So few reviews :'( This chapter is actually the longest yet, nearly twice as many words as they usually are. I actually really don't like most of this chapter, but I had a lot of fun writing the end. By the way, this fanfic is officially well over 100 pages long, pretty much meaning that I've written more of it than I have essays. Also, I won't be updating for a couple of weeks - I still plan on continuing it, so don't worry, but it'll be at least a couple of weeks. Sorry.
Enjoy!
Chapter Ten:
"Do you have to read that book?" Mayumi asked, sounding exasperated.
"I do want to be able to pass the exam," I reminded her, raising my voice over the sound of several hundred eight to twelve year olds in the same area.
She gave me a funny look. What, is it so strange to actually study? "I guess, but really, even at lunch?" She sounded affronted, as if lunch was some holy thing and I was blaspheming.
"We only have a week and a half left!" I was panicking just a little. I'd continued to read the stupid history book, and gone running every morning, and had started staying at the Academy later to practice throwing just in case. It actually really sucked.
But hey, at least I'm getting better at operating without as much sleep.
Mayumi just shook her head at me. I pouted back at her without looking up from the book.
"Well, if you're just going to be boring," she declared a couple of minutes later, "I'm going to go find somebody else to hang out with."
"Have fun," I muttered back. It was terrible of me, I knew, but she didn't really have any other friends, so I knew she'd come back once she tired of attempting to make me jealous.
She knew, too, and so she huffed at my lack of response and stalked away. I ignored her melodrama, focusing on the book. If I let myself get distracted, I'd never actually read it.
Some time later – I wasn't exactly keeping track, but maybe ten minutes – a sudden uproar of noise rose above the usual din. Glancing up to find its source – it was rare that anything got louder than normal – I found that there was a huge brawl going on in the center of the courtyard. Huge, as in probably two dozen children in a mass of attempted fights. The rest of the students were huddled around them in a circle, cheering them on. There were a couple of people disappearing inside, presumably in search of a teacher.
What could have caused this? I wondered. There were fights, of course, but never at such a large scale.
Abandoning my book gladly, I rushed over to the crowd, trying to force my way through the circle of spectators. I was hardly confident enough to try to stop them, but I at least wanted to know who was involved.
Once I squeezed my way through a gap into the circle, I could finally see who was fighting. To my dismay, I quickly recognized Sasuke, spotting what was almost certainly Naruto soon after. They were, of course, fighting each other. Trying to, anyway; the whole thing was quite chaotic, and it seemed to be difficult to target just one person.
I didn't remember this at all; if it had happened before, the show hadn't mentioned it.
I should probably try to stop them. "Sasuke," I called into the mob, trying to sound emotionless and unbothered. "What are you doing?"
I was soundly ignored. I pouted and eyed the mass of fighters contemplatively, quickly deciding that no, I wasn't going to attempt to infiltrate it.
Thankfully, a bunch of the teachers showed up then, easily breaking up the brawl. I recognized Iera-sensei, and a person that might have been Iruka. I wasn't sure, having never actually met him. There were also three other Chuunin that I didn't recognize at all.
Since the path was now clear, I darted over to where Iruka had cornered and separated Naruto and Sasuke, along with who I think were Kiba, Chouji, Shikamaru, and Ino, as well as a couple of other people. Maybe they were all of the ones in Sasuke's class?
Most of them had settled down and were merely glaring at each other, Iruka, or the ground, but Iruka had a hand on Sasuke's and Naruto's collars to keep them from jumping at each other.
"Sasuke," I said again, quieter this time, as I slipped up next to him.
He twisted to look at me, losing the angry glare. "Reika?" he said, sounding confused, but not, I noted wryly, at all embarrassed or ashamed.
Naruto noticed me, too. "Eh?" he said loudly. "Who're you?"
He was ignored this time, as Sasuke dismissed his existence. I cringed a little internally in sympathy as I noticed Naruto's hurt look, before it was replaced with fake, ignorant anger.
"Sasuke!" he raged, pulling at Iruka's grip on his collar as he tried to get to Sasuke. "Don't ignore me!"
This younger Naruto was worse at hiding his feelings, I noted. Or maybe I was just better at noticing them?
"Excuse me, Uchiha-chan," Iruka interrupted. "I just need to talk with your brother for a moment, if you could go back inside?"
Do you realize how creepy that sounded? I didn't say. Instead, I said, "What happened?"
Iruka sighed down at me, apparently deciding that I wouldn't let it go. "It was just a fight, nothing to worry about." He smiled at me comfortingly.
Obviously. I caught a glimpse of Sasuke rolling his eyes. "About what?" I asked Iruka, blinking at him innocently. The question was directed at Sasuke, too, but I knew he wouldn't answer, not here.
