AN: Hey everyone! It's chapter four already, yay! Thank you so much for the reviews! Just as a reminder to everyone, Fai-chan is now eight/nine years old and will be going into the third grade. Now for the fanfiction! Itachi do the disclaimer.
Itachi: Foolish little brother, oops wrong quote. Um, you didn't hear that. Ahem, Chibi PO'd Hiei does not own Naruto.
It is four thirty in the morning. I'm up so early because I wanted to talk to mom before I started going back to school today. I know that I'm only talking to her picture, but I feel like she can really hear me when I talk to her. I've told her all about Itachi's training methods, and how they've only gotten harsher with time. I'm sure that she's watching my training practices with him, and I'm asking her not to worry about me. I'm begging her not to cry for me from heaven. Itachi's training will make me strong enough to achieve my dream, and for that I'm willing to put up with the teme. I happily told her how proud Uncle Sasori is to have me learning poisons with him. He says that I'm a fast learner, and that I'll go far in the field. I had also advanced to actually molding clay with Dad, and I know that must make mom really happy. Right now I'm asking her to watch over me, and if she could send someone to be my friend this year I would appreciate it.
I heard Dad and Sasori getting up. I told mom that I'd talk to her later before I tip-toed back to my room and started the new daily exercise routine that Itachi had given me. After half an hour of exercising, I got dressed for school and rushed into the kitchen to scarf down the waffles that Dad had made. "Woah, slow down Fai-chan. You don't want to choke on your waffles, un," Dad said. "I can't help it," I said, "Your waffles just taste too good, dad." "You'd better start walking, or you'll be late to school, Fai," Uncle Sasori said from behind his newspaper.
"Yeah," I said trying not to sound depressed, "I'll be going then. See ya later, love you." I grabbed my back pack and rushed out the door. At least I didn't have to explain why going to school bothered me so much. Dad would have asked if he'd been walking with me, but by the time I get home he'll have forgotten about it. Dad's the stereotypical absent minded artist. He gets so involved in his work that he forgets stuff, and Sasori believes that what I tell him is my decision. Anyways, Uncle Sasori finally convinced Dad that I was old enough to walk to school on my own, and Dad said to kick the butts of anyone who bothered me on the way. Yeah right, like that'll ever happen.
I slowed down as I approached the school. Another year of hell on earth. Please, please let them be over it. Please, don't let me be alone again. I don't know how much more of this I can take. I entered the school yard and hesitantly waved at a few of the girls who were talking in their little clicks. They glared and walked away. I sighed. I am still the freaky outcast. I walked into my classroom and sat in the desk that's in the back left corner. I didn't have to wait long for the rest of the girls to come in and take their seats. There were no new students like always. This was going to be a long school year. The teacher entered the room, and she just happened to be one of the biggest Fai-haters on campus. Could this day get any worse?
Scratch that question. I already know the answer. The teacher started the day with the usual math and science combination. Then she followed it up with english, history, and ninja history. I paid rapt attention and took the most detailed notes that I could. Uncle Sasori stressed that having good grades on the written tests was just as essential to getting into the shinobi junior high as taijutsu and ninjutsu were. I sensed an object coming and waited until the last possible moment before moving my head to the side. I watched the spit ball plaster itself onto the wall right where my cheek would have been. I suppressed a grin when I saw the look of shock and disappointment on the girl's face.
Itachi had found out that the girls at school were throwing things at me during class. I swear he must be reading my diary or something because it's scary how he knows these things. Well, I can't complain too much since he dedicated this last summers' training sessions to teaching me how to dodge objects from all directions in the most efficient way. Of course, he also continued with the basic training program we'd already established because he's evil like that. He had said that we would progress to objects of different size and shape later on, but for now his basic dodging training was coming in handy. I was effortlessly taking notes and dodging the flying objects. Itachi is evil incarnate with severe teaching methods, but I have to admit that his training is effective.
I paused and let a paper ball hit me on the shoulder as the teacher glanced at me. I looked down stupidly at the paper wad as some random girl was quietly bragging about how she hit me. The teacher turned back to the black board and continued the lesson as I resumed dodging the random objects the other girls threw when they thought that I wasn't paying attention. I knew that if the teacher saw me dodging random projectiles while she was lecturing she would punish me for disrupting the class. Jeez, these teachers need to get a life, and those stupid girls really need to get tutors or something. Their aim is pathetic enough even without me dodging while remaining seated and taking notes simultaneously.
