The sun rose far too quickly for Madoka's liking. She'd been up since 1:00 in the morning trying to devise a way to keep the Black Widows that permanently resided in her hair from eating the Bagheera Kiplingi colony that decided her shower was an amazing home. The Kiplingi had discovered mold growing in the walls, so they were now staying.
As for the Black Widows, well Madoka just put them outside after trying and failing to get them to listen to her. Even the mature Widows had grown too hungry to ignore their need to eat.
Now she was calmly walking down the dirt road to the Academy. She saw other kids on her way but made sure to avoid them, as she didn't want to be the Niotomi to break the rules. They were all too loud, too noisy, and too cheerful. She wasn't sure what possessed them to have so much energy at 7:47 a.m.
And the looks. Ugh, how obvious could one be? A girl with pink hair was probably doomed to a life of interesting things, Madoka thought, just judging everything off of her hair. And her friend, the blonde. Long hair and bright blue eyes were a telltale sign of an attention-getter, something she hated.
They were both in front of her, thank Kami, as she didn't want to be forced to get to know them. She knew that the blonde often stuck up for the pinkette, so would she want to make friends with Madoka? After all, that's how she had observed the situation, after the blonde backtalked a couple of bullies just to divert attention from the pink-headed girl.
Sure, it'd be nice to have friends, but not with a couple of attention-getters.
The Black Widows within her red mane bristled at the site of the Aburame boy, who appeared from a side street, walking to the Academy too. Something about him seemed to set them off, something about bugs? Madoka wasn't sure, but she was sure of this: if she thought of him as the Aburame boy and not as Shino, it'd be easier to grow distant to him. In fact, now that she thought about it, that might be a great way to grow distant to everyone else.
The weights on her appendages reminded her of the fight yesterday with the Uchiha, and everything came crashing down. There would definitely be consequences if she got infatuated with him even more, consequences that affected her future as a Niotomi.
The Nara and Akimichi kids appeared on her right, and suddenly it wasn't just a coincidence that there were 5 clan kids on the same road. Maybe it was fate, or the stars, or maybe the fact that she'd been forced to take a shower in her father's bathroom this morning because of the colony of Bagheera Kiplingi, but Madoka hated her current position.
"Morning," the Nara greeted, sleep still evident in his eyes. The Akimichi silently munched on chips, probably salted. She'd drawn this conclusion from the salted chips left behind on his desk yesterday as they were beginning to spar.
"Morning," she quickly returned, avoiding eye contact. They were headed to the same place, so it was probably considered weird if she made eye contact.
"You... seem chipper," he commented, lazily drawing out a yawn mid-sentence.
"I got up early." She added a yawn for affect, and because she had to yawn.
"Yuck, why?" The Akimichi added. Madoka secretly wanted to coil up and die. Why, out of the 30 kids in their class, had they chosen her to talk to? Why not the blonde and pinkette? Why not the Aburame boy?
"I like to shower in the mornings." And a colony of vegetarian spiders set up shop in my shower, so now I can't use it until they eat all the mold that grows there. But she didn't say that.
It would attract attention.
239 paces later, and Madoka didn't even make it into the Academy before she was stopped by the Uchiha kid and some... other kid.
"Hey, you!" The Uchiha boy exclaimed, now sporting a bruise-free face.
"Uh... yeah?" Madoka responded, yawning a little. She really had gotten up way too early, but upon inspecting his daughter in the morning, Dai had ordered her to shower in his bathroom. Normally, it took her a good three minutes to roll out of bed and after that, four minutes trying to tame her hair with a tiny brush. Then, 20 minutes getting ready and eating a cold breakfast breakfast left out by her father, as he left for work an hour before the Academy started: 8:00 a.m. Usually she forgot to slip on her ninja sandals, so that took another minute or so.
"I want a rematch!" She winced, as vocal levels weren't meant to be this boisterous in the morning.
"Sure, okay, whatever. When and where?" Yawning again, she wondered how many hours of sleep she'd gotten last night. Not her regulars, that's for sure.
The Uchiha kid looked a little stunned, as if he wasn't prepared for her to agree so quickly. The other one, the one with long black hair, just stood there, like a fucking statue.
Oh Kami, she was tired.
"After school, in training ground 22."
"Where the fuck's that?"