"It's… not important," Iruka said awkwardly, ushering me towards the door.
Naruto and Sasuke didn't speak, Naruto shuffling his feet uncomfortably and Sasuke staring steadily into the distance.
I rose an eyebrow, even more curious now, but willingly turned away. Maybe it had been longer than I thought, though, if Iruka was telling me to go inside?
Whatever. It didn't really matter. I obediently retrieved my bag – and book – and went inside to my classroom, resolving to ask Sasuke about it later.
Later turned out to be after school, back in our apartment. Sasuke, naturally, had refused to speak on the way home, partly because we were in public and partly because he enjoyed annoying me.
Finally, he answered, after the door closed behind us and we finished taking off our shoes (technically, this was a more modern apartment, and since it didn't have traditional furnishings like tatami mats, there wasn't really any reason to take off our shoes, but we did anyway.)
I didn't speak, because pestering him would only have gotten an answer faster if I'd had Naruto level aggravation abilities. Sasuke already knew that I wanted to know, so I just stared at him.
"…It's not really important," he said eventually, an unsuccessful attempt to avoid telling me.
I snorted at him. "You got into a fist fight, Sasuke," I said dryly. "I think that means it's important."
He shrugged. "It was just a disagreement," he said unhelpfully. "It's not very interesting."
"Okay? Tell me anyway," I said. It was strange; he obviously didn't want to tell me, but it wasn't something embarrassing…
There was very little that Sasuke didn't tell me.
Sasuke just shrugged again and wandered away, even as I stared, wide-eyed and rather offended, at his back.
Clearly, Sasuke wouldn't be telling me anything.
We both did homework after that, sitting in slightly awkward silence. I wasn't actually planning on asking again – I knew I wouldn't get an answer, so there was no point – but Sasuke didn't know that, so he was avoiding conversation out of the fear that it would invite me to ask again. So we both did homework and acted like we weren't even in the same room.
There was two rapid knocks on the door before the person – probably Guardian Lady, since that was practically her signature – attempted to walk in. This time, however, the door was locked and they couldn't open it. We'd realized after Guardian Lady's repeated uninvited entrances that we should probably lock the door, since we weren't in the ninja filled compound and people could just walk in.
The person, upset that they were locked out, started knocking again, harder this time. Sasuke and I shared a look, and he stood up and walked over to the door. These doors didn't have peep holes, so Sasuke had to unlock it – leaving the chain locked – and open it to see out. He immediately gave a nearly imperceptible sigh and closed the door so that he could unlock the chain and fully open it.
Guardian-Lady stalked in, seemingly offended at being locked out.
"Please remove your shoes," Sasuke requested dispassionately, hiding his annoyance at her tendency to just walk in. This also interrupted her right before she could begin ranting about being locked out.
She gave him a strange look, but voluntarily bent over to remove the impractical high heeled death traps on her feet.
That task completed, she followed Sasuke further in to the living room (AKA the room that held the sofa and the coffee table, and connected to the kitchen).
"Do you need something, Ma'am?" I questioned innocently. I really should learn her name.
She smiled at me, patting me on the head patronizingly. It would seem I was forgiven for getting detention. "Don't worry about it, Reika," she said. "Actually, I have good news!" She beamed at us, looking ever-so cheerful.
"News?" Sasuked asked.
"Good news!" she emphasized the 'good', clearly expecting us to show more enthusiasm. When we did no such thing, she gave a little sigh and deflated slightly, looking disappointed. "You can go back to your home, of course. The investigators have released it."
There was an expectant pause. The silence lengthened as Guardian-Lady stared at us expectantly and neither of us said anything.
Finally, she gave an annoyed huff. "Well, don't you want to move back in?" She said, vaguely irritated sounding. She didn't give us a chance to respond, continuing with, "Go pack your things, won't you?"
Sasuke and I glanced at each other. He tilted his head at me. Do you want to?
I twitched my shoulders, not quite shrugging. Doesn't matter. You?
He twisted his mouth slightly, a nearly imperceptible grimace. No.
I just barely raised my eyebrows and tossed my head a tad. We could just not.
Sasuke nodded, – we won't, then – waited for my own nod of agreement, and turned back to Guardian-Lady. She was staring at us blankly, seemingly having missed the entire conversation. Good.
"Would it be possible for us to stay here?" He said with a calm, measured tone.
Her eyebrows shot up. "What? Why would you want to do that?"
"We have our reasons," Sasuke said, looking back at her steadily. And they're none of your business, went unsaid.
"I see," Guardian-Lady said slowly, still looking perplexed. "Well, yes, of course I can – uh – arrange that." She paused in thought. "You are aware of the costs?"
