That day, Amai went to sleep early at 11 PM.
The sound of the alarm woke her up by force, and she immediately tucked herself back in.
'Just a few more minutes, Mom...' she thought, before realizing one crucial thing.
'Oh shit! I have to go to school today, or rather, the academy!'
With that thought, she rapidly threw off her blanket and glanced at the time on the alarm.
6:35 AM.
'Good, I still have plenty of time to prepare. An hour and a half is a lot of time.'
Amai got out of bed, turned the stove on to heat some water, and headed to the bathroom for a shower. She mentally noted to buy toothpaste later, as there was none at all, and maybe some towels, because there were literally only two of them. They'd be expensive, though. At least the toothpaste would be affordable.
After drying herself off, she dressed in the rather plain clothes she had available, then added the rice to the boiling water. She moved on to washing the wet clothes and the used towel, setting them out to dry.
There was no convenient washing machine or dryer in the apartment, so she had to make do with manual labor.
When the rice finished cooking, she took it out of the pot and served it in a bowl with some salt, along with a ration bar on the side. It wasn't much, but it was decent.
'Better than the porridge back at the orphanage, at least,' Amai thought as she finished her food.
She glanced at the clock once more. 7:12 AM.
Still plenty of time.
Amai took the bowl and utensils to the sink and tossed the bar wrapper into the trash. She grabbed the chair and cleaned up what she had dirtied.
'I hate being short. That said, I wonder if notebooks and other supplies are provided at the academy? I don't want to have to buy them too.'
She promptly finished her task, tidied up a bit more, and finally headed out.
It was still 7:30, but it was better to leave earlier.
'Don't want anyone taking the seat at the back. That's basically the perfect seat for going unnoticed and sneaking in a few naps without the sensei noticing—they probably still would, but it's worth a try!' Amai thought, snickering to herself as she held her bag.
It took around 15 minutes to get from the apartment to the academy, as it was about 10 blocks away. That time would eventually reduce as she got stronger and faster through training.
'I have to look into Fūinjutsu when I get the chance. Perhaps there's some kind of seal specifically for assisting physical training? But then again, I still have to learn how to write and read in Japanese. If I remember right, there's... Hiragana, Katakana, and the symbols used for Fūinjutsu are called Kanji, yeah?'
She had reached the academy before she could finish her thought, however.
Amai entered through the gates, and there were already a lot of people either heading to their classrooms or making small talk.
'My classroom...' she mused, walking through the hallway. 'It's classroom 5B, isn't it?'
After a while, she found it. Amai entered the door and noticed that quite a few students were already there, but luckily...
'The seat at the back is free! And it's even beside the open window. Lucky me!'
She walked all the way to the back and sat down, placing her bag on the desk.
Just as she began to settle in, though...
"Yo, Amai!" Rei yelled, entering through the door accompanied by Takuya and Daichi.
'Does this boy have no filter or common sense?! I'm trying to stay low, you idiot!'
Amai almost died inside as a few faces turned to look at her. Normally, she wouldn't care about a few kids, but this was a room full of them, so the sheer amount of attention was legitimately embarrassing.
"Hey, isn't her hair kind of weird?"
"I dunno. We all have all sorts of hair colors—like blue, blonde, uh... brown, black—but white? She looks like an old lady!"
Amai's left eye twitched.
'I should kill whoever whispered that, and hide their body in a place no one will ever find it.'
"Don't say that, Shoka. It's even whiter than that, so it's kind of cool. Like snow or something."
Something about hearing them talk felt unnatural.
'Maybe I have good hearing? No, otherwise, I would've noticed this stuff sooner. Anyway, at least someone respects me.' Amai sighed, resting her head on her desk.
"No hello?" Rei stretched out his hand, and Amai lifted her head to look at him.
Of course, Amai hadn't noticed him walking over because of how she buried her face in her desk from the shame this little menace put her through. Trying to pair an extrovert with an introvert was basically like trying to mix oil and water together.
You just couldn't.
"...Try to be quieter next time," she muttered with a small smile, greeting him. At least the whispers were gone now.
"Can we sit near you?" Daichi asked, beaming at me.
"I don't mind."
The three of them sat down. Rei beside her, Daichi and Takuya in front of them at the next available desks.
