the dreams started late one night in early december. she was gazing at a room full of strangers, small children, from a vantage point much lower to the ground than she was used to. she felt the flutter of nerves in her stomach as she quickly hurried to a seat by the far wall at the very front, comfortably away from the other students. today was her first day at the ninja academy. after a few minutes of noisy pandemonium, the sensei stood. "please find a seat everyone. we have a lot to, lets get started." 6 and 7 yr. olds scrambled to find seats with their friends as the sensei surveyed the room. she tensed slightly as someone sat in the seat behind her, but kept her eyes on the sensei. a girl sat next to her and smiled, a little blush on her face. a fluttery feeling entered her stomach again, this one bringing heat to her cheeks. "ok." everyone faced forward. "you will spend five years at the academy learning the basics of being a shinobi before you take your exams. in the morning you will have indoor classes and in the afternoon you will have taijutsu practice. today we'll start with the basics. who knows what chakra is..."
long, harsh beeping suddenly split the silence of the room. kuraimizu slapped the alarm before rolling over. she blinked disorientedly. "mmm."i stretched then lay still, letting everything fall into place. 'oh,' i thought sleepily. 'a naruto dream. odd, how none of the characters were in there. i didn't recognize any of them. and they seemed so clear, even if i can't remember their faces now...' i slipped into a sleepy daze of contemplation.the alarm rang through the air again. with another smack, i rendered it silent. i took a few more minutes to wallow in sleepy stretching and warm blankets as i woke up. then i crawled out of bed and towards my clothes. 'well, thats kinda cool, i guess. naruto dreams are nice, i like the show, and its certainly better than some options...oh my god, thats cold!' the air outside of my blankets was freezing and i hurried into warmer clothing. distracted by the hustle of getting ready for school, i barely gave the dream another thought.
she ran happily towards home, her face suffused with excitement. a month had passed, today was reportcard day. she clattered into the entry of her house and slipped her shoes off, running to go find her parents. she slid, panting slightly, into the kitchen. her mother turned. "madara-chan! you're home early. did you run all the way home?" she wiped her hands on her apron and came over. i nodded.
"today is reportcard day! i wanted to show you!" her mother laughed and reached down to take the card.
"well let's see here." she scanned the list. "wow, dara-chan, you're the top of you're class! very good! you're father and brother will be so excited when they get back." she set the card on the counter. "would you help me set the table?
dinner's almost ready."
"hai!" she exclaimed happily. twenty minutes later the family of five sat down to dinner, her mother dishing her five yr. old sister, hiruko, some rice.
"takashi," her mother started, "madara has something to show you." her mother smiled at her. grinning, she jumped down and fetched the reportcard.
"tou-san," she murmmered, excitement tinging her solmnity as she handed it to him. she returned to her seat while he looked it over. he set it on the table, where kotetsu-nii-san picked it up.
"top of your class. very good. keep it that way." her father said before returning to his meal. her excitement deflated as her heart sank.
"not bad, otouto. maybe you'll catch up to your nii-san someday," her brother teased with a smile. at 12, kotetsu-nii had just become a genin and was very proud of it. and even more importantly - both to him and the rest of the
clan - he had activated the sharingan last week while protecting his team-mate amaya-chan on a mission. she smiled back at him, her spirits raising a bit. "you have a day off tomorrow, right? want me to train you a bit?" she could feel
her face light up, and opened her mouth to reply.
"you don't have time to train someone else," i was cut off. "you need to worry about your own training so you can master the sharingan and become a chunin. if you do not have a mission tomorrow you will train with me in the use
of the familiy jutsu." i looked down at my plate to hide my disappointment.
beeeep! beeep! beeep!like almost every other day, this one started with my hand landing on my alarm clock. i rolled over sleepily and buried my head back under the covers. images of my dreams floated in and out of my mind. the
last one had been so short... 'couldn't have been more than a few seconds.' "mmrrggh." i shifted.wasn' very happy, either...otouto? i was a little boy?' i frowned at the oddity of it, grumpy with early morningness. 'thats weird. i've never
dreamed that before.'my lips twisted in wry tolerance that might have been amusement later in the day. 'whatever.'a few minutes later her doze was broken once again by the alarm. grumpier than before at the prospect of not only being
awake, but having to leave the bed, she began to get ready for school.
