Ku areba raku ari

"There are hardships and there are delights."

After rain comes fair weather; March rain and April showers bring forth May flowers.

My fears of my time at the academy being mind-numbingly boring (or at least initially so) turned out to be completely unnecessary, debunked not even a day after the fairly dull introduction to it.

To be fair, however, I didn't find my classes interesting because Iruka was a good teacher (really, he was passable at best), nor did I found much of the content mind blowing, but the implications of what we were being taught fascinated me.

For example, we had the ninja rules firmly shoved down our throats before anyone even checked if we knew how to write our own names. Everyday we were reminded of their existence, often being quizzed on them. I had made a decision to never do better than average on any test but I was forced to quickly realize that the average for these constant quizzes was nothing less than one hundred percent. Even Naruto could recite them all (albeit with poor wording) after the first few weeks and his ability to retain information was terrible.

The speed at which we were indoctrinated into the system was almost terrifying. Our pride in our village was also inflated quickly through very biased tales of ninja heroes alongside much repetition of the importance of the Will of Fire. The love for Konoha was drilled into us so deeply that eventually, it became easy to think you'd always thought so highly of your home and were more than prepared to protect it with a patriotic zeal!

As someone who rebuked any attempt at this child-friendly brainwashing, it was morbidly fascinating to watch as my classmates, who previously hadn't cared that much for Konoha as a whole, began to mention their love for our village more frequently.

After knowledge of the ninja code and loyalty to the village was firmly instilled in our hearts and minds, the slow, rolling introduction of strategies emerged. Often they started as games taught to us in PE lessons or between lessons.

A version of capture the flag was one. Hide and seek was another, although that had teams, spies, messages and all other kinds of things involved too. There were relay races where sabotage was a welcome addition as long as no one got hurt - we weren't to start any sort of full contact sparring or learn any fighting techniques until next year when our stamina had been appropriately improved and skin toughened.

The strategies we'd be spotted implementing, even without realizing it, would then be expanded upon in class, whether that be through class discussion or the basic mathematics behind each action we wanted to take. Fractions and probability were taught at a far earlier stage than they had been in my previous experience of school. Arguably too soon, having to skip over other foundations of maths that I deemed of great importance.

Then again, we didn't do much maths, not even for a young child. Lots of subjects I saw as the fundamentals were put as a lesser priority to more ninja concentrated lessons and what of these basic topics we did learn were often put in the context of our future careers. We were prospective ninjas first and kids in need of an education second.

Considering the number of children who dropped out of the academy before even graduating, I couldn't help but wonder how they functioned in civilian life. Were there even schemes in place for that? War had increased the demand for ninjas and so in the past people were very reluctant to let kids drop out. Then again, my father had been brought up as a ninja and had managed to fit into the role of a merchant quite well - although, merchants were often more involved in ninja matters than one might think.

All these implications and hidden consequences kept my brain whirring even in the most simple of subjects. It actually helped a lot in maintaining my 'average' image as I was prone to lose track of what our teacher was telling us and have an honest response of 'I don't know' if questioned on something they'd said.

My accidental creation of some sort of pseudo-friendship between Ami and myself also stopped things from being boring, and surprisingly not in that negative manner.

I had a rather...distant relationship with the purple haired girl. I'd stuck by my dislike of childish conversations and so didn't contribute to the chatter that she had with her other friends. Ami was rather a boastful thing, however, so she looked somewhat favourably on my lack of interest in interrupting her when she spoke. Every now and then though she would mention something mildly intriguing and it was easy to make her talk more about it by just saying a few things.

Another positive aspect to the 'friendship' was that I always had a group to join whenever it was necessary. I hadn't minded the prospect of being one of the loners who would be pushed into a group that didn't like them much by a teacher. I certainly wouldn't be the only one with the somewhat anti-social Shino and the painfully shy Hinata (Naruto forced himself quite well into groups). There was an irrational sense of safety and relaxation though by having a group that would always let you in.

A group that happened to acquire conveniently average grades.

Ami was also used as subtle evidence for me being normal. See, I can be social, I can make friends, I am a completely average child with no outstanding features whatsoever! No need to pay any attention to Sakura Haruno at all. That coupled with the more prominent problems of other children meant that I passed under the radar with ease. I'd felt almost giddy when I first realized my plan to be unnoticeable was working.

The final thing about Ami that worked in my favour was that the rookie nine weren't exactly fond of her. I didn't ever pretend that she was anything less than a bully, a particularly cruel one at that. She picked on those she thought to be lesser than her: the misfits, the quiet ones. She'd used such criteria in order to first speak with me, seeing that I hadn't made any friends and assuming wrongly that it was due to lack of self confidence. To an adult her insults were ridiculous (I mean, Billboard Brow? Really?), but to a child they were soul crushing. More than once I'd seen her send crying children away, giggling loudly about how much of a loser they were.

