaki-sensei—”
“Please!” Naruto interrupts, “Please, just Naruto is fine.”
“Uzumaki…” Aizawa-sensei warns.
“Come on, I’m just not comfortable with it, Aizawa-sensei. I’m not a sensei. And it’s even my hero name, ya know,” she whines.
“Is it really the name you have settled on?”
“Yes! Of course!” She wisely closes her mouth before she makes any smart remarks about his own hero name.
He sighs, turning his head away from her. “Fine.”
She takes the victory gladly before she turns to face the girl again. If she’s not mistaken, this one has the frog quirk (something that Naruto really likes) and her name is… Naruto hasn’t memorized them all yet and is drawing a blank.
“What’s up?”
“ Kero. I was wondering, are you a Pro Hero like the rest of our teachers?”
“Yup!”
“When did you debut? I didn’t expect U.A. to have any rookies on staff.”
“Um? At the end of the year, I think it became official then?”
Another kid pipes up. This one she remembers being at the table with Izuku. “Why’d you choose your name as your hero name, Naruto?”
“Cause I couldn’t think of one, ya know? But I really like my name. I don’t really want to be called anything else.”
Except maybe Hokage, but I can’t decide to call myself that all on my own, she thinks to herself.
“So does this mean that this is your hero suit?” Izuku asks her. She looks down at her attire. It’s something she hadn’t worn in a long time until she arrived in this world: the chainmail long sleeve and tracksuit combo. She had a few spares in a storage scroll that she kept in her mission bag, something that she had been carrying with her when she appeared in this world. lt’s lucky she could still fit the top and the jacket (although both items fitted more cropped than they used to). Because they were in great shape and made of good protective materials, she was allowed to do her hero work comfortably in her own clothes. Otherwise, Nezu would have made her create a hero costume. Similarly to picking out a hero name, it was something she wouldn’t have been able to do. The pants unfortunately were too small but were refashioned by the support department so that they could be made into shorts that would fit her better. Her overcoat just made her look less casual in Nezu’s opinion, so it was added on top.
She’s so happy that she had been carrying some things from home with her so she could have some items that are familiar to her in her new life in Japan. Especially her overcoat. It might be the most memorable item she has with her.
“Yeah it is.”
Leaning slightly forward, his eyes shift towards her arm. “What are the bandages for? On your arm I mean.”
The bus rolls to a stop, lightly jostling everyone. Aizawa-sensei speaks up so everyone can hear. “Enoug conversation. We’re here.”
Naruto peers out a window to see that they have made it to their destination. She gets off the bus behind Aizawai-sensei.
Gazing up at the building in front of her, her eyes pause at the glass dome that makes up the roof. From the size of it, Naruto thinks it could fit a small village inside of it; but seeing the size of buildings in Japan no longer surprises her. The excited chatter distracts her from her thoughts once again as Thirteen greets them all and welcomes them in. Naruto walks behind the class to the opening doors. She listens to Thirteen's spiel with one ear and scopes out the inside of the USJ confirming her thoughts about it being able to fit a village inside of it.
‘It could probably be a hidden village itself,’ she thinks.
Once the spiel is over and done with, Naruto remembers that she’s meant to be taking a more active role in today’s lesson. As she chews on her lip she notices the flickering lights and the black spot emerging in the fountain. For a moment she assumes it’s All Might, making another cool and dynamic entry, that is until she notices the way Aizawa-sensei begins to tense up. She gets a glimpse of someone that's definitely not All Might peering out of the black and purple portal.
“Stay together and don’t move!” Aizawa-sensei orders the class.”Thirteen and Naruto, protect the students.”
The red head, Kiri-something, voices his confusion at the people gathering at the bottom of the stairs, but Aizawa-sensei makes it abundantly clear. “This is real. Those are villains.”
“The only real heroes here are Eraserhead and Thirteen. All Might should be here as well.” Naruto takes her time to observe all the villains filtering out of the portal. She’s had her fair share of fighting villains since Nezu allowed her to start patrolling. She isn’t nervous about a fight, but she is concerned about the intentions of these villains. Like the kid covered in ice said, they must have a clear objective for being here, and expecting All Might of all people.
“Thirteen, Naruto, get them out of here.”
“What are you gonna do? You can’t fight them on your own! There’s too many of them! Even if you nullify their quirks, your fighting style isn’t suited for this!”
