Chapter 12 – Schooling Rather than Homeschooling

If anyone walked past the supreme corridor that afternoon, one could faintly pick out a soothing baritenor voices beyond the door. Inside, a fair-skinned blond was humming a joyful tune as he was tidying up all the used papers and references.

Minato had finished work a lot earlier that day and he was certainly in a good mood. He took a final look at the room and thought to himself, Good to go. He then left the Hokage office at ease and took the long route through the academic division of the building. He stopped by the Third Year class and he peeped through the glass window on the door, observing the class with interest. In the class, there was the young Uchiha he met about a week ago.

Observantly, the boy noticed Hokage-sa… no, Minato-jisan standing outside the classroom. He smiled lightly in his direction before turning his head back to face the blackboard. Minato gave him a little wave in return and disappeared before his presence might disturb the class. He headed straight to the staff room with a satisfied grin on his face.

In front of the house's door, Minato took his key out of his pocket. He fitted it into the lock and entered the room, opening and closing the door soundlessly. He took off his shoes and put down his key in a subtle motion, then gingerly moved towards the mouth-watering aroma of home cooking. The missus also seemed to be in a good mood. As he walked closer to the kitchen, able to hear the other sound, which was overpowered by the noise of knife-chopping – water boiling and oil sizzling. Tuneful musical notes were coming out of her upward-curving lips. He was about to offer her his help, but then, after a second thought, he decided not to – he remembered the wisdom he was passed by Shikaku. She was doing fine and if he had offered her his help, he would probably get something like, "It's my kitchen. I'll do things my way." from his love. That would not end well. A week, or even two weeks on the couch maybe? He knew all too well that if he dared to attempt freeing himself by sleeping in the guest room, he would not be back on his – well – their bed for at least a month. That would so affect his performance for the village, and he wouldn't get any… – No, that would not be good either way!

'It's too bothersome to have an argument over such a trivial matter,' to quote the genius strategist of Konohagakure.

Minato remembered clearly that his friend had an argument with his wife because he was too lethargic to clear out the rubbish bins, not because of his eagerness to share the house chores – quite the opposite of him, really. But all the same, it would be wise to avoid any argument in a marriage, especially one with a spontaneous woman, because you never knew what she was going to do next. So, there he was, leaning against the doorway, with his arms crossed and a carefree look on his face, waiting to be noticed by his wife. And there she was, juggling around in the kitchen like a circus clown, not having time to divert her attention to notice her husband standing there, watching her every movement for his entertainment. When dinner was cooking under way and the straw was simmering, Minato took his chance.

The moment that Kushina was fixing the loose strand of red hair in front of vision, she was pulled into a sensuous hug from behind. Minato had caught her in his embrace - she did not see that coming. He had his arms tenderly wrapped around her waist and his head gently rested on her right shoulder. He whispered something into her ear, earning him a smile from her.

"You're back early today," she remarked, taken by surprise.

"I would be even earlier if I didn't go to the Academy," he replied.

She was impressed. "It's all ready for Yuna?"

"Well, milady, believe it or not, I am the Hokage. If I can't even do that, how'd you expect me to run Konoha?" he asked jokingly.

"Fair point, Hokage-sama," she said, stressing the honorific prefix.

Before the scene, Kakashi stood by himself, debating whether he should cough and bring the two back from La-la land or if he should escape before he was noticed by them.

So much for flirting, huh? Stupid Kakashi, move your sorry ass. You don't want to see them make-out! For Konoha's sake, he's your sensei!

He did not want to be difficult and uncooperative – so he chose option two. Though deep down, he was fascinated and kind of wanted to watch on. Okay, buddy, maybe you should drop the Icha Icha series for the sake of your health, he told himself. That would never happen though.

Kakashi began to walk out tacitly when he accidentally bumped into another person. The girl opened her mouth, but was stopped as Kakashi quickly put his finger to her mouth to hush her.

