Chapter 7: Realization
Konohagakure, Late November..
The Academy starts in the spring, while enrollment begins in the winter, which is all I remember on it. Several small things eluded me about the world that tended to get vexing to me. I had made the risk of writing some things down in the event that I started to forget events. I was certain that no one would everdecipher anything I didn't want them to. It's rather difficult to translate a bastardized amalgamation of Latin, English, and German.
Much of it wasn't even the most grammatically correct, but nobody here could tell me otherwise. I then encoded it with references only I would get. I could not afford to have this discovered, Hiruzen would likely think it was the Kyuubi trying to drive me insane.
He was already worried about me rambling on in English when my brain was still scrambled. I didn't need to make crap harder for him.
'Between Kyuubi mind shenanigans or dimension jumpers, I'd definitely think I was crazy.'
What made this difficult was that I didn't speak these languages as often. I talked with Rin in English when we were alone at home, which was good, but the bits of Latin I knew was difficult, and so was German. I had to talk to myself and have imaginary conversations to keep up my understanding of the two languages.
'Hopefully Rin doesn't think I'm losing it.'
I'd been going stir crazy since my physical training was brought to an end temporarily. I still did basic katas and jogging around our neighborhood, with a bit of chakra exercises for personal entertainment, specifically blowing up leaves by putting too much chakra in them,but the theoretical and book knowledge that Hiruzen's books gave me wasn't enough. He flat out refused to give me any books on sealing until I was in the Academy.
I probably shouldn't have said I heard about sealing from ninjas talking about exploding tags. Made me sound explosion happy.
I still sometimes did some training with Kakashi, but it wasn't until after over a month of waiting. He'd evidently been injured on a mission and took some time to recover from it.
Mostly, it consisted of learning how to make fires without chakra, looking for animal tracks, setting up snares, etc. Things that the Academy didn't exactly cover. I could tell from his suprise that he thought I was an exceptional learner when it concerned surviving in the wilderness though.
But he shouldn't be, I already knew this stuff. Tracking deer, skinning a squirrel, fishing, I knew it. Some things never do get forgotten. I focused more on listening instead of talking to him, having still felt disgusted with myself for what I pulled when I mentioned his eye. I knew I would get a rise out of him. I knew he'd react badly.
But I wanted him to hurt as much as he'd hurt me by intentionally being lazy in telling me the basic stuff needed for certain types of training. I'd had a nightmare of Rin having her half of Kurama ripped out of her, and I could do nothing to save her.
So on that day, I did every single thing I could think of to piss off Kakashi. I acted like how an arrogant, self righteous bastard would. I did it so his punches and kicks would come harder and with less mercy.
The pain makes me think of something other than potential failure.
The angry reaction I expected occurred. But something else happened afterwards. I could still see and hear, even if I looked out of it. My sensing was pretty advanced and I could feel his chakra spasming in a way that Rin's did after I tried to leap from the roof of our apartment to the next one and fell down to the ground, smacking my head against the road and getting a concussion.
He was terrified.
That was the reason I never brought up the subject again. I genuinely hurt him by bringing it up, so I never did it afterwards.
The only thing out of the ordeal that I gained that wasn't confirmation on what someone's chakra felt like when they were terrified was that I could still sense chakra when I was unconscious, which I did when Rin was shouting my name to try and wake me up.
Much of my free time when I wasn't training or teaching Rin was me doing stupid crap to entertain myself. That caused me to realize the reason canon Naruto did pranking. He had too much energy. I felt like the energizer bunny and was a constant menace to the market place and civilians that tried to be jerks to us.
Sometimes I'd torment Rin, as all good older siblings ought to do, most of that consisting of me "talking crazy". Changing accents in "our" "special language", evidently constituted crazy talk. But in my defense, it's not my fault she wasn't blessed with the understanding of how beautiful the context of "Hello there" was in the English language.
'So uncivilized.' I thought. That gets me thinking, I'm gonna have so much fun when I can pull off a henge and shadow clones.
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Why is he being an idiot again?
Rin thought.
She knew she was no idiot. Her brother just happened to be very smart. There had been times where she thought he was crazy, but she could tell, in his eyes, that he just loved to mess with people. Mainly her.
She couldn't wait till the Academy. There, he would have someone else to torment other than her with his crazy proclamations of the "High Ground". That didn't even scratch the surface of his intentional madness. Calling Kami "The Log", singing at the top of his lungs about "Erika", whatever the heck that is, or talking to himself in his own made up languages. She knew he was doing it to her on purpose.
