Anko came to school on her second day, her face already healed completely by the school's medical ninja. Medical Ninjutsu really was incredible, though after being told that the average trainee usually had to spend eight years of intensive training learning how to do it, and that if you mess up even slightly has horrible consequences on the body, learning it became a lot less appealing.
Still, it helped to hide from her parents just how bad that first day had been for her. She didn't know if they would have let her continue if they had seen what she had looked like just after that Uchiha had been through with her, even with the Hokage personally showing up to the tea shop to assure them that such a thing would never be allowed to happen again.
There was a sort of nirvana coming back to school. It was as if the first day had been so absolutely awful, that everything from here on out would be a cake walk just by comparison.
Though when she finally got to her classroom the difference in atmosphere was so extreme that she wondered if it was really the same place at all.
The sounds of children gossiping and bosting to one and other were gone and a heavy silence sat in the air. All of the children who had before mostly fought over seats close to the windows were now cramped together near the far wall.
The only thing that remained the same was him.
Kyouya sat in the same spot as before, leaning back in his seat with his eyes closed and his breathing steady. The rest of the class just stared at him, the way a group of baby sheep might stare at a sleeping lion, jumping every time there was a sudden noise or the boy twitched. Anything that might signal his waking.
It was almost comical, given that he was the smallest person in the room.
Almost…
As much as Anko hated to admit it, she was afraid of him too. His punches and kicks had been so fast the that she couldn't follow them with her eyes. His jutsu were capable of leaving her helpless. His animal could easily cut her to ribbons or crush her to death. Then there was the way he had been so casual about nearly killing a man.
But there as just something so sad about him sitting there all alone with everyone looking at him like he was some kind of monster. Weird and scary as he was, he was just a kid. Just like she didn't want to see him punished after he stood up to the teacher for her, she didn't want him to be all alone either.
Swallowing down on the hollow feeling in her stomach, Anko walked over and sat in the same seat she did the day before, right next to the terrifying child.
As she pulled out her seat, there was the slight noise of the chair scrapping against the wooden floor and Anko froze as Kyouya's silver eye snapped open and locked onto her. "W…what? Are you going to glare at me every time I try to sit down in my seat?" Anko asked, putting some heat into her voice. The little terrified voice inside her head was screaming at her for her stupidity, but her dumb mouth seemed to have a mind of its own.
However, rather than biting her to death, Kyouya just gave a small huff before closing his eye again.
Sitting down, Anko tried to let the tension leave her body. She wasn't exactly sure how long she could keep this up. Was the Academy going to be the death of her? But she's too young to die! There so much Dango she hasn't eaten yet!
No, she had to be brave. If she couldn't even sit next to his little kid, then how was she ever supposed to be a proper ninja? She wouldn't give up just because of his scary eyes!
"Anko-chan?" Anko blinked as she was brought out of her own little world to find Akane standing next to her. "Mind of I take this seat?"
"Ah, feel free, Shimura-san." Anko said, surprised that the girl wanted to sit next to her.
"It feels weird to be called Shimura, can't you just call me by my name? We're friends after all." Akane said with a cheerful smile.
"…Alright, Akane…-chan." Anko nodded, still a bit confused. Akane was a daughter of the main branch of one of the Leaf's four noble clans, and while the Shimura weren't as powerful as the Uchiha or Hyuuga, it was still a very influential clan. So why would the princess of one of the village's top clans want to be friends with a common civilian girl like her?
Akane even looked a little like a princess with her long black hair in a slightly wild hime cut, and her more traditional clothes in bright blue colors. It made Anko feel awkward about her own messy hair and slack trousers.
Akane chatted with Anko for a few moments, checking if things had gone well for her after they had parted the day before. All the while the other students in the classroom were paling from the sudden increase in noise in the classroom. Though if they were worried about things then, it would only get worse when Akane finished her conversation with Anko and then actually turned to Kyouya.
"Hey Kyouya-kun, I was wondering if you wouldn't mind helping me train after school." Akane asked the boy out of nowhere. No small talk, just straight into the danger zone. Kyouya's eye snapped open, but beyond that he didn't move, just glared at the girl with suspicion in his gaze.
"Akane-chan, are you sure you want to do that?" Anko asked, thinking about Kyouya and his aversion to being crowded. She didn't want her friend(?) to be bitten to death.
