Opening my eyes I saw four rows of benches in front of me, each seated with around 5 children chatting with one another.
Looking around I seemed to be in a classroom of some sorts which was odd considering it should be summer.
'For now I'll just wait and see like usual. If this really is a school I'll find out my situation if I just observe.'
Not wanting to attract attention I just rested my head on my desk, using my hands as a cushion for my chin like I always did in class.
For some reason I still seemed to be tired and had a slight headache, probably from laying my head down on the hard table for so long.
Taking a closer look at the class I seemed to be in the fifth and final row.
To my left was a window which I suppose was nice since I could get some natural light and didn't have to deal with the classroom lights from before. They would always strain my eyes.
At the front of the class was your generic chalk board for writing and at the far left, which was practically right in front of me if you ignored the children and desks, was a large teachers desk with no one at it.
'Perhaps class hasn't started yet? I suppose that would explain the chitter chatter among the kids.'
Looking to the far right of the room at the top of the wall was a clock which read 7:55 confirming my theory; however, that just brought up more confusion.
'With it so close to class time, why is the teacher not here yet?'
With that thought the clock struck 8:00 and a man appeared in front of the room.
Clap! Clap!
"Alright now settle down you've all had your fun chit chatting. It's class time!"
After stating this the man walked to the chalk board and started writing something. Squinting my eyes I could make out the name: Senko Takata.
'Is he Japanese? Interesting.' I thought as I placed my hand in front of my chin and afterwards chuckled to myself. 'Senko? Like Senku from Dr. Stone?' "Hehe."
"As you can see my name is Senko Takata, but you can just call me Mr. Takata. My hobbies and likes are writing and teaching, I hate students who don't put in effort regardless of talent as well as beasts." Saying this he seemed to be focusing on something, but I couldn't see what. "Since this is the first year we'll start with introductions. Starting from the first row to the last from left to right you will each introduce yourselves in a manner similar to me. Giving your name, hobbies, likes, and finally dislikes."
On the outside I appeared indifferent but on the inside I was screaming. As each name was called out I realized none of them had names I was familiar with like Dave, Ben, Jamal, and Skyler.
'Why do all their names sound Japanese?! Am I in Japan or did what I think happened actually end up coming to fruition? Did I actually Transmigrate? If so, the first thing I need to do is figure out my name. Now!'
Still wearing an indifferent expression so as to not draw attention I looked beneath my desk and found a backpack. Unzipping it there was a single journal with a pack of pencils, a large eraser, and a sharpener. Setting the journal on my desk I saw it was just a normal black journal with no words on it, nothing. Seeing that there were only three children left until my turn I checked the supplies inside once more.
'This seems to be all there is. Dammit! Wait, there's only a pencil to write with so perhaps?'
Opening the journal to the front page I finally found it written in pencil lead. My name. At that moment I noticed the kid to the farthest right of the fourth row finished his introduction and so I stood up to speak giving my friendliest smile.
"My name's Sozo Katogawa. I like to read, write, experiment, and exercise. I hate when people interrupt me when I'm immersed in a project or any other activity, as well as when people give false criticism or rush me to finish something. I like to take things at my own pace."
As I finished introducing myself I sat down and took a breath of relief. 'That was far too close! I need to gather info about myself and fast so something like this doesn't happen again!'
I looked back down at my journal and didn't see any more info, even after flipping the pages. Seeing as it was pointless I decided to look up and listen to the names to see if I could recognize any to find out where I could possibly have transmigrated.
All the names were just your generic Japanese names you'd find in any anime and I was about to give up until I heard the last and final kid's introduction.
"My name is Naruto Uzumaki. I like Ramen. I don't have very many hobbies but I like to play and make friends. I don't really hate anything aside from being home alone."
Hearing this my eyes shot open and I lifted my head up. At the opposite side of my row I could see a blonde haired boy with sky blue eyes. He had the kindest smile I'd ever seen on a child.
'Naruto? That's Naruto?! Then that means I've transmigrated to the world of Naruto! A world where from the point of view of the main character may seem to be safe and occasionally happy go lucky but in reality is filled with manipulation, deceit, and powerful forces that could destroy a continent and summon meteors!'
My breathing started to become erratic, my eyes still wide, staring at Naruto. As a result the black haired girl next to me tapped my shoulder and looked at me in concern.
"Are you ok?"
Coming back to my senses I realized someone took notice of me. 'I need to calm down. Calm down Ben, calm down.' Saying this to myself I took deep breaths and slowed down my heart rate.
