She was given a small apartment of her own. Right next door to Ibiki, who frequently left interesting books on her doorstep. Sometimes he'd invite her over for lunch, because he knew she couldn't cook to save her life, he claimed. She knew better. It was to continue playing their little game of ask and answer. The questions were different now, more concerned with her progress and how she liked Konoha, and less with what had happened to her in Orochimaru's care.
Naru didn't quite understand that Ibiki was actually concerned for her wellbeing until Weasel took the time to explain it to her. After three months he also told her that he no longer had official orders to watch her and wouldn't be able to visit as often. It made her sadder than she could reasonably explain. Weasel was one of the few guards that bothered talking to her at all. Most, like Hound, had perfected the art of using the least amount of words necessary to give instructions and generally kept at a distance, and some, like Cat, never made a sound at all.
Weasel though would sit at a table and read books with her. He'd discuss the theory and explain what she didn't understand, so that she might catch up to the Academy kids her age faster. She wouldn't actually be allowed to go to school with them, but the Hokage had promised she could take the graduation exam at the same time. Her exam wouldn't be the same because she would have to demonstrate all the things the other children got tested in over the years as well, but if she managed she would receive a hitai-ate like everyone else.
Learning with Weasel was very helpful. He knew a lot of tricks the books never even mentioned. For example, when one was pretending to be a civilian it was important not to completely suppress one's chakra. That would make other shinobi suspicious because even people without training had a certain amount of chakra. Weasel was usually polite and friendly, sometimes he would even joke around or laugh with her, but under all that he hid a deep sadness. Naru had asked about it once, but he'd told her not to worry. Apparently the information was classified, so he wasn't allowed to tell her, but it would be fine in the end.
She trusted him, he'd never been wrong before. So when one day—about three months before her ninth birthday—a note appeared on her desk that said to become strong enough to keep herself safe, she promised the empty room she would do whatever it took. It was the last time she heard from Itachi Uchiha.
The paper called it a tragedy. The Uchiha Massacre. The sad tale of a young prodigy who had snapped under the expectations of his clan, who couldn't handle the pressure and rebelled in the only way he knew how. Naru had snorted derisively at that particular phrase. Murdering a whole clan was not something a rebellious teenager just did to cope with life. Especially not Itachi who hated nothing more than violence.
It was a little as if the journalists couldn't quite decide whether to mourn the loss of one of the founding clans at the hands of its brilliant heir or whether to pity the boy himself. Apparently the Uchiha had been blamed, only in whispers of course, for the attack on Konoha and the death of the Yondaime Hokage a little over eight years ago. Naru hadn't even been a year old at the time, so she didn't know what had actually happened and records on the matter were few and far between. Whatever the Uchiha did or didn't do to deserve their death, it was buried deep beneath a mountain of classified files.
One day, Naru promised herself and Weasel, she'd be high enough in the ranks to uncover all the hidden truths. For now however she had to learn enough to become a genin.
Both Hound and Cat, as if in silent agreement, began visiting Naru the day after Itachi was officially declared a nukenin. Cat, as was her habit, never said a word. Sometimes she'd nod in greeting when she passed Naru and other times the ANBU would escort her home after a long day in the library. The visits were short and occurred in irregular intervals. The time in between lengthening over the course of a year until they stopped completely.
With Hound it was the opposite. He was silent and reserved at first. Never acknowledging that he was even aware of her presence. He just happened to be there whenever she got lost exploring the village or ran into people of dubious reputation. She knew better of course, was familiar enough with his chakra signature to notice it trailing her without even trying.
She made a game out of slipping the tail and then attempting to surprise him. The first worked often enough. Itachi's tips and her ability to sense and manipulate chakra made it quite easy. The second though was harder. It turned out Hound had some actual hounds and hiding scent when sneaking up on someone was a lot more difficult than getting lost in a crowd at the market.
The first time Naru couldn't sense Hound for a whole month she'd been afraid he had grown tired of the game and decided to move on like Cat, but then one of his ninken had found her. A grumpy little pug—Pakkun was his name—let her know that Hound had been on a mission that landed him in the hospital. He'd also snuck out, which was apparently a common occurrence. The pug asked her to deliver some food because the dogs could only help so much and Hound was being a stubborn idiot. That was how she learned Hound's real name was Kakashi Hatake and that he could play dead quite convincingly.
Pakkun helped her break into the flat without killing herself by setting off any traps. He also explained that suffering from chakra exhaustion wasn't a rare thing for Kakashi, but that it usually wasn't quite as bad either. She lived in his flat for a week, getting food and keeping watch until he was strong enough to take care of himself again.
He never thanked her, just claimed he was an adult and could look after himself. He did, however, come to her flat instead of crawling into his own when he escaped the hospital the next time. One of his dogs also just happened to run into her whenever Kakashi would be gone for more than a handful of days.
Curiously enough, Hound, or any of the ANBU really, was one of the few topics Ibiki never brought up when they had lunch together. It was possible he didn't know how long they had been around, or in Hound's case still were, she supposed. Naru had never been under the illusion that her flat being right next to Ibiki's was a coincidence. He had clearly been under orders to keep an eye on her as well, but those orders had only lasted for three months according to Itachi. Now when Ibiki asked how she was or if she needed anything it was because he wanted to know, not because it was his job.
The head of T&I wasn't as good a teacher as Itachi had been, but they managed. The first thing he made her learn was Konoha Standard. A simple encryption that wasn't classified. It could be used in many ways, for example tapped out as an audible code or written down as encoded messages. Ibiki insisted the best way to learn codes was to use them, so sometimes they would have whole discussions without saying a single word.
Kakashi thought it was too annoying when there was no actual information that had to be kept secret. His ninken indulged her though. The ones that couldn't speak the human language were more than happy to in fact.
