Chapter 5
"Stop being paranoid, Tsu-chan," Shisui commented, causing me to glance towards him and try to contain the murderous desire to smash his face into the ground. "O-Okay, you don't have to do the exercise...you can just sit there all alone."
I was still fairly certain I hated Uchiha Shisui as the loudmouth boy was always an annoying pest, but I said nothing about the annoyances on the simple grounds that I was beginning to believe the kid wouldn't listen to me regardless.
"Tsukasa-kun, you have to do the exercises as well," Umino's voice was annoying as well, and for a teacher, I had my doubts that he'd live much longer considering I couldn't remember even the murmur of his name from my time as Misaki. "Run laps." He ordered.
I hope he runs laps in hell.
I am Izana Tsukasa. I don't run.
Also, I'm incredibly lazy and just ate an entire barbecue plate this morning after my exercises.
"Nah. Sick," was my response as I continued to read from my textbook, finding the history of Konoha to be quite boring, but at least it gave me a vague idea of the timeline on what has happened and what has yet to happen.
Umino sent me a furious glance as the other students, who I found were actually years older than me, continued sending me scowls as they ran their punishment laps around the school. It was a rather annoying new development of having everyone run all because one student failed their practicals.
I was certain there was a life lesson in the whole 'if one fails, we all fail' kind of mindset, but I didn't care enough to question it.
"Do you want to be kicked out?" Umino asked as I turned a page.
Slowly I brought my eyes up towards his with a calm blink as I raised an innocent brow past my orange bangs. "Nah. I'm good. By all means, don't let me keep you from running too sensei."
Umino went silent as I went back to my book.
I found out later not to sass a teacher after he assigned me loads of homework that looked to be the entirety of all the schoolwork that an academy student usually completed by this time in their schooling days.
It was all mind numbingly redundant and easy, but there was so much that I knew I would have to pull an all nighter to write it all.
"You have a week." Umino had said with a smirk so smug that I began to wonder if the reason he doesn't make it as a teacher in the future was because I kill him right now.
This was probably one of my worst punishments, I realized as soon as I got home.
"That's a lot of homework," Shisui commented and I glanced up from my bed to see Shisui leaning near my window.
"How do you know where I live?" I asked as I glanced up at him, opening my window as if he owned the place.
"I followed you home a couple nights ago," Shisui said simply, as if he didn't just admit to stalking me.
"That's rather creepy," I admitted, going back to my work without a care in the world.
"I had to know the whereabouts of my rival if I ever wanted to challenge you. So here I am. Challenging you," he stated with a grin as he glanced around, taking small steps around the room.
"I reject. Get out," I said simply, continuing to write down the entire history of the previous Hokages along with their achievements and reforms throughout the village. History was never something I enjoyed as Misaki, so having to go through it again was making me sick to my stomach with boredom.
I must have been bored, considering I actually hesitated before rejecting Shisui's invitation.
"Okay, obviously you misunderstand. You don't get a choice," Shisui stated simply.
"Obviously you don't know the definition of challenge. Get out." I answered in reply.
"Do you realize you only have a bed in the apartment," Shisui stated, and I sighed.
"No. I didn't notice," I slowly realized that my sarcasm didn't match my flat tone.
"You are super boring Tsukasa. Admit it, you need me," Shisui said with a grin, smacking my books off my bed.
I watched it fall with a blank expression, not caring enough to pick it all up. A part of me wondered if it would have been less irritating to have become an assassin like the rest of my deranged family.
Maybe I could hire one of them to kill Shisui for me and save myself the bother of his presence.
"You are super annoying, Uchiha Shisui," I retorted and he grinned.
"Not nice, Tsu-chan~" he said as he walked towards the window, placing one foot outside. "Let's go fight."
"I'm on the eight floor and there isn't a latter. How did you get up here anyway?" I asked with furrowed brows.
"I'll tell you if you fight me~" his attempt at bribery was pathetic.
I stood up, dropping my pen on my books as I walked closer towards his form. At my expression, he paled and I noticed his adams apple bob as he swallowed.
"Tsu-chan...what are you doing?" He asked, and I shrugged.
"I'm gonna push you out and find the answer for myself." I answered in return, and he quickly raised his hands in defense.
"Wait, wait, wait. I was just joking. If I get shoved the wrong way I could die!" He hissed and I shrugged, pushing him out the window.
Just as he began to fall, his fingers coiled around my wrist so tightly that I immediately lost my childish footing. I felt my hip scrape against the window frame on my way out.
"I-Idiot!" I muttered out as I fell with him. He was grinning all the way, and just before we were about to hit the ground, he did a quick Jutsu and gripped my hand. The pressure of a body flicker spread throughout my frame and by the time I blinked, we were standing just outside of the hotel district where my apartment had resided.
"I've been practicing since you kicked my ass," Shisui admitted with a sheepish grin. "I can go a little farther out and sometimes take people with me."
I paused, noticing his slightly labored breath. "What do you mean sometimes?"
"Ah...you picked up on that huh..." he commented, letting out a sheepish laugh.
"W-Was I a test?" I asked and he laughed again but didn't answer.
"Come on, Tsu. I wanted to challenge you. It was you who had to make it difficult," his tone wasn't exactly mocking, but it was amused which contrasted my ever present frown.
I slowly reached behind me, causing a flicker of nervousness to blow through his eyes.