"Yes I'm sure." Akane nodded. "Yesterday was an eyeopener for me. Before they, I always got angry when people would say I was gifted because I was a Shimura. I thought that it was them ignoring all the hard work I put into getting stronger. But after seeing your fight with the teacher, Anko, I realized that I didn't know the first thing about effort."
"My fight!?" Anko said, thinking back to the horrible experience.
"Yes, the way you refused to give up and let that man step on your dream. Watching it, I couldn't help but to feel moved." Akane admitted, putting her hands over her heart. "I want to be able to put that kind of effort into my training. Maybe that way I can become strong enough to help protect the village, the same why may parents did."
Anko was stuck between wanting to flush with embarrassment, and the sinking feeling from hearing her new friend referring to her parents in the past tenths. It shouldn't have been that surprising. Thousands of Leaf ninja died during the Second Ninja World War. A lot of the students probably lost parents or other family members. Since most of the people Anko had grown up with were civilians, she hadn't really had to deal with that. Not really.
Akane had complemented her resolve and holding onto her dream, but had it really been a dream? She had never really had any goals at becoming a ninja besides just becoming one because everyone said she couldn't. It was more stubborn refusal to give up than noble determination. After hearing Akane say that she wanted to become strong to help protect the village, Anko's own goal of doing it just to prove she could seemed rather shallow and childish.
"Then I'll train with you too!" Anko said before her brain could stop her mouth. "We can get stronger and protect the village together!"
"Yeah!" Akane said, a look of complete joy on her face. "What do you say, Kyouya-kun? Would you please train with us?"
'What have you gotten me into this time mouth?' Anko thought as Kyouya stared at them with a bore and perhaps slightly irritated expression. At first, she thought he was going to shoot them down, or maybe even insult them, but instead, he actually agreed.
"Fine. I'll help show you little animals how to sharpen your fangs." He said a little coldly. "But after that, its over, and I owe you two nothing."
"Owe us?" Akane repeated with some surprise. "Wait, you think that we only helped you yesterday so that you would owe us? That's not right at all."
"Hmph. If small animals wish to lie, at least make it believable." Kyouya scoffed, closing his eyes again. "No one ever wants me. Not unless I am useful to them."
Anko wanted to protest but didn't know how. She had felt like she had owed him. He was the one who had fought the teacher, after all.
"Hey, none of that. Isn't it better for us all to just work together as friends and not keep score on things?" Akane said with a laugh. A laugh that got smaller and smaller as Kyouya didn't react or even acknowledge her presence anymore.
Soon after, the new teacher arrived and started class, beginning with history.
"I'm going to be staying after school to tutor these two small animals."
Shitsuki had been ecstatic when she had heard her son say that when she had gone to pick him up from school. Her sons very first play dead since he had turned ten months old!
It had become clear very early on to her that her son wasn't normal, and she had hidden him away from the rest of the world in order to try to protect him from being taken before her time. Even if the Hokage insisted that the village didn't do such things, Shitsuki didn't believe him entirely. Shadows can exist even within shadows. That was one of the principals of the Nara clan. So while the shadow they see might being clean, Shitsuki didn't doubt that there were darker shadows deep within the roots of the village. Shadows that wouldn't hesitate to try to take advantage of her baby boy.
Besides, Kyouya isn't the kind of kid one takes to another's birthday party. Not unless they were looking for a disaster. While Kyouya seemed to have a nack for knowing just how much strength to use too only leave his victims with scraps and bruises, things could very quickly escalate. First the small children that crowd him, then their older siblings and cousins, then the parents, until everyone wised up or they managed to gather enough people to overwhelm him with pure numbers until he got tired and fell asleep. That had been the basic chain of events when they had visited Toma's family.
Luckily the Maito family was rather thick skinned and took it the rampaging ten-month-old in stride. But that was the last time Shitsuki had went out of her way to set up a playdate between her son and another child his age.
So while these two girls were a bit more than two years older than him, Shitsuki had gladly given her permission for them to go and train together after school, telling them to use training ground #18, the forest training ground that was near the civilian section of the city where they lived, so that Kyouya would know the way home by himself. It was a forested training ground that few people used, since all the clans had their own nicer training grounds and it was too small for larger group exercises.
"Alright, so how should we get started?" Anko asked, having not really had any legitimate training before.
"We'll start by awakening your chakras." Kyouya said, taking Roll off his head and starting to carefully check is quills.