It wasn't that she was inherently a bad person. Ami did it for attention and out of lack of self-esteem herself. That was painfully obvious when one considered we were friends because I'd complimented her hair. She was just a child who didn't know any better and was hardly encouraged to stop doing so.

Iruka was the only teacher who ever lectured children for being mean or bullying. Everyone else took the stance that if you couldn't handle a few childish insults then you could hardly manage as a ninja later on. I disagreed entirely with this sentiment, very much hypocritically since I rarely attempted to discourage Ami's bullying.

Instead, I selfishly put my goal of getting out of Konoha eventually of higher importance than the happiness of a few children's' childhoods.

There was though those few instances when I did do something. The first came within the second week at the academy.

In our class, there weren't many people Ami consistently bullied. We were the class most likely to graduate after all so the majority had inherited thick skin from their ninja parents/clans. There was one obvious target however that Ami hadn't considered in that first week. Even if she was a child, she knew the importance of clan heirs and that messing with them was a bad, bad idea. But by the second week, it was obvious that their status as a clan heir meant nothing in relation to their strength.

I'd walked in that day to find a crowd around one of the desks at the front of the classroom. Iruka hadn't arrived yet and usually that meant pockets of people all around the room, most complaining about the early start, so I'd been appropriately surprised by the sight. I didn't notice until later that Ino wasn't there, explaining why the situation had escalated to the point it did.

"Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!" Kiba chanted from on top of a desk, pumping his fist up in the air and grinning wildly. Other boys were starting to join him much to the exasperation of Shikamaru who happened to be sat behind the desk they were using as a platform.

The girls seemed to be more concerned, whispering amongst themselves but not loudly enough for me to understand what was happening. Ami's voice, however, could be picked out as being in the middle of the crowd and, curiosity alongside confusion getting the better of me, I forced my way towards her. I emerged into a small space between the onlookers and the two at the heart of the situation.

There stood Ami, one hand slammed onto the desk that Hinata was sat at, pale eyes wide with terror and panic.

Oh god.

Anyone other than Hinata and I would've turned around right then, allowing Ami to do her worst. But Hinata, poor, poor Hinata, was someone I couldn't do that to. Life had not dealt her a good hand. At home she was considered a failure, a weakling who couldn't do anything right. And yet she'd turned out as sweet as she was shy, accepting of all those around her, even the most ostracized. I felt often a painful kind of second hand anxiety for the girl during class if I ever paid her any attention. The idea that her time at school could be as bad as her time at home just made my iron stomach turn.

So, against all my better judgement, I moved forwards and yanked Ami's hand that allowed her to encroach on Hinata's personal space away. "Shut up and leave her alone."

'Beware the fury of a patient man' was a quote that came to mind when I saw Ami's reaction. To her, I was a very patient person. I let her speak as much as she wanted, I never argued with her fiercely about anything, I endured her bullying of other children without a word. In reality, I was less patient, more desperate and entirely selfish. She didn't know that though.

All Ami saw was her quiet, patient friend that had just hissed something with viciousness she'd never heard from anyone before.

She went very pale, eyes going wide and then watery, beginning to cry. Tugging free from my grip, Ami raced away, her entourage of minions following after her. The girl would be fine an hour or so later, placated by a white lie that I'd been sorry to make her cry. I felt vindicated watching her run away though, having done something based on pure emotion rather than logic for the first time in a while. Even the roar of applause coming from the boys on their desks made the rush of petty glee stronger - although Kiba was soon loudly complaining that he'd wanted to see a fight.

Hinata didn't end up saying anything at all to me. Her eyes were still watery from what Ami had said to her (loner, loser, weirdo, abandoned, stupid, ugly) and I had no doubt that her throat had closed up in reaction to the humiliation. She did try to find her voice, to say something back to the girl who had torn her tormentor away, but I spared her the effort, leaving for my seat.

After that incident, Ami never targeted her again.

I did notice however a shift in the attitudes of my peers towards me. Apparently, I'd been labelled as one of Ami's minions, following her every whim without complaint. My loud disapproval of one of her actions now set me in a different category where I was my own person. I was an equal to the girl, not a follower. It gained me a quiet respect that I hadn't expected, one which didn't break my mask of normality but just gave it a different design to Ami's other friends.

The class soon forgot about the whole thing though when we started our proper PE lessons and Sasuke was elevated to the status of an idol.

