Capítulo 8: Chapter 8: Academy Arc: Two
Disclaimer: Must I keep writing that Naruto is not mine and I make no money from it?
Slowly, the months pass and I strike up an easy friendship with Muta and Tokuma. I continue to avoid Itachi, and it seems that he's almost confused by my refusal to spend time with him.
I never let Funeno-sensei goad me into showing off again. I can't afford it. I made Tou-san a promise. I won't break it.
There were whispers that the graduation exam was open to all academy students, that anyone could take it. I kept away from thinking of it.
"Move over Haimaru." Tokuma prodded Ni. "I need to sit down."
Ni sends him an unimpressed look and whines. "He's starting to presume."
I raise an eyebrow at him. "Are you going to let him?"
Muta slips onto the bench next to me. "Are you going to enter the graduation exams?"
I stick my tongue out at him. "I wouldn't pass anyway and everyone knows that."
Tokuma leans forwards on the desk, head resting on his arms in a languid position. I had never seen a Hyuga with bad posture before him, but then, no ones met a serious motivated Inuzuka before meeting me either. "Well, why wouldn't you? You know practically everything the test is asking for anyway." He's looking at me with serious intent in his pupil less white eyes, and I remind myself that I'm used to how well he can see even without the Byakugan despite looking blind.
"I don't know any of the academy three, and the practical tests that. I know I could probably pass the written exam, but what would be the point of that?" I shrug. "Just because I pass the test doesn't mean that I'd be ready for life as a genin." I crumple onto the table next to him as Muta watches us with a minuscule amount of facial expression that means he is pleased. "Are you ready to kill someone?" I ask, and watch as the gears in both their heads start turning. "I know I'm not. That's what it means to have good judgement."
I catch Itachi's gaze out of the corner of my eye and I stare determinedly ahead. He'd started sitting in the desk beside us. Tokuma glared at him whenever he sat down, and sometimes just for breathing. Muta just sat around with a mildly blank face that actually meant he was frightfully irritated, and I did my best to ignore him whenever he did something that is supposed to merit attention.
It is a terrible way to treat a child, but I couldn't forget what sort of child he was. What he would grow up to be overshadowed my entire being while near him. If he can be persuaded to murder his family, who else could he be persuaded to murder?
Ironic I know, given that I am training to be a killer, but I couldn't help it. I want to live. I want to live. I want to live.
We start katas a week later. In my past childhood, I had taken three months lessons on open handed combat, but it was a lifetime ago, and I could barely figure out why I'd needed to hurt anyone to begin with. I gave up on practicing any of the forms after six months, and declared them completely forgotten by a year later.
Not so in this life. In this life, I took to taijutsu training with vengeance. As an Inuzuka, I couldn't slack on the physical aspect of fighting. I couldn't pass on adding more physical energy to my chakra stores either. I still had chakra far too slanted towards Yin techniques to use the Inuzuka techniques, and I wanted to use those. Those were frightfully effective and I needed them.
Practicing footwork brought back a hidden memory of holding a tennis ball between my knees trying to get into the most stable posture for an extended fight, knees bent, feet shoulder width apart and turned twenty degrees inwards. The triangle is the most stable shape, but the pyramid is the most stable form.
It isn't the same form as the academy, whatever I'd thrown the towel on beforehand, but nevertheless, I practiced footwork and stance position trying to remember every detail of how to break bones, how to use the enemy's momentum against them. Clearly, the memories were not as forgotten as I thought as I still remembered some, mainly how to punch, and the directive to protect the core of the body.
I try not to stand out with taijutsu sparing in the academy though. Izumi went after sparing sessions with gusto, and nearly every match I had against her I made sure to put up a good fight, but not strike a decisive blow. It pushed her to second in the class despite my impressive written exam scores. Danzo wasn't looking for impressive brain power though, he was looking for impressive fighting skills.
Right now, I am just a paper ninja, and that suited me just fine.