4On the eleventh of January, the year after Naru's twelfth birthday, it was finally time to take her graduation exam. Between the tips Itachi had given her and the lessons she managed to annoy out of Ibiki and Kakashi over the years it was surprisingly easy.
First they had her fill out a written exam and then prove her physical abilities. For the latter Naru had to complete an obstacle course that involved anything from swimming, to running, with a little bit of climbing and using chakra to walk up walls sprinkled in. Judging by the face of the teacher who oversaw that test, she hadn't actually been expected to be able to do that last one.
Next was ninjutsu. For that she had to demonstrate hand seals as they were called out. Then she had to watch increasingly longer sequences, memorize them and repeat them back. At some point the teacher started using seals she had never seen before and the sequences got so long that she couldn't remember the end, that was when they moved on to the next test. Namely demonstrating Transformation and Clone techniques. Those were especially hard. Not because she didn't know how, but because wrestling her chakra into them always felt wrong. As if she was trying to force a somewhat oval ball through a round hole that was just a little too narrow. It worked in the end, but if she did it too fast or too often it would hurt. Nothing major in the beginning, just slight cell damage caused by chakra burn. It healed fast enough, but she knew from experience that it would get exponentially worse if she didn't rest long enough in-between using jutsu.
After ninjutsu came genjutsu. First she had to tell when she was and wasn't being influenced by one. Or at least that had been the plan. In reality her own chakra reacted rather violently to foreign chakra in her system. Which meant that minor genjutsu, like the one she was supposed to spot, were dispelled almost before they took hold. If she didn't pay attention she couldn't even tell that someone had tried to put her under one. Stronger genjutsu she had to actively dispel herself, but because her chakra reacted to those as well she didn't miss a single one. The teacher gave up after a while and told her to perform a genjutsu instead. She had a feeling that was another one of those things he didn't expect her to be able to do.
He was almost right. Naru knew just one genjutsu and even that only because Kakashi had used it on her a few dozen times, not because he had actually been trying to teach it. It was called the Hell Viewing Technique and made someone see their greatest fear. The jutsu only worked over short distances and wasn't particularly convincing because the fear just suddenly appeared, but it would do. Kakashi had used it on her to test her innate defense against genjutsu and to make sure she wouldn't suddenly go into shock or become violent if she saw something that reminded her of life as one of Orochimaru's experiments. The teacher overseeing the graduation exam—his name was Iruka Umino —didn't seem quite sure whether he should be happy or sad that she passed that test as well.
It confused Naru a little. He'd wished her luck before they had started. That had been genuine as far as she could tell. Yet during the actual exam, whenever she did a little better than he expected, it made him uncomfortable.
Her last test was a sparring match, taijutsu only, against a different teacher. He didn't give a name, only said he specialized in training other ninja. The fight didn't go very well for her. It started out slow, but whenever Naru landed a blow or dodged one of his he would speed it up a little. She had never been very strong, even with the help of chakra to augment her muscles, so the ninken had focused on making her fast instead. She could run with them for hours at a time, but this man was always a little faster than her. In the end she had to concede defeat.
They made her wait outside for an hour, presumably to look over her written exam. It was well worth it though. When Iruka opened the door again he handed her a hitai-ate—her very own!—and made her officially a shinobi of the Leaf.
Three days later Naru found herself in an Academy classroom for the first time. There were twenty-nine other children, half of which gave her odd looks. They probably all knew each other, whereas she was an outsider. The new girl to join the class on the last day of school. She wasn't the only one being stared at though. There was a loud, blond boy in the room who had apparently failed the exam and then managed to graduate anyway. And after a while she noticed some people whispering about another boy at the back of the room. He was very pale and the smile on his face seemed oddly frozen in place. There was quite a bit of space around him and he seemed to be new as well.
"Do you mind?" Naru asked, pointing to the empty seat on his left. She wasn't about to make herself a nuisance if he preferred to sit alone, but there weren't that many free places to sit and most of the other children weren't nearly as calm as him.
"Mind what?"
At first she thought he was mocking her, but he looked genuinely confused, as if he really didn't understand the question, so she explained it to him. It was a little bit of a struggle. Apparently he took phrases quite literally and had never even heard of idioms. The boy, Sai, did know a lot about the rules and regulations though. Naru appreciated the distraction, even if his behavior was a little odd. They were in the middle of a discussion about when breaking a rule might be appropriate—never, according to him—when Iruka entered the room.
The teacher gave a little speech about what it meant for them to officially enter the shinobi force. He explained that they would be divided into three man teams and assigned to a jonin sensei. Some of the children looked surprised by that announcement, which was really weird considering how many books Naru had read about this policy. Konoha was practically famous for her focus on teamwork. Iruka didn't pay any attention to the reactions, instead he simply began to list the members of each team.
There were some big names among the graduates. Team 8 and Team 10 were actually entirely comprised of clan heirs. Both of Sai's teammates on the other hand had last names that didn't mean anything to Naru. One was a boy with mousy brown hair that seemed completely unremarkable. The other was a girl who wore a red dress that clashed horribly with her petal pink hair. She—and most of the other girls really—had protested rather loudly when Naru was assigned to Team 7 with one Uchiha Sasuke. They had calmed down a little at the announcement that the other member of Team 7 would be Menma Uzumaki though. Not that Naru had cared, she was way too horrified by the fact that Kakashi would be their sensei.
She liked Kakashi. Really. He was pack. He was the one who taught her about pack. But he was also a horrible teacher, who ascribed to a figure-it-out-yourself philosophy. Naru had probably gotten more actual lessons from Pakkun than from Kakashi, and that pug was one cranky little dog.