Chapter 43: Chapter 41 Snow!? In the land of fire?
On a random day, the lone figure of a young boy wearing heavy clothing; could be seen running around the hidden leaf village.
It was easy for anyone to see the young boy running down the streets since they were mostly empty.
Why is that?
Most chose to stay indoors due to how cold the weather was on this specific day.
Though, some had no other choice but to venture outside regardless of the weather.
Homura, could be counted among those.
The lonesome figure of Homura running on what seemed like a white background was quite an easy sight to catch; for anyone who happened to be looking his way when he came passing by.
-Crap! I'm late! Why did I agree to meet with Naruto under this weather?!... I should really start paying attention to what I answer people that I don't care about.
Homura usually pretends to listen to people when they are talking to him, and uses phrases such as: "Oh sucks! No way! You know it! Dude! For sure! You have to!"
To give the illusion that he is having a conversation with them.
It is not a flawless method, there are plenty of drawbacks.
One of the said drawbacks meant agreeing or disagreeing with whatever people would be talking to him about at the time.
Such is the reason why, Homura, was currently rushing to meet Naruto under such cold weather.
-(Normally I'd just blow anyone else away, but Naruto is my bro. By that, I mean one day we will share DNA. Can't let go of such a big cow now.)...! It should be around here. - said Homura, while stopping and looking around.
Homura stopped running as soon as he had arrived near a swing set within a forest... or at least what was left of it.
It was currently winter in the land of fire.
As such, most trees had lost all their remaining leaves.
Leaving behind, a sea of seemingly dead and dried-up trees.
-Hm? Where is Naruto? Is he late?
As Homura arrived a tad bit late, he was sure that Naruto would at least be nearby.
Thus, Homura continued to search for a glimpse of Naruto's figure, but no matter how much he did; the young boy was nowhere to be seen.
-That f*cking bastard!...no, calm down...
Seeing that he was starting to overreact, Homura, tried to remain calm because there was no other way to proceed in this situation.
-I'd go home... but gotta think about the future *sigh*
Naruto was starting to become the bane of Homura's existence but not being in the same class as Naruto at the academy... will only cause more problems for him. However, was that truly right?
-...Do I really need him at this point in time? (... With all the training I've been doing I should be good enough to be in the same class, right? That's how Guy-san got into Kakashi's class... isn't it?)
Homura was debating if he was technically good enough to probably be in Naruto's class; without having to tug at Hiruzen's nepotistic heart.
He was currently in better shape than most children his age, thus it should allow him to enter the academy without any issues.
At least in a physical sense.
In the anime, although not a fully trusted source of knowledge for him to base his entire reasoning on... there were a lot of filler-type episodes that addressed this part of Naruto's life.
Although he hadn't really watched any of those episodes... He had seen Naruto's classmates and frankly... He wasn't impressed by most of them.
They didn't seem to be able to do anything and most looked like background characters... in other words, they did not seem like Konoha's finest.
Such was probably the reason why none of them appeared at a later time besides the ones who came from the main clans and Sakura.
Although he thought that, he could not completely trust what he had been shown... from the tidbits of memories he had, he didn't recall seeing them fight or do anything...
However, their numbers would sometimes be about 20 students in one memory, to double in size in the next memory... which meant he could not fully trust the depictions that he had in mind.
There were simply too many discrepancies for him to fully trust anything.
Besides, the anime had its own set of can of worms.
In the anime, the host of the 6 tails had met Naruto in a story arc.
While in the manga, the only time that they had met was when he was an edo tensei summon...
Still, it is technically possible that they had met prior to that event.
However, the way the story was portrayed in the manga; such a possibility is very unlikely.
Even the scenes in the manga and anime were slightly different in depicting the moment they met during the war arc.
The anime seemed to acknowledge that they knew each other while the manga did not.
It wasn't the only discrepancy between the anime and manga, mecha Naruto is a good example of this phenomenon, however, if we were to list every single phenomenon the entire timelines may become unrecognizable.
So in conclusion, anime and manga might be different worlds or interpretations of the same story, there is no clear way to tell what can or cannot apply to this specific world.
Thus, Homura was reluctant to take too many chances, especially when it could backfire and endanger his plans for no good reason.
Not only that, but Sasuke and the other clan heirs seem to have been in the same class since the very beginning.
Perhaps this meant that classes stayed the same throughout their time within the academy.
Whatever the reason or truth of the situation might be, he could not take the chance of not being in the same class as Naruto from the get-go.
But his biggest fear was; that there was a little bit of possible corruption in Konoha or at least biases when it came to assigning classes...
At least, that seemed to be the case for the Hokage line, so who is to say that the same did not apply as early as the start of the academy..,
However, that may not be the truth.
There are many children in the Uchiha clan about the same age as Sasuke, so there was a possibility that classes are more arranged with balance in mind or some other criteria.
Even supposing that some might have failed their entrance exams or other reasons, it was overall very unlikely.
-... I'd better look around a little bit...But...
Homura started looking left and right once again... however, the scenery was the same; no matter where his eyes happen to land upon... all he could see was snow and a bunch of leafless trees everywhere.
-Did I go to the wrong location?... He said to meet next to the swing set of the park near the 4th district, right?... But there could be more of those in the same areas... I remember watching a movie with a plot point like that...
He remembered that a movie that he had watched in his previous life, had a similar plot point.
The 2 leads had decided to meet somewhere very specific but it turned out that there were 2 locations that exactly matched the description of the meeting place that they had agreed upon.
Thus, both parties went to the places they thought were the ones they had agreed upon and waited for a very long time without ever meeting each other.
Homura thought the entire story was stupid and contrived.
Nothing that a phone call, could have easily avoided.
He was not aware that the story took place before smartphones became a prominent part of everyday society.
It was only a plot point that would work in an era without smartphones otherwise it is quite the ridiculous concept.
Sadly, it applied to Homura's situation as well.
Since both boys were broke, smartphones were the least of their problems.
-...If only I had a smartphone...!? What am I talking about? Even if I had one it's not like Naruto has one either... the festive mood around the village must be getting to me too... ! I'd better get walking again...*achoo!*...so cold!!!... *shudder*
Homura wiped away the stream of gooey liquid coming out of his nose with a tissue and resumed walking to avoid freezing in this weather.
He walked around for a little bit, within the surrounding area while waiting for Naruto.
But the slightly snowing weather took his attention after a snowflake landed on top of his nose.
-Today is really snowy, huh? That's kind of rare...and out there! Pfft! Snow in the land of fire seems like a bad joke to me! *smirk*... Whatever... But man, that Naruto dude is not usually this slow I guess he really forg-!
-Weakling!(???)
Out of nowhere, a loud voice came out and interrupted Homura's train of thoughts.
chapter end
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