I had taken to haunting a training ground close to the compound to practice punches and kicks as the sun went down after leaving the academy for the day, though. Just because I wanted to appear a certain way didn't mean I actually wanted to be it.
Itachi appears one day before my fifth birthday as I stretch. "You don't know just the Academy style."
I glance up at him halfway through putting an ear on my right knee. The Triplets are gone on a trip around the village with Kuromaru, and I am perfectly alone. "You're no different."
He frowns at this, barely perceptible, but a few months of reading Muta's facial expressions had made Itachi's rather easy to crack. He is confused and displeased, not offended, but unhappy somehow. "You don't push yourself during class anymore."
I switch sides and lean towards my left knee instead, holding my toes with my hand. "Unlike you, I don't want to end up dead before the age of twenty five." The words are cruel, and I want to take them back as soon as they leave my mouth. His face crumples, and I remember. He's only four, nearly five years old.
"Why don't you like me?" He's not crying, even at almost five Uchiha Itachi has too much dignity to cry because someone was rude to him. "You're nice to everyone else. Why don't you even act like you like me?" The words feel like he's kunai-ed me in the gut.
He's done nothing yet. He's done nothing, and I've still been doing my best to go out of my way to ignore him.
"The first day of academy," I sit up properly to look him in the eye. "Why did you say I should leave Muta-kun behind?"
"I didn't really mean leave him behind." Itachi scuffs a clump of dirt with his shoe. "It just wasn't helping anyone for you to run at his pace when you could be faster." I frown.
"I was helping him." I gesture towards the training field around us. "Everyone needs someone to run with even if that means slowing down or working harder." It is bigger than that though. It's the idea that everyone working together is better than working alone.
"But sometimes people need to learn by themselves." Itachi sits down. "You're learning by yourself right now."
"Not when they could have someone else learn with them." I rise and bend down to press the palms of my hands down on the ground. "I'm only doing this alone because there isn't a cousin to train with me."
"Your clan won't help you?"
I blink at him, and he blinks back utterly confused. Oh you don't know half of it. "It's not really your business." I shrug, or try to despite having both my hands on the ground. "Besides, you've got plenty of people willing to like you, you've won ever everyone else in the class. Why do you need me to like you?"
"I haven't Hyuga or Aburame's good opinion either." Itachi starts stretching as well. "I won't ever have Hyuga's."
"But why?" I ask, suddenly frustrated. "Why would my bad opinion of you cause you such grief that you'd seek me out after months and confront me about it? You aren't doing this with Muta-kun."
"Because you're important." I sit down hard out of shock. What? I'm important? I'm a-oh wait, I'm a human being, not a character. "You could so easily be second in the class but you let Izumi take it, whenever you two spar, you just seem to let her win. I don't know why you take some things so seriously and others not at all."
"Is an academy spar really that important though?" I straighten up, gather my bag and wait for him as he decides whether or not he wants to walk with me. "It's not a battlefield when we're all fighting for a common goal." He seems to be pondering what I'm saying, even as he trots off into the distance to wherever he was going.
When I get home the house is dark and empty. Which wouldn't have been strange during the war, but Kaa-san is normally at home now, wearing maternity clothes and pacing about like a caged lion.
The fact that the house is empty and there are still dishes in the sink with food left out on the table for the flies to crawl over opens up a gaping maw in my stomach.
I sprint down the path towards Cousin Ashi's house. "Kosshi-obaa-san?" I call as I rap on the door trying desperately not to simply pound the door down.
My aunt pulls open the door. "What's the-" Her eyes widen. "You must not know yet, come in." She steps aside to let me into the house, her voice surprisingly gentle.
The mouth eating my insides grows bigger. "Obaa-san. What's happened?"
Aunt Kosshi sits me in a chair by the kitchen table and pours me a cup of tea. "Your Otou-san is in the hospital, Hana-chan."
I feel the blood drain out of my face. "What?"
Aunt Kosshi pats me on the shoulder. "He was in a bit of an accident at R'n'D. He will be fine, don't you worry." It had to be worse that she's making it out to be. All her awkward attempts to make me comfortable, I am lost in thought.