"How did you get in?" Yuna asked almost inaudibly. "Shouldn't they know you're here? Why do we have to speak like this?" Instead of answering her questions, he showed the girl his key to the house. She understood, then reminded him, "You haven't answered my second and third questions."

"You parents are…." Since Kakashi was unmasked, Yuna could see the redness across his cheeks and she once again understood. Yuna did not want to ruin their fun either, but she knew Kakashi was very reluctant too. Between the two, it was she who drew the short straw, so she went back to the unlocked door to shut it with some force.

"Tadaima. Papa. Mama."

"Seriously, how would you like to have someone barge in on you like that?" Kakashi hissed lowly at her, his mouth wide open.

"I wouldn't know. I don't have a boyfriend, never mind a husband," she casually retorted.

Kakashi was wordless at her action.

She's still young. When she's older, I swear I'll so tease her.

"Itadakimasu!"

As soon as all four voices called out, they dug into the hot pot. Dinner for the night was oden, a heart-warming and winter dish stew in lightly soy-flavoured dashi sauce, served with boiled rice, miso soup, and seasonal pickled vegetable. The pot had plenty of delish ingredients: boiled eggs, chicken meat balls, fish cake tubes, fried tofu fritter, octopus, and various root vegetables. It was delicious. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed the Friday night full-house family dinner. As always, the food was great and enjoyable to eat. Kakashi was particularly fond of the tenderly-cooked wedges of white radish; Yuna liked the fish cake tubes; Minato loved it all. Dinner was a time when they could all get together and enjoy eating in each other's company. It was the time for the family to listen to each other, and most importantly, to connect as a family, not just some random people living under the same roof. For Kushina, dinner became an opportunity and a gift each day gave her, rather than a chore she had to attend to as some good wife. She was delighted to be rewarded memories of fun, and meaningful and joyous dinners with her family.

Minato set down his bowl to speak with his daughter. "I've got some news for you, Yuna. It's completely up to you decide at the end of the day. I am planning to send you to the Academy, where you'll meet lots of new faces. I promise you, you won't be lonely. You'll be studying with a whole class of people. It's going to be great fun. What do you think?" he asked, avoiding the phrase 'making new friends' - as he knew, there was no guarantee in such matters with his little girl.

Instead of a 'yes' or a 'no', Yuna turned to face her mother with a worried look.

"Mama, did I do something wrong? Do you not want me anymore?"

"No, no, no. That's not true, honey. We're just thinking that you should hang around with more people, especially with people your age. I mean, I met Minato in the Academy. We became good friends; after that, we became more. You never know. Also, the Academy is a good place to test your ability. You'll see just where you're at and I assure you, you'll be surprised." Kushina had to admit to herself that what she said was not entirely true. Minato and she were not friends in the Academy. It was more like Minato stalked her when she was busy fighting all the aggravating boys off, but Yuna did not need to know that.

Kakashi further reinforced the idea. "I agree. It's good for you, Yuna-chan. It'll be good training for you in many ways." He did not personally enjoy his time in the Academy that much, but he could not rule out all possibilities. He, too, saw that the girl had some serious deviancy of friends her age. What better way to do ensure that she would find more people to get along with than to enroll her in the Academy?

"Also, I'd think most things are too easy for your liking. I'm putting you into the graduating class. Um… how about a challenge? If you can graduate by April, which is less than three month's time, I will grant you a wish," Minato proposed. He was hoping desperately that she would buy it.

As soon as the winning prize came out, Yuna took her chance. "Okay. Papa, that's any wish, right?"

The three of them made Academy sound so attractive. On top of that, if she managed to graduate on time, she could also make a wish come true. It was too tempting to refuse.

"Of course."

"That's the words of the Hokage?"

"Yes, it is." Minato chuckled lightly at that. Then he added, "Great, you're starting on Monday."