It felt slightly awkward for Amai as she did not have any conversation starters at the moment, until the classroom teacher—ahem, the sensei, walked in.
'It's Mika. Of course she'd be here.'
Albeit just a few mins late. Probably only for this time, though.
"Morning, everyone," Mika greeted us as she stepped up to the front, standing just beside the writing board. "Some of you may know me already, but for those who don't, I'm called Mika Ishikawa, and I will be your Sensei for the rest of this year. Got that?"
Most of the class answered with a firm, "Hai, Sensei!"
Of course, Amai didn't say anything and just waited for whatever was coming. She wasn't very fond of interactions after all.
"Perfect," Mika said, before continuing. "Now, I don't know nearly any of you personally, so how about you guys start introducing yourselves?"
'Oh, introductions. Guess I'll have to think of something.' Amai thought, already dreading the moment it'll be her turn.
"Let's start with me. I'm Mika Ishikawa, I'm of civilian origin, and I'm actually a retired Tokubetsu Jonin," She said with a smirk, as if showing off. "I specialize in Taijutsu, I'm a sensor and my hobbies include reading, cooking and teaching. How's that?"
Silence. The lack of reaction from her students was almost offensive.
'These damn brats! I'm a Tokubetsu Jōnin, for fuck's sake! Give me a few claps or a reaction at the very least!' She thought, her left eye twitching in irritation.
Mika sighed, resigned. "Anyway, let's move on," She pointed at one boy at the front. "You, start us off."
Then, the students introduced themselves one by one. Amai was surprised to see that the class comprised of exactly 62 students without including her, so it was actually 63. 44 of these were civilians and surprisingly, the rest were from clans.
There was 3 Uchihas, 2 Hyugas, 1 Akimichi, Nara and Yamanaka respectively, 2 Aburame kids, 2 Inuzukas, and to Amai's surprise, there was one from the Senju clan.
'Aren't the Senju supposed to be exterminated by now? Tsunade should be the only one alive from her clan. If the timeline has been messed with, then I'm pretty much screwed! I hope it doesn't affect me that much in the future.' Amai thought with a frown.
And there was also people from clans she didn't know existed. Or maybe she just didn't remember them—One from the Kurama clan, two from the Fuuma clan which was supposed to be good at Shurikenjutsu, and finally, two from the Tatsumaki clan which had a natural affinity for Wind Release.
She mentally noted to ask them for tips on it later.
Amai's introduction was quick, as she did not want to stay at the front for too long.
"My name's just Amai. I like spending time with my friends, and growing stronger."
It was really the most simple, most basic thing to say, like a side character to be forgotten in the background.
'Not like I want to socialize or make new friends either way. You'd never catch me talking to anyone out of my free will!'
All these introductions took an hour in total. Amai somewhat expected it, but promptly after that those who didn't have a parental figure were provided with two notebooks, a pencil, an eraser and just the general essentials for the year.
It was expected of them to take good care of these, as they were quite literally the only school supplies they'd have for now. If they got damaged or lost, they'd have to replace them out of their monthly stipend, which wasn't ideal for Amai at all.
They also started learning the basics of the japanese alphabet, in both Hiragana and Katakana but mainly Hiragana, because it was apparently the foundation they needed in order to get a grasp of the language's structure.
Amai found it hard to adapt as this was a completely new language, and she was thankful for the fact she didn't have to learn how to speak in it from the beginning. Japanese was hard, harder than English.
'There's just so many fucking characters. How am I supposed to learn this?!'
It was ridiculous, but she knew it'd help a lot in the long run, as it could assist with Fuinjutsu and eventually start producing her own seals.
They got small 5-minute breaks each hour, and class was finally over after five hours.
Amai bid goodbye to her friends, and made her way out of the academy.
'2 PM... Six hours of class, so that means I get around 9 to 10 hours of free time to myself each day. I'll have to manage my time carefully, and invest those hours into what's really necessary. That said, they haven't given us the schedule for this year yet, so I guess I'll have to wait for it. I'll also have to find out where Ichiraku is, as soon as possible!'
While she did want to get a job there, she wanted one thing and one thing only.
The legendary Ichiraku ramen! The one Naruto consumed on a daily basis in the series.
What kind of fan wouldn't want to try it? You'd have to be insane to not want to.
And so, she set off with that particular goal in mind.
'Current objective: go to noodle heaven!'