"Tsu-chan...what are you doing?" He asked, slowly backing away.
"I'm gonna test something. Stay still," I replied, taking out a kunai from my weapons pouch and he let out a yelp.
"Come on, Tsu-chan, it was just a joke."
"Stay still."
葉•葉
"Itachi~" Shisui's voice made Itachi glance up from his training session with his father as he stared at the Uchiha boy who shoved his way past the trees of the training grounds, sporting a forming bruise on his eye. Itachi noticed a book clutched in his hands, finding it odd as Itachi never caught Shisui reading a book.
"What's wrong?" Itachi asked, noticing that his father had seen the bruise on Shisui's eye. It was rather rare to see Shisui with an injury, especially one that looked to be the form of a fist and Itachi knew he wasn't the cause since he was never much of a puncher.
"Tsukasa just kicked my ass," Shisui complained with a frown, causing Itachi to have to fight back a smirk that wanted to form on his lips.
"You let someone beat you," even Itachi's father, Fugaku, sounded amused at the thought as he glanced down at his son with a raised brow.
"I didn't let her do anything. I was tired after the body flicker and she's got some ridiculous strength," Shisui's pout was amusing to say the least.
"You need more training. This is Izana Tsukasa, is it not," Fugaku's eyes were slightly cold, and he glanced up as though looking back on a memory.
"You know of her?" Shisui said with a grin, scratching the back of his neck. "She's rather dull and she never smiles and she only has one eye but she's strong. Right 'tachi?"
Itachi shrugged, "She's strong, but this time you were just careless I suspect. On normal grounds, I'd say you two are nearly equal."
"Not everyone can be a perfect prodigy," Shisui grinned. "So I was thinking, I should join your training sessions and maybe I'll be able to beat her without breaking a sweat."
Fugaku's gaze of amusement returned, "We were actually just finished."
Shisui's gaze soured, "Man. That sucks. I was hoping to perfect my fire technique."
Itachi shrugged, "I could teach you, but I doubt it would help much. Genjutsu utilizes Chakra control far more, and your Body Flicker's main problem is control."
"You hit me where it hurts, Itachi, but just wait. I'm gonna be the fastest in the world soon enough! Enough to match the Fourth Hokage himself."
Fugaku chuckled, "Bold words with nothing to back them up, kid."
Shisui smirked, "Well, my charm is already matched with the Fourth, so the rest of me is bound to catch up soon enough." Fugaku merely rolled his eyes and body flickered away, causing Shisui to frown. "Show off."
葉•葉
"Shisui. Give me back my book," I caught a glimpse of a man body flickering away from where Shisui and Itachi stood, but I ignored it as I set my glare on Shisui's smirking figure.
Itachi slowly glanced down at the book in Shisui's had with a raised brow. "You stole from her too?"
"I had to send a message," Shisui replied, turning to me, only to be surprised when I was already in front of him with a forming scowl.
"Message sent. I'm happy these messages are going back and forth, now, unless you want to be punched in the eye again, I'd hand the book over." I stated, annoyed that my homework session was interrupted and even more annoyed that my textbook was stolen by my stalker.
"Oh, then we'll be matching eyes," Shisui said simply, and I raised a brow while Itachi sighed to himself.
"It was a quiet day, you know," Itachi's mutter was short lived as my lips further engraved into an annoyed scowl.
"My day was quiet too," I agreed, glancing between them. "Until a spikey haired idiot strolled into my bedroom and pushed me out of said window."
"If you recall, you were the one doing the pushing. And all I wanted was a rematch," Shisui grinned. "If you win, I'll give you back your book. I've been practicing lately. I can take you on."
I took a step back, glancing between the two boys. "You are incredibly annoying. Are all Uchiha this annoying?"
Itachi's raised brow made me rethink my statement.
"Wait..." Shisui paused at the same time as Itachi and I glanced between the two. "Do you feel that?"
"Incredibly irritated?" I questioned, crossing my arms over my chest. "Yes. I do feel that."
Shisui didn't smile like he usually would and instead tossed himself out of the way while Itachi grabbed my wrist and shoved me back as kunai lodged into the ground where we stood.
Itachi glanced towards my face that went stony calm before we both glanced towards the forest trees where the kunai had been tossed.
"I can't believe they dodged it," the sound of a man's voice mused from in the trees before two ninja hopped down from the branches.
"Whatever, it was luck. Let's just get this over with," the second man stated. They both wore black crow masks and their headbands were an obvious sign of Iwa.
"There's a peace treaty between our nations," Itachi was the first to have the nerve to speak through the tension of the killing intent that radiated off the two ninja who wore full black.
The first ninja chuckled, hard enough for his shoulders to shake. "Fuck the treaty."
Author's Note
Well, it's been a while. I apologize. I lost inspiration for a little while and things got hectic, but I got my inspiration back so here it is.
The next chapter will be more important than this one though~ :D
Thank you for your patience and thank you for reading.
I am hoping to make this story more humorous than my Kakashi story Chasing Smoke but they are going to be taking place in the same universe so they are etched into each other. Much like my other two Naruto stories are etched into each other as well. Whether or not Anomie will make a huge impact in Tsukasa's life is debatable, but I might put her in the passing since they will never actually physically meet and their paths won't exactly cross in a social way.
Same universe fan fictions are my thing~ :D