Over the weekend, Yuna only heard more about how much fun the Academy was. Mostly from Minato, as he certainly had a good time in the Academy both socially and academically. Above all, he had very much enjoyed just gazing at Kushina from the corner of his eyes. To him, she looked ever-so-graceful even when she was beating the boys up like there was no tomorrow. Yuna was now too excited to eat breakfast properly. She could not wait to get to school.

"Slow down. Don't choke yourself just because you're excited for school", Minato reminded her with a gentle smile. Yuna flashed a mischievous grin and slowed down her pace dramatically. It was as unhurried as a film in slow motion. She picked up the spoon from her bowl, scooped up some porridge, lifted it up to her mouth, parted her lips gradually, put it in, chewed it well, and finally swallowed the little spatula of food.

Minato could only laugh at her melodrama. "Yes, slow down, but not that slow! You'll be late at this rate, and you don't want that on your first day. I'll get going first. Have fun." After he left his seat, Yuna picked up her pace again to finish her breakfast.

Kushina was dressed in her shinobi attire when she took Yuna to the Academy. All shinobi who walked past bowed to her and she smiled back to show her gratitude. After two stairs and four corridors into the building, they reached the outside of classroom 3-A, the homeroom of the upper half of the graduating students. Yuna looked up to the woman and waited for something to happen.

"Trust me, it's going to be fine. You'll like it." Kushina bent down and handed a bento box to the girl, assuring her with a smile. Before Kushina's departure, the mother and daughter hugged shortly before she headed to the Jōnin Standby Station.

Finally, Yuna was there.

Yuna entered the classroom and walked in through the front door. Once she stepped inside, she was immediately overwhelmed by everyone's chit-chat and girls screaming. She was very confused. She wondered why there were lots of girls gathering by the backdoor of the classroom, screaming their lungs out. But then again, she did not bother walking all the way there to check out what was happening, she simply found a space somewhere in the middle of the room, where there was a clear view of the blackboard; a good distance from where the teacher was going to be standing, she sat down. Some students in class who noticed the new face smiled at her, and she smiled back respectfully. Then, she took out her sketch book to entertain herself before the lesson began.

In the centre of the screaming crowd, there was the young Uchiha. He felt uncomfortable at the focused attention he was getting. He arrived every day to the same situation – girls verbally fighting amongst themselves about who should sit next to him for the day, with him standing in the middle of them all and having no say in the matter whatsoever. That, however, was partially the result of his own doing, as he was too kind to reject them coldly; the odd number of students in the class did not help either, it left an opening on him to be attacked.

With that said, he was tired of it. That was definitely additional motivation for him to graduate from the Academy as soon as possible, so he would not have to tolerate this any longer. In the midst of his thoughts, he spotted something unfamiliar to the classroom. Ocean-blue hair. It was a rare hair colour, and he recalled knowing of only one person in all of Konoha who had it. The hair was neatly braided and sided onto the left shoulder. She was sitting alone. He had a gut feeling that it must be her. From what he saw, she was different from the others. For one thing, she was a "she" who did not strangely go crazy on him. There was a light-bulb moment for young Itachi.

He excused himself from the girls and moved towards his usual seat. The girls were not expecting this, as he would normally stand in the middle, waiting to be paired up with one of them. Over there, she sat down in composure and drew in silence. He took a look at her carefully to confirm his guess.

So it is her.

"Can I take this seat?"

Although it was normally his seat, he felt rude to not ask at all.

"Suit yourself."

She took a brief glimpse at him and then she returned to sketching.

The boy felt he should introduce himself properly since they were going to sit and work together as partners, but he would feel bad disrupting her further. He merely remained standing and continued to observe her every single move. She was working on adding shades to the outline she had drawn of a swan. He could tell she was having a lot of fun. She was changing different shades of pencils notoriously, rubbing and shading to perfect her creation, fully engaging herself in the piece of paper. She was smiling to herself; at that, he was smiling too, just because she was smiling.

The class teacher came in and everyone returned to their seats. Silence fell upon the classroom. The teacher began the lesson by taking the register.

"Namikaze Yuna."