The sob breaks its way free without any conscious thought of mine. I feel the world shake more than my shoulders. I thought when the war was over that everyone would be safe. I thought it would be safe.
Cousin Gaku peers into the room some time later. "Oh, she's back now?" Aunt Kosshi shoots him a glare and he holds both his hands up in a symbol of surrender. "I was just told to take Hana to the hospital."
I leap at him. "Now." I whisper, and he picks me up. The last thing I see as we move is pity in his dark brown eyes.
I'm too far gone to care.
He's still holding me as we barrel through the air towards the hospital with shushin, doesn't put me down as we speed through the lobby and up the stairs, doesn't stop for the horrified nurses, and only slows down when he frees one hand to knock on the door.
Kaa-san opens it and I can see tear tracks streaking her mascara, can see the gray tinge to her cheeks.
It is bad then. Very very bad.
"Thank you, Gaku."
He sets me down and doesn't look Kaa-san in the eye. "It was the least I could do, Obaa-san." He steps out of the room. I don't look towards the bed, but I can hear the beeping of the monitors, and I'm overcome with fear. My tongue is glued to the top of my mouth and my throat has collapsed in on itself.
"Look at me, Hana." Kaa-san brushes the bangs out of my face. "K-kai wants to talk to you. He's been asking for you all afternoon."
"What happened?" I ask through the sudden blockage of my throat. "Why is Tou-san here?"
"There was an accident in RnD." Kaa-san holds my shoulders and kneels on the floor in front of me. "The medics said that h-he won't make it."
I slowly turn towards the bed. There's a mountain of white, and I can see nothing really. I'm not sure if I want to see anything at all. I want to run away crying all the way down the river, and then perhaps I'd be able to come back to Tou-san humming a song in the kitchen as he cooks dinner, or drag him out to play with me in the park or something.
With monumental effort, I pick up one foot, and then the other. Each step feels like walking upstream and being drown by the river all at once. I'm breathing air so thick it feels like water and the beat of my own heart sounds like roaring in my ears.
I climb onto the chair beside the bed. "T-tou-san?" I whisper. His eyes are closed, and his lips are tinged with blue. Blood's drying on his face, and there's red splashed everywhere on the sheet covering him now that I can see it clearly. He's dying. And you can do nothing. Your future knowledge said nothing about this, did it? I tune out the voice in my head and breath out. "Tou-san? It's Hana." I say again a bit louder and his eyelids flutter open.
"Blos-" His voice cracks on the second syllable and I do not cry although I blink back tears. I breath in. I breath out. He raises a hand to cup my face and I hold it there when it's clear that he won't be able to do it himself. "The se-" He takes another breath. "The second drawer of the dresser." There's a litany of screams pounding down the walls I've erected, and nothing I try can hold them back. Your fault. Your fault. Your FAULT-
I nod.
Despite everything, Tou-san smiles. "I'm proud." Kaa-san's sitting on the other side of his bed looking at us with eyes filled with tears. "Proud of you, Sprout."
My lips pull into the biggest smile that they've ever made in this life, and I lose my battle with the tears. "Don't go." I whisper. "Don't, Tou-san."
His hand slips away from my cheek but I hold onto it stubbornly even as it drops back onto the sheet. "Sor-" He breaks into a coughing fit that shakes his entire frame and his eyes slide shut. "So sorry, Hana, Tsu-chan."
We sit there, one on each side of his deathbed as the night stretches out before us, as the nurses try to persuade us to rest, as the beeping stops and his hands turn cold.
And then in the wake the sun rising on my fifth year in Konoha, I throw my head back and howl like the five year old I truly was at heart and in body.
A.N. *Hides from the readers with pitchforks.* I did say that this was fairly dark...even if it hasn't seemed so for quite a bit, but we are truly diving off the deep end of the pool now.
Thanks for reviewing and not giving spoilers, Sis! And for everyone who read, favorited and followed, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
You all are truly fabulous.
~Tavina
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