"Hey, you're not supposed to curse!" Madoka remained silent, gradually becoming irritated at this kid's energy. She didn't care if it was a curse, it made her feel relieved when she said it, as it was a nasty and ugly word. It... alleviated pressure from the stress of her life. She was forced to walk by two clan kids, she was running on little sleep, and now some idiot had challenged her, as if one beating wasn't enough for him. If she were in the right mind, she'd actually be wondering where all this confidence had come from.
"Where is it?"
"How about we show you after the Academy? You can accompany us," the other kid replied, stepping in for the young Uchiha.
"Who're you?"
"Uchiha Itachi, Sasuke-kun's older brother." Maybe it was the cheerful way he'd said that, or the fact that for a teenager, he already had long stress lines down his face, but Madoka got a bad reading off this guy, even if he was an Uchiha.
"Cool. Class is about to start, so I'll see you guys after."
Itachi's Perspective:
He wasn't sure why, but Sasuke had asked him to tag along. Was it a confidence booster, having a brother that was an ANBU Captain at your side while you rematched someone? Maybe.
At first glance, Itachi couldn't actually see why or how the girl had been able to land such a hit on his little brother. As he suspected, upon closer inspection, the girl doned four weights on her arms and legs. Her hair gave off three tiny, but not unrecognizable, chakra signatures which was definitely not new to the older Uchiha.
He'd worked with two other Niotomi in ANBU, both of which were still alive today. Upon further questioning from the Hokage as to how they were so fast, they shrugged, pointed at their weights, and let that do the talking. Of course, no clan was without their secrets, as the first thing Itachi had noticed about them were multiple tiny, chakra signatures on them, like the girl before him.
He'd found out what those signatures were when they'd faced a warlord from the Land of Waves. The battle didn't last quickly, even though the warlord had hired A-Classed missing-nin to protect him. His teammates had actually kept up with him, which was something of a shock to Itachi, considering they were both wearing very heavy weights. In battle, they both produced webs and webs of chakra wire, followed by their own individual weapons.
One of the weapons was a kusari fundo. It was a chain with two weights on either end which made for efficient killing blows. Also, it was small enough to be concealed on the ninja, as his colleague had demonstrated when they confronted the warlord.
The other weapon was a small, but deadly sai. Basically a sword, the sai had two extensions between the pointy sharp edge in the middle of the weapon. One of the Niotomi had brandished this while the warlord had been talking about taking over the Land of Waves. Itachi was fine with letting him talk, as he wasn't in any hurry to kill the man, but his colleagues had other ideas.
There had been 6 missing-nin, four A-Class, and two B-Class. While the warlord had been talking, Itachi had picked up on the sign language going on between the two. He read that they were planning a distraction, and signed back that he acknowledged it. As ANBU Captain, he was expected to be leader, but it was always welcome to let someone else take the reigns for a while. As long as the job got done, all three were paid the same.
"Well, well, well, what do we have here?" Everyone's attention was drawn to the treeline, where another ninja had appeared. He had flaming orange hair, and wore a blue outfit. On his back, was a long katana. Activating his Sharingan, Itachi realized it was just a disguised shadow clone produced by one of the Niotomi with him.
"Get lost," one of the B-Class nin ordered. The illusion's smile stretched far too wide, leaving a maddening effect on his distraught face. The Niotomi wearing the Lion mask had revealed a sai in the little time the illusion had bought. Of course, Itachi had complete confidence in his skills, so he wasn't particularly worried about dying, but his teammates appeared worried for some reason, as if they could actually die in this situation.
The Niotomi wearing the Whale mask launched a well aimed kunai at the B-Class nin that had foolishly spoken. It buried itself into the side of his neck, effectively cutting off air circulation.
"Hey! You bastar-!" Another kunai embedded itself into the other B-Class nin, launching him to the side as his head now brandished a two-inch hole in the side of it. Both were down for the count.
The rest of the missing-nin wasted no time in trying to dispatch Lion and Whale and the newcomer, which was the illusion, while Crow silently disappeared into the trees. The warlord didn't look particularly pleased.
They dispatched the missing-nin and warlord in the same time it took Itachi to get ready in the mornings. Sealing away the head's of the missing-nin, Lion nodded to Whale, as if reassuring that they were all right.
It wasn't often that Itachi handed out compliments, but they were on a whole new level compared to some of the other ANBU.
"Good work."