Sasuke nearly rolled his eyes. "We have plenty of money."
Which actually was true; the Uchiha clan, like most clans, had had a system where every member gave a portion of their income to the clan. Given that the Uchiha had been made up of a considerable amount of Jounin level ninja, the cumulative income of them – in addition to all of the other ninja and the civilians – had ended up quite a bit. In fact, it was more than enough to maintain the Uchiha compound for the rest of Sasuke's and my lives and pay for all of our living expenses for the four years until we graduated and started getting our own income.
"Right, yes, of course," Guardian-Lady said. There was a strange look on her face. "Well, I'll just go, then."
She watched us for a moment, waiting to see if we'd stop her. Sasuke and I just stared. Finally, she nodded once and walked back out. Sasuke and I shared a smirk at the sound of her forgetting her shoes, rushing back in to get them, and fumbling to get them on.
Somebody doesn't have much practice.
But what was her look for? It didn't make any sense; she shouldn't have cared either way…
Oh.
"You know," I said thoughtfully, "we're both minors."
Sasuke glanced at me. "Yeah," he said. "So?"
"So, who's currently got legal control over the things that would be yours if you weren't a minor?" I pointed out.
Sasuke stilled. "…You think they would?"
Letting out a derisive snort, I said, "Well, why wouldn't they? They would be able to get more than a fair amount of money, and if there's any civilian that's going to be willing to do something like that, it would be a bureaucrat."
"There's no way they'd get away with it, though," Sasuke argued.
I shrugged. "Would that matter? If they were desperate enough…"
There was a moment of silence as Sasuke thought. "If there was anybody who had control, it would probably be the same person they put in charge of us, right?"
"Right," I agreed.
"We should go to the public services building tomorrow," Sasuke decided. "Just in case."
Although it was called the public services building, it was really just the administrative section for all of the civilian things. Things like minor guardianship and property ownership would both be there.
But also… "Do you know what our guardian's name is?" I asked.
"…What?"
So the next day – after school, because we didn't have enough time before it – we walked to the public services building. It would almost have been funny how many stares we got walking in, if it wasn't so annoying.
"Who do we talk to?" I murmured to Sasuke, making sure to keep my voice low enough that nobody else could hear. Who knew how many creepy civilian, uh, creepers were eavesdropping.
"How am I supposed to know?" Sasuke hissed back.
"You're the older one," I deadpanned. "I thought you knew everything."
He just gave me a Look, since that wasn't true and we both knew it. I just shrugged at him, and skipped over to one of the people working.
"Excuse me," I said, purposefully widening my eyes as I stared up at him. "Can you help us?"
The man looked at me, glanced at Sasuke, looked back at me, and said, "Certainly. You should talk to Takawa-san, I think."
"Takawa-san?" Sasuke asked, stepping up beside me.
"Takawa Emi-san," the man clarified. "She's the head of Child Placement and Guardianship. Her office is… 102, I believe."
"Thank you," Sasuke and I said in unison. We walked a ways away from him.
"What do you think?" Sasuke said quietly.
I shrugged. "It seems likely."
"Technically what we want is property ownership," Sasuke mused.
"Well, technically," I said. "But guardianship's not a bad place to start in this case, right?"
Sasuke muttered an agreement, and we went looking for room 102. It turned out to actually be on the third floor. Eventually, though, we found it and knocked – and waited for an answer – because we'd come all this way and we were going to talk to somebody.
"Enter!" she soon called through the door.
Now with permission, we opened the door and walked in.
I hate talking to people, I whined to myself. Well. At least I can reasonably hide behind Sasuke. I even have an excuse.
The woman inside spun her rolling chair to face us. "Hello, how can I help you?" She smiled at us, pushing blonde hair over her shoulder.
"Good evening, Takawa-san," said Sasuke, approaching her desk. I followed, staying mostly behind him so that I looked shy.
Takawa-san gestured towards two chairs sitting in front of her desk. "Please sit."
We sat.
Sasuke leaned forward in his chair. "We just have one question, Takawa-san," he said. She nodded encouragingly, but didn't speak. "If there was an… orphan," Sasuke continued slowly, hesitating before the word, "who was put under the guardianship of a social worker, what would happen to any belongings or properties they inherited?"
"That's a good question." Takawa-san smiled, looking slightly unnerved by what Sasuke had said. His vocabulary, maybe? "Well, first off, an orphan wouldn't technically have been given a 'guardian', as such. Any orphan with no living relatives or otherwise to take them in would stay under the authority of the village, if not put into an orphanage. Any so-called 'guardian' would simply have been assigned to check up on the child, and would not have any direct control over them." She smiled again. She was very smiley. "Does that answer your question?"