“You can’t be a Pro Hero with only one trick,” Aizawa-sensei begins, “And besides, I won’t be alone. Naruto.”
Without a word Naruto creates several clones. Following Aizawa-sensei’s lead, they all jump down ready to defend against the villains. Aizawa-sensei and her have gotten used to fighting side by side. He cancels the quirks that he is able to, and sends the ones with heteromorphic quirks her way to get a good old-fashioned beat down. She has found it unnecessary to use any of her signature jutsus on her opponents thus far. And, for the sake of blending in, Naruto has taken to using only clones to make her ‘quirk’ seem more ‘quirky’. And when people question her ninja techniques (sticking to surfaces, her henge, shunshin, etcetera), well the ones who would ask are the ones too busy getting beat up to ask. Perks of working alongside Aizawa-sensei and away from the spotlight.
Really, it’s a bit overkill to pull out a Rasengan when her combat skills are enough to handle most villains she comes across. She’s seen plenty of formidable quirks, it’s just that she’s usually quicker on her feet than anyone else, and she also hits way harder and is way sturdier. From the talks she has had with Nezu, it’s another aspect of her differing biology. She’s literally built differently.
This fight goes about the same as they all have. As Aizawa-sensei sends the villain with the four arms flying with his capture gear she catches him by the head and slams him into the ground, giving him an axe-kick for safe measures. Wrapping up the next guy in his capture gear, Aizawa spins him so that he’s released right in time for a swift punch to the face from Naruto that crumples his weird face mask and leaves his face open wide for her knee to meet. Naruto’s told him time and time again:
“You’d make an awesome ninja, sensei!”
“Focus, Uzumaki.”
***
At the top of the stairs Izuku watches in awe at the teamwork that Naruto and Aizawa-sensei demonstrate. It’s like they’re a perfect match, their skills complimenting each other. Izuku looks beside him and finds that he isn’t alone in his observing.
***
Katsuki hadn't cared much about how curious his classmates were about the TA. After she came by their classroom to drop some things off for their lessons, questions about her started to crop up. They wondered who she was, what her quirk might be, why she was a TA, if she was a pro, and if she had a boyfriend (that short kid with the balls on his head). Only Deku was able to answer some of those questions since coincidentally they are neighbors. Apparently her quirk was Chakra. What could she do with it? Katsuki could care less. From what he could see about her, she seemed every bit of an airhead, like she was only good for running errands. Aizawa-sensei mentioned that she would be teaching them combat, but Katsuki didn’t see how a woman who walked around like she didn’t have a brain could possibly teach combat.
But now he could see it. Watching as Naruto, or her clones he should say, would put down the villains after only a few jabs, Katsuki could admit that his interest was piqued—just a smidge. She moves so fluidly and quickly, it looks like she was dancing while using the villains as her own personal props. He hadn’t noticed he was just standing there gawking with Deku of all people until the original grabs the both of them by their shoulders. “Come on you two, you heard sensei.”
By the time they catch up to the group, another portal begins to form from the ground, stopping Thirteen in their tracks. Naruto pushes them both into the group and moves to stand up front beside thirteen.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you. We are the League of Villains. I know it’s impolite, but we decided to invite ourselves into this haven of justice to say hello. And besides, isn't this a fitting place for All Might, the symbol of peace to take his last breath?” Gasps are heard from the group at the intentions revealed to them. “I believe he was supposed to be here today, and yet I see no sign of him. Instead, there’s you,” the villain finishes, his yellow eyes peering at Naruto.
“Sorry, I’m the sub. You can try to kill me instead, ya know?” She smiles up at the villain, seemingly honest in her offer. “I don’t think you’ll be very successful though.”
Katsuki feels himself tense before taking a peek at the TA. The chick must be out of her mind, but she’s also a bit cooler than he thought despite it.
“Well I do have a role to play,” the villain remarks. Katsuki takes that moment to launch at the villain (his classmate with the dumb hair does too he realizes). It doesn’t work, though, and soon enough they’re over taken by the Mist Guy’s quirk. Once he’s gathered his bearings, he realizes that they’ve been spread out in the USJ. Katsuki finds that it’s only him, the red head, and the TA in the Ruins Zone. She looks around confused for a moment before rolling her eyes and standing back up on her feet.
