Felines were agile, felines were majestic, felines were everything Asuka was not. She's tired, and really wanted to be left alone, but she knows that it's impossible considering where she is. She's already fell over something twice today, and is ready to just kick everything in her way in agitation.
It isn't her fault she fell out of bed in the morning with a killer headache.
She takes another breath, her hands wrapping around eachother restlessly. They sat next to each other closely, eyeing the other children. They seem like they would enjoy some ice cream, because they're all fuming hot in anger, she thinks bluntly.
"Oi! That's my seat!" One of the boys shouts, gaining the attention of the twins and almost the entire room. "Get off!"
Asuka snorts softly, nudging her brother. "Children are competitive, apparently."
Rinji laughs, and taps her shoulder, "Yeah, I think he'd have a better chance fighting a cat."
Asuka raises an eyebrow, and gives him a look, "Really?" She whispers, "I think that'd be too much, perhaps a small worm, or maybe a leaf."
The boy looks a little taller than the twins and has blonde hair and blue eyes, and Asuka is slightly not intimidated when he turns around to glare at her. "What're you lookin' at? Huh?"
She hums, pushing her hair over her shoulder to fiddle with it, "I'm looking at you, why?"
He sneers and crosses his arms over his chest, "I don't like people lookin' at me, so don't do it!"
Asuka snorts and looks at Rinji and they both share a look. "Why?" they both say, "Do you feel uncomfortable in your own skin? Or do you just like hearing your own voice?"
The boy opens his mouth but decides against it, favoring a grunt and an unhappy glare. The twins shares another look, smirking.
They sit like for a while, ten minutes if Asuka is correct, before the teacher - their sensei - snaps at them all to shut up. She's a little offended at the blunt and harsh voice, but is glad that the other children did as he said. The man looks worn and tired, ready to fall asleep, with dirty blonde hair and mustard yellow eyes. He's wearing a Kusagakure vest, which is light brown with long shoulder guards, thick neck guards, and several scroll pouches.
With a stern face, he starts his speech - although Asuka isn't really listening. She understands that he's talking about some basic rules and guidelines, but she really isn't interested in learning some of the most basic rules she had to follow back when she was still in school, back when she hadn't experienced death and rebirth. The man started talking about training, and Asuka engages in it a little bit more than she as before, but she was still out of it.
With disinterested black eyes, she lazily scans the room, counting the scores in the cheap, common brown wood. She wonders how they got there, but maybe she'll find out in a moment when her brother isn't nudging her knee with his. "Yes?" She whispers, and glances at him, noticing his navy blue sweater more so than his face.
"You look lost, want me to explain what he said?" Rinji asks, tilting his head.
"Nah," she shrugs, red hair falling over a shoulder, "I think I got most of the important things - you know, the studies, training, history, geology, and I think that's about it."
He chuckles and wraps an arm around her, bringing her in for a hug, "Silly, you forgot the survival."
She blinks owlishly at him, "Really? I thought that would've fit in with the geology and studies."
With shaking shoulders and an innocent look on his face, they both direct their attention back to their new sensei, who looks ready to quit his job, considering his flustered face and clenched fists. Uncontained whispers of all kinds were floating around the room, almost completely ignoring the annoyed older man. Asuka sighs and hopes that these kids will realize they are not meant for what's going on outside, in the real world. She knows that she's not meant for the outside world either, but it wouldn't hurt knowing something, right? And she knows how much Rinji wants to become a iryo-nin, a ninja, a shinobi.
It's kind of disgruntling how much she would do for her brother, but she feels the need to be more involved in his life than she has in anyone else, she thinks it might be because they were twins, born only minutes apart, but she also knows that maybe it's because she knows that death can come at any moment and take anyone's breath away.
Their mother looks down, brown hair obscuring her face, and sighs. "Look, you've started school today, and so must your… clan training. The other children won't be going what you're going through, but they might be doing something similar."
The children nod their heads, sitting next to each other in their garden.
Their mother continues, "And, well, this is going to be difficult and everything because you're my first children I've ever had-" she laughs nervously and rubs her hands together, "-and, well, Shinji and I both have told each other that we'll keep on our traditions even though we're clearly in the middle of a war."