Those PE classes in the first few weeks at the academy had mainly been spent doing bonding and strategy exercises through games. These continued throughout the year and beyond, of course, just not as frequently when we started doing such lessons seriously.

And by god did I mean seriously.

I had never done so much strenuous exercise in either of my lives. The very first lesson consisted of us running as far as we could before our legs gave out on us. The next we did all sorts of jumping exercises to see how far we could jump, how long we could jump and from what distance we would jump (the last being terrifying beyond belief). After that, we threw javelins, metal balls and other heavy/difficult to throw equipment.

According to Ami, five people from the two other classes dropped out as a direct result of this physical torture. So, naturally, Sasuke would be excelling at it all with his signature, smug smirk.

I think that the excitement and attention surrounding the Uchiha boy was also what turned Naruto from a mild irritation to a monster I wanted to wring the neck of. He started being louder, more obnoxious and brattish. Him and Kiba became an infuriating duo of annoyance, yelling stupid insults at Sasuke that in turn incurred the wrath of his ever growing fan club. They started challenging the smug little twat to various things, whether it be races, how many push ups they could do, how far they could throw things, how much could they push me before I snapped and ended it all out of pure anger.

Sasuke usually won, of course. If he hadn't been so proud then he might've saved us all the torment of Naruto and Kiba's repeated challenges by just letting them win once, but, then again, their boasting might have been equally irritating.

Their frustrating nature aside, PE lessons quickly became the downside to my days. At first, I found myself easily within the upper half of physical capability in my class. I had a tenacity that many of those my age didn't have and could, therefore, push myself further before giving up. Before I could even begin to purposefully regulate myself down to average, however, I found that everyone aside from me had shifted upwards in physical prowess and had fallen without any effort to that average.

The teachers at the academy had turned out to be annoyingly talented at getting their pupils to enhance their limbs with chakra as much as possible.

By getting us to push ourselves to the limit of what we were capable of (and beyond in some cases), the muscles of my classmates that had previously been infused with the barest amount of chakra now had much more being pumped into them. I however couldn't do such a thing unconsciously because I was far too aware of my own chakra. Consequently, in order to keep up with my peers, I had to consciously force my chakra to various parts of my body - not too much though or I might go further ahead than desired.

I became less physically exhausted than I did mentally. It did at the very least get me used to the sensation of chakra sliding across and inside my body.

This became helpful during our second year when we finally started learning how to use our chakra. We wouldn't learn anything resembling a jutsu for years yet (Sasuke the overachiever excluded) but we were taught endless exercises to improve our control. These were challenging as opposed to the majority of our classes. The first time I'd managed to neatly fold a piece of paper in half with just my chakra I'd almost jumped out of my seat in pure happiness at my success.

Naruto, on the other hand, more often than not caused his paper to be ripped to shreds and flung across his desk like confetti. I don't think anyone besides myself noticed his failure was scarier than it was funny. Even with my rudimentary sensory skills, I could feel how much chakra he was emitting to make that happen. Uzumaki chakra reserves, even when limited by a seal holding the Kyuubi back, were a thing to be feared.

Hand signs were an equally bad topic for the blonde. I had to bite back my laughter numerous times upon seeing him accidentally gesture rudely towards Iruka, our teacher torn between berating him or letting the boy off due to his ignorance of his actions. In my opinion, I rather liked learning how to perform the twelve basic hand signs. There was something immensely satisfying about being able to curl your fingers into unnatural poses and flip a few irritating people off whilst doing so without being caught.

Petty, I knew, but it felt so good to subtly get my own back on some of my classmates who were even pettier.

The one subject Naruto seemed to actually excel at was the newly introduced taijutsu class. Sasuke always won against him, naturally, although the blonde's spars against Kiba were a little more evenly matched. They were fairly entertaining too, the pair using underhanded tactics often like throwing dirt in each others faces.

Iruka would yell at them later for it but I could never see why. For crying out loud, we were ninja. Underhanded tactics were just tactics.

I was always tempted to do the same in my spars.

Ami had been my usual opponent to start with when the class was introduced only to be switched to Ino because of my winning streak. Taijutsu was the only class I refused to limit myself at. Experience was the most important factor to your victory in a fight, talent coming at a close second. As an academy student, I couldn't exactly gain fighting experience outside school without drawing attention to myself. It wouldn't even be worth it as who, aside from my peers, would want to spar against a young girl?

Anyway, people's grades in taijutsu were normally overlooked by teachers. It was why Rock Lee had had such a hard time as it didn't matter how strong or fast you punched, one simple jutsu could knock you down in a matter of seconds.

