A/N: This chapter, I don't know how to feel about. I wrote it in one day, which was a miracle compared to the two weeks chapter three took out of me, but still.
Shinobu sits in a secluded part of the backyard in a tree, the genin team inside playing with Sakura. Every now and then, Daiichi will come out to check on her, but mostly she's left alone. Koganezawa was mysteriously absent. In her hands, Tales of the Ninja Princess is held open as she goes over her notes in the margins. Ever since she'd woken up, she'd been forcing down the panic at having been caught by analyzing the feeling of her chakra the night before.
Her musings were interrupted when the tree shook slightly under a new weight. Shinobu looks up, and locks her gaze with another that's only inches away.
A hand claps over her mouth before she can let out a scream.
Uchiha's gaze is blank and his face neutral, but there is annoyance in his tone. "Why didn't you tell me you weren't an Academy student yet?"
The initial terror was fading, leaving on irritation in its wake. She opens her mouth, ready to bite down on the hand still covering her mouth, but Uchiha pulls it back too fast.
"Feisty," is all he says to that.
"Asshole," she spits at him, the word dripping with derision she doesn't normally allow herself to express. "Not my fault you're too dumb to guess my age correctly."
Uchiha tilts his head, one of his big, glossy black curls falling into his face. It's a pretty face, objectively, but she can't associate it with anything other than fear. She feels helpless again, panic rising in her chest. He has the power to undo her, and Shinobu desperately doesn't want to find out what damage a ninja village could do to her if they found out her secrets. The helplessness, the panic, it churns inside her until it forms into anger.
"Hmm, I guess you're right," Uchiha says, and all at once Shinobu's been thrown off her game. His face is still eerily blank. "Still, you shouldn't call your Shisui-sensei names, Shinobu-chan. Come on, let's go."
Then, with no warning, they're moving. Just like last night, the scenery blurs around them and her stomach flips at the speed, threatening to crawl up her throat. Uchiha has her thrown over his shoulder this time in a fireman's carry. She's still carrying her book, so she grips it hard in her tiny fists and closes her eyes.
Daiichi's going to freak out, she thinks suddenly. I didn't tell them I'd be leaving.
She only opens her eyes when Uchiha tosses her onto the ground, and blinks slowly as she takes in the clearing. Surrounded by tall, thick Hashirama trees, like most of the trees in Konoha, the grassy clearing seemed lived in. If a clearing could seem lived in, that is. There were kunai and shuriken stuck in some of the trees, some scrolls scattered on the ground next to a glorified fanny pack with ambitions of being a purse, and two bento boxes stacked on top of each other. All the clearing was missing was a tent and she'd call it a campground.
"This is where I like to go to train," Uchiha said, his voice bringing her back to the reality. "Let's eat before we begin. Chakra control is energy intensive."
Shinobu's stomach grumbled at the very mention. She thought about the food Sonoda had been cooking last time she'd checked and sighed. Accepting the bento Uchiha handed to her, she busied herself with opening it rather than watch him settle down across from her on the grass. It was rice. Just rice. A box full of rice, with disposable chopsticks taped to the inside of the lid.
She looked up and met Uchiha's expectant gaze.
"I wasn't sure what you would like," he said to her. "So I just made what I would like. It's very filling, good for a growing ninja!"
He sounded so enthused about eating what looked like half a pound of rice, but his face was so blank she still couldn't tell if he was just messing with her. Shinobu glanced at his bento, and, yup, it was also just rice. Uchiha seemed to be expecting something. Probably a thank you.
Shinobu wondered how long it would take before she figured out whether or not he was going to turn her in. "Thank you."
Uchiha made his first facial expression, a smile. It was small and lopsided, but it was there; boyish and pleased. "No problem! Let's dig in."
Uchiha didn't hesitate, but Shinobu's brain had frozen at his smile. Until now she had been interacting with him like she would any other adult had they caught her. Despite his ramblings, his blank, mature gaze had put her on edge. But that smile, so innocent and relieved that she hadn't hated the bento he'd made her… Shinobu ran over the conversation again in her head, despairing.
He's just a kid, she thinks with some level of hysteria. On auto pilot, she picks up her chopstick and shoves a mouthful of rice into her mouth, staring into her bento as though it held all the answers to the universe. Just like Sakura. Just like me.
She kept shoveling rice into her mouth until she felt like she was going to burst, only halfway through. Trying desperately to ignore her own epiphany, Shinobu shoved the remainder of the bento at Uchiha, who shrugged and ate the rest. He'd already finished his.