She babbles on some more, clutching her wrists in nervousness and agitation. "But because you're father's always out on missions and what-not, I'll be taking care of most of the training. I know almost all of the ceremonies for contracting you to your summon, but there's a ceremony that the manlier pair of the couple is supposed to do. I obviously know it, but it's tradition and tomorrow your father will be following said tradition."
With her hands in front of her and face set in determination, she lets out a loud wolf whistle, and after a pregnant pause, they all heard a familiar guttural screech. Their heads all look up, and they see Takahiro gliding in the air with two, smaller birds fluttering behind him. They circle around a few times and safely hop their way on the ground.
With the birds now standing next to the sitting children, the older woman goes on about the health and care of the birds. Asuka is awed by the creatures, and compared to the older bird they are very small, almost to his thigh.
"-And usually they eat almost anything, but they like commonly like deer-"
But while they are incredibly small, they still have a dagger as a beak. They can easily cut through skin and probably bone. Well, that was a reason why they can be involved in battles, right? Even if they're the size of your fist, they still could probably take out a fully grown man with a bite to the throat.
Their mother finishes her speech with how the birds could grow in size determining how much chakra they put in it, but that they should wait until their birds are fully grown. "Now," she claps her hands together, a large smile growing on her face, "To the naming ceremony. Rinji-chan, please come here."
Her brother obeys and scoots closer to her, their mother takes his hands and envelope them between hers, "Enkosugi Rinji, do you wish to take Masayoshi as your eternal summon, to take care of him as your brother, and to treat him as such." Rinji nods, smiling a full set of teeth. Their mother grabs one of the hatchlings, it's feathers a softer brown than the other one, and hands the bird to him. "Then, from now on, Masayoshi is your responsibility, your right hand, and your partner. Take care of him."
Her mother then shoos him away, silently telling him to get to know Masayoshi. Then Asuka shyly scoots forward to her mother, a blush creeping on her face. Her mother looks at her with a bright smile, and takes her hands with her own warmer hands. "Enkosugi Asuka, do you wish to take Ima as your eternal summon, to take care of her as your sister, and to treat her as such." She shyly nods with a small smile, looking over at the baby bird as her mother hands her to her own hands. The baby bird, the hatchling, Ima, chirps something, and Takahiro bobs his head, softly crowing something back to her. "Then, from now on, Ima is your responsibility, your right hand, and your partner. Take care of her."
The brown haired woman shoos her away like the way she did with Rinji, though Asuka moves the other direction than what her twin took, softly moving with the surprisingly light bird in her hands.
"I'm Asuka." She finally mutters, sitting next to one of the few ponds in the garden.
"I-I-Ima!" The baby bird chirps, its voice is relatively high pitched but still held that chittering stutter Takahiro had, although it was much more prominent in her speech. Maybe it was because she was still young?
"So," Asuka says softly after a short moment, "what do you... like to eat?"
The bird is silent for a moment, then she bobs her head, "Fox-xes, mice."
Ima's speech was off, cut and thick with with an unknown accent, but it isn't like Asuka cares, she thought she'd have to give the bird language lessons, considering how Akamaru was in the original timeline. But at least it was something she could start with, because she knew she was horrendous at starting something that she didn't know how to begin.
"So, what do you like to do? I like to cook." That's good, start a conversation with a bird, why don't you.
"I-I-I like Masayoshi, Takahiro, and flying." The bird says, readjusting herself in Asuka's palm. "And learning." She says after a moment of thought.
Asuka hums and nods her head, "That's good. I like my brother too. And my mother. I never really see much of my father, but I think he's cool."
Ima nods her head jerkily, her body following the movements, and Asuka finally think she has another friend that isn't her brother.
The first time they practice with their chakra is when they start chakra theory in school, almost a week and a half since the first day of school. While Rinji seems elated for the early practice, Asuka is beginning to become more and more aware of what might be the worst epiphany of her life. The headaches were minor, though they did get annoying after a while, and she was starting to get really pissed at the annoying buzzing around and inside her head.
"To start off with chakra practice, I want you to hold one of these leaves on your forehead or the downside of a limb." Her mother starts, because it was so important they had to know what their chakra control was. The brunette hands them both half a large leaf, because almost all of the leaves and trees around in Kusa were ridiculously large and abnormal. Maybe it was because of how some type of chakra affected the growth of the plants and animals hundreds and thousands of years ago.
