Konoha Academy :
Iruka-sensei returned to the training field much faster than anyone anticipated. His face was a mask of professional calm, though a flicker of lingering shock still haunted the corners of his eyes.
Without much fanfare, Iruka organized the remaining spars between the other students, but the atmosphere was drained of its usual competitive fire.
The bouts felt pale and sluggish compared to the lightning-fast upset they had all just witnessed. After the final pair finished their match, Iruka dismissed the class for the day with a weary wave.
Uchiha Sasuke, however, didn't returned to the The seat that usually held the "top student" remained conspicuously empty.
Naruto was packing his bag, moving with a deliberate, calm grace that felt alien to his usual frantic energy.
As Naruto zipped his Bag, he noticed a group gathering around him—the usual suspects who had somehow drifted into his orbit over the last few months.
"So, what are you gonna do today?" Shikamaru asked, leaning back against the wooden fence with his hands behind his head.
"The usual. Training ground," Naruto replied simply, slinging his bag over his shoulder. "You guys coming, or are you heading home?"
"All my snacks are finished, so I'm heading back to restock before the dinner rush," Chōji said, patting his empty hip-pouch with a mournful, hollow sigh. "A ninja can't fight on an empty stomach, but he can't walk home on one either."
"If I go home this early, my mom's just gonna nag me about chores and 'laziness,'" Shikamaru yawned, looking up at the sky.
"I'll come to the training ground. I want to find a spot to nap where the noise of the village won't reach me."
Naruto turned to the quiet boy standing in the shade, his high collar pulled up and his dark glasses reflecting the afternoon sun. "What about you, Shino?"
"I will come as well," Shino answered, his voice a steady, level hum. "Observation is a form of growth, and today's events have provided much to observe."
"Ino?" Naruto asked, glancing at the blonde girl who was lingering nearby.
"…Dad gave me a training task at the flower shop. I'm going back," Ino replied, though her voice was uncharacteristically distracted.
Her eyes drifted past Naruto, settling on Sakura and the other girls who had huddled into a tight, frantic circle. They were whispering urgently, clearly organizing a search party to hunt down their fallen "Sasuke-kun."
Ino sighed, a quiet sound of realization that she no longer felt the urge to join that particular hunt. After bidding a quiet farewell to Naruto and the others, she left the Academy gates with Chōji.
Naruto's gaze shifted, searching for one more familiar face in the thinning crowd. He spotted a small, dark-haired girl nearby—Hinata—looking equally distracted and hesitant.
For a brief moment, a flicker of pride and happiness stirred in his chest at his victory over the Uchiha. But as he looked at the empty spot where Sasuke usually stood, that feeling soured.
(Beating up a pitiful kid and feeling proud of it…) Naruto sighed internally, his shoulders slumping slightly. (Get it together, Naruto. He's just a hurdle, not the goal. Don't let a small win go to your head.)
With that thought, Naruto signaled his friends. Together with Shikamaru and Shino, he left the Academy, heading down the familiar, winding path that led toward his secluded training grounds.
The walk was peaceful, the silence of the forest beginning to replace the noise of the Academy.
Shino was the first to break the quiet. "What will you train today, Naruto-kun? "
"I'm thinking of focusing on hand seals… and something else," Naruto said, his eyes scanning the rooftops as they passed the edge of the Staff district.
"Hand seals…?" Shikamaru echoed, one lazy eyebrow lifting in genuine surprise. "Most people find those the most tedious part of the curriculum. It's all muscle memory and cramping fingers."
"Well, I want to be a Ninjutsu-type shinobi," Naruto explained, his tone serious. "If you can't fire off a technique before the other guy reaches you, all that chakra is useless."
"Ninjutsu... well, you certainly have the chakra reserves for it," Shino noted. "My bugs could feel the pressure radiating from you during the spar. It was... Obvious."
"How exactly will you train hand seals, though? It's just repetition until your fingers fall off," Shikamaru added.
"I found a scroll in the library," Naruto lied smoothly, the excuse sound perfectly natural. "I'm going to train my hand-seal speed according to a specific regimen mentioned in it. It's about nerve response and chakra flow synchronization."
"Hand-seal speed?" Shino asked, intrigued.
"It's how fast you form the signs to execute a jutsu, right?" Shikamaru clarified. "To catch an opponent off-guard before they can even react."
"Yeah. I want my speed to be at least five or six seals per second," Naruto stated firmly.
Shino stopped walking for a micro-second, his expression hidden but his body language stiffening.
Shikamaru let out a long, low whistle of disbelief. "Five seals a second? Whistle. You realize that's Kage-level territory, Naruto? Some veterans can barely hit 6 under pressure."
"Haha… well, it's a goal for the future. A dream," Naruto laughed, scratching the back of his head to play down the ambition.
"…Just like being Hokage," Shino added.
"Yup. Five seals per second… don't you think a Hokage's seal speed should be at least that much? They have to be the fastest to protect everyone."
Shikamaru looked at Naruto—really looked at him.