"Alright!" Uchiha said, clapping his hands together. "Let's start with the basics. Sensing your own chakra."
Shinobu opened her mouth instantly. "I already-"
"Know how to do it, yeah, yeah," Uchiha rolled his eyes, another sign of humanity, and waved his hand dismissively. "You're, what, six? You can know the theory all you want, but we still need to start small. Start meditating."
Shinobu gritted her teeth. Kid or not, Uchiha was irritating and a bulldozer. She thought rather viciously that if this was how he interacted with people, no wonder he trained in such a secluded area. No one probably wanted to deal with his holier-than-thou attitude.
Still, she had promised herself she'd go along.
Shinobu settled down, closing her eyes and taking deep breaths. Focusing on her chakra was easy, because it was always in the back of her mind. But the chakra in the air, in the grass under her, in the trees - it threatened to overwhelm her once she let herself immerse into the feeling.
Shinobu took a deep, forced breath. My chakra, not everything else's. My chakra, not everything else's.
The mantra helped, somewhat. It still felt like there were ants crawling on her skin, like there was cotton in her lungs and sandpaper in her throat, but the longer she tried, the smaller her senses got until all she could sense was herself and the layer of natural chakra surrounding her.
It was like floating, she thought distantly. Shinobu could hear her heart thump slowly in her chest, and it was like she could hear her chakra moving in time with her blood, moving throughout her body. She could feel every individual blade of grass press into her legs, could feel every brush of the wind into her very soul.
Chakra, she realized, moved like water. It had a tide, almost - a push and pull motion that swept through her. She swayed with it, and thought she could taste seawater on her tongue, salty and thick. It was warm.
For the first time in this life, she felt safe and at ease with the power simmering under her skin, choking the air from her lungs. If she died now, drowning in the chakra, Shinobu didn't think she'd be angry.
"-nobu!" a hand shoved her shoulder, and Shinobu gasped, falling backwards onto the grass.
The world crashes in on her like a tidal wave as her awareness snaps back to it's usual distance and Shinobu feels like she's dying. She gasps for breath but can't take any in and it's been so long since this happened. Tears well up in her eyes but she closes her eyes as if she can ignore the tracks they make down her temples and over her ears.
One breath in, hold. Let it out. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
By the time Shinobu has come back to herself, she feels exhausted and sore. Her hands ache, and she realizes she gripping handfuls of grass and lets the mangled greens go. Her heart pounds as though she'd run a marathon.
Uchiha is mumbling to himself, she realizes.
"Didn't know she was a sensor," he mumbles, and there's visible anxiety in his body as he rubs the palms of his hands over his knees over and over. "Fuck, I'm going to need a medic. She'll get found out, oh god, this is all my fault."
He sounds so scared. Not for himself, though.
Shinobu closes her eyes again and breathes. How irritating that he had to go and be so human.
"I'm fine," she croaks, and then winces at the sound of her voice.
"Shinobu!" Uchiha is at her side in an instant, hands hovering as though he doesn't know if he's allowed to help her up. "I'm so sorry, Shinobu-"
"It's not your fault," she says, pushing herself off the grass to a sitting position. "I didn't tell you, and I should have."
Uchiha shook his head, staring at the ground. "I should've known. I'm sorry for putting you through that."
Shinobu wanted to groan. Save me from self-made martyrs. "It happens, don't worry about it. Let's just move forward, Uch- Shisui-sensei."
His face was still blank, but there was a light in his eyes that wasn't there before as he looked at her. "If you say so, Shinobu-chan."
They continued to work on chakra control, but now Shisui seemed to hover nervously around her. That is, after dumping a pile of leaves on her and telling her to make them stick to her. And then the bastard had the gall to laugh at the leaf monstrosity she had become on his order.
I take it back, she thought with a snarl as the weirdo laughed with a blank face. He's a menace, not a kid.
In hindsight, she should have expected this. Staring down at the piece on the kitchen table, Shinobu was silent as Sakura babbled her excitement to their mother. Mebuki had returned three weeks back and hadn't been on a mission out of the village since, while Kizashi was still running around Fire Country somewhere for his plethora of missions. She was almost grateful for that, because if her father were here, he'd be able to tell she was upset by the forms.
At the top of the paper were the words Academy Entrance Exam Application.
Most of the papers had already been filled out by Mebuki, but she and Sakura had to sign it themselves. It was perhaps the only reason they were seeing the papers. Shinobu wondered that if it weren't for that, would Mebuki and Kizashi have dropped the girls off at the Academy with no warning?
