Both Naruto and I entered the Konoha ninja academy when we were six but by no means were we at the bottom of the class. All of my tutoring had done wonders for my yellow haired friend as he was much to the confusion of our teacher Iruka for some reason actually ahead of the rest of the class slightly. I got in trouble a lot for the first couple years since I was lazy and only did the bare minimum to pass. We had a total of thirty four classmates but I only ever bothered to remember the names of twelve of them.-
Naruto, Ino, Sakura, Sasuke, Tenten, Rock Lee, Hinata, Neji, Shikamaru, Kiba, Shino and Choji. The rest of our classmates were boring and plain so I forgot about them as soon as they introduced themselves. Even amongst the twelve I did remember the names of the only ones I really didn’t have trouble ignoring the existence of was Naruto, Sasuke, Kiba and Shino. Naruto for obvious reasons , Sasuke because he was a pain in my backside after Teacher Iruka pointed out I wasn’t taking him seriously in our spars. Kiba and Shino because they were “family” according to my parents and regularly came over after their own parents learned we were in the same class.-
Kiba got really mad when he found out my wolf-dog beast was also named Kiba and we had a whole argument about it, I won. Shino was rather introverted and quiet with very little presence in any given scenario and tended to get ignored as a result. He was a big fan of Ren though so we got along just fine. This wasn’t to say I didn’t get along with the others only that I didn’t go out of my way to interact with them.-
There was two people however that I tried my absolute best to avoid talking to in the form of Ino and Sakura who were both fangirls of Sasuke and as a result not fans of mine at all. Sasuke was from the Uchiha clan, the patriarchs son no less, and was a female favorite amongst the girls of our year and then some. The problem however was that the boy had this complex about living up to his families expectations and saw me as an obstacle to overcome. Some nonsense about not being the best in our class if he couldn’t make me fight him seriously.-
What only I knew however was that much less him I was pretty sure in terms of sheer strength I had even our teacher beat by a wide margin. I’m not talking skill because I will be the first to admit I was a novice in that regard no better than any of my other classmates. No I am talking about my body that had been in sage mode since I was born and as a result had been growing with that as my base.-
In terms of chakra volume I was just under Naruto who had freakishly massive reserves and physically speaking I could uproot a tree with nothing but my bare hands and some exertion. I know this because I had actually tried it at one point in secret. Compared to Sasuke who paled at a hundred or so pounds of purely physical lifting without using chakra to enhance his strength I was far beyond him. The funny part was that everyone seemed to think I was secretly training all the time or something like that but I barely had the drive to move much less do something as monotonous as train.-
I didn’t really need to train either as since my body was perfectly balanced and my mind was clear and quick I rapidly improved in all the basic ninja techniques and information with just the minimum effort I needed to show to get Iruka and my parents off my back. Basic classes, easy. Handsigns and their meanings, piece of cake. Taijutsu, not worth mentioning. Shuriken and ninja tool use, top tier. It had been widely accepted by my second year in the academy that the only reason I wasn’t at the top of my class or skipping grades was because I was too lazy to give that amount of effort.-
As it turned out that drew the attention of someone I really didn’t want the attention of, the Hokage. We got a two week break between each year and one afternoon while I was hanging out with Naruto he just randomly showed up.
“Hey Kenzo you think Iruka sensei will try and make you skip a grade again?” Naruto asked between mouthfuls of ramen from Ichiraku.
*Slurp* “Nah, I’m sure he gave up on convincing me to do that by now. It would be weird if he didn’t, I can only tell him no so many times before it starts to make him look dumb.” I said as I finished my third bowl of spicy seafood ramen.
“Oh ho? So you must be Kenzo-kun then, Iruka has been complaining about you to me for a while now.” A older voice spoke as the long curtains of the ramen shop rustled from being moved.
Naruto and I looked over at the source of the voice and there stood an old man with a spike of hair on his wrinkled chin and the wide red hat with white sun shade curtains on the side and a white area with the word “HOKAGE” written in bold red against the white.
“Gramps what are you doing here?” Naruto asked confused and my jaw dropped.
“Your grandpa is the third Hokage!?” I exclaimed since my friend had left out that little detail.
“Ho Ho! Naruto’s parents left him in my care before they passed away please just treat me like anyone else.” the old Hokage said with a chuckle.
I frowned however “Then you are the one responsible for his current conditions then?” I asked with a not so friendly tone.
Naruto lived in a low income apartment and barely got enough money a month to survive on cheap food and junk. Not to mention that people still glared at him and treated him poorly even after i started hanging around and “kindly” convincing them of his good nature. Needless to say learning that someone, Hokage especially, was supposed to be taking care of him yet he lived in that condition left me less than happy, No I was VERY unhappy. My anger must have caused my power to slip out a little as the wood counter creaked and began to crack under my grip as I stared the old man down.-
He smiled though and sat down next to us “Narutos lucky to have you as a friend. I admit that I regret much of what Naruto has had to deal with but much of it was also out of my hands as well. He was orphaned when the nine tails attacked all those years ago much like yourself. But you need to understand that with the fourth Hokage lost I had to pick up the pieces and simply didn’t have the time to spend ensuring Naruto got a proper upbringing while restoring the village as well and I cannot apologize enough for it.” he said with honest remorse.