Cut and Polish
Diamond
"Diamond is the purest of all gemstones and the hardest substance known to man. The diamond processes unique powers of light reflection, which help to increase personal clarity in the mind and body."
Iruka is sixteen the first day he shows up on Tsunade's doorstep begging her to let him audition for Shinobi Talent Industries upcoming 'New Talent' acting contest. She stares incredulously at him over her coffee cup, hand frozen in mid-reach for her newspaper. She wonders briefly, as her still half asleep brain attempts to process the information it is receiving from her eyes, where the boy had gotten her address. But she disregards the thought, informing him that if he was still sitting there when she left for work that she would kick his ass down the stairs and to the nearest police station. He scowls darkly at the mention of the police and he is gone the next time she opens the door. She dismisses him from her thoughts. Until she opens the door to grab her paper the next morning and there he is. He hands her the paper and she glares, slamming the door loudly for good measure and she considers going through with her threat and calling the cops. But when she takes a look out of the peek hole in the door the boy is gone.
She wakes up early the next morning and stands behind her door for almost half an hour staring through her peek hole. When the boy doesn't show she curses herself for wasting most of her morning, for actually being intrigued for a short while. But, it seems to her, that this boy's desires are just as whimsical and fickle as the rest of the teenagers that she knows. Thus she is extremely surprised when she unlocks the door to her office, as Head of the Acting Department at STI, and there he is, sitting in the chair in front of her desk as if he has some sort of appointment. She doesn't hesitate when she walks right back out and snags the first security guard she finds. She drags the poor man all the way to her office by his ear demanding to know how the hell he got in! The boy doesn't resist as the guard hauls him away, but Tsunade can see the sharp resolve shining in the boys eye's and she knows that he will be back.
There is a tape left behind on her desk and she can't help but raise an eyebrow. It's an honest to god VHS tape in the height of the digital age. She ignores it for most of the morning once Shizune arrives for the morning and shoves that paperwork that she has been avoiding at her. Most of the files are the entry information on the participants of the 'New Talent' contest and for once she is mildly interested in the paperwork. She flips through head-shot after head-shot of professional photography and expensive prints and she can't help but let her eyes slide back to the tape and everything about the boy that it implies. She gives up and sends Shizune to fruitlessly search through storage rooms to find a VCR player. Thirty-five minutes later and Hiruzen-sensei has heard about their search and invites them up to his office where has all kinds of old equipment stashed away. Tsunade almost laughs when she see's the A-Track player, but the record player shuts her up when she realizes just how old her Sensei is. The three crowd in before the seventy-five inch plasma screen as Hiruzen works through connecting the play to the TV, the work is stalled temporarily when they have to send Shizune out to find an adapter. But soon after Hiruzen slides the tape in and presses play.
The video jumps to life showing the shaky image of a ramshackle room with a few posters on the wall and not much else that had obviously been cleaned in a rush. Tsunade can see sleeves and pant legs sticking out of the closed closet door and a futon is folded in a corner. The camera is finally stabilized and the image stops shaking. The boy appears on screen and stares at the camera for a few moments, checking to make sure the tripod is steady and even, before launching directly into a monologue. The three sit shocked, because he is reciting Hamlet's speech to the players from memory in flawless Shakespearean English. After he finishes he disappears off camera and a short argument can be heard. He reappears, shoving someone else with him who looks entirely unhappy with the situation. Tsunade at first thinks this is the boys girlfriend and 'Wow, she's beautiful.' Then she notices the complete and utter lack of a chest and amends the thought to 'he's.'
The long haired boy glances nervously at the camera often, but he accepts the handmade fly leaf paper script offered and the two read through a few scenes from a popular novel before he is allowed to vanish. Tsunade realizes that she still doesn't know the boys name as he turns to the camera and gives a short polite bow before reaching off screen and turning it off. The video feed transitions into static and the three sit back to converse about what they watched when the video jumps back to life, startling them as the loud ending theme of a recorded from TV anime played. Hiruzen turns the machine off and he is smiling. Tsunade is slightly surprised to find that her face mirrors her Sensei's. Shizune however is frowning, ever the voice of reason.
"I'll admit that the boy has talent, but it's fairly obvious from this tape and his room that he is quite poor. As much as it pains me to say it, the boy would never be able to afford the entry fee for the contest. Even if he somehow managed and came up with the money, all the other contestants are going to show up dressed in their best. And I don't mean to offend the boy, I don't think that his best is going to inspire any self-confidence once he sees the others."
Hiruzen frowns, he clearly hasn't thought about that. He is much to excited about all the fresh talent that his contest is dragging out of the woodwork. Just last month during the singers competition he had discovered a young man with an amazing voice and an extremely exotic look that was completely natural. The young man was in the process of crafting an image for the visual kei scene and recording his first song this next week. Hiruzen always knew when he had found idol material. Hatake Kakashi was a jewel that had been found cut, all that he needed was a bit of polishing. But this boy was a diamond in the ruff and he was itching to cut and polish him until he shined above all the rest.
"I'll sponsor him." Tsunade's voice was adamant. As the head of the acting department she too could see that glittering potential hidden in the rock, but she had also seen something else as well. She had seen that steely look in his eyes when she opened the door to her office that morning, the resolve that was as strong as a diamond, the drive to become someone. She ejects the tape and realizes for the first time that something is written on it. She tilts it towards the light, squinting at the words written in black ink on black plastic.
Umino Iruka.