I stopped and let the two apples hit me in the head as the teacher whipped around to glare at me again. I rubbed my head and looked around like I didn't know who'd thrown the apples. The teacher's eye twitched. Oh, she was looking for any excuse to humiliate me, and I'll bet that she's absolutely irate that she's got nothing on me. I just looked at her and silently blinked like I had just noticed that she was looking at me. Once again she turned around and continued lecturing. I resisted the urge to make a face at her back. This class was well known for tattling on me, and I wasn't about to give the teacher the satisfaction of punishing me on the first day of school.
Finally, the teacher told us to grab our weapons and head out to the training grounds. Ah, taijutsu class. I love the glares of jealousy in the afternoon. I had quickly learned that it's one thing to be glared at for doing nothing, and another to be glared at for being the best. I wasn't smug or anything. I just practised more than this bunch of shopping obsessed pansies. The only other girl who is any good at taijutsu and weaponry is that TenTen girl. Hm, I don't see her today. She views me as a worthy rival, rather than the school freak. She doesn't talk to me or anything, but at least she doesn't glare at me or talk about me when she thinks that I'm not listening. Oh, there she is helping some of the younger students who are obviously lost causes.
I pulled my gaze away as the teacher called me up to demonstrate my weapon and taijutsu skills. Thanks to my intense over the summer training with Itachi, I did everything perfectly, and even though I was weighed down by my seals I did the stances and threw the weapons faster than any of the other girls in my class. When I think about it, I wonder what they've been doing this whole time. Even if they didn't have the sensei from hell, they should still be showing some kind of improvement. I don't understand how they can come in on the first day of the year and do worse on the taijutsu demonstration then they did on the last day before summer vacation. Didn't these girls practice during the summer?
I could almost hear growls coming from the teachers as their least favorite student surpassed all of the other girls in the demonstrations. I grinned and waved at them. I knew it would make them angrier, but I wanted to get back at them even if it was in a small way. The sweetest part about this little pay back is that they can't punish me for it. It's not my fault that I'm way ahead of this curriculum. I wonder when they'll start teaching us actual jutsu. If they start teaching it early on, they'll make it twice as hard on me as everyone else, but if they leave it until the end of the year I'll be working on it from the ground up with Itachi. If I had to chose between the two, it would honestly be these teachers hands down.
Unfortunately, they gave us the jutsu syllabus, and they wouldn't even be teaching the ninjutsu background and termonology until the end of the year. I smell a conspiracy. They so planned this with Itachi. I wouldn't put it past any of them. After taijutsu practice, we were dismissed for the day. I ran back inside and grabbed my back pack, but I quickly dropped it as a huge spider crawled onto my hand. I inwardly seethed as I said loudly so the girls waiting outside could hear me, "Nice try, but I'm not afraid of spiders." I walked out of the building and gently placed the spider in a dark corner and re-entered the classroom. Then I checked my back pack for any more surprises.
Finding nothing else in my pack, I put it on and raced home. As soon as I got there, I did my homework and went to practice using my kekkei genkai with dad. After that I studied more about poisons and antidotes with Uncle Sasori. Finally, I practiced my taijutsu before reading the books Sasori gave me and falling asleep. Tomorrow I would stop by a training area for another training lesson with Itachi-sensei.
The rest of the school year basically went the same way. The teachers kept trying to catch me doing anything that they could punish and humiliate me for. Sometimes they caught me doing something that they could exaggerate into an excuse for punishment, but I got through most of the days without an evil teacher incident. I continued to show up the other girls in my class, both in my studies and taijutsu. I mean, these girls seriously need to practice their stances and weaponry sometime. I don't know. Maybe they are, but to me it looks like they're standing still.
After another school year of pure torture, it was finally the last day of school again. The last day is really just a day to hand out the report cards because everything else has already been done. This is a waste of my time. I could have just stayed home with Dad and Sasori today, but no I just had to come in to get a slip of paper that says how well I did this year. I wouldn't be surprised if the teachers sabatoged my grades. They certainly hate me enough to do it. Oh, great. Now the girls are gossiping about what a freak I am, again. They just keep on talking like I can't hear every word that they're saying, and hey!
I looked at the girls and said indignantly, "My hands do NOT eat poop!" "Yeah, they do poop eater!" One girl retorted. "Why are you even talking to us?" Her friend added haughtily. "Yeah, go mind your own buisness, freak!" The first girl added. I gave them an icy look, "It is my buisness when you talk about me. I've heard everything that you and everyone else has said about me this whole year, and I'm sick of it! Why don't you mind YOUR buisness and-" I was cut off by the teacher's triumphant voice. I'll bet she has waited the entire year for this moment.