“Tch. How annoying. Come on you two,” she orders. He would be annoyed at her if not for her following up with, “Get your guards up, we’ve got company.”
He can admit he’s pleased that she didn’t ask them to stand behind her like they wouldn’t be able to protect themselves. As soon as they exit the room they landed in, they’re immediately attacked. It’s exhilarating to take care of all the villains in the building. Katsuki’s definitely worked up a sweat, but he can’t keep the corners of his mouth down no matter how ragged his breathing becomes. As he finishes off his last guy, he’s panting to catch his breath. He realizes that it’s only him and Shitty Hair standing together, the TA somewhere out of sight.
“Let’s hurry and find the rest of our class,” the redhead begins.
“Yo! You two done in there?” Katsuki turns around and finds the TA climbing through the window. She steps fully into the room and looks up at the ceiling, “One more, huh?”
Then she calmly walks up the wall and onto the ceiling before grabbing something. He’s startled when she lets herself unstick from the ceiling, maneuvering whatever was in her hands under her, and lands with the sound of breaking bones. Stepping to the side she reveals a villain with a chameleon quirk, knocked out cold.
She dusts off her hands and faces them. “Alright you guys let's go.” Then she proceeds to jump back out of the window.
“Woah, Naruto is pretty cool, right? That was so badass!”
“Shut up, dumbass!” he yells, jumping out of the window behind her.
Once he’s on his feet, he turns to find the TA has her back to them. “My clones with Aizawa-sensei were dispelled when we got warped away so he’s been fighting alone. The situation’s looking dicey so I’m gonna head over there to help him. You two should regroup with as many students as you can and escape. I’ve already sent out clones to help.”
“No way, teach, we’re going with you! I’m going to get that warpy bastard who sent us flying.”
She scrunches her nose, before shrugging her shoulders, “Suit yourself.”
She takes off running, much quicker than he was anticipating.
“Woah! So she can walk up walls, create clones, and run super fast?”
“Tch. You just try and keep up shitty hair,” he retorts before taking off.
***
Too shocked by his arm not being broken to notice the swift approach of Naruto, Izuku gets the wind knocked out of him when he’s yanked out of reach of Nomu. He’s disoriented for a moment, looking at the spot where he, Mineta, and Asui were just standing. But Asui’s been snatched up by Naruto as well as Mineta, and Izuku—his position has been swapped out for Naruto’s, her arm in the grasp of Nomu as it yanks. It’s so quiet, nothing but the sound of a limb that’s been torn from a body falling to the ground heard.
“Well, aren't you heroic?”
Izuku is expecting for Naruto to begin screaming in agonizing pain, but all she does is spin around and kicks both Nomu and Shigariki away.
“Yeah, yeah! You’re lucky that wasn’t my good arm,” Naruto says as she picks up the severed arm. The stump, he realizes, doesn't bleed at all. The arm that he only ever see’s bandaged unravels to reveal pale skin and still no blood. Naruto’s stump begins to glow a soft shade of blue before she’s attaching her limb back together and wrapping it back up. “Now I'm going to have to visit the old hag and get it fixed! She’s gonna nag and nag and nag me about it. And when I get back home, the other old hag is gonna shout her tits off about it too! I’ve got no choice but to kick your ass now.”
Soon enough the rest of their classmates who were spread throughout the USJ make their way over, a few Naruto’s mixed in the crowd before they disappear. Izuku realizes that another Naruto is tending to Aizawa sensei’s wounds with basic first aid, relieving him of the worry that he might have been dead.
“Alright, class,” Naruto begins. Everyone listens intently as she speaks, their eyes focused on her, “Let me teach you your first ninjutsu skill! Taijutsu, the art of the trained body!”
“Nomu! Kill her!”
Izuku feels his heart begin to pound as Nomu approaches Naruto, swinging its forearm to punch her across the face. Naruto lifts one hand to catch the blow before directing the arm back down to its side. It steps back before lifting a leg and aiming it towards her chest, she ducks down underneath it into a squat. She continues to dodge and parry attacks, making it very noticeable how clumsy the movements of Nomu are. It attempted another kick. Once both of its feet are on the ground again, it makes a move to run at her but in a quick burst of movement she appears behind it. The Nomu, frozen in its crouch, only stares blankly at the spot she was in a second ago.