"Now you can start being kunoichi like me!" Mebuki was saying with a large grin. "And like the Ninja Princess!"
Shinobu looked up and stared at her mother, who was looking at her now. "What?"
Mebuki didn't take back the words. "I was so happy when you started carrying that book around! Not that I wouldn't have been happy if you didn't want to be a kunoichi, but I'm so proud of you for wanting to be a shinobi of Konoha!"
It felt like the life drained out of her as she realized what her mother was talking about. The book she'd been making her notes in, studying from. Tales of the Ninja Princess. Her mother thought she wanted to be a ninja, a child soldier trained to kill from the age of six.
Shinobu wanted to curl up and cry. This was her own goddamn fault. She'd made a mistake and now the consequences were heavy.
Shisui often talked about her future days in the Academy, but Shinobu had brushed them off because she didn't want to be a shinobi. The thought of killing another person, of causing pain with deliberation - of being part of a military dictatorship, because that was what Konoha was - repulsed her. It wasn't even that she was a pacifist. Shinobu remembered plenty of times in her old life where she had fought with others. But it had never been in true anger, never with the intent to kill.
She hadn't even thought about it. It just hadn't been a factor to her, being a shinobi. She let Shisui train her because she needed to understand chakra, needed to be able to go through the day without falling to pieces when she took too deep a breath. Not because she wanted to be a contract killer.
And now, because she chose the wrong book to write notes in, that's what she's going to be trained to do.
"Shinobu? Honey?"
"Sorry," she said instinctively. "What'd you say, mom?"
Mebuki laughed, reaching out to pat her head. "You're always lost in thought, better stay out of the clouds in class. Go on and sign it, we've got to get these to the Academy."
Shinobu's hands only barely hesitated as she signed the paper, where Sakura's hands had been quick and sure. Her mother didn't seem to notice.
"When are the exams, mom?" she asked as they went to put on their shoes.
"In two hours!" Mebuki said with a smile.
Sakura grinned, slamming her feet into her shoes so fast the heels got stuck under her feet. "Let's go then! No time to waste!"
Shinobu felt like there was a computer dialing up in her brain. "Oh."
The computer in her brain continued to whine the entire walk there, Sakura's babbling like white noise.
Of course it's today, she thinks glumly, holding to Mebuki's hand while Sakura had the other. Her fingers tightened in the application, wrinkling it.
The Academy was set towards the base of the Hokage Mountain, which to Shinobu seemed like a more politically correct Mount Rushmore. This one, after all, wasn't a sacred native mountain defaced by colonizers. Below it was the Hokage Tower, and connected to that was the Academy. It was a large building, with even larger training grounds surrounding it.
It was also far from empty, despite it being late in the afternoon. Even from down the street Shinobu could hear - and sense - dozens of people inside the building. Their chakras blurred together into a blinding light, making the cacophony of voices seem almost ethereal.
Mebuki pulled them into the building and for a moment, Shinobu was reminded of the days before middle school, when her old parents took her along with them to pay for tuition and such. Folding tables were set up everywhere, with shinobi manning them and long lines of parents and their kids standing before them. It was so mundane that for a moment she almost forgot what she was about to sign up for.
"That's our line!" Mebuki said, pulling them forwards towards one of the first few tables.
Among the first few signs were the two Entrance Exam tables. One was labeled clearly for civilian-background applicants and the other for shinobi-background applicants. Mebuki led them to the second, and noticed Shinobu's curious looks at the signs.
"The civilian parents have to fill out more paperwork, generally," she told Shinobu, and then when she realized Sakura was also listening in, to her. "The parents have to be in the system as well as their kids, so it's like double the paperwork."
Shinobu winced in sympathy, remembering the scourge of paperwork.
"Sakura! Shinobu!" a voice shouted.
Sayaka and Sayu were three places in front of them in line, standing with a tall, dark skinned man who had thick dreads down his back. Sayaka, her afro pulled out of her face with a bright yellow headband, was waving wildly, while Sayu, her braids pulled into a ponytail, looked bored at the whole affair. Their father looked up, smiled at them all.
"Oh, are these the friends you two are always going on about?" he said, his voice a deep baritone that almost reverberated through the room. He then waved the people between them forwards in line, moving back to stand with the Haruno's. "The twins talk about your daughters all the time. You must be very proud."