that night as she lay, drifting, not awake but not asleep, she remembered her dreams. 'a little boy...mmm...how would my unconcious even know how to be a little boy?...' she took a deep breath as she came back to herself
a bit. a smile curved her lips. 'maybe i wanna be a ninja...'
i looked around the room boredly as i waited for everyone else to finish the test. it wasn't difficult, alot of them should know it anyways, seeing as they were from shinobi families. i yawned and looked out the window. another two report
cards had been the same. but today we were finally going to get to handle shuriken... if this test ever ended.
i concentrated on the target that was set up 15 feet away. today we were finally getting to practice throwing shuriken. tsukiko-chan stood next to me, her face scrunched up in a scowl as she glared at the target. she threw her five
shuriken in quick succession as i watched out of the corner of my eye. the first four hit the ground and tree, but the fifth stuck in the very outermost edge at the bottom. i smiled and redirected my attention back to my target. i narrowed
my eyes and snapped my arm out, flicking my wrist as we had been shown, and feeling the way the shuriken left my hand. it embedded itself in the ground beside the tree holding my target. frowning, i resettled myself in the stance and
did it again, flicking my wrist more to the left and farther up. it embedded itself in the tree just below the target. the next one landed in the second outer circle. the fourth i tried to angle a little more up and remember how my hand moved
as i had been instructed. it hit the blue ring outside the bulls-eye. i smiled. the fifth one landed beside it. the rest of the class finished the last of their shuriken, then the teacher allowed us to go retrieve them without the danger of being
hit by another student. we got into position again. tsukiko smiled at me. "this is hard! but its fun. let's practice this today." i smiled back. i now knew a few of the others in my class, but tsukiko was definantly my best friend. we trained
together afterschool sometimes. i looked forward again, focusing on the red circle in the middle of the target. setting myself in the stance, i adjusted my body so that it felt the same as before, then flung the shuriken with the slight
correction to my wrist. the shuriken lodged in the center. i blinked in surprise, then broke into a grin.
"look, tsukiko-chan!" she straightened and looked at my target.
"thats great mada-kun! can you do it again?" frowning, i lowered myself back into the stance and focused on the feel. a second shuriken landed beside the first. i grinned at tsukiko, and she grinned back. "sugoi! so you'll teach
me later, right?"
"of course. right after school." she smiled and went back to her own target. the rest of the hour, though i didn't always hit the middle, the shuriken always landed on the target. as i packed my things to go, sensei approached me.
"madara-kun?" i looked up at him, startled. "will your mother mind if you're an hour late? i would like you to do a few things for me."
"no..." i glanced over at tsukiko. she looked disappointed, but shrugged and shook her head.
"see you tomorrow mada-kun!" she called. then she left. i turned my attention back to matsuri-sensei.
"i want you to study this book." he handed a book to me. "come back outside with me." i followed him outside. "now, i want you to try the exercize we were doing today with these kunai..." for the next hour he taught me how to
throw different weapons from different stances, even asking me to hit targets that weren't across from me or were farther away. despite how nervous this attention made me, i did as instructed and after a few tries hit the targets more
often than not. "thank you, madara-kun. you may go. please study that book i gave you, i'd like it back at the end of the week." nodding, i grabbed my stuff and trotted home.
i jolted awake. for an instant i was confused by the wide bed and the blue walls around me. then i sank back into the covers as memory returned. 'that dream felt so real. i almost panicked because i thought i had forgotten to do some
homework! and when tsukiko smiled at me...well we both felt happy but the overtones were not the same. it was like i could feel his pleasure and pride while at the same time thinking what a cute little kid. we're two people rather than
just some dormant part of my mind. its like i caught a ride in the back of a little kid's mind. is that normal?' i stifled a shriek as i glanced at my alarm clock. 'five minutes! why didn't it go off!?' my frantic fumbling and stumbling ended in a
tripping dash up the bus steps before plopping in the seat.
disclaimer: i do not own naruto or its characters.