Ino was a good sparring partner. Her punches and kicks were strong for starters, but her strategical skill was her winning point. It was easy to think of Shikamaru being the brains behind the Ino-Shika-Cho combination since he was so far ahead of the other two in intelligence, however, that didn't mean Ino was stupid. She was good, great even at dancing around with the objective of flooring me before I could deal her any real damage. I was flexible simply as a product of my environment, having been forced by my parents to stretch daily since young, although I'd never envisioned how to use such a trait in battle until my sparring with Ino. Our fights demanded the ability to dodge attacks at strange angles and strike at difficult to reach places.

Iruka used us as an example to the troublemaking boys of our class that ran head first into a fight, lecturing them on how Ino and I fought with skill and not just raw power. Even Sasuke was guilty of acting in such a manner against Kiba and Naruto; the Uchiha boy who was supposed to know better.

I wondered if anyone else noticed how he flinched whenever he was told he was meant to be better than that, smarter like your brother. Ami certainly didn't. She just gushed about how he looked good even when being scolded and, if Itachi was ever brought up, frantically tell everyone how the elder brother was just as hot, if not hotter.

That was gossip which came to a skidding halt after the massacre.

I'm not sure why I expected more of a warning before it occurred. It wasn't as though I was in any way affiliated with the Uchiha clan, not even through my parents, and the planning of coups wasn't generally put out in the open for everyone to see. Stopping it hadn't been my objective so I hadn't gone out of my way to gather information on the affair but somehow I'd always assumed I'd know when it was going to happen. The suddenness of it all made it a far more emotional occasion that I'd planned on it being.

There were few amongst my classmates that seemed to understand the full horror of the killings. It was difficult to wrap your mind around as a child, the brutal culling of an entire clan. We hadn't been brought up with death like our parents. To them it was a tragedy, not unlike many they'd witnessed prior, but to us it was a foreign, new concept. The loud and present mourning of the older students at the academy made it for a few a little easier to comprehend. A member of a soon to graduate class had been a Uchiha. She'd died trying to help young children of the clan hide in the rafters of one of the houses.

The image was...sickening.

A girl, a child, being pulled away from those she was attempting to save by Itachi. Those she'd given her life for would hear her screams from up above the scene of the murder, young and terrified. Inevitably, they'd be caught, perhaps shrieking and crying as their killer dragged them back into the open to be slaughtered.

And Itachi would then have the nerve to look upon his little brother and declare that he could not kill him. Screaming, helpless children, he'd kill in a heartbeat, just not Sasuke because he was worth more than them.

I did not view Itachi as a hero of our village. I would only ever have viewed him as such if he had killed them all or none whatsoever.

(Of course, it could've easily been Tobi/Obito who had killed the girl, but it might as well have been Itachi who'd asked the man in the first place to assist with the massacre. And so many children had died that night that, even if that girl had escaped his blade, others had not.)

Sasuke came back to the academy a few weeks later, sullen and snappy. He stopped accepting his scolding with a sense of failure and instead looked angrily upon his mistakes. The girls who adored him were no longer endured in his presence, shoved away with glares and sneers.

I made no attempt to help the self-proclaimed avenger. At first, I'd feel guilty leaving him alone in the most fragile period of his life. Then he'd start snapping crueler things than necessary at people who, in his mind, were getting in his way. Sometimes, when he'd say something meant to hurt the fragile Hinata or anyone else I felt didn't deserve it, I'd get the urge to sneer something even more damaging back.

Oh, but couldn't Itachi do something like that even with someone standing in the way? Sasuke, you're good at shuriken throwing because Itachi taught you, right? Itachi had graduated already at your age, why haven't you?

However, I held my tongue, shooting simply the deadliest glare I could muster whenever I felt he'd gone too far. I'd have to rely on Naruto to give lesser insults to the boy, a disappointing prospect as the blonde's tongue was far from sharp and witty.

Anyone else who could hit Sasuke with words where he was weakest gave him a free pass either because he was cute or because of what had happened to him. Whenever I was in a particularly vicious mood, I'd wonder whether he would turn out the way he did in the canon if he were any less attractive. Perhaps then people would have been more willing to quite literally knock some sense into that angst-ridden head of his.

I don't think I've said this yet but Sakura technically isn't a self-insert as I disagree with about eighty percent of her decisions haha

I've only actually ever done oc-inserts so perhaps one day I'll make a character with my personality (most likely the most boring fanfic ever as oh boy I'd do nothing but tuck and roll out of the plot).

Review question:

If you had the power to stop the Uchiha massacre from happening with no one finding out your involvement in it, would you?

I would actually tend towards letting it happen if only to stop a civil war from occurring. Abandon the few to save the majority.

(Wow did it just gave ten shades darker in here haha)