"Hai," the blunette replied clearly but not loudly in her high-pitched, crystalline voice. With her unusual surname and her sudden entrance to the exam class, the teacher took a quick mental note of who she was.

"Seyama Narahiko."

"Akechi Ikki."

"Hyūga Tokuma."

"Muro Naora."

"Uzuki Yugao."

"Matsumoto Rui."

"Honri Chiaki."

"Okura Kan."

"Uchiha Itachi."

"Hai."

The raven-haired boy sitting next to Yuna answered to that. Just then, revelation came to her of who exactly he was. She abruptly turned her head to gawk at him, her mouth forming an o-shape. It was clear that she wanted to say something but nothing came out. He turned to see a blanched expression on her facial features, but could only smile softly at her surprise.

It was nearing two months since the Snake Sannin had stabbed Shisui with the Sword of Kusanagi - the sword that had cut his kunai in halves. Before he had passed out, delaying the betrayer to buy time for back-up, Shisui managed to send a messenger owl to the Third in order to notify him of the situation. He thought he was going to die, but no, the Fourth sent a team to retrieve him on time, just when he thought he was going to lose it.

He was working alone. There was no one shadowing him, and the team just appeared out of nowhere to save him in time. How did Minato know where exactly they were? He had no idea, but he was extremely grateful.

"Maybe one day you'll be worth my time. For now, you're not there yet." Orochimaru grinned as he aimed his sword right at the Uchiha's heart; Shisui was fortunate that he was fast enough to cause the angle slightly off track, while making it appear that he was done for. Upon making his exit, the Sannin thought the boy in front of him would have been a great container in the far future. It was a pity that he must kill him there and then use him for his escape. The young Uchiha was too skillful for any immobilising technique to work, nor he could place a curse seal on him. And Uchiha Shisui was too fast to be caught with his body flicker technique.

Shisui remembered it vividly. Through his sharingan, he could see every move the Sannin was about to make before they happened. But it wasn't good enough. He was not strong enough to fight against him, only just about enough to defend himself.

When he was paralysed in the hospital, he had a personal visit from the two Hokages and Lady Kushina. They knew Shisui was the only one left in his family. If they didn't care for him, who would? As the Fourth Hokage, Minato wrote a letter to the head of the Uchiha clan to explain the situation about Shisui's absence. Although Mikoto came to visit Shisui a few times, it was unwise to let the younger cousins see him in that state of health.

They could see the disappointment he had in himself. Orochimaru had gotten away, and Shisui thought it was his fault.

"I wouldn't stress about it, Shisui. The main thing is that you survived." Minato smiled and felt better when he saw the teen waking up from his coma. He didn't want little Shisui to follow the path his older brother walked, and die far too young in.

"Orochimaru is one of the legendary Sannin. You did very well to hold out for yourself," Kushina praised. The boy was lying flat on the bed, worn out and beaten.

"Shunshin no Shisui. That's what you'll be known as from now on," Hiruzen congratulated the child, even bestowing a name upon him for his skills. He was very proud on behalf of his old friend. "Kagami would have been proud of the bravery you showed, my boy." The retired Hokage couldn't help staring at the boy's face, reminding him how much the young Uchiha looked like his older brother and father. "If not, I am."

He thought he was going to die, again; he thought he had failed Konoha, again; Minato had saved him, again. Shisui had only managed to place a few layers of genjutsu on the Sannin to make him feel delusional so that his reaction time was messed up. When Orochimaru faced Hiruzen, he was told by the Professor that the Snake Sannin was abnormally slow in comparison to his normal performance. Shisui was glad to know that at least he had donesomething right.

Staying at home and doing nothing productive, he was on his three-month paid holiday. Life was too good to be true: getting paid, a lot, to not work. It was all great until his wounds were at the stage of completely healed, because then he got bored. To kill time, he volunteered to babysit the current youngest member of the clan, Toshiro. The little guy who was named after his older brother. Shisui was very fond of him, almost more than Squirt… Well, Toshiro had a personality, while Itachi was just… dry. He liked both of his little cousins just as much, but he really wished Itachi would open up a bit more. Since he attended the Academy, Shisui had to admit that Itachi had gotten a lot better.