Although they could use some of the fallen leaves on the ground in the garden, they were much more smaller than the ones from wherever their mother got them.
Rinji coughs into his arm and clears his throat, and their mother looks worriedly at him before continuing.
"So now I want you two to feel for your chakra, like meditating. It'll feel different from person to person, but you should feel a tugging sensation in the center of your gut. That would be the center of your chakra system. Once you've felt your chakra, I want you to use a leaf and try to attach it to your forehead or underside of a limb." Her mother begins to explain, waving her hands around for a more visual idea of what she was saying. "Sometimes it'll be easier for people to control their chakra than others, so don't worry if it gets annoying that you can't get a hold of the chakra at first, you can train your body to handle its chakra so you don't have to waste it using a jutsu or something."
Asuka and Rinji both nod, smiles on their faces and obediently try to find their chakra source by relaxing and closing their eyes respectively. Their mother places in tips every so often, and compliments them when she feels their chakra's expanding and deflating as they try to get a grasp on it. Their mother thinks that this is going on good right now, a lot better than she had expected, though her daughters chakra signature seems a little… off, it has an underlining of something that wasn't natural, or natural, and it burnt her nose from trying to sense it.
The three of them are like that for almost and hour, both of the twins clearly getting frustrated by the energy and time they were using for the activity.
Even as Asuka thinks it's really important to know how to utilize the chakra that she has been reborn with, she really doesn't feel the motivation pushing her along like Rinji. This is like giving her some new awesome powers that no one has ever heard of, like slapping her in the face with something she really doesn't need or want but might be something extremely significant for survival in a few years.
Smarting, Asuka growls angrily, her hands in tight fists, "As interesting as it sounds, I think it's very, very stupid!" She whines in a childish way, her body tense and face frowning and scrunched up.
"At least it's good for us, right Kaa-chan?" Rinji asks, wide, innocent eyes looking towards their mother expectantly. His tiny hands are on Asuka's, and she thinks that it's ridiculous that she's so small, because it was really fun being tall.
"Yes," their mother answers with the nod of her head, straight, muddy brown hair pushed over a shoulder. "It's really important to have control over your chakra, even civilians need a year or two so their chakra doesn't go haywire."
The twins are silent for a moment, sharing a look that makes their mother smirk with the tilt of the side of her lips, "Really?" They chorus, "I didn't know even civilians had to know how to do what shinobi had to do."
And their mother snorts and diverts her eyes away from them, "Yeah, I think it wouldn't be fun puking everything you ate until you have literally nothing in your stomach and die from starvation."
Asuka thinks Rinji and hers face must have been comical, because their mother starts laughing, with her hand splayed out to cover her mouth and bent over at the waist from the amusement she's seeing. Asuka looks at her brother and smiles brightfully and nudges his arm with her elbow. He looks at her, hazel eyes shining with mirth, and smiles back at her. They let their mother laugh for a few moments before Asuka nudges Rinju again with her elbow again and gives him a look.
"Kaa-chan, is that true?" He asks with large, innocent eyes, effectively cutting a snort from his sister.
"Sadly." Their mother confirms, smothering out her smile and standing straight again. "Come on, let's go inside. I want to show you how to make some delicious hanami dango."
They laugh, and the twins run ahead of the brunette. Giggling, Asuka hops in front of Rinji, facing him, and trips over a loose pebble. She lands with her elbows behind her, scraped and bleeding. She winces and shakily gets up and feels the tears pricking her eyes, and internally curses her small baby body for it's stupid weakness.
Takahiro, Masayoshi, and Ima are now introduced! yay :)
I tried making a introduction, but failed miserably. I just wanted to get across that Asuka is not graceful in any means, hence the last part, although it will sorta-maybe affect the next chapter and probably-sorta bring out some character traits.
I still have absolutely how old I'm going to make Asuka compared to some other the other major character involved in the Third Shinobi World War, like Kakashi and co. and I'm sure that the war starts when Kakashi is, like, eight or something, but that's in Konoha's terms, so this is slightly different than canon.
