Bab 18: Chapter 33
When I finally got home from the Hyuga compound, I collapsed into bed still wearing all my clothes. The next thing I knew, the bright light of morning was streaming onto my face. "Fuck, what time is it?" An ominous feeling welled up within me as I checked my clock. "Fuck."
I leaped out of bed and into the kitchen. There was only enough rice for one lunch. Not many vegetables either. "I guess I'm having fruit for lunch. And breakfast. Naruto probably won't mind extra meat," I considered as I packed a lunch for Naruto while simultaneously tearing into a banana.
Once I had taken care of victuals, I grabbed my school bag and stuffed my feet into my sandals. I leapt onto the rooftop nearest my apartment door. And then my body reminded me in detail about my fight with Naruto the day before. The soreness in my body was compounded by the fact that I had worn my training weights all night, meaning that my body hadn't particularly benefitted from last night's sleep. Constant training is nice but I still needed to rest. At least the genjutsu in my shadow didn't suck away chakra in my sleep.
It was too late to go back and take off the weights. I was tired and sore and hungry and racing toward the Academy. It was a glorious start to another day in Konoha.
"I'm glad you could join us, Haru," Iruka said as I crept into the classroom. "I'm sure you have a good reason why you've decided now is the best time to arrive."
I could see Hinata in the back row of the classroom. She was the only student not watching Iruka chew me out. The look on her face was something between guilt and terror; I couldn't tell from so far away.
"I overslept, Umino-sensei."
He sighed before sternly telling me, "I know you had a busy day yesterday so I'll let it slide. But it had better not happen again, Haru!" He waved me off and I scanned the room for a seat. The closest open seat was next to Ino several rows up.
Ino seemed uninterested in my late arrival, with her chin propped up with her palm. "I haven't talked to Ino in a while. Wait, did I do something wrong? Is she angry at me?"
I asked her quietly before sitting, "Is this seat taken?"
"I don't suppose it is," Ino curtly replied without looking at me.
As I sat down and pulled out my notebook and texts, I attempted to evaluate the situation, "I think she's angry at me. God, what do I do?"
"Ino, are we still friends?" I whispered to the girl sitting next to me.
"Yeah, we're still friends, Haru," she answered resentfully, like if I had just asked whether she had done her chores for the day.
"Ino, did I do something to make you upset with me again?" I whispered again.
"What? No. Maybe. It's complicated, okay?" Ino said brusquely. I expected the blonde girl to be mad at me, but instead she just refused to look at me.
"Whatever. I tried." The inner workings of adolescent girls were beyond me. But this was a good opportunity to ask Ino something I had been wondering about. I seared a question into my notebook and slid it in front of the girl. "Do you ever wish you were stronger?"
I waited for her to glance at my question. Whereas I would have answered immediately with an 'Of course,' Ino stared at my writing for a while. Then she glanced at me, and around the room at the other students. I had no idea what she was thinking about. But eventually she took her pencil and wrote 'Sometimes' in neat and cutesy script.
That was enough for me. I settled into my seat and unsuccessfully tried to not fall asleep as Iruka droned on about introductory kunai parabolas.
"Haru! If class is boring you so much that you'd fall asleep, then maybe you'd grace us with the answer to this problem?" Iruka yelled at me, slapping the blackboard behind him. That was all I heard before I opened my eyes automatically.
"Sure, Umino-sensei," I responded groggily as I walked down to the blackboard. Chalk in hand, I quickly worked out the zeros of the equation to find out the maximum throwing distance for the kunai in the problem. It was just basic algebra and I had already reviewed that portion of our Academy textbook.
As I stumbled back to my seat, Iruka mumbled, "Uh, that's correct. Good job, Haru." I rested my head in my arms on the table, ignoring Ino's look of surprise. Maybe if I slept some more, I wouldn't be a complete mess for taijutsu. It was worth a shot.
At lunch, as soon as I had handed Naruto his bento, Ino dragged me away by the arm, telling me, "We need to talk."