"Katsura-san," She said reminding me very strongly of a certain evil sensei that I just love to hate, "Come to the front of the class." Why, oh why, do ninja schools have to allow corporal punishment. She decided on the tried and true slap on the hands with a ruler method. Needless to say that with my particular hand condition, it hurts like heck! I could see the disappointment in her eyes as she whacked my hands three times, and I showed no sign of tears. Most girls would have been bawling their eyes out by then, but I'm not most girls. I refuse to give any of them the satisfaction of seeing me cry.
Then she ordered, "Now, into the corner for disrupting the class." I sighed as I walked up to the chair that stood in the corner in front of the class as the other girls laughed at me and called me a freak and a loser. Grr, someday I'll show them all. When the rest of the indoor classes were over, everyone moved outside for a final, unscored taijutsu and weaponry demonstration. Everyone except me. I was forced to stay inside and write 'I will not disturb the class' as many times as I could until school was out. As soon as the last bell of the year rang, I swiped my report card out of the pile, snatched my back pack, and ran home as fast as I could.
Once I got home, I gave Dad my report card. "Sasori-danna," He called, "Fai-chan's home, and she brought her report card, un!" I threw my back pack into the closet where it would remain until school started again. I heard Uncle Sasori shuffling out of the bathroom as he came to join Dad and I in the living room. We all settled ourselves onto the couch as Dad opened the report and silently read it before passing it on non-chalantly to Uncle Sasori. I was at the edge of my seat waiting for some kind of a reaction. I had worked my butt off this year, and I wanted to know if my hard work had paid off.
The shinobi academy report cards are just like normal school report cards, except at the bottom of the letters the scores of the entire class are confidentially charted with the first column belonging to the top of the class, the second belonging to the runner up, and so forth with the student's column outlined in bold. My kindergarten year, I had placed somewhere in the middle of the class because my weaponry and written scores had weighed me down. In first and second grade, I had been number one in the class, but only by a small margine because some other girls had insanely high written test scores and fairly good taijutsu scores. Dad and Sasori had been very pleased by this, but Itachi and Leader-sama were far from satisfied.
Now I couldn't tell if I had done well or not because Dad and Sasori had gone as silent as the grave on me. "Well, how'd I do?" I asked. I felt like I was about to die from the suspense. Uncle Sasori gave a low whistle in response, and I did an anime fall off the couch. Dad just looked down at me, "Tell you what, Fai-chan. We'll take a break from training today, un." I get the day off? Is it because I did really good, or is this one of those take a break today because tomorrow Itachi's going to murder you days? Argh, the suspense, the suspense!
Finally, Dad and Uncle Sasori couldn't take it anymore as they saw the expression on my face. They burst out laughing as I got up off the floor. "Don't worry, Fai," Uncle Sasori said reassuringly, "You did excellently. I'm willing to bet that even Leader-sama will be satisfied this time." I let out a breath that I didn't even know I'd been holding. "What are you talking about, un? She didn't just do excellently, she blew all of the other students out of the water!" Dad was saying excitedly as he made wild hand gestures. "That she did," Uncle Sasori agreed. "Let me see! Let me see!" I said excitedly.
I must've done well to have impressed Sasori. Dad handed me the report card, and he was right. I really had blown all of the other girls out of the water. My written test scores for my in class subjects were all A's. I hadn't gotten the highest written scores across the board because another girl had tied with me for perfect hundreds. My taijutsu and weaponry scores were perfect, while the second highest scores in both areas were average at best. I had secured the top position in my class with a perfect 4.0.
I grinned and laughed with relief when I saw my scores. The first thought that streaked across my brain was 'Hah! In your faces evil teachers!' This was just too awesome! "We're going to have to celebrate, un!" Dad said. "We are going to celebrate, remember?" Sasori stated, "We're going to that Chinese buffet to show her scores to Itachi and Kisame before we inform Leader-sama." "Oh, yeah," Dad said. My joy was briefly put on pause. I was going to have to face Itachi at dinner. I think I just lost my appetite. However, my excitement and appetite came back the instant they mentioned that Uncle Kisame was going to be there. I haven't seen him since forever.
We left the apartment at dinner time and squeezed into a cab that drove us to the Chinese buffet. Mmm, Chinese food...We entered the extravagantly decorated restaraunt, and the delicious aroma of perfectly cooked Chinese buffet floated over to me. Oh, crap. I just saw Itachi glaring at us as usual. Why did he have to be here? Oh, yeah. He's my sensei, and Leader-sama pointed out that my sensei had a right to know my scores before hand as well. Stupid technical grown up stuff! I pushed those thoughts out of my head as I saw Uncle Kisame with his genjutsu disguise on jumping up and down, waving and grinning from ear to ear. He looked so funny that I started giggling when I saw him.