Sasuke and I glanced at each other.
I tilted my head to the side. What do you think?
Sasuke shrugged, a thoughtful look on his face. I'm not sure.
"But who would have control of any properties that a minor couldn't yet?" Sasuke asked.
Her eyebrows rose. "I would think no one, but I really can't say." She shuffled through some of the papers on her desk. "Ah, here we go," she said triumphantly, reading off of a piece of paper, "Kigawa Kisuke, Head of Property Ownership."
All of these department names are so unoriginal…
Takawa-san looked back up at us. "He's on the first floor," she said. "In room seventeen. He should be able to help you."
Sasuke nodded. "Thank you for your assistance, Takawa-san," he said formally, standing. I followed suit.
"Glad I could help," she replied.
Sasuke strode out of the room, with me following closely.
We closed the door firmly behind us and walked a good ways away. "So, down to room seventeen, then?" I sighed.
Also, what is with this room positioning? Is there any kind of a system?
Sasuke sighed too. "I guess so."
And so to room seventeen it was.
We knocked on his door. "Come in!"
We walked in. Kigawa-san was staring intently at his papers, and didn't look up as we entered. "Is there something I can help you with?" He muttered distractedly.
"Yes," Sasuke said. "We were wondering if you could tell us something."
Kigawa-san waved a hand. "Yes, yes, ask away." He still didn't look up.
"In the case of an orphan who had inherited property but couldn't legally own it until they reached majority, under whose control would the property be?" Sasuke asked.
Finally looking up from his papers, Kigawa-san gave Sasuke a strange look. "I'm sorry, could you repeat that?" he said.
Sasuke obligingly repeated the entire spiel.
"I don't believe anybody would," Kigawa-san said. "In that situation, the property would be frozen in legal matters until the minor who owned it reached majority."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, of course." Apparently bored of us once more, Kigawa-san refocused on his papers.
"Thank you for your help, Kigawa-san," Sasuke said to him.
Kigawa grunted in acknowledgement.
Sasuke and I left.
"What now?" I asked once we were alone (mostly).
Sasuke shook his head. "I don't know," he said. "Give up, I guess. It doesn't seem like anything could happen."
"True," I agreed.
I pouted a little internally. I'd really thought that Guardian-Lady was doing something suspicious.
Well, I can't always be right.
It seemed ridiculously soon that the end of the month – and the exam – arrived. I was only a little worried – meaning that I was completely panicking, of course. I knew the math, and I knew the reading, and I'd studied that stupid history book to death, and I had gone running every day, and I'd even practiced throwing kunai and shuriken (though, admittedly, I hadn't really gotten better, and the others in my class had quickly matched, if not surpassed, me).
But I was still worried.
"We'll be starting with the literacy exam," Iera-sensei announced. There were quiet groans across the room. Iera-sensei quickly shushed them. "You never know when it'll be important," she lectured.
She began handing the tests out. Although she didn't really need to, she walked around the classroom, placing each test in front of each student.
I stared at her as she walked around, watching her put down each set of papers. As most people did, she pulled each one off of the top of her pile. Off the top, onto the desk. Off the top onto the desk… and repeating.
Finally, after what seemed an age, she got to me. Her hand flicked as she grabbed my test, too quick to see, and then the test was sitting on the desk in front of me.
Why would she do that? I wondered.
I soon forgot about that, however, preoccupied with glaring at the stupid desk and its stupid height. It had never mattered before, because I could see over it, but there was no way I would be able to do the test when the desk was about the same level as my nose as I sat on the bench.
It was unprofessional, but I stood up, jumped onto the bench, and used it as a stair to the desk, where I promptly sat down cross-legged. The classmates on either side of me, Mayumi and somebody that I probably should have recognized but didn't, looked at me like I was crazy, the ones in front of me twisting backwards to do the same. Most likely, the ones behind me did too, but I couldn't see them.
"Uchiha…?" Iera-sensei said from somewhere behind me.
"I couldn't see the paper from the bench, sensei," I said innocently.
Iera-sensei let out a laugh-sigh, and continued without saying anything. Once she finished handing out the papers, she walked back to the front of the classroom.
"All right, you have one hour to complete the test. Any questions left unanswered will be counted as false," she said. "You may now begin."
The majority of the class immediately flipped over the top paper of their test and started scribbling on the paper. Flipping the top off of my own test, I wasn't really sure what they were scribbling for – it was a fill in the bubbles, as it had often been during my school years in my first life.