She briskly walked us through the Academy and up several flights of stairs to the Academy roof.
"So spill. What are you? Are you some kind of evil demon in disguise? An ANBU agent pretending to be a kid? Tell me the truth!" she demanded as she slammed the door shut behind me.
"Why would you think that, Ino?" I said innocently. "If only she knew how close her guesses were."
She glared at me. "Why do you look exactly the same as I remember you? The more I look at you, the more I realize you haven't changed other than your clothes. You look just like you did when we were three. That's not normal!
"And then there was that fight with Naruto! Where did you learn to fight like that? The whole class could barely follow what you and Naruto were doing. Normal people can't throw giant fireballs into the sky. And what does 'Just like old times,' mean?
"And whenever I bring it up with my dad, he just says I'm being paranoid. Is he in on it? Did you brainwash him? I just...I realized that I didn't know you at all. So just tell me the truth. Please." Slowly, the fire inside Ino burned away and she lost steam by the end of her explanation, her frustration turning to insecurity. All the while, I listened impassively until she finished.
"I grew up with Naruto in the same orphanage. Ever since we were little, before I worked for your parents, I've taught him ninjutsu and taijutsu. The reason why I stopped working for your parents was because the Hokage decided to assign me a private tutor to teach me until the Academy. At the same time, Naruto also found a teacher, but instead of staying in Konoha, they traveled abroad until it was time for Naruto to come back for Academy.
"The reason why I look like the same age as when we first met is because I was using a genjutsu to make myself look older." As I explained, I prepared a demonstration, crunching down a suggestion into a genjutsu that my chakra would carry through the air to Ino. I had no idea how old I actually was, but I hedged my bets and made myself appear to be in my early twenties. "Your father knew right away that I was using a genjutsu to disguise myself but let me work for him anyways. I think he had one of his colleagues check my memories but at first they didn't look deep enough to find anything unusual."
"Is that...what you really look like?" Ino asked, wiping something from her mouth. She seemed dazed by my explanation.
"Nah, it's just what your mind thinks I'll look like when I'm older. Back then, I would have looked about five or six years old, which is why I look the same to you now. Yesterday, the Hokage asked your father to look into my mind again. Afterwards, Inoichi told me what I already knew about myself, that since I was born, I had an inexplicable collection of memories in my mind. I have memories about a lot of people, even people I've never met, and most of my memories are of people and places that couldn't possibly even exist. But a few of them...are about Konoha.
"I even have memories of things that haven't happened yet, a lot of terrible things that will happen that...I feel like I should change. If I can. That's why I work so hard. Because I can't just let things happen. I...I feel responsible. Ever since the Nine-Tails attacked Konoha, I've known all these things. It's like I learned a million things in another life, and then I forgot everything about myself and I was born here. That's why I'm not normal, Ino. Because I was born with a lifetime worth of memories and I basically feel like an adult in a kid's body. The Hokage thinks I'm just really smart but I'm not really sure about that," I explained honestly, ending by dismissing the genjutsu that would make me seem taller and older.
"Who...who are you, Haru?" Ino asked me, trying to understand.
"I don't know. I'm just me," I said lamely. "I'm just Haru."
"That's crazy! How can you expect me to believe that?" Ino shouted in a vain attempt to force reality to make sense.
"You can just ask your father about it. But with anyone else, can you keep it a secret, Ino? We're still friends, right?" I asked, smiling sadly. Normally, I'd assume Ino was a decently mature person who wouldn't betray a friend. But at the moment, I had no idea what Ino was thinking. She had pretty much figured out most of it and if I didn't tell her the truth now, that would be the end of my friendship with her. I wanted to believe in her though, even if it was just my selfish desire for a friend I didn't have to lie to.
"Just...let me think about it..." the young blonde girl said, holding herself in her arms. She walked to the guard rails at the edge of the roof and stared out into the distance in thought.
"Okay, Ino." I turned and left through the roof door, leaving the Yamanaka alone to her thoughts.
Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
stone