"Um, Kyouya-kun, we've both already awakened are chakra." Akane tried to point out.
"No, you haven't. You've only woken your Manipura or your nabhi chakra point which starts the flow of ki through the body. There are still the six more critical chakra points that remain blocked. With each one you open, the flow of energy will become stronger, allowing you to gather and use more power." Kyouya explained, leaving the two girls confused as he used a bunch of words they had never heard before. As gently as he could, Kyouya removed two of the quills from Roll's body, the little dagger like needles were only around as big as the boy's tiny thumbs and lay in his palm as he set Roll down on the ground.
"Alright… how do we do… whatever it was you said?" Anko asked, eyebrow twitching. She hoped she wasn't going to be quizzed over this. She had never heard Kyouya say so much at one time before.
"Ajna, the third eye chakra point, governs the balance of physical and spiritual energy within the body, promoting harmony within. If stimulated correctly, then the body will be thrown into chaos and it will remove all the internal blockage in your chakra channels." Kyouya said, confusing the girls even further. "Now before we start, I need you to think of something that irritates you."
"Something that irritates us?" Akane repeated, not sure if she had heard right.
"Yes. Something that you cannot stand, something that you need this strength in order to deal with, and that you could not ever allow yourself to die before you bite it to death. Hold that irritation close to your heart. Let it fester. It will be what supports you through this training." Kyouya said, his voice darkening, as if he was allowing himself to remember all the things that irritated him the most. "So, have you thought of something?"
"Um, yes. I have." Akane said, blushing a bit as she did so.
"I think so." Anko said with a nod.
"Good." The two needles in Kyouya's hand burst into bright purple flames, shocking the two girls, but before they could even think to move, Kyouya throw the needles directly at the two of them, striking each of them in the center of the forehead.
The two fell backwards and lay on the ground, momentarily motionless. Then, it started to happen. They began to shake uncontrollably, and steam started to rise up out of there bodies. Moments later, the two girls were back on their feet, teeth clenched, eyes wide, breathing fast, and with small flames present on their foreheads where the needles had hit them.
"I'll become strong enough to beat up my idiotic, overprotective Uncle, even if it kills me!" "I'll punch that stupid unimpressed look off of Kyouya's face, even if it kills me!" The two girls declared in unison.
"Such small fangs." Kyouya said, with an unimpressed look on his face. He took note of the colors of the girls' relatively small dying will flames. Akane was aqua blue, so she was a Rain-type, while Anko's was a crimson red, meaning Storm Flames. He'd figured as much.
He had long ago figured out the secret behind Reborn's dying will bullets. It wasn't hard to pull off something similar once you know the theory behind it. Though his Cloud Flames were less adept at awakening energy than Reborn's Sun Flames. Luckily the flames and the chakra network make use of the same seven key chakra points.
The two small animals started to growl at him for his dismissive comment. Each looking ready to pounce on him and attempt to bite him to death. "Doesn't matter. Now, come at me with your dying will."
The two didn't need any more invitation.
After losing an arm in the line of duty, Shimura Dujo was tasked with watching his clan's honorable daughter from the shadows, and to report if any threats were to approach her. He would sacrifice his own life for her if necessary. So he had freaked when the violence prone three-year-old had thrown a miniature dagger into the forehead of his charge while he was too far away to intercept.
Only rather than dying, the honorable daughter got back up to her feet, made an odd declaration about beating up the clan's chief elder while a small bright blue flame glowed in the center of her forehead.
Then the fighting started, and the man's already dropped jaw dropped even further and the five-year-old girls each started to display strength on the level of an experienced Genin, perhaps even a Chunin. Stray punches and kicks cracked tree trunks and left dents in the ground. And while their movements were inelegant, they were certainly fast. In forced to face the two of them in this condition, Dujo questioned his ability to handle them. If he still had both arms he could have handled them easily, but not now with just one hand.
Only the three-year-old was easily handling both of them at once. He was even dismissive of their attempts to hit him and had a bore look on his face. He led them on, deflecting their attacks and throwing them about. The girls would be tossed fifteen feet into the air and come crashing down to the ground, only to get up as if nothing had happened and continue to attack the boy like a pair of rabid dogs. Then after three and a half minutes, the girls just collapsed to the ground, as if they had been puppets and someone cut their strings.