“Showing your back so many times is very poor ninjutsu, dunce.” A sphere of whirling energy appears in Naruto's palm as she breaks into a feral smile, “I won’t do to you what my sensei did to me, but I doubt you’d like this any better.”
Nomu spins around ready to strike Naruto once more, but she’s already up in the air, Izuku watches amazed as she brings down her arm, the ball of energy in her hand blowing back her hair, and pushes it into the head of Nomu.
“Rasengan!”
Cracks begin to form in the ground under the pressure of Naruto, Nomu, and her Rasengan. Despite this, the creature is resisting her force as she pushes down. Naruto, still smiling wildly, notices this.
“I guess you need something bigger!” The energy in her hand begins to grow until it looks like it’s almost as big as Nomu. “Giant Rasengan!”
The attack eventually explodes, and when the smoke clears, it looks like Nomu has been hit with a spinning cannonball. Even still, it gets back up.
“Oh yeah! You regenerate right? Maybe I should have used this one from the beginning,” Another ball of energy forming in her hands again, this time with four points that spins so fast, it creates strong gusts of winds that even moves the water. “This one should put you down for good, big guy! Rasenshuriken!” Naruto throws the Rasenshuriken at Nomu who attempts to catch it, but only gets sent flying backwards. It skids to a halt, still trying to grasp at the attack but it only sinks into the ground as the energy must have been much denser than it appears and even more denser than the other two versions. Nomu is once again being shredded by the attack before eventually it detonates, and leaves it lying on the ground unmoving and unwhole. It doesn’t regenerate but stays in its spot, defeated, even after several seconds have passed.
“She’s a cheat! What did you do to Nomu? Who the hell are you?!” Shigaraki yells irately approaching Naruto with the intent to kill obvious in the way he’s outstretched his hands. He doesn’t get very far before he’s shot once in the hand, then in the arm and his legs, before he's quickly swallowed up in the purple mist and disappears.
Everyone’s attention rises to the top of the stairs where All Might, Snipe, and others stand watching them from above.
“Oh,” Naruto says calmly, “When did you guys get here?”
From the top of Vlad’s shoulder, Nezu answers back, “Guess you couldn’t hear our entrance over those attacks over yours huh, Uzumaki-san?”
“Guess not…”
“Great lesson plan, by the way! I can’t wait to see the rest of it! After you visit Recovery Girl, of course.”
Naruto raises her arm to rub at it like she does when she’s feeling awkward, but it falls off halfway up. She quickly catches it before it hits the ground, “Of course.”
Izuku finally breathes.
***
They’re back at school, all twenty of them present after their short break. The door opens, and they're expecting a substitute or even Naruto who seemed the most unaffected by the attack of the villains. Instead they’re greeted by Aizawa-sensei. Katsuki’s impressed, but didn’t know what he expected from such a hard-ass.
He quiets down the class, “My wellbeing is irrelevant. What’s more important is that your fight isn’t over yet.
“Our fight?” Katsuki repeats, his heart beginning to pick up speed in his chest. Only for it to stall when he mentions the U.A. sports festival. Aizawa-sensei reassures them all about the reasons the sports festival will still be taking place and why it's important in the first place.
“One chance a year. Three chances in a lifetime. No aspiring hero can afford to miss this festival. That means you better not slack off on your training.”
The class all shout their agreement, and Katsuki feels excitement beginning to build in his gut. Aizawa-sensei dismisses class just as the door slides open again. As he walks out the door, she walks in.
After seeing Aizawa-sensei dragging himself into class, he’s not nearly as surprised to see the TA, Naruto, he reminds himself, walking into the room with two arms full of paper.
“Naruto!” the class shouts again, startling the TA so much she almost drops her stack of worksheets.
“What?!” she shouts back.
“You’re here too? Man, U.A.’s staff is seriously manly,” Shitty hair says with his fist pulled up to his mouth.
“Are you alright, Naruto?”
“Yeah I’m fine, ya know.”
“What about your arm?”
“And what exactly is your quirk!?”
“Yeah it was so cool!”
“How does it work?!”
Naruto places the papers on the podium and faces the class. “Sheesh. That’s a lot of questions.”
“Let’s not overwhelm Uzumaki-san!” Iida berates. Katsuki doesn’t miss the curious gleam in his eyes as he faces forward again.