Mebuki smiled kindly at the man, and they both bowed slightly in greeting. Shinobu wondered if anyone in this world shook hands at all. "I am, and I'm very thankful my girls found such good friends. We always had trouble getting Shinobu out of the bookcase and into the sunshine before they became friends. Haruno Mebuki, it's a pleasure to meet you."
"Komukai Hinata," he responded in kind, a charming grin on his face. "So, are you a shinobi or…?"
Mebuki nodded. "Yes, I'm a Chuunin, as is my husband Kizashi."
Komukai's chakra seemed to move slightly at the words, and Shinobu's eyes darted to him. Whatever emotions he had felt were strong enough to do that, which happened sometimes to people though Shinobu was never able to tell what they were feeling.
"That's really amazing," he said. "I'm a civilian myself, but-"
An elbow slammed into Shinobu's side, the air in her lungs leaving her in one great swoop as she doubled over. Sakura, whose boney elbows Shinobu knew by heart, snickered. The twins had swarmed the two sisters, and seemed to already be talking. Shinobu had missed the start of the conversation.
"I'm so excited!" Sayaka said with a wide grin, clapping her hands lightly. "We've always wanted to be kunoichi."
Sayu nodded, a small smile lighting up her face. "We've read all of our mom's old scrolls about taijutsu and kenjutsu! We're going to be the best swordswomen in Konoha!"
Shinobu wondered, then, if their mother was on a mission like Kizashi.
"Cool!" Sakura said, holding her hands to her cheeks as she stared, wide eyed, at the twins. "Shinobu and I don't know what we want to specialize in."
Story of my life, Shinobu thought with some amusement. She never knew what she wanted to do with her future, and was content to let Sakura decide. If she had to be a contract killer, she could at least follow her sister and keep her safe.
Sayu didn't seem to think any less of them for it. "You'll figure it out. Do you guys think the exam is going to be hard?"
Sakura shrugged. "Who knows? I can't wait to find out!"
"But what if it is?" Sayaka said, wringing her fingers together. "What if we fail?"
"If we fail," said Shinobu, "Then we get up and try again, because every failure is a chance to do better."
She had tried and failed to internalize her own philosophy in one life, but maybe in this one she could do better. Now that she thought about it, what if she simply didn't graduate from the Academy? Surely dropping out wouldn't be that hard. Then she could just become another face in Konoha, spend her days in the library and bothering Shisui.
"Jeez, Shinobu," Sayu said, a lopsided grin on her face as she nudged her. "You sound like an old lady."
"A smart little old lady," Komukai cut in, crouching down to be on their level. He grinned at Shinobu, and up close she could see that his eyes were a dark gold color. "You girls would do well to listen."
The twins groaned and rolled their eyes, but didn't move away when their father reached out to ruffle their hair.
Despite the conversations between the two families, the world continued on and the line moved forward. After the paperwork was filed, the four girls were led by a friendly Academy teacher to a classroom filled with other kids their age. Seating assignment was random, and Shinobu ended up on the opposite side of the room from Sakura, seated between a boy with red triangles and a girl with purple hair. Every student was given a test by a teacher making rounds around the room; it was multiple pages long and the boy with the triangles groaned as he checked the page count.
Wonders never cease, Shinobu thought, reaching up to brush a lock of pink hair. I wonder what makes these colors natural.
Before she could explore the idea further, the teacher now at the front of the room called for attention.
"Alright, everybody!" she said, smiling at the kids. "When the hour is up I'll collect your papers. Don't cheat! And...start!"
Shinobu lifted her pencil and carefully penned her name. She always had to be careful when she wrote what others would read, because otherwise her handwriting was slanted and messy.
The Entrance Exam, she decided later as she walked quietly with Mebuki, Sakura, and the Komukai's to a barbeque place to celebrate the start of the girls' careers as ninja, was the easiest test she'd taken since high school.
The Academy is a mixture of horrifying normalization of murder and children's education. She and Sakura weren't in the same class, but she was in the same class as the twins so it was alright. Whenever there was joint physical training between their two classes, the girls stuck together like glue, with the twins right there with them. Her days are spent trying to maintain a middle status as a student and attempting to ignore her own morals while doing homework.
Shisui had started training her on lying as well as chakra control, after congratulating her on getting into the Academy. According to him, it was best to stay in the middle range as a student; not too good that they'd realize she was a prodigy, but not too bad that she'd be dropped from the classes instantly.
Which was actually something she didn't want to happen, surprisingly. Sure, the whole murder schtick was terrible, but Shinobu couldn't help but admire the way ninja sparred. She couldn't help but think back to the days when she felt scared to walk down the street in a dress and knew that if she had had training back then, she wouldn't have worried as much. The idea that she could use these skills to keep herself safe as well didn't seem too bad.