The test was fairly basic – grammar, spelling, vocabulary, the usual, pretty much. There were a couple of questions that I worried about, however. One such question was "Which of the below options best fits in the sentence? 'Marie was [blank] when she saw the injured dog'
a. revolted
b. petrified
c. jovial
d. homicidal"
And even without the fact that it was all in Japanese – and those weren't exactly common words – three out of the four of them could have been true. I'd chosen d. homicidal, because this was still a ninja class, and they would totally do things like that. Ninja brainwashing, of course. Hopefully I was right and they wouldn't think I was crazy…
Overall, I thought it was relatively easy – compared to what I'd been worried about – if a little advanced for eight-year-olds, but I'm fairly certain I heard at least one other student have a nervous breakdown. I felt bad for them, I really did… but that probably meant they'd failed, if simply because they hadn't finished.
"All right!" Iera-sensei said from the front of the classroom. "That's an hour! Put down your pencils."
She walked around, collecting everybody's tests.
"So, now that that's done with." Iera-sensei paused dramatically. "History!" The room filled with much louder groans. Iera-sensei just smirked.
She walked around yet again passing out the history tests, and I was watching this time. Again, however, I could see every movement as she picked up and put down the tests of everybody before me, but there was just a flicker before she handed me mine (snorting a little at my position on top of the desk, the reason why I was the only person who had it handed to them, rather than placed in front of them).
"Again, one hour, unanswered questions count as false, etcetera, etcetera," Iera-sensei said uninterestedly. "Go."
The students were considerably less enthusiastic this time, but still hurriedly started – they didn't want to run out of time, obviously. I started quickly too, even more anxious of this test. I'd kind of ended up cramming for the majority of the history book, and I wasn't sure I remembered it all very well.
It was just as hard as I expected – by which I mean that it asked seemingly arbitrary questions about things I hadn't memorized. Rude. Seriously, who cares about the exact year that the Leaf made some long-broken treaty with Cloud? It was before the Third Great Ninja War, meaning that it was no longer the peace treaty in effect, and that should really be the only thing that mattered.
But hey, I didn't have a panic attack over it, thankfully. There were other students who did, again.
I wonder if having a panic attack automatically fails you? It seemed like the kind of thing ninja would do. They were mean like that.
"Time!" Iera-sensei called. She collected all of the papers again – which seemed like a lot of work to me for no reason; maybe it was to ensure that nobody cheated – and stood at the front of the room. "We'll do the physical portion next." I cringed slightly. There were a couple of groans from people like me, but the room was mostly silent. Most of these students had expected the physical training and apparently didn't mind it.
Iera-sensei picked up a couple of papers from her desk. "We'll do these one at a time. As I call your name, follow me to the exam area." She shuffled the papers a bit and read off, "Abera Kemusuke," and led the boy who stood up out of the room.
Great. We're doing it in alphabetical order by last name.
Relatively quickly – the physical portion must be much shorter than the others – Iera-sensei returned alone, calling forward the next person.
It was almost creepy for none of the students to return, but it did make sense; they didn't want them coming back and telling their friends what the exam was.
It felt like it took a long time, though it really didn't, before it got to me. On the one hand, it was good, because I could stop sitting here worrying about it, but on the other hand, now I had to do it.
Keeping my complete panic from my face, I followed Iera-sensei out of the room. She led me on a twining path through the Academy – as most tended to be – to an unknown destination. Would it just be outside?
And wouldn't it be faster to just lead all of us there at the same time?
The Academy had multiple courtyards and otherwise 'outside' areas. There was at least two; the one that had targets to practice throwing on, as well as the one we were sent to for lunch. It was entirely possible that she was taking me to one of the outside areas, but not necessarily either of those. Obviously, the physical test couldn't take place inside.
Finally, we came out into a courtyard I'd never seen before. It contained what looked very similar to an obstacle course from my first life. A very long, difficult obstacle course: there was a wall that was much, much taller than me with little holes for handholds and footholds; a plank leading from it to a series of platforms, each a little lower until they reached the ground; a pit of mud with nothing but a web of ropes above it; and a pipe, suspended a couple of feet above the ground, that we were presumably supposed to crawl through. At the end were three targets. Thankfully, the ground of the entire area was padded, most likely because they didn't want anybody to hurt themselves.
But isn't this a bit too hard for students who've only been training for a month? I wondered somewhat hysterically.
"Fairly self-explanatory," Iera-sensei said, watching me with an oddly intent look. "Complete the obstacle course, hit each target five times, do it as fast as possible. Got it?"
I nodded and tried to look confident and not like I was panicking. "I got it." But what happens if I fall in the mud pit?
"Good." She clicked a timer, starting it. "Go."
I went.
First up was the climbing wall. I ran at it, preparing to jump and get as high as I could. At what was maybe the correct distance, I leaped, planted a foot on it to get higher – and fumbled on the handholds, sliding back down a couple before I could stop myself. I was light and strong enough that climbing it wasn't too hard after I regained my handholds. From there, I easily crossed the plank, though I was slightly wobbly.
