The children of konoha are broken they don't know it though. They think it's normal they don't know it's not they see their parents come home covered in blood and sometimes they don't come home at all. They almost never have more than one parent by the time there gennin and most don't remember them well. They think it's normal to know how to kill when you're five to grow up knowing you'll kill they're broken from the first words they speak. they just don't know it.
By the time Tenten is in the academy she has lost her father and never knew her mother. By the time she is ten she can throw knives with a precision that few can reach. She's not quite as naïve as some of the other girls she knows that when you hit someone they die. She knows that by using knives and other weapons she's only making sure her enemies are dead faster. She know that's the goal in a real battle. She's known it since her father's funeral. She just wants to live to see tomorrow. Maybe that's why she looks up to tsunade she saves lives because to tentens young mind it seems so much easier to end them.
Kiba has grown used to the smell of blood when he was a baby it used to make him cry. But by the time he's walking it no longer bothers him. Neither does the sight of it. His mother his sister come home covered in blood often. Sometimes it's their own sometimes it's not. Kiba has gotten used to the smell of blood. He almost likes it associates it with the wild thrill of fighting. When he is seven his sister and mother go to the hospital in the middle of the night they come back covered in blood and crying. Kiba knows too much about blood.
Iruka know how to best sew up a wound. He has cleaned and bandaged many. His parents let him do it for them. He also therefore knows how to inflict them the way to hold and move the knife to make it smooth jagged where to aim to make it painful. He knows how to use a knife and a sword. Iruka knows how to kill. He uses his hands to sew his parents back together but all the while he's seeing how the wounds were caused. Iruka is four and his hands don't shake as he ties off a bandage on his mothers arm. Iruka is four, he knows how to heal. Iruka is four, he knows how to kill. Iruka is too smart sometimes.
Kurania knows how to trap. She knows how to weave webs so tangled they can't be undone. She knows how to change everything she senses. Kuranai knows genjutsu kuranai knows illusion she is ten. Illusions the war, is dirty and she sees all the illusions that konoha weaves to keep up moral. All the illusions her sensei has. Most of all she sees herself as her greatest illusion. She acts tough acts like nothing will hurt her. Kuranai knows better. She knows that if she is captured she will not be tortured like her teammates she knows she will be used instead. So she tangles herself in her web, in worlds that aren't quite real and refuses to pay attention to the fact that she has long since trapped herself.
Hanabi is a genius. Or so they say. But in reality she's not. She doesn't know how to be a girl how to be demure. She never was taught after all. Hanabi doesn't know how to act outside of fights or meetings. Hanabi doesn't know how to be human. That doesn't matter though cause hanabi's a genius. Who cares if your sane when you go on missions as long as you complete the mission. No one remembers that she is seven. Who cares if she's a child if she is still sane. She is a hyuuga. She is a genius.
A revised "essay" piece based on growing up in the shinobi villages, I tried to pick less obvious characters.