This is his revenge for me asking him about training all the time.
Training was a sore subject for him. Any time she'd ask how his training was going, he'd get a flash of annoyance, before telling her they had to wait some time before they could go to the next level. He did his best to explain the things in the books jiji gave him, but some of it required context.
He'd try to use examples that were lost on her. She saw how hard he was trying. He genuinely cared and wanted her to understand things that would help her be an amazing kunoichi. But she could tell the lack of training for him and her need for help was grating on his nerves.
'Maybe I could convince jiji to give us some books Naruto would like.'
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Hiruzen read Inoichi's psych report on Naruto with a look of irritation on his face. Apparently, Naruto found it highly amusing to talk either like a certain spandex wearing jonin in Konohas' employ, or in the third person. Inoichi said he likely knew why. The mind sessions had mostly ended. Only a bi-weekly appointment for his yin chakra was done now.
Aside from being very dense, there were no more issues surrounding his chakra. Inoichi believed Naruto acted comically around him to hopefully draw attention away from certain behavioral traits that were more noticeable in his body language. Most of those included a more alert pose when sitting down, softer footsteps, and an inclination to look around in every direction.
Most of the time, it would point to severe terror or post traumatic issues, But Hiruzen knew better. Those traits also get ingrained in Shinobi after a few years of applying their trade. It's no suprise that Naruto adopted those traits when he underwent the closest thing you could get to entry level ANBU psych training without going through the actual training. The Yamanaka clan head didn't know Naruto was getting trained.
'Inoichi, you're a good mind doctor. But you sometimes look too far into things. Naruto might be bright, but he's still six. You've been pranked.'
"Try and drive a shrink to drink' he says." Hiruzen muttered to himself. "Inoichi is going to feel like a fool when he finds out."
But the irritation he had wasn't from Inoichi's report. It was why the report had Naruto's behavior in it. The boy was, quite simply, bored. Hiruzen saw how depressed Naruto got when he discovered how much of a waste of time it would be for he and his sister to try chakra control exercises this early on.
The boy was so in need of entertainment that he goaded an ANBU Captain into lashing out.
Every time he made a little comment, every time he called his trainer "failure", he was saying he wasn't fazed by the training that would have been considered torture by other six year olf.
Kakashi, being the way he was, possibly didn't realize it.
But thankfully, concerning Kakashi, the month of leave he received had improved his mindset, including when he resumed his duties in the ANBU.
Hiruzen wasn't blind to the reports from the other ANBU about how Kakashi had almost been caught out and nearly killed because he tried to intervene constantly to protect his squadmates, even to the detriment of his own safety.
Even Itachi had come to him to discuss his concern for Kakashi's well-being, the young Uchiha clearly concerned by the acts taken by Inu.
But, the forced leave had a noticable improvement on the silver haired man. So it turned out to be worth the hassle.
The thoughts concerning Kakashi had Hiruzen being contemplative about Naruto. Specifically, why and how he was able to stab at the festering wound that was Uchiha Obito and Nohara Rin.
It is disturbing how close Naruto was on reading Kakashi. Hiruzen could see the smirk appear on Naruto's face when Kakashi made the comment about his sister.
He wanted a reason to hurt Kakashi. Why though?
That was when Hiruzen remembered something. Something that he had overlooked when he first thought of this.
'Naruto showed no surprise when he met Kakashi in my office.'
Hiruzen knew that strong enough sensors could indentify specific chakra signatures at close range. That would include the body and specific parts.
His Sharingan has a different signature to the rest of him. Naruto probably noticed it and wanted to know why.
It all made sense now. Naruto had not trusted Kakashi. That's why he kept staring at him. That's why he was acting like such a brat around Kakashi, but changed back to his normal and polite self when he was around anyone else. That's why he gauged Kakashi's reaction to calling him a friend killer.
'He was almost on point to Kakashi's fear. Either he knows Kakashi, which is unlikely, or he used himself as a reference point, knowing that he personally would respond terribly to being told he was responsible for his sister's murder.'
Hiruzen groaned at this realization. "If I'm right, he can dissect people's thoughts and motivations as good as a Yamanaka. I need to speak with Inoichi. But first," he said, reaching into a drawer to pull out a small bottle of sake, "I need a drink."
Filling up a cup, he saluted to himself, "To Uzumaki Naruto. You precocious little gaki." he said, before he downed the drink.
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I fixed up parts of this chapter in the same way I did for the previous one. It bothered me how I originally wrote it and I think the new version is better overall.
Thanks for reading.
Raging..
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