"Where… am I?", He looked around, his head pounding. He was in a hospital room, with a window facing a town. It looked nothing like his hometown and… was that the Hokage monument? Sure enough, there it was, Hashirama, Tobirama, Hiruzen and Minato, all etched into the face of a mountain. Had he crossed over? Who was he now? He saw his reflection in the window, a young boy maybe 11 or 12 with spiky, shoulder length brown hair and brown eyes with a scar under his right eye. No one he recognised from the manga, probably just some background charakter.
He was in a hospital with no idea what happened and in a body much smaller than he was used to. It wasn't weaker than his old body, in fact, it felt stronger. He must have been an academy student. Jumping off of the bed, he walked into the hallway, where he saw a nurse, "Hello, miss… can you tell me who I am?"
The nurse rushed over to him, "You have woken up! Did you say you don't remember your name? Oh this is bad… Here, let's go to your room again, young master"
Young master? Was he someone important? He had assumed he was just some civilian ninja but this kind of eliminated that possibility. He was led to the room and instructed to lie down. Not even half an hour later, a ninja with greying Blonde hair walked in, he wore the Yamanaka clan symbol on his chunin jacket, "I am Reji Yamanaka, I will help you remember"
Before he could interject, the chunin had already finished weaving his signs and he could feel something pushing within his mind. It was as if someone had opened a dam, only instead of water flowing in, it was memories. He remembered everything. He was Kyo Shimura, nephew to the one and only Danzo Shimura. His father was Aoi Shimura, a jonin in the hidden leaf. His mother had died giving birth to him. He was the heir to the Shimura clan, which was why he was addressed as young master by the medic nin nurse. He was in the same class as the Konoha twelve. They had one more year before they graduated. They had been training shuriken throwing when Naruto accidentally threw one in his face. What he hadn't noticed until now was that the vision in his right eye was kind of blurry.
"Do you remember now?"
"Y- yes- I'm- Kyo Shimura… where is my dad?"
"I'll call for him immediately", the Yamanaka ninja disappeared and not even 10 minutes later, his father, Aoi came rushing into his room, "Kyo! I'm so glad you are alright. That damned fox!"
"Don't blame Naruto, he didn't do it on purpose"
"But he did it, he must be punished-!"
"stop dad, I'm alright now", he assured his father, who ruffled his hair, "I must simply get stronger so that this never happens again… can you teach me dad? Clearly the academy training isn't enough"
"Of course! I'll train you after you return from the academy each day. Unless I'm on a mission, of course but my next mission is in a month, so we have a full month to get you caught up. The other clans train their children from an early age. I thought I was protecting your childhood but now I see all I did was set you up for failure"
Yeah, this body might've had a lot of talent but with only the academy training, he was just about in the middle of his class. He could be amongst the top students but the previous owner of this body was lazy. This would change!
He was released from the hospital that same day and they began strength and speed training. He was stronger and faster than the average civilian but that wouldn't be enough, so, his father crafted for him some resistance seals, "one day, when you are proficient with sealing jutsu, you can adjust the strength of these seals yourself but for now, I'll have to do it manually"
They did push ups, sit ups, jumping jacks and running with the seals on his arms and legs. They trained for the entire day and by the end of it, he was all sweaty and exhausted. Kyo took a quick shower and then went to sleep. The next morning, before he went to the academy, he ran laps in their garden in the Shimura district. The Shimura district was small, the clan had always been small but now Kyo, his father and Danzo were the only living Shimura's left and Danzo lived somewhere in the Root headquarters, so really, it was only Kyo and Aoi.
He ran for half an hour, being exhausted by the end but making it to the Academy, where he basically collapsed on his chair. He was one of the first students there, only Hinata, Sakura and a few no names were there before him.
"Are you okay, Kyo?" Hinata asked, she sat near to him. They didn't know each other but she still found the decency to at least ask, unlike the others present.
"Yeah, my day is even better now, thanks to you checking in", he flirted. He had always found Hinata quite attractive, though she was yet to grow into that woman. Naruto was such a dense idiot for never noticing. He would try to steal her for himself.
"You- Eeep!", Hinata blushed red and disappeared into her baggy clothing.
Soon, the others filed in, Naruto's eyes met his' and he looked uncomfortable, "Hey, about yesterday- I-"
"It's fine, Naruto, I know you didn't mean it"
"Is… your eye, is it-"
"Fine? No, the vision on my right is all blurry but I'll live", he raised his hand to his face. Even this simple motion was slow and straining thanks to the resistance seals.
"I- I'll treat you to some ramen… that is if- if you want to- I could understand if you- dumb question, of course you wouldn't… forget it I-", The normally so bubbly boy looked very uncomfortable.
"Sure, I'll eat some ramen with you but we'll have to do it on the weekend. During the week, my dad is training me after the academy day", he smiled at the boy.
"Really…? Hell yeah! I know just the place! You know where my apartment is? Meet me there saturday at 3 o'clock?"