Fourth year, she decided as she and Sakura walked home after work, was when I'd start trying to get dropped.
It was around that time that they started on jutsu, which she didn't give a shit about.
As they neared their home, Shinobu faltered in her pace. Sakura glanced over, a bit curious, but Shinobu shook her head dismissively as she regained her footing. Hopefully her sister would think she had just tripped.
There were three more chakra signatures in the house than there should be. Two of them she recognized; her teacher in class as well as Sakura's. The other one, which burned brightly and bore down in the air like a physical manifestation of doom, she didn't recognize. Her parents were also there, but their chakras weren't agitated.
Shinobu reached out and squeezed Sakura's hand, her sister automatically linking their fingers together. Why were her and Sakura's teachers here?
"We're home!" Sakura shouted as they entered the front hall, tripping out of her shoes in her haste. Shinobu took hers off more slowly and put them away in the corner, whereas Sakura left hers spread across the front mat.
"My girls!" Kizashi shouted from the kitchen, and only a second later he skidded into the hall with enough enthusiasm on his face to equal Sakura's. He scooped up both of them, Sakura over his shoulder and Shinobu dangling in the air with an arm under her stomach. "My favorite training weights! Oh, how I missed you!"
Shinobu couldn't help the smile that spread across her face as her father's presence put her at ease. "Dad, you saw us only eight hours ago."
"Eight hours too long," Kizashi said definitively, spinning in a circle and causing Sakura to shriek in laughter. "As much as I would love to hear about your day, girls, your mom and I have visitors. Go play outside, will you?"
Shinobu felt the dread double in size in her gut, her stomach twisting into knots. Her heart pounded.
"Okay, daddy!" Sakura said happily and when Kizashi sat them down, she grabbed Shinobu's wrist and drug her outside.
In the backyard, Sakura went point blank for their favorite climbing tree and started to scale the bark. Shinobu drifted after her, feeling quite distant from it all. She stood at the base of the tree and watched her sister climb higher and higher, until all she could see through the branches were Sakura's pink locks.
"Get up here, Shii!" Sakura demanded.
"Coming," she mumbled, and reached up to grab a branch.
At the top of the tree, Sakura had faced herself towards the house. There was a frown on her face. Shinobu wondered if her sister had any secrets like her for a moment, before dismissing the thought.
"Do you recognize who's here?" Sakura asked, and Shinobu flinched so hard she started to fall back off the branch she sat on. Sakura's hand snapped out to steady her.
"What?" Shinobu asked, lips flapping like a fish.
Sakura rolled her eyes, turning to look at her. "You're a sensor, dummy."
"Oh," Shinobu said, blinking. "Oh, yeah. Um. Two of them are our Academy teachers - both your's and mine - but I don't know who the third is."
Sakura let out a long hum. "Wonder if we're in trouble."
Shinobu traced the back of her teeth with her tongue and tried to think of the lies she and Shisui had brainstormed. "Well, have you done anything wrong?"
Sakura snorted. "No, Kiba is the only one in class who breaks the rules."
Shinobu didn't know who Kiba was. "Well then you're safe."
"What about you?" Sakura asked. "Did you break a rule?"
"No," she lied instantly. Sakura looked at her out of the corner of her eyes. "Maybe."
Sakura's eyes lit up. "Shut up! What'd you do?"
Shinobu almost smiled at the words, which sounded strange when not in English but were so ingrained in her that even Sakura started picking them up. "I dunno."
Sakura smacked her shoulder. "Come on, tell me!"
Before Shinobu could cave, because to her sister she always caved, her father peeked out of the house and looked straight to the tree.
"Shinobu, can you come inside?" he asked, and the serious tone in his normally mirthful voice had her heart skipping a beat.
This is it, she thinks as she climbs back down the tree in silence. This is how I die. Again.
She stopped dead center in the kitchen doorway when she saw the mysterious third person. The Third Hokage, the Sandaime, sat at the kitchen table with the Academy teachers across from Mebuki.
He was short, with a hunched posture, and his skin was tanned and leathery. He was dressed in white and red robes, and he had a short, pointy beard and a big nose. On his head was a hat that the Academy lessons had forced her to become very familiar.
Kizashi pressed a hand into her back to force her to keep walking, leading her to the seat between his and Mebuki's. For one hysterical moment, she wondered when they'd gotten extra chairs. Had the Hokage brought them?
