10

The reactions to Kushina after her introduction varied between the students. Murmurs could be heard throughout the class.

"Hey, have you ever seen anyone with her hair color before?" One student asked another student.

"No, but I remember my father telling me once that the wife of Shodaime-sama has red hair." Said student replied.

"She's cute." One boy stated, several other boys agreed with him.

"Such an odd hair color."

"She's pretty tall for a girl, I think she's taller than most of the boys!"

"Hey Inochi! Shikaku! What do you guys think about the new girl?" A young Choza Akimichi asked his two friends while eating a bag of chips.

Choza's hair is also red, however everyone knows it's a hair-piece of sorts. His natural hair is brown. This is why Kushina's hair sticks out because as far as they can tell or assume, Kushina's red hair is her natural hair color. 

Although the children who come from Shinobi clans/families know most members of the Uzumaki Clan have red hair. So it's not surprising to them, what's surprising is seeing there's actually a survivor of the Uzumaki Clan. 

"I've actually seen her around the village a couple times, from what I can tell she's a dedicated person." What Inoichi didn't say is that he can sense the amount of chakra Kushina has. Never did he believe someone his age could have such an immense amount of chakra.

"Troublesome, I saw her before too. I get the feeling she's going to be a very troublesome girl." Shikaku yawned. From his own observations, Shikaku knew Kushina was different. He could see the confidence in her stance and eyes.

"Really? This is my first time seeing her. She seems nice." Choza said.

Shibi said nothing, however his insects screamed at him to avoid Kushina. This told him that she was much stronger than their sensei because his insects never reacted this way to Nikita-sensei.

Tsume felt her instinct warning her to not antagonize Kushina. She realized that Kushina was definitely an alpha, more so than Minato. 

'Her chakra…how is it possible for someone to have more chakra than the Hokage? This girl's chakra feels a lot stronger and looks denser than Hokage-sama's chakra.' A young Hiashi Hyuga thought to himself as he stared at Kushina using his Byakugan.

He quickly turned it off and turned his head when he saw Kushina make eye contact with him. This left him feeling a bit embarrassed for getting caught.

Hizashi, the twin brother of Hiashi, shared similar thoughts as his brother.

Jinta Uchiha, who looked like a typical mob character, snorted as he didn't see what the fuss was about. In his mind, Kushina is no one to worry about. Only Minato is better than him. 

Speaking of Minato, the young blonde-haired boy was stunned by Kushina's unique hair color. He didn't understand why he felt like this so suddenly. While he did agree that Kushina is cute, he felt this was a bit much.

Forcing himself to move past the moment, Minato noted something about the red-haired girl. 'She seems strong.' He thought to himself.

"She looks like a tomato." One boy suddenly called out, his comment drew laughter from other students.

Kushina rolled her eyes at the joke, she expected this considering the original Kushina was also called tomato.  She did inherit the same Uzumaki temper that her canon counterpart had, but it was pointless getting upset over such a small thing. Unlike her, these ignorant brats are actually kids. More mature than normal kids, but still kids nonetheless. 

Over half of them will be lucky to make it as a shinobi or live past this war. 

"Enough!" Ise raised his voice sternly, the students quickly became quiet. "You may sit at any empty seat Kushina." He addressed the Uzumaki. 

Kushina nodded, she walked up the steps to choose a seat.

Minato was surprised when she sat next to him. 

Little did he know, Kushina sat next to him on purpose. She has plans for Minato and needs to establish a friendship with him. "Hey, I hope you don't mind me sitting here? I'm Kushina." She asked as if she hadn't already sat down.

"It's fine I don't mind at all, I'm Minato Namikaze, it's nice to meet you Kushina-san." Minato replied with a grin.

"Now, let's continue the lesson…" Ise said out loud.

XXXXXXXXXXXX 

'It seems I underestimated the quality of Konoha's basic curriculum. The math and science subjects were a little more advanced than I expected. Still it's nothing a regular middle schooler from a regular earth couldn't easily ace.' Kushina thought to herself as she walked out of the academy. 

Her first day was over after several hours, she found going to the academy very boring. She's glad she already planned on sending clones to attend classes for her in the near future. It's a miracle she didn't fall asleep like Shikaku did. 

'By now Duy-senpai should be done with his daily training. I should let him spend time with Fina-san alone since she's pregnant. I guess I'll go eat a bowl of ramen before training.' Due to her Gura Gura no Mi, she's able to subtly channel small vibrations from her feet into the ground to read the vibrations of the planet. A little trick she picked up recently that allows her to use the same seismic sensing ability Toph Beifong uses.

While Observation Haki essentially does the same thing as seismic sensing, for as hax as it can be, Observation Haki has its weaknesses. Even the Mind's Eye of the Kagura isn't 100% full proof. It might seem overboard but Kushina wanted to have multiple sensory techniques to utilize. 

Her seismic sense is very useful, by now she has enough mastery that she no longer needs her bare feet to touch the ground to use it. 

Just as Kushina was about to think about her progress over learning Hashirama's mokuton jutsus, a voice called out to her. 

Hey, Kushina-san! Wait up!"

Of course Kushina was not surprised to hear Minato's voice. She sensed him tailing after her even before she left the academy.

"Why are you following me Minato? You're not a stalker are you?" She joked as she turned around to look at him.

"Of course not." Minato denied. "But you seemed to be thinking deeply about something, I didn't want to interrupt you. Plus you were walking really fast and it took me a bit to catch up." Minato knew he was fast, however somehow Kushina was outpacing him even when he was jogging trying to catch up. 

'Was I walking that fast? Hmm didn't seem like it.' Kushina wondered. "Well? Anything you needed?"

"U-Ummm I was wondering if you wanted to hang out? We didn't get much of a chance to talk today during class." Minato asked.

"Sure, I was heading to get some ramen. You can tag along if you want." Kushina grinned.

Minato lightly blushed seeing Kushina's smile. "Didn't you have ramen during our lunch period?" 

"Your point?" She retorted with a raised eyebrow.

The blonde boy felt a sudden sense of danger, so he decided to not further his line of questioning. "Nothing, nothing at all."

"Then let's go!" Kushina grabbed his arm and dragged him along.

'Sorry Minato, I like women so I gotta put you in the friend/brother zone.' She chuckled mentally.