1.12

    Second year of academy came and went.

    By now, I had relaxed somewhat. Wolf-san came to me a few times. Initiated our secret meetings with the S-rank code phrase. Asked about dreams. I couldn’t think of anything else urgent, decided keep just to those two lies. Must have looked strange. Code phrase and S-rank mission trigged my fan-girl side hard.

    I didn’t meet with the Hokage again. Emosuke was still Emosuke. Naruto pranks increased. By now, most of the academy could read, except for Naruto. He still struggled with the words. I couldn’t blame the brat. He had no one to teach him. I tried, a not insignificant amount of times during our shared lunch. He couldn’t or wouldn''t pay attention.

    I had a passable relationship with all other kids. I was the bringer of sweets. I was the quiet girl that never bothered anyone. I had a pain in the behind Emosuke still trying to prove he was better than me in everything.

    In the second year, Academy training morphed. Less games, more serious training. More focus on the shinobi rules as way of life. We had taijutsu lessons. Survival games. Camping. Throwing. The teachers also taught us how to meditate, how to sense our chakra. I used those moments to circulate my own chakra, soak my body in it between gruesome training. I think I was onto something. I was still one of the weakest in class regarding anything physical: I still refused to use chakra unconsciously like the other kids, but using chakra in between training to recover and revitalize made me capable of keeping up with class, even without chakra.

    Of my other side projects I also saw improvements. I’ve taken to using Secretary-chan as guinea pig for my cooking experiments. Whenever I could extract squeals of food happiness from the teen, I knew I had the right recipes.

    Not to say nothing happened this year. I heard rumors and gossips. Whenever I could, on my academy off days I went to a restaurant to eat, listen. Konoha’s relationship with the Kumogakure worsened. Some talked about war between the villages. I heard rumors things never calmed down after their head ninja was killed, with escalating hostilities.

    I didn’t know if that was normal for the Naruto world, or if the manga just glossed over those details, since they weren’t important for Naruto’s story. I hope butterfly-chan wouldn’t be too cruel because of my actions.

    In second year, Academy measured us based on scores. Between all the other classes in the same year. I was bottom of the barrel for anything physical. Not dead last, but close. Middle of the pack in others, with mental disciplines being the only I exceeded. That was fine by me. Even if that angered Emosuke to no end. He was top of the class, top of the year in everything. Except the subjects I still beat him. Take that, you jerk.

    Of course things like that had repercussions. The damn brat rounded me at every moment. Be it to slap me in the face that he was better, or to try surpass me when he wasn’t. I didn’t care. The kid could do whatever he wanted. It was annoying, but since I couldn’t speak, and refused to write, he often got angry by himself and stormed off.

    The gaggle of forming fan-girls however, started to give me stinky eyes. I mean, really? Aren’t these girls too precocious? I didn’t think it was anything romantic yet, but they must have grown listening to stories about the legendary Uchiha’s heir. My guess is their parents kept pestering them about Emosuke, since Uchiha Itachi was too old to be interested in these kids. Save me from impressionable children, please.