"Shisui-jisan," the four-year-old called out to the rover who was sitting on a bench and counting grass in his garden. "What're we doing today?"

The teen lifted his eyebrow dangerously and looked down at Toshiro. "I thought I told you to not call me ojisan." Shisui was very annoyed. He had three more weeks before he turned fifteen. What did he do to deserve to be called an uncle? He never wanted to be 'old'. He wanted to be a child, too.

Too late now…

Shisui knew his childhood probably never existed, not that he could do anything about it. He had an adult life to look forward to; he decided that his teenage years weren't too bad, either. The war had ended. He was recommended to become a jōnin by both the Third and Fourth Hokages, and he was starting to get some serious attention from the ladies. It was going well.

"Itachi-niisan said you banned him from calling you ojisan, too." The child looked at Shisui with innocent eyes. "He also told me you get mad if we call you ojisan."

"Then why do you do that?" Shisui stared carefully at the toddler through his squinted right eye with the other shut. To think he understood children, apparently he didn't.

Toshiro's innocence was replaced by cheekiness. "Because it's fun." He flashed a bright smile. "I called you three times and you didn't answer." I was probably lost in my own little world again, Shisui thought to himself. "I had to use my secret weapon."

Instead of pretending to be angry, Shisui relaxed and broke out laughing. It was a playful remark, he liked it; it was also a very Uchiha remark, and he liked that, too. "That's why I like you better, Number Two." He patted the child's back lightly and decided to walk him to the park. This child was indeed a lot more fun than Squirt; he was a lot like his late mother, and thank god he turned out nothing remotely close to his Uncle Fugaku, an emotionless prick. It would have been very tragic… like Squirt.

Toshiro still didn't understand his nickname. "Why am I Number Two?"

"I can't call you Squirt, when Squirt is Squirt." To separate him from Itachi was one of the reasons.

"That makes me Number Two?"

"Yeah." Shisui didn't think it was the right time to explain to the child how he was named after Shisui's dead brother, which was part of the will of the boy's dead mother. "Pretty much."

When Toshiro had sat and fastened his grip on the swing, Shisui pushed the seat to send him up high. "Here we go."

Swing High, Swing High,

Away we go.

Up to the trees

Where the breezes blow,

Where the birdies nest

And play all day.

And all the world

Is bright and gay.

Shisui looked at the toddler as he happily sang himself a nursery rhyme; he started mumbling softly to the tune to fit in with the mood. He smiled, knowing the world let her children live their lives like children again. Compared to an untroubled childhood, the theme of death was certainly not a cheery one. Shisui tried to avoid talking about his all-deceased family to the young if it was possible. They would continue to live in his memories, but he must move on.

Itachi was on his way home from the Academy when he spotted his cousins playing in the park. Taking off his school bag, Itachi took another swing beside them and joined them with an unusually bright smile. He was quiet, as usual, but he was also looking unusually happy – he was smiling so peacefully and widely – quite an unnatural phenomenon.

"What happened today?" Shisui kept pushing Toshiro while the youngest boy on the swing continued singing out-of-tune and oh-so-loudly.

Children knew no shame. Or rather, the mother had no shame and her child had inherited it. At that, Shisui recalled the chat he'd had with the boy's mother before joining the war, knowing that he wasn't exactly the bashful type, too. He chuckled to himself while he waited for the heir's answer.

"Nothing. Just school." Also as usual, Itachi's reply was ever-so-brief and to the point.

"Really?" Shisui did not buy it, and gave a doubting look. To his eyes, Itachi looked far too happy to be his usual self. "No good news at all?"

"Oh–, I guess I've solved the girl problem." If it was possible, Itachi's smile grew wider, almost like he was… grinning. Now, that was a new concept.