"I'm fine, I just remembered something I forgot about." I told the girl with a small smile on my face.
"Oh? Was it something important? Like chores?"
"Something similar." I stated trying to play it off.
She gave me a smile of understanding. "Yeah I get what you mean. I usually start to panic too when I forget something my parents told me to do."
"Now that introductions are concluded, all those who can already read and write raise your hands, I will be giving you all a practice test. Don't worry this is just to see where you're all at when it comes to basic knowledge. If you don't know the answer to a question, simply skip it. The more you can get right the less you will have to learn and the more free time you'll have so if you choose not to answer any questions prepare to spend the full time studying!"
Hearing this I chose not to raise my hand for a few seconds thinking I didn't know the writing system of Naruto but then I glanced at the board which still read "Senko Takata" in the English writing system.
'The writing system here doesn't seem to be one of Japan's like in the original series. That's one less thing off my plate. I won't have to relearn to read and write.' With this realization I raised my hand alongside 5 others.
Mr. Takata went to a stack of papers on the large teachers desk and started passing them out to each of us starting from the front row, the first being passed to a kid on the far right, the second to a kid in the middle of the third row, then he walked over to me and stood there for a moment.
I was confused why he was standing there and so I asked "Sir? Is there something wrong?"
"Put your journal away." I was confused for a moment and just stared at him for a few seconds and then it hit me. 'Ah, he must be thinking I'm trying to cheat.' Realizing what he meant I quickly shoved my journal back into my backpack and he placed the paper on my desk, afterwards he walked to the two kids between the girl and Naruto.
After he finished passing them out I took out the only sharpened pencil in the packet which I assumed was the one used to write my name in my notebook and looked at the paper which read:
[Name: Date:
Sensei: ]
At the top of the paper. Below that were questions the first of which read:
[List out all letters of the alphabet.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________]
And questions involving counting like so:
[What two numbers come after 9?
_____________________________________
What three numbers come after 99?
_____________________________________
Draw the number one-thousand- five-hundred-six.
_____________________________________]
Those were just a few of the questions on the test. There were far more. Thankfully though, they were all relatively easy. I chose not to answer the date since I didn't know how to nor what the date was.
After finishing the alphabet and number questions, I flipped the page and found questions with what appeared to be some kind of paper currency I couldn't recognize. 'What's this? They appear to resemble dollar bills from my old world but I don't recognize them. Is this the Naruto world's currency?'
'I don't know what their currency is called nor what it's worth so I'll just leave this page blank.'
Skipping the currency based questions I found questions involving analog clocks and watches. 'They must want to see if we can read a clock. I'm not sure if I'll get these right but I'll give it a try seeing as the clock from before seemed to be the same as the ones from my old world.'
With that I quickly answered all the time based questions and was starting to feel tired so I yawned and stretched my back a bit. 'I wonder what time it is?'
I rubbed my eyes and checked the classroom clock once more and saw it was 8:15.
"This is taking too long." Sigh
"I'd say you're going pretty fast seeing as those two are still on the front page."
I looked to my side and saw the girl pointing at the two boys between her and Naruto.
"That's only because I studied beforehand. Plus, just because I'm faster doesn't necessarily mean I'll get the answers right."
She tilted her head in confusion. "What do you mean?"
"You'll find out eventually."
Arriving at the third page I finally found the questions I'd been wanting to see. These questions seemed to involve the application of chakra. With the first question asking what chakra is.
I chose not to answer any of these seeing as I really am not that knowledgeable about chakra aside from the fact that it's comprised of physical and spiritual energy and you need to mold chakra using hand signs or through practice to use ninjutsu. Plus, I actually don't want to skip the lessons involving chakra.
Thus, I turned the page skipping the chakra based questions and found nothing but a blank page. Seeing as I'd finished I flipped my test back over and raised my hand.
Mr. Takata soon arrived at my desk and took my test, afterwards I stretched once more and checked the clock.
'8:20. Not bad considering I used to be a slow tester back in the day. Back then I would spend so much time on individual questions to ensure I got them right that I wouldn't even have enough time to even finish the test, resulting in a low score.'
I looked around the class and saw the front row kid and two kids on my row were still testing. Looking at the kid on the third row I placed my hand on my chin in an inquisitive manner.
'He seemed to finish before me. Interesting. Perhaps he's a clan member?'
With that I thought there wasn't much else to do so, like the other kids who weren't testing I just laid my head down and took a nap.