The platforms; it was obvious that we were supposed to jump from one to another until we got to the ground. I jumped from the platform that the plank had led to, nearly overshooting the next platform and barely keeping myself from falling off.
Maybe a little less, next time, I advised myself dryly, and leapt to the next one. I landed relatively in the middle, same with the next one, and the next. On the second to last, however, I didn't jump quite far enough, only just avoiding a fall backwards. Wary of not making it to the last platform – and how terrible would that be, failing just before the end and having to start from before the wall – I overcorrected on the jump to the last one. Rather than a separate jump, my departure from the last platform was more of a controlled fall, which led into a summersault on the ground.
Since I figured Iera-sensei would have called me on it if that hadn't counted as a success, I moved onto the next obstacle: the rope web.
This is going to be so much fun.
It was also quite a bit above my head, and was probably a fair leap for even the eight-year-olds to get to. I wondered, suddenly, if ninja were crueler than I'd expected. There was no way I could jump and reach it, not without chakra enhancement, which I didn't know how to do. But there were support beams holding it up…
I climbed up the support beam as quickly as I could, which, considering that it wasn't exactly designed to be easy to climb, wasn't very quick. From there, I was able to get a hand onto the rope, and begin swinging across. I hadn't thought to do upper-body strength training, and both my arms and my hands nearly failed multiple times. Fortunately, they only actually failed once; close enough to the other side for me to land on the ground. But ow.
What is with all of these near-misses? Seriously, it must have been the anime-world affecting events.
Okay, the pipe-crawl… which was also taller than me. I hate being so short. I could not wait until I was taller. The pipe wasn't so tall that I couldn't reach the bottom, but it was tall enough that I had to pull myself up into it. After that, though, it was actually quite easy. I imagine that, for the size people it must have been created for, it would be very difficult to crawl through – but I was tiny, and it was surprisingly easy.
It didn't take long to make it through, and I swiftly moved over to the designated – with a cute little red circle on the ground – throwing area, picking up the nine kunai and six shuriken as I did.
I steadied myself and made sure my hands weren't shaking – I did not want to miss. There was a flash of Itachi's showing off with kunai – the one that, I think, made it into Naruto, where he threw like ten kunai at the same time and all hit different targets – one of which was behind a boulder. Suddenly I felt quite inadequate – how could I ever compare to Itachi (or others of his skill level)?
Well, you never will if you don't pass this exam, the logical part of my brain pointed out. Okay. I took a breath, held it, exhaled, and threw the first kunai at the first target.
Bull's-eye.
Second kunai at the second target – bull's-eye.
Third target, third kunai – hit the target on the ring two out from the center. I flinched, but forced myself to ignore it, starting again at the first target. Fourth kunai at first target – bull's-eye.
The fifth kunai nearly missed, barely hitting the outer ring of the target. The sixth was a near bull's-eye. The seventh hit in the middle of the target, but too far out to one side. The eighth and ninth were both bull's-eyes.
Now, shuriken.
The first missed entirely – I wanted to cry – the second hit too far down and to the right, the third was a bull's-eye, the fourth was too far to the left, the fifth was a bull's-eye, and the sixth was too low.
That was so terrible, I lamented. I'd hoped that I'd practiced enough, but… clearly not.
As the last shuriken hit the target, I heard Iera-sensei's timer click as she stopped it. She approached me.
"Good, you're done," she said, her face unreadable. "Follow me."
She promptly led me to an open corridor-room-thing – not really a classroom, but more than just a hallway – where the students who had left before me were waiting.
Iera-sensei didn't speak as she left me there, leaving to continue the test for the others. I stood there and waited awkwardly. The others conversed quietly amongst themselves.
Maybe for dramatic effect? I considered. It didn't make sense for Iera-sensei to collect one student at a time from the classroom, lead them alone to the obstacle course, and then go all the way back to the classroom to collect another student. Doing that was inefficient. It would have been better to lead the entire class and have them wait inside while one person goes through the obstacle course, even. The only thing I could think is that being brought out alone created a sense of being alone. A long walk with nobody but Iera-sensei – who was being distant and creepy on purpose, probably – was much more disquieting than waiting next to a door with all of your friends around.
Also Iera-sensei was probably fast enough that getting back to the classroom once she was alone wouldn't take long.
"Reika!" chirped Mayumi, popping into my line of sight.
I jumped a little. "Mayumi," I said back.
"Ugh, weren't the tests so hard?" she groused, leaning on the wall beside me.
"They really were," I commiserated.