Grinning.

"How?" Shisui slowly pronounced. It was peculiar enough to have the young heir grinning, but for him to say that he had solved his fangirl problem… that he didn't know those girls were classified as 'fangirls'… something dramatic must surely have happened! Itachi had complained multiple times before, in his way grumbling on about how pointless the girls were every morning he arrived in the classroom. Whenever Shisui started a conversation with Itachi about his Academy life, it always drifted back to the problem of girls arguing over him. He didn't care much, but only found it tedious; Shisui thought Itachi should learn how to deal with people through living it first-hand. He stood by his view of not giving Itachi any tips unless he asked for his help.

"We had a new student come in today, so I now have a constant academic partner."

"Right… but that only solves half of the problem. You don't have to rotate to different partners, so the girls can no longer argue about who can sit next to you for the day. What about break time?"

"I spent my break time talking to my new desk-mate. It's only polite that we should get to know each other better, since we'll be spending a lot of time together for the next two months. This is especially the case when we have the end of year exam project, a shared grade between the two of us, which takes forty per cent of our final grade."

"Okay… Did you talk about that?" Shisui sure hoped he didn't. It was totally the wrong thing to say for a starter. "What did you talk about?" He was seriously worried about his cousin's social skills.

"We talked about our education and family background, and why we were sent to the Academy," he said simply. Itachi was sent to the Academy because it was the only way for him to become a legal shinobi of Konohagakure. That was what his father saw; his mother, however, wanted Itachi to enjoy his time in the Academy and make friends with other people. They were appropriate topics, Itachi thought. But Yuna was the Hokage's daughter, so what was the need for the Hokage to send his own daughter to the Academy?

It was to challenge her, so he had learned. That made the two of them. They both wanted to get out of the Academy as soon as possible, for whatever reason that was.

Since Shisui didn't know the context of the meeting, he assumed it might have been a really dry chat. "That doesn't sound like the way you should approach a potential friend." Or rather, any chat. He knew Squirt could happily spend the rest of his life reading his books.

"Oh no. Don't get me wrong." Itachi looked back at Shisui with a slight shake of his head. "She is very nice." This was followed by a few nods.

"Wait! It's a 'she'?" That caught Shisui's attention. It was a girl that he didn't mind.

"Yeah." Itachi thought there was nothing wrong with the opposite gender. It was just those girls in particular that he wasn't sure if he would like to get close to. Unlike his father, he didn't consider females to be the lesser sex, especially after today's practical. The boys and girls had been split up. When it was Yuna's turn, she basically beat up every girl she was paired with without even breaking a sweat. Itachi remembered that very well. Everyone did, in fact. They shared the record for most consecutive wins in practical matches in class, despite being the youngest two.

"How is she 'nice'?" Shisui wanted to know. Indeed, this was very interesting. Squirt was proactive: he was very talkative today. Itachi had opened up today more than Shisui remembered him usually opening up after a day at the Academy. It could have been because he hadn't seen his cousins for a while due to his twenty-four-seven solo mission to spy on Root and the defected Sannin.

"She's smart, quite strong, and quiet."

Shisui waited for Itachi to speak more about it, although that was interesting enough – having Itachi, a prodigy, to approve someone else's strength. The first conclusion Shisui drew was that this 'she' must be quite a talent herself.

Itachi took a pause to think for a bit more. "I mean, when I read, she doesn't disturb me. She draws instead. It works out fine."

Shisui was laughing and having difficulty to push the seat of Toshiro's swing; he had momentarily neglected the toddler's protest as he absorbed himself in laughter. Toshiro swung his legs in an attempt to keep the momentum going, but he failed as the paced died down naturally, being too small to create a strong enough force.

"You mean she's a girl who doesn't a give a darn that you're the Great Heir of the Uchiha clan." Shisui found it funny that Itachi was happy for such anuncanny sort of reason. Because unlike the other girls in class, this girl acted rather cold towards him.