Dujo might have thought they were died if he couldn't hear their panting breaths from where he was hiding in the trees.
"Out of stamina already?" The violent child said. "That will be all for today. We will do this again tomorrow. If you try to run, I will bite you to death." He then turned around and started to walk away, towards Dujo's hiding spot, his little mutant hedgehog running to catch up with him. "Make sure those two small animals get home safely, or I'll bite you to death as well."
Dujo stiffened as he realized the boy had known he had been watching them the entire time. He had once been a part of the ANBU, which specialized in stealth.
What a frightening child.
Hiruzen had had a long day. On top of his normal paperwork he had to go to a meeting on order to start plans on how to reorganize the school, and as the usual, him and his advisers couldn't agree on what was the best way to teach the children, resulting in them arguing for hours before coming up with a compromise. In order to fit everything, they would just increase the number of years spent in school from five to six.
Then he had found out that the workshopping required to create a new curriculum was going to take four or five years anyways. He told them to have a plan ready for the first-year students of the next year, so that they could at least handle the sudden influx of civilian born students, by the time the next school cycle began.
Then he had to field the complaints from the clans who didn't want their children dragged down by all of the untalented civilians joining the school. Then when he didn't listen to them, they started trying to target the people he was assigning to rewrite the curriculum. The bastards were already trying to sabotage the workshop before its very first day in an attempt to maintain the status quo.
The pains of dealing with an entire community of ninja.
He was tired. Spiritually exhausted. He wanted to return to his office, close the windows and lock all the doors and just sit in his chair and enjoy some silence for a change.
So he was in for a bit of a surprise when reached his seat only to find that there was someone already in it. "How in the world did you get in here?" The Hokage exclaimed as he stared down at Kyouya's sleeping form. The child was laying flat on his back in the Hokage's seat, as if it was a couch, his eyes closed and a snot bubble coming from his nose.
At the sound of Hiruzen's voice, the bubble popped, and his eyes opened.
Kyouya stared up at the old man with his strong silver eyes, as if annoyed that the man had ruined his nap. Then the child spoke. "I'll bite you to death. Then I will be the Hokage."
Hiruzen stared at the child for a second before chuckling a bit to himself. "We'll see about that." It had been a while since the last time this had happened. It was always amusing when one of the school children got it into their heads that they could beat the Hokage and take his throne that way, and Hiruzen always humored them when he had the time. They always made for good bonding exercises.
This might actually be a good way to unwind and get to know the kid better.
Pushing back the time skip a little so show more of Hiruzen and Danzou personalities and the clan psychology.
I'm going to be trying to be more fair to Danzou, since he really is just like Daemon. His family's dying wish was for him to make the Leaf strong and he will do so whatever it takes, even if it means backstabbing everyone who ever trusted him.
Hiruzen understands that he is an idealist and that he is struggling to overcome hundreds of years of hate. He can see when people are going down a dark paves, but he wants to still hold out hope that they will change rather than taking drastic measures. He also can't force people to stop being prejudice or passing on their prejudice thoughts to their children.
The Nara clan has trained an army of DEER to use chakra and attack anyone who isn't a Nara or in the company of a Nara the moment they enter the compound. If that isn't a giant xenophobic 'we don't take kindly to your kind around here' than I don't know what is.
Remember that 40 years ago (this is 20 years before the show starts), all of the clans were their own separate villages (so each clan easily has 10000 people in it). They aren't used to being in close proximity to each other without fighting and almost never married outside of the clan. So while they are willing to unit against foreign threats, they prefer to live in their own isolated communities and don't want to mix.
Think of it like post civil war era communities. Yes the blacks and whites are technically equal and American, but they don't mingle if they don't have to. (Which tends to be partially true even to this day.) Only in this case, rather than just 2 races there are something like 25. Some of the younger generation might have gotten over it, but the current elders would still likely be racists.
The Hokage isn't criminally incompetent, Danzou isn't cartoonishly evil, and the ninja clans aren't all nice to one and other. The behavior of the Uchiha is closer to the norm than the exception. The Uchihas are just more extreme because they are willing to completely self-destruct for their pride and vengeance.
PS. Please forgive any spelling and grammar errors, and I am (as my name states) a dyslexic writer and therefore there will always be errors. I try, but my trying looks like your average person not trying. You will know when I don't try because it will look like something written by a sixth grader.