She heaved a weighty sigh. "And we still have math to go… I hate math."
Math was actually the subject I was most confident in; it hadn't changed much from my last life. The thing I was most worried about was doing math in Japanese, which made it more difficult, but it didn't change anything about the math itself. I'd be fine (I hoped).
I didn't say any of that. "I know," I said sympathetically.
It didn't take too long for the physical portion to finish. Overall, it had taken right around an hour for everybody to complete.
They totally didn't plan that, or anything.
All of us were led back to the classroom, and Iera-sensei promptly began the math portion. Nervous breakdowns started with it, as other students panicked about it. I actually didn't have a problem; it was easy, especially compared to high school calculus. I hadn't liked calculus, but I'd still been passing.
"All right, that's all," Iera-sensei said. "You're done. You can go home, whatever. Oh," she gave a little start, as if she'd actually forgotten something (it was fake), "just come to this room tomorrow. I'll tell you your scores and, if necessary, where your new classroom is." She hid a smirk badly. "You might want to show up early."
If necessary? Did that mean that each teacher had their classroom, so even as they and their students switched classes, they kept the same room? If so, needing to be told the location of your new classroom meant that you'd failed and been held back.
Once most of the other students had left, I jumped off the table – hey, bonus: nobody had to slide past my legs – and left the room. Mayumi, though she didn't have many friends, liked her family a lot more than me, so she didn't wait for me before leaving. I wasn't terribly offended.
It was funny, Sasuke's graduating class had the clan heir of just about every major clan in the village – except Inuzuka, since Kiba had an older sister – while my class was almost entirely civilian-born students. There weren't even many non-heir clan members. I had no idea why most of the clan heads had had their first child at about the same time.
Well, actually… about twelve years before the start of the series – eight years ago from when I was now – would have been around the end of the Third Great Ninja War. I didn't know exactly how long ago the war ended, but it was probably nine years ago now.
In some cases, warriors might have wanted heirs, in case they died in battle, but in this world of ninja, it was too likely that enemy ninja would target the children for leverage, or even just to prevent future ninja.
I hate this world… One thing that I'd always believed in my first world was that children were sacred. They were off-limits. In this world, five-year-olds could be trained killers (from 'the nicest ninja village'), and nobody batted an eye. Of course they wouldn't really care about killing kids; in a couple of years, that kid would be an enemy soldier.
I went to the front courtyard of the Academy to wait for Sasuke – they had far too many classes to do every single class's tests at the same time, so his was later than mine. The courtyard was empty, of course; it was rare for there to be siblings at the Academy at the same time, and most kids had parents or older siblings to pick them up.
Wait. It wasn't empty: there was one person. Naruto, sitting on the swings.
Ah, that's right. Naruto had failed the graduation exam twice before the start of the series, hadn't he? Sasuke didn't seem the type to opt out of taking it, so Naruto must have started the Academy sooner. Naruto was in a different class than Sasuke, so he could have already taken his test, and he had no family members to pick him up.
So I walked over to him. It was hard not to feel bad for him, especially because I didn't think of him as a character anymore.
"Hello, Uzumaki-san," I greeted him. It was strange to call him so formally, as I'd gotten used to calling him 'Naruto' when he was still a character, but he was a person now, and it was only polite (also, considering that most of his interaction was with the few adults that liked him, it was probably rare that anybody spoke to him politely).
Naruto stared back at me warily. He was probably wary of most people, at this point, and it wasn't made any better by the fact that I'd shown myself to be friendly with Sasuke.
"I'm Uchiha Reika," I introduced slightly desperately, since he probably expected that to be my family name anyway. It hurt a surprising amount to have Naruto dismiss me, even marginally like this. I was sure that anybody who dreamed of being in Naruto also counted 'actually being friends with the main and titular character' as part of it. Obviously, it wasn't personal, but it still hurt. "You don't like me because I'm Sasuke's sister, huh."
Naruto shrugged. "Doesn't matter," he muttered sullenly. "Everybody treats me the same." But I'd hoped we could be friends, was unsaid. And oh my gosh that was so sad because Naruto's answer –along with most other fictional orphans', though I can't say for nonfictional ones – to not having biological family was to find people that could be their family but for Naruto that wasn't possible because everybody hated him.
It was a good thing he wasn't looking at me anymore because I'm sure he could have seen tears in my eyes. Naruto's back-story – though really it was still his current story – was just so sad, and I'd never really thought about it before. Of course, before he'd been fictional – it had been a 2d character with an invented past. Now, he was a person who'd actually lived that life.
"The same?" I asked, playing clueless. Even Naruto would notice if I knew things I shouldn't – and I'd already slipped up by knowing his name. "How do you mean?"