For years, Shino had heard the boy shout this dream until he was blue in the face. But today, the sound of it was different. It didn't sound like a desperate plea for attention.
(Is it because he defeated Sasuke today… or is there something else moving him?) Shikamaru wondered. For the first time, it didn't sound like empty bravado. It felt like a promise.
Something about Naruto was grounded and heavy now. The thought lingered in Shikamaru's mind far longer than he would have liked.
In the end, he just put his hands behind his head and looked toward the sky, watching the floating clouds. "…Dreams, huh," he whispered softly.
His voice didn't reach his friends as they kept walking. Just before they reached the training ground, Shikamaru spoke again, his voice carrying a rare note of curiosity. "Shino."
"Hum?"
"What's your dream? Not your clan duty, but your dream."
"Me?" Shino looked genuinely surprised. He adjusted his glasses, thinking deeply. When no reply came for several moments, Naruto prodded him. "Come on, Shino. We're all friends here."
"Well, I don't have a grandiose dream like becoming Hokage," Shino began slowly. "My dream is to discover and tame a giant new species of insect—one that I can ride and command. It would be a significant expansion of my clan's existing abilities and a testament to the bond between man and insect. Finding new types of bugs… it is a life's work."
"Whoaaa!" Naruto spoke with genuine awe. "A giant bug you can ride into battle? That's awesome, Shino! You'd look like a legend!"
"Hum," Shikamaru hummed in approval. "That's actually a pretty cool goal. Very 'you'."
Sharing his dream and receiving instant, non-judgmental approval made Shino's ears turn slightly red beneath his collar. He quickly turned the question back to deflect the attention. "What about you, Shikamaru? What does the smartest kid in class dream of?"
"Huh… what?"
"Your dream."
"…I have no clue," Shikamaru said, his eyes following a particularly fluffy cloud. "For now, I just want to be lazy and watch the clouds. Maybe with you all. A peaceful life, a peaceful end. That's enough for me."
Naruto and Shino looked at each other, their shoulders starting to shake with suppressed laughter.
"Pfffff! Even in his dreams, he's planning how to sleep better!" Naruto burst out.
"Ehm, don't be like that, Naruto," Shino said, though his voice wavered with suppressed amusement. "This is definitely… unique. A dream to sleep. How very… Shikamaru-like."
Shikamaru rolled his eyes as they entered the clearing of the training ground. "Troublesome. I knew I shouldn't have said anything."
The group finally reached the training ground. Putting their bags together under the shade of a massive oak tree, Shikamaru immediately headed to his usual nap spot—a patch of soft, overgrown grass he had claimed weeks ago.
Shino and Naruto headed to the target site. Shino began his usual routine of precision shuriken throwing, but he quickly noticed Naruto's strange behavior.
Naruto's grip on the shuriken was entirely "wrong" according to the Academy textbooks. Instead of holding the edge, his whole hand and fingers covered the body of the star, with his index finger hooked firmly through the center hole as an anchor.
Shino stopped his own training and observed silently.
Naruto was focused. He had realized that training shuriken accuracy the traditional way was a waste of his time—tHe needed a medium to practice the core principles of his future arsenal: Chakra Compression and High-Speed Rotation.
He was thinking about the Rasengan.
Training in the bathroom with water balloons was limited and slow. He needed to practice the "feeling" of internal rotation out in the open.
(Naruto is a genius, more than Sasuke.)
That was the belief Naruto needed to cement in everyone's minds. A genius has his own ideas and strange training methods.
Adding high-speed rotation to a shuriken might not be a revolutionary idea on paper, but it was the perfect "creative" excuse to mask his training for the ultimate S-rank jutsu.
He gripped the shuriken, letting a thin film of blue chakra coat the metal. His finger in the center became the axis. He began to force the chakra to spin in opposite directions simultaneously, compressing the energy against the steel.
(It's hard… it's not made of chakra metal, so the conductivity is terrible,)
he thought, sweat beginning to bead on his forehead.
(But it doesn't matter. It's just for the practice of the 'spin'.)
The shuriken began to hum, a faint blue glow enveloping the metal. Shino's eyes behind his glasses widened, and even Shikamaru sat up slightly from his nap to watch.
Seeing his limit, Naruto readied himself for the final step.
(Now, to make it rotate in an instant—like a flash when it leaves my hand.)
Naruto took a throwing pose like a professional baseball pitcher. With a sharp snap of his wrist and a focused burst of chakra, he let the shuriken fly.
It didn't just sail through the air; it shrieked, glowing with a brilliant blue light as it blurred into a circular saw of pure energy.
The shuriken struck the target with a sound like a physical punch.
Thumoppp!
Instead of sticking into the wood, the shuriken partially carved through the target, spinning so fast it left charred friction marks on the surface before embedding in the target .
"…Damn, so troublesome. You're going to break the targets at this rate," Shikamaru muttered, though his eyes were wide with genuine interest.
"….. Naruto-kun," Shino spoke, stepping closer to examine the damage. "Was that the 'something else' you were saying earlier?"