Her hands were clammy but she didn't move them. Shinobu felt nauseous as she stared back at the quiet gaze of the military dictator of Konoha. Without thinking, she swallowed around the lump in her throat and took a shaky breath. The Hokage's eyes followed the movement of her throat and then went back to her eyes.
"Shinobu, introduce yourself," her mother ordered quietly. Shinobu glanced at her, but her mother wasn't looking at her.
"That's quite alright, Mebuki-san," the motherfucking Hokage said, and smiled down at her. The grandfatherly face was at odds with how dangerous his chakra felt. "Hello, Shinobu-kun. Do you know why we're here?"
Shinobu would like to say that she kept her cool. After one lifetime and training on lying, she should, realistically, be able to.
In reality, Shinobu has always been emotional.
She burst into tears, bowing her head to hide her face. "I- I'm sorry! I jus-just wanted to stay with Sa-Sa-Sakura!"
Her father's hand rubbed her back, and she could feel in his chakra that he was barely holding himself back from doing something. Probably comforting her, she thought, which only spurred more tears on. Her father still loved her and she was still going to die.
"Sweetheart, calm down," Kizashi murmured. "You're not in much trouble."
Tears still ran down her cheeks in rivers as she looked up at her dad, who looked...amused?
"What?" she asked, reaching up brush away tears.
"Shinobu-kun," said the Hokage. "Do you recognize this test?"
Her teacher, Yamamoto-sensei, a kind man who Shinobu had been sure she'd tricked, slid across a paper. And of course she recognized it. It was a test she'd completed three days ago about Konoha history. It was graded, too, with a bright red mark showing 73% on the top.
"Yeah," she said quietly, glancing up. The Academy teachers didn't look very mad, and neither did the Hokage. Just very blank, like Shisui when you didn't look close enough.
"This is the same test a fourth year could complete," Yamamoto said, and her heart dropped. "Shinobu-kun, just because we're Academy teachers doesn't mean we're dumb. Did you think we wouldn't notice that all your test scores were the same numbers cycling?"
Shinobu opened her mouth, and then closed it. Because she had, hadn't she? She had underestimated her teachers, had forgotten that just because they were in a classroom didn't mean they weren't as sharp eyed as any other ninja.
This is Tales of the Ninja Princess all over again! She thought with despair.
"We noticed by the end of the second week of school," said Sakura's teacher, something Iruka. He had a scar across his nose that went so deep every breath he took sounded like a wheeze through his nose. "Yamamoto-sensei and I compare notes frequently, and at first we wondered if it was both of you, but Sakura-kun's results are genuine."
Shinobu wilted further into her seat. They'd known two weeks in? Half of the school year was already finished!
The Hokage seemed to notice her discomfort. "Don't worry, Shinobu-kun. You'll have a month of detention, but that's your only punishment."
Shinobu gaped. "Really?" Was she really scot-free?
"And congratulations," the Hokage continued, as though she'd never said a word. "You're being moved up to the fourth grade class. Someone of your intellect would be wasted in the lower years, not learning a single new thing."
He said it like it was a gift. It felt like a death sentence. This was everything Shisui had been afraid of. Shinobu wondered if he would be disappointed in her, and then told herself it didn't matter. She was going to be dead before she was ten at this rate.
Everyone was staring at her, Shinobu realized.
"Uh," she blurted out, and then swallowed. "Thank you?"
Her mother sighed and Shinobu winced. The Hokage, though, smiled gently. He didn't seem offended.
"I'll be sad to see you go," Yamamoto said with a grin. "You're the only one who can keep the twins in line."
Shinobu forced out a laugh. Sayaka and Sayu had made a name for themselves as classroom pranksters, though they directed most of their efforts to kids spouting off racist bullshit they got from their own parents. What she did was hardly 'keeping them in line.' In fact, Shinobu usually helped, and Yamamoto knew that. Did no one say the truth around here? Shinobu had thought she was an outlier.
"We'll take our leave, now," said the Hokage, moving to stand. "Thank you, Mebuki-san, Kizashi-san, for hosting us this afternoon."
They swept out of the house as though they hadn't just upturned Shinobu's life on her head.
A/N: Here's something that baffles me: I've got a document dedicated to my OC's for the story and I still somehow manage to create even more on the fly. If y'all would like to know, yeah, Hinata was trying to flirt with Mebuki lmao.
Comments motivate me, and I'm so thankful to everyone who has left comments so far. You guys rule!