"Nobody likes me," Naruto explained… without actually explaining anything. If I'd been normal, I would probably have been confused.
"Okay," I said, purposefully sounding bemused. I didn't know what to say. I'd never been good at making friends or starting conversations. In fact, I was really terrible at it. "I like you," I offered. This could backfire so badly.
Naruto glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. "Really?" he said suspiciously, not quite hopeful. It was fairly unbelievable, to be fair. Still, I couldn't help but wonder if people had tricked him before.
"Well," I amended, "I don't not like you. I think we could be friends," I said honestly.
Finally turning to face me, rather than staring in a different direction, Naruto opened his mouth, looking hopeful, and then he caught sight of something behind me, and his face fell. I turned to look and found Sasuke walking towards us.
Oh. I forgot about that.
"I'm sorry, Uzumaki-san," I said. "…He's my brother."
Naruto didn't speak.
I left, walking over to Sasuke before he could get close to Naruto. I didn't really want them to start fighting again.
"What were you doing?" Sasuke asked once we were close enough.
"Nothing," I said truthfully. "But what were you guys fighting about before?"
Sasuke immediately closed off. What was their fight about? "Fair enough," he grumbled.
Naruto didn't even look at us as we left.
"How well do you think you did?" I asked.
Sasuke shrugged. "It wasn't hard. You?"
"I don't know…" I murmured. "I don't think I did too badly."
Hopefully.
The next day was the first of the month, and also the start of the second month of school, which mattered now, since each month was apparently a different class.
Sasuke and I planned to get to school ten minutes earlier than we usually would, just in case. Everybody – who cared – would be there early, which could make it harder to get around, so it was only prudent.
It would seem that we weren't the only ones who had that idea, however, as the Academy hallways were fairly filled with people trying to get places. When I got to my classroom, though, Mayumi was the only was already there.
Odd. I'd have thought that a bunch of first month students would be the most worried.
I approached Iera-sensei. "Good morning, sensei."
"Oh, Uchiha," she said. There was an odd look on her face. "Sorry, you're not in this class anymore."
It felt like I could hear the anime-esque world freezing and shattering around me.
"What?" I stammered. "I – I failed?"
Iera-sensei tilted her head at me. "Do you think you did?"
"I don't know," I mumbled. "I know that I didn't do very well on the physical."
She hummed thoughtfully. "Well, that's true, you didn't do well enough to pass the physical," she said. "You did better than I expected, though, considering that the exams you did were for month three."
"What?"
"The exams you did were for month three," Iera-sensei repeated patiently.
I blinked at her. "What does that mean?"
"That you didn't switch classrooms because you're starting month one again, you're switching classrooms because you're starting month three."
"Starting month three?" I asked, now well and truly bewildered.
Iera-sensei failed to hide a smile. "Okay, I had you take the exams that are usually given at the end of the third month, see?"
Realizing after a short pause that she wanted an answer, I nodded. I understood that part.
"Right, but you didn't pass them, so you didn't qualify for month four." She waited for another nod before continuing. "You did do well enough to skip ahead a month, putting you in three when you should be in two."
"But how did I pass the month three test?" I questioned. "I didn't study for it!"
"You are aware that the books you were given were for the year, right?" Iera-sensei said dryly.
"…Oh."
Giving a short laugh, Iera-sensei patted me on the head. "Congratulations, Uchiha," she said. "You're officially even further on your way to being one of the youngest graduated genin in peacetime."
Was that a compliment? "Thanks," I deadpanned. "But why?"
"Why did I help you skip a month?"
I nodded.
"Because you've got a lot of potential in that itty bitty body of yours," she answered. "And you've got a mind unlike any other five-year-old I've ever met. I would feel bad keeping you from being your best."
I stared at her silently, unsure how to respond to that. "How mean, though, sensei," I eventually changed the subject. "I really thought I'd been held back."
Iera-sensei smirked. "I know. Your face was hilarious." She glanced at the clock on the wall. "You should probably go find your new classroom, by the way."
I looked at the clock too, and found that I had about ten minutes before class would start.
Turning to Iera-sensei, I opened my mouth to ask –
"Same room as your brother," she answered first. "You know where that is, right?"
"I do, sensei." I bowed to her. "Thank you!"
She waved a dismissive hand. "Oh, go away," she said lightly. "You're not my problem anymore."
I smiled at her and turned towards the door, catching Mayumi's inquisitive look in the process. I shrugged, wordlessly promising to explain it at lunch, and hurried out the door. With ten minutes to go, three flights of stairs to go up, and one flight of stairs to go down, I didn't want to be late.
I giggled to myself as I dodged around people in the hallways.
I expected it to be harder to get into Sasuke's class.