Uzumaki-san sighs before she smiles sheepishly at Deku, “Sorry, Izuku you’ve been wondering a lot about my arm right? You asked before but I never got to answer. Me keeping it bandaged has nothing to do with my quirk. It might sound a little scary, but on my seventeenth birthday, I got into a big fight with my best friend, and we ended up blowing our arms off. My—er, granny is an awesome, er, doctor and was able to create this prosthetic arm for me.”
She turns her head to look at the frog-girl, “And as for my quirk—it’s just me manipulating my inner energy. It’s called Chakra. I can use it to do a whole~ lot of things,” she pauses as she begins to walk up the wall, “such as sticking to surfaces,” she drops down, landing on her feet before her spot is taken by Deku and she ends up sitting in the desk behind Katsuki, “substitution,” another one of her pops up beside her with smoke, “shadow clones,” the clone holds her arm out so that the class can see the ball of energy forming in her hand, “and some cool Ninjutsus.”
“Wow, it really is a versatile quirk! And there are even more things you can do? Why do you call it ninjutsu? Can you stick to any surface? Does your quirk make you move at those high speeds or do you just run really fast?” Deku’s questions go on for a while before Uzumaki swaps places with him again, shocking him out of his rambling.
“You’re doing it again, Izuku. I’ll answer one of those questions,” the class seems to lean forward, mirroring Uzumaki as she leans towards them, “It’s called ninjutsu because,” she pauses for dramatic effect, “I’m a ninja.”
The class groans as some of them fall out of their seats. Uzumaki just laughs, pointing at the people on the ground with her bandaged arm.
Katsuki stares intently at it. At that moment when he made it down to where Nomu had been in the midst of pulling Naruto’s arm off, all Katsuki could think was, ‘it’s all my fault, I should have been faster, I should have been better.’ If it was a more fatal attack, Katsuki isn’t sure what he would have done with himself. For now, he can only push himself to do better. To be better. Starting with training for the sport festival. Starting with Naruto.
“Naruto,” Katsuki speaks up to grab her attention. She looks over at him, an unasked question is posed in the arch of her brow, “When are we going to learn the rest of your ninjutsu skills?”
She smiles again, “Right now if you guys are ready!” The class erupts into cheers. She raises her hand up and they quiet down, “Get changed into your gym uniforms and meet me outside.”
Ten minutes later, the entire class is waiting for Naruto to arrive, having all been done changing for a while now. Suddenly, in a puff of smoke, she appears, clicking her tongue disappointingly.
“You guys are already off to a bad start,” she says leaning up against an old barrel that had been in the middle of the dirt. She stands up straight before two clouds of smoke hide her from view. When it clears the barrel is gone and Uzumaki is standing where it stood with something folded in her hand. She slings her arm out and the object unfolds to reveal itself as a large shuriken, “The second ninjutsu skill is genjutsu. The art of illusion.”
Uzumaki throws the shuriken right at Katsuki, he moves to the side, dodging it. But before he even straightens himself back up, he hears a distinctive popping, and then he’s immediately kicked in his back. He looks up to see Naruto standing over him. “I won’t lie, I’m not very good at genjutsu, but my henge is top notch.”
She pulls him back onto his feet. “Shinobi read the hidden meanings within the hidden meanings.” She walks back over to her clone standing side by side with it before it dispels. “You see if any of you would have considered why some random barrel was just sitting out here where I told you to meet me, you might have realized it was actually me. As future heroes, you can’t just wait for the obvious next move. Not all villains will monologue to you about their evil plots. There are a lot of people out there that are smarter than you are, so you can never assume anything about anything. Shinobi are paranoid creatures afterall. You have to see underneath the underneath, ya know? Read the room, read your opponent. Don’t allow yourselves to be sitting ducks; become resourceful, sneaky, unpredictable ninjas.”
She raises one hand and they all brace themselves. She smiles, nodding her head, “It would have been better if you moved as soon as I moved, but we’ll get there. Now,” she says pulling out a bell, “this is the bell test. There’s only one bell. Whoever gets this bell, I’ll teach them the third ninjutsu skill.” She ties it to her shorts, and pulls out a timer. “You’ve got half an hour.”
“Now come at me with the intent to kill, or you’ll never get it. Got it?”
“Naruto.” Aizawa-sensei admonishes from somewhere unseen.
“Okay, just with intent, geez.” Naruto rolls her eyes. “Got it?”
“Yes ma’am!”
“Begin!”