"Sounds like a plan"
"Okay, everyone, quiet down. We had planned on some more shuriken throwing for today but seeing yesterday's… less than stellar outcome, we have instead decided to dive into some practice for the academy three. We'll start with the clone technique, you all know the signs Ram -> Snake -> Tiger"
Kyo did the hand seals, just like the others and in a puff, the entire room was filled with clones. Sasuke had made seven, perfectly pristine, Sakura had managed five, as did some of the clan kids, most made two or three -including Kyo who had made three- and only a select few had only managed one clone. The worst of them had subpar clones, with twisted features or looking like they had been printed with too little ink, among those, Naruto's was the worst. That boy's chakra control was atrocious. Over the next half an hour, they were asked to dispel their clones and created them anew over and over again. Some kids always had the same number and quality of clones but some others were slowly improving. Amongst those was Kyo, after the fourth or fifth time, he managed to create one extra clone, though it wasn't exactly right, the eyes were too far apart and the eyes were red instead of brown but four clones was better than three. From his memories, he knew that he was progressing much faster than he used to when it was just the original Kyo. Something in him had changed. He was improving more drastically in a shorter time. All he could suspect was that his adult mind was helping him. His Chakra reserves were also larger. Here, he knew exactly why. Chakra was a mix of physical energy and mental energy. With his adult mind, he must have more mental energy to mix with his physical energy, producing more chakra.
They were given time to rest, to recover chakra.
After that, they moved on to the transformation jutsu. Here, Naruto wasn't the dead last, in fact, he was much more proficient with it than most, as fine chakra control wasn't as important here and he could just brute force his way through the jutsu. Truly, Kyo's transformations weren't as good as Naruto's. Again, like with the clone jutsu, they were told to dissolve and reapply the jutsu over and over again and- just as with the other jutsu, he was progressing at an unnaturally fast pace. With each transformation, the object, animal or person he transformed into became more refined and harder to distinguish.
Last was the substitution technique. This was the easiest of the academy three, as such, all of them had already progressed to the perfect execution. All that distinguished them was the amount of hand seals they needed. Sasuke could do it in one, most could do it in three and the most hopeless still needed five signs. Kyo's use of the technique was in two signs, making above average in the use of the technique. By the time they graduated, they were all expected to make it in one sign. Using any more than that would mean death in battle. Naruto needed three signs, making him just about average.
After that ordeal was over, they moved on to theory.
Math, literature, history, all of it filled with propaganda, designed to make the village hidden in leaves to seem the best place in the world, the strongest, the safest and so much more. The will of fire was mentioned more than once. From his memories, he knew that this indoctrination started the day they entered into the academy. On the very first day of the academy, the Hokage himself held a speech about the will of fire. It was quite effective.
After a long -and boring- lesson about math, they were released into the village. Kyo made it to his home, where his father was waiting with a home cooked meal.
"So- what did you do in academy today?"
"We practiced the academy three", he shrugged, "I feal I improved quite a lot"
"I see, good, good", Aoi Shimura nodded, taking a bite of his roast duck, "For now, let's start with some muscle training and then finally teach you the clan taijutsu. You can't rely on the academy taijutsu forever"
"Yes dad"
They ate in silence after that. Later, they did more strength and speed training and- just like with the jutsu, he improved much faster than was natural and this time, he couldn't blame it on his adult mind. Something fundamental had changed in his body when he merged with Kyo. He improved at an inhuman speed and his muscles recovered much faster than normal.
He didn't have time to think on that however, as his father taught him their clan's taijutsu.
This taijutsu relied on speed over strength, utilizing a lot more kicks than punches.
Over the next week, he slowly began memorising the clan taijutsu. In the academy, they trained on the academy three for the whole week. He saw massive improvements to his techniques during that time. By the end of the week, he was almost on par with Sasuke in his proficiency. His teacher, Iruka sensei also noticed and- on friday- pulled him aside, "Looks like you are finally taking things seriously. Your improvements were substantial this week, keep it up, Kyo", he flashed him a smile and a thumbs up.
"Thanks sensei"
During this week, he also kept flirting with Hinata. The girl was always so shy, it was kinda cute. He liked watching her grow red.
Saturday came around and Kyo walked towards Naruto's apartment, knocking at his door at exactly 3 o'clock.
There was frantic running in the apartment, till Naruto swung the door open, a surprised look on his face, "You actually came?"
"I said I was going to, didn't I?"
"I mean yeah but… I didn't expect you to actually show up… Let me get my money and I'll be right with you", he ran back inside and came out, carrying a green frog-like wallet.
He led him to the famous Ramen Ichiraku.
"Oi old man Teuchi, we are hungry, two miso ramen please"
The thirty-ish Teuchi walked towards them, "Brought a friend today? Good for you kid"
"We aren't- well not officially at least or-", Naruto turned to Kyo, who stayed silent, neither confirming nor denying their friendship.
When the ramen was served, Kyo practically melted at the taste of the food, it was divine. He could understand why Naruto loved this food this much.