Second year

Standing tall and strong for the world to see the majestic trees show a fiery brilliance, revealing shimmering crimson gold leaves during these magnificent early days of autumn.

The first day of the new year at the ninja academy welcomes its students both new and old back to its halls.

A little pink haired girl who was so used to loneliness now sits next to her friend, who always seems to dress in purple despite all of her self proclaimed knowledge of fashion.

The little girl thinks these days with Ino has been the best days of her life. On March 28, her birthday, she was finally able to invite someone to celebrate it with her, she was no longer alone in this world. During summer break they spend much time together, except when Ino's family required her for summer training, during this time she also decided to train, honing the many things taught at the academy during her last year.

Sakura was also able to learn a great number of things from Ino that she would never be able to learn from a book. Gossip about different people, places, and events, how real ninja families live, and finally many things that girls are apparently just supposed to know without ever having been taught.

Sakura always used to feel awkward when talking to other people especially other girls. But over time with Ino she is able to be more confident when speaking with others.

"Welcome back everyone." Iruka-sensei smiled, "For a treat for our first day we will be doing something special."

"Oi! Iruka-sensei will we be learning some super cool jutsu!" Naruto exclaims excitedly.

"Naruto, don't interrupt!" Iruka shouted, but then he puts on a mysterious knowing grin and thumbs his nose, "But you are somewhat right this time."

The whole class becomes excited at this reveal and many are unable to stay quiet. However, Sakura wonders what Iruka-sensei could possibly be thinking. They had not even learned how to create chakra yet, at least at the academy, many ninja families had already taught how to create chakra to their children earlier. However, the academy feels there is really no need to rush to learn chakra when they were still learning the most basic of necessary skills. Learning to channel chakra is not really needed until just before they started to learn jutsu.

After the suspense, Iruka-sensei pulls a rope out from behind his back. "We will be starting to learn our first jutsu today, the rope escape technique."

At this, the excitement tapers off but does not completely go away. This may not be the most exciting jutsu and may require no chakra, but it was still a jutsu after all.

"A major tenet of shinobi is that they must escape any situation, no matter how difficult things may seem. Accordingly, this is the first jutsu taught here at the ninja academy. When the user is bound, they do what they can to escape, such as by finding a way to untie the knot or even dislocating their joints in order to get free of the bindings. Although this is the most basic of escape-based jutsu, it is still fairly complicated to perform." Iruka-sensei lectures. "As such, we will not be able to learn this jutsu in only a single day. Today, we will be learning about different kinds of knots both how to tie them as well as how to untie them."

After lecturing for a while, Iruka-sensei passes out small ropes for everyone in the class to practice together both knotting different knots as well as unknotting them.

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"For our outside lesson today we will be drilling shurikenjutsu again." Iruka-sensei announces.

"Ah really/again?/No!/What a drag(sigh)." There was general groaning at the apparently extremely boring idea of seven year olds handling sharp pointy objects and throwing them around.

Iruka-sensei grins at the complainants, "I know drilling shurikenjutsu over and over can really become boring after a while, but that is exactly the goal we are aiming for." He gives a small snort of laughter at his own incredibly bad pun. "You want your throwing skills to be so ingrained within you as to become boring. In combat, you will want to be able to throw shuriken accurately without even needing to think or consciously aim at your enemy. That is why this year we are switching away from the round targets and will be moving onto the straw men targets."

The students seems a little happier at that. The idea of human shaped targets bringing back a little interest to the idea of throwing of sharp pointy objects.

Iruka-sensei chuckles, "Soon, you will become completely used to and then eventually bored of hitting these targets as well, so enjoy it while it lasts. This is our goal for shurikenjutsu this year, being able to hit these targets without even a single thought necessary."

The goal is to let his students become completely used to killing a human shaped target, so they will not freeze up later in the midst of battle, they will be able to fight without a single thought, making them far more likely to be able to stay alive. Iruka cares a lot about his students and will teach them whatever they need to know to be able to stay alive during a real battle in the future.

Iruka-sensei then calls the first one up, "Uchiha Sasuke."

Without a single second of hesitation Sasuke throws six shuriken at once, three from each hand. Two shuriken each hit the target's head, heart, and between its legs. Making a perfect score in a single instant.

At that many of the girls in the class cheer, including Ino, and he grins back and thumbs his nose at the praise. Sakura doesn't cheer at the display with the other girls, but blushes. Despite knowing that Sasuke was just showing off, she had to admit the display was very impressive, so he had a good reason to show off. It also helps that he looks very handsome.