After the entrance exam, students were given a week to buy the necessary items for the academy, and also for the children who only now unlocked chakra, to get accustomed to it.
It was a small attempt to bridge the gap between the clan born kids and the rest, but an attempt nonetheless.
The main reason why civilians weren’t given the method to extract chakra ahead of time, was that it was dangerous to do unsupervised.
Most clans had adults to observe when their children were attempting to mold chakra so they won’t go overboard.
And the clans with bloodlines had an even more unfair advantage, being able to extract more than average chakra.
The days following the entrance exam, Kushina made it a mission to invite the 2 other girls so all 4 of them could play together.
She even invited them when Mito took them to buy the supplies necessary for the academy.
After her talk with her father, Mikoto opened up alot more to the three.
She still wasn’t accustomed to the notion of friends, but the effort she made was visible.
By the third day, Mikoto told them about her mother, confirming Akira’s guess.
She was a kind woman, a healer, one who was a chunin in a team with two other jonins and not in the police force.
Rare, but not unheard of, and that was how she met her husband, Mikoto’s dad.
Unfortunately she died a year ago, when Mikoto had turned five.
It was supposed to be a routine mission.
Patrol near the boarder between Konoha and Kumogakure.
During one of their patrols, they met a Kumo squad who, attacked after seeing their identities.
Kumo was famous for trying to steal bloodline limits.
They tried to steal Kushina when she was younger in canon, and they also tried to take Hinata.
Kumo ninjas getting excited over the sharingan, one of the most powerful bloodlines in the world, was no surprise.
The fight was intense, but they managed to hold their own against the Kumo squad, at least until one of the Kumo ninja used a genjutsu.
It was aimed at the last person on Mikoto’s parents team.
Mikoto’s mom didn’t even hesitate, quickly activating her own genjutsu, via sharingan, she incapacitated her opponent and went towards her teammate.
Trying to retreat with her injured teammate, and her husband bringing up the rear, she missed the explosive kunai thrown her way.
The impact was brutal, instantly killing her teammate while giving her fatal wounds.
Her husband immediately came to support her, but was too late.
Her last wish was for him to take care of Mikoto.
Eventually her dad came back, and when he told her the news, it broke her, enough to awaken the sharingan.
When her sharingan opened, it evolved straight to the 2 tomoe stage, showing both her immense love for her mother, and her talent.
Her father told her to keep it a secret, especially from the clan, because they would try to mold her into a weapon.
Mikoto never did learn how her dad was able to deal with the remaining ninja, he always brushed it off saying they retreated after realizing they crossed the border, but she held doubts that he would let them go after killing his wife.
Akira was the same, but he held his tongue.
It wasn’t his place to ask about topics like that, especially since he and Mikoto were quickly becoming good friends.
After sharing that piece of information, Mikoto looked visibly lighter.
Her talks became smoother, less forced, and she started to look like a regular girl with her friends.
During one of their outings though, to the river, the Uchiha kids who messed with them at the school came knocking.
“Well, well look who it is. Didn’t I tell you that you’d regret it white hair, prepare yourself, you got no grandma to protect you here.” The leader sneered.
Both Akira and Kushina, with their sensing abilities, had sensed them easily.
Honestly even without it, Akira could have spotted them, six year olds weren’t exactly masters of stealth.
Since they were following them to a relatively isolated location, and Akira really wanted his chance to beat up some young masters, he told Kushina to ignore them.
Seeing the Uchiha kids, Mikoto tensed for a second, then her resolve hardened.
After spending some time with Akira and the girls, she genuinely came to see them as friends.
Inspired by Akira’s words that day, she wasn’t about to let some third rate villains come ruin that friendship.
“Did you guys really follow us out here just to try and beat us up? Do you not have literally anything better to do with your time than to act like schoolyard bullies.” Akira asked, genuinely puzzled.
‘Were these kids that dedicated, to stalk Mikoto and find out where we play just because we didn’t listen?’ He thought.
“Well, your pride seems awfully low if you got insulted by the fact that we decided to choose our own friends.” Akira continued, his gaze getting colder.
“We’ll show you, c’mon guys.” He said, charging at Akira.
All five kids rushed in, two going to Akira, while the other three, towards the girls.
Akira easily sidestepped the swing from the first kid, and redirected the other.
He didn’t activate the sharingan because he wanted to test his base dynamic vision.
Minato had amazing vision to be able to use the hiraishin the way he did, Akira wanted to see if he also had that ability.
With the breathing technique now constant, his physical abilities were higher than anyone his age, so with the test in mind, Akira focused on dodging the 2 kids.
While dodging he even had the leisure to look at the girls fights.
He wasn’t worried about them one bit, he knew how amazing they were, and how much time they spent training.
Kushina, with her usual high energy, completely overwhelmed her opponent with attacks.
For some reason, she found inspiration in Tsunade’s ‘one punch to solve everything’ fighting style.
After ducking under a punch, she came up with a fist to her opponent’s gut.
Then she started reigning down blows, a fist to the arm, one to his face, a kick to the leg, she wasn’t giving him any room to breathe.
Where Kushina was loud, Hana was precise.
Her fighting style with the gentle fist was lethal to her 6 year old opponent.
Even without her byakugan active, she was hitting nerve clusters along the boys arm that caused him to yell in pain.
After a wild left hook from her opponent, Hana quickly delivered three attacks to his arm, rendering it useless, dangling at his side.
Mikoto’s fight was more structured, she easily blocked or dodged any attack aimed at her, and countered with force.
After redirecting an attack, she delivered a nasty right to her opponent’s rib.
He then tried punching her in the face, missing, only to follow up with two more strikes aimed at her body.
Mikoto, blocking them both delivered a roundhouse kick to his head.