We headed over to the table they were sitting at and grabbed the extra plates that had been set out for us. As we headed for the food, Uncle Kisame said, "Hey, Fai-chan. Long time no see. How about a hug for your long lost uncle?" I ignored the fact that we were both carrying plates as I gave Kisame a big hug, accidentally whacking him in the back with the plate. Oops. Well Kisame didn't mind because he laughed it off. When we got to the food line, he made sure that I got plenty of vegetables along with the other foods. He can be like a second dad at times. We all retreated to the table with plates piled high with various combinations of food.
As we dug into the feast, Dad handed my report card to Itachi who read it smugly before carelessly tossing it to an overly eager Kisame. I quietly released another held breath before resuming my meal. If Itachi was looking smug again, it meant that I wasn't going to be in hot water during tomorrow's training session. "Uh," Kisame said in confusion, "What does this charty thingy mean?" Everyone sweatdropped. Okay, I knew that Kisame wasn't the brightest guy in the world, but the chart is pretty much self explanatory.
Itachi took it upon himself to show Kisame which column showed my scores and explained that the others showed the scores of the other girls. "Oh," Kisame said, "I don't get it." I dropped the fork I had been holding, and Uncle Sasori had to quickly snatch Dad's plate out of the way so Dad's head hit the table instead of a pile of food. Itachi just gave Kisame a look that clearly said 'and you got to be my team mate how?' As Dad slowly raised his head again Itachi said in a very annoyed tone, "I'll put this into terms that even an idiot can understand. She finished with a perfect score in every subject and is easily the best in her class."
I could see the dawning light of comprehension brightening Kisame's face as he grinned. "Way to go, kiddo!" He congratulated as we high fived over the table. Sasori figured that it was safe to put Dad's plate back down, and they continued eating. Itachi grunted non-commitally, but he still couldn't hide the smugness on his face. I didn't read too much into it because I had just finished my dinner and was heading for the dessert when Kisame came up next to me at the dessert buffet. "Hey, you know the chinese version of monju is to your left," He said. I whipped my head to the left and saw a light shining down onto a pile of the Chinese version of monju. I quickly piled my plate high with the variation of my favorite dessert. I love this buffet!
"You know," Uncle Kisame continued casting a conspiratory glance around, "Itachi's very pleased with your performance. Leader-sama was getting very impatient with Itachi for not producing any significant results. Itachi and I had to repeatedly tell him that you were still too young to clearly stand out, and that you'd get better as you got older. Your scores this year will really salvaged his pride. You even scored higher than his younger brother, which I know he's going to brag about to his clan." I paused in mid reach for another piece of dessert. Curse him! He's helping me achieve my dream, but in return I'm feeding his ego!
Wait a second, did he just say..."I did better than Sasuke?!" I yelped in surprise. "Shhh," Uncle Kisame shushed me, "Keep your voice down! Itachi would fillet me if he knew I was telling you this stuff! But yeah, Sasuke did worse on his written tests and his weaponry scores, and he's the top of his class." "Sorry," I said quietly, "Does Itachi-sensei really brag about me to his clan?" This was the first that I had ever heard about Itachi telling other people about me. Did I actually impress him, or was this just to satisfy his pride? "Well," Kisame said nervously glancing at Itachi, "He told the clan that he was privately teaching a student on the side. It's a good excuse for buisness stuff that the clan doesn't need to know about, and he brags that you've been the top of your year since he started teaching you."
Just as I suspected, Itachi only told people about me because it benefited him. I can just see him telling his father about how his student is out performing his own younger brother, the second Uchiha prodigy, thanks to Itachi's training. Argh, I can't believe this guy! Well, he does deserve some credit for teaching me, but I got those grades by working my butt off and he takes ALL the credit! I really want to wipe that smug smirk off his face, but I can't. "You okay?" Kisame asked sounding concerned. I put a final dessert on my plate and smiled at him, "Yep."
We walked back to the table, and I put my frustrations aside as I took a bite out of a dessert that tasted like it fell from heaven onto my plate. After dessert, Sasori paid for the food, and I hugged Kisame good bye before we parted ways. Once we were back at the apartment, I reviewed my knowledge of poisons and antidotes with Sasori, practiced my exercises, and went to bed. I'll have a long day of training tomorrow, and I need all the rest I can get.
AN: I hope that this chapter doesn't sound repetitive of other chapters, but I wanted to show that Fai-chan is improving faster than the other girls. This was the best idea that I came up with. I hope that you liked it.