"Why would she?" Itachi shuddered lightly. "She's the Hokage's daughter."

Shisui then remembered the girl he'd met a few months ago. Indeed, Itachi and Yuna were the weirdest children he had ever met. No wonder they got on so well with each other.

"Namikaze Yuna?" Shisui suggested, testing what would be Itachi's reaction. He knew it must be her due to the matter of age and the fact that this 'she' studied in the Academy. Minato must have thought it was a good time now for his daughter to enter, while using it as a chance to let her forget her traumatic experience under the tutelage of Orochimaru. The blunette had left him a big impression for a short encounter nonetheless.

"Yes." Itachi went back to his habit of short sentences. "Met her before?" He tended to use as few words as possible in a conversation, an unhelpful trait he inherited from his father, though he was getting a lot better as of late.

"We met briefly when I was on that really long mission." From Shisui's unwilling answer, Itachi understood which one instantly – the mission where Shisui had been hospitalised for a month – he kept looking at Shisui as if to ask how they met. "I was walking her home with Sandaime-sama as his ANBU guard for the day."

It intrigued Shisui that Itachi wanted to know more. No one knew the two had already met twice individually, failing to actually meet each other until that day.

Just when Toshiro was about to fall off the swing, as he was trying too hard to swing higher, Shisui caught him and readjusted the poor boy on the seat before quickly taking a glance at Itachi. Shisui sincerely hoped Itachi could start making a friend, if not friends. It would be easier if the two people were similar in their own ways.

"So… what do you think about her?"

Itachi stared at the ground and looked for the best word to represent her.

"She's nice," was all he said after a pause.

"Are you having a lack of vocabulary, Squirt?" asked Shisui. He knew Itachi couldn't be, for the amount he read.

"I just don't know how to describe her," Itachi finally spoke after an even longer pause. He kicked at the ground, his lips curved upwards again, spreading into a smile. When he started to swing again, his eyes gazed into the setting blue sky, looking somewhat dreamily into the violet ends of the clouds.

The explanation afterward made it all the more worthwhile. Shisui swore that was the most beautiful smile he had ever seen on Itachi; he tried again to confirm his hunch with a final question.

"If you had to describe her as a fictional character, what is Namikaze Yuna?" Shisui knew this was probably the most straight-forward way to see whatwas going on in the boy's mind.

And Itachi answered without a second thought.

"A goddess." On the surface, he looked so surreal and lost in his own world. "Or a fairy tale princess." He was thinking of how wonderful the girl was, to be able to drive away the girl problem he had been having since the very first day he enrolled in the Academy. Like her hair, Itachi thought.

He's speaking far too much today! Does he even know what he's talking about? She had a young face, but that didn't make her cute. Her dolly features just didn't strike him as making her a cute little girl. From Squirt's answer, it indicated that he at least acknowledged the fact that she was quite a looker, even at her young age. As many things as he was, Uchiha Itachi did not have the ability to define nature. On primal instinct, everyone embraced the good-looking. He was no exception.

Itachi was getting a really weird look from his older cousin that he had never gotten before. He felt uncomfortable under such an 'inquisitive' gaze. "She makes the impossible possible," Itachi added quickly to explain himself.

Obviously, Squirt doesn't know how wrong it sounded when it first came out. Wow! The innocence of a child. Shisui let out a sigh, and his uncontrollablelaughter followed. That was also when Shisui discovered how old his own mental age was: far too old for a fourteen-year-old.

The final conclusion Shisui made that day was that Squirt had a crush, a massive crush no less, that he didn't realise, and on the Hokage's daughter as well. And then, Shisui had decided silently in his head that he would never be beaten by a seven-year-old, someone half his age, who was only an Academy student but was going to score a date before him at this rate.

The game was on.

Info for reader:-

瞬身のシスイ (Shunshin no Shisui)

Translation: Shisui of the Body Flicker

English equivalent: Shisui the Teleporter