It is 11:20 pm on Sunday! I told tumblr this would be done in the weekend and it is!

On another note, I was hired to write for an otome game today. I'm still in shock about it, tbh, but once the reality sets in I'm sure I'll be ecstatic, lol. I don't have much to tell you about it beyond the fact that it's set in 1920s Japan and loosely based on Demon Slayer. It will probably be out next year, but I hope you don't mind that I keep you posted about it. It's a cool new opportunity for me that I wouldn't have if not for you guys all encouraging me to write more. I was picked because the team leader read my fanfics and liked my style, so thanks so much for standing by me as I follow whatever trail the plot bunnies leave for me, lol.

Obito stepped into the classroom, nodding to the other children as he walked over to his seat. Most of them ignored him, too caught up in their own pre-class conversations, but a few gave him dramatic double takes. Sure, he wasn't the most punctual kid in Konoha, but that wasn't his fault! He had things to do! Important things! When his baa-chan asked him for help, he helped her! No matter how long it took! And if the other baa-chans in the Uchiha compound asked him for help, well, he couldn't just say no, now could he? Not when their grandchildren were such unfilial jerks, leaving their weak old grandmas to fend for themselves. It was only natural that baa-chans from other families asked for help, too, since baa-chans are part of a world wide secret organization and always know each other no matter where they went and what kind of Hokage just walks away when his people needed him?

Being late was a small price to pay for the happy smiles on their faces.

And the candy in their purses.

"Obito-kun, you're on time, today!"

Obito tried valiantly to keep the flush from his cheeks, his goggles falling into his face as he turned to look at Nohara Rin, his only real friend at school.

Well, his only friend before today.

"Rin-chan," he greeted cheerfully, heart hammering in his chest. "Yeah! I got up extra early this morning!"

The cute girl smiled at him, the expression warping the thick purple tattoos on her face. "That's great, Obito-kun! Time management is important!"

He barely resisted the urge to grimace, unwilling to damper her spirits. Getting up at the crack of dawn every day was not his idea of fun. Even seeing Rin's smile wasn't enough to warrant that.

The classroom door opened and Yukio-sensei hobbled in, leaning heavily on his crutch. The small islands of chatter in the room died away and Rin smiled at Obito as she returned to her seat at the back of the room. The sadness that normally filled him when they separated was nowhere to be found, replaced by bubbling excitement. There was a reason he got up super early, today!

Yukio-sensei sat down at his desk with a heavy sigh. The tired chunin looked out at the students as they settled down, well accustomed to their routine. Once they were all seated and watching him attentively, he raised a hand toward the still open door.

"Come on in," he said. "Introduce yourself."

Obito wiggled in his seat as his classmates burst into excited but subdued whispers, the stern eye of their sensei keeping them quiet. Benihime walked through the door, her clothing and hair bright and dazzling. Immediately, she met his gaze and smiled, waving at him

"Yo," she said to the rest of the children. "I'm Benihime and I'll be in your class from now on."

The room was bursting with the tension of unasked questions, but someone broke the silence.

"What are you doing here?"

Beni raised a single eyebrow, the corner of her lip lifting in a smirk. "Bakashi," she replied, using Obito's favorite nickname for the precocious brat. "Clearly, I'm getting an education."

Obito—and the rest of the class, really—turned in his seat to look at the five year old. He was seething behind his mask, bristling visibly like an aggressive dog. It was very out of character. Normally, the teachers' favorite genius was unflappable, keeping his cool even in the face of his classmates' taunts and jeers. Benihime, by just walking into the room, had elicited more of a response out of him that any of them could dream of.

"Ok," Yukio-sensei drawled, the sound of his voice sending a wave through the class as the kids all turned back around in their seats. "Benihime-chan, since you know Kakashi-kun, why don't you take the seat next to him?"

Obito really wanted to turn around and watch Bakashi burst a blood vessel, but Yukio-sensei began speaking, picking up where he'd left off the day before. They were talking about the cultures of the different Shinobi Nations and Obito abruptly wished he'd slept in. There was nothing worth hearing. They were at war with most of those other countries, anyway. What was the point?

When the topic turned to Kumo the room was filled with a strange tension, Yukio-sensei hesitating over his words.

"Benihime-chan," he said finally. "Would you like to say anything?"

Obito turned in his seat to look at his friend, a little surprised by his teacher's question.

Beni wasn't, if the unimpressed glare she shot the injured chunin was any indication. "Why? I'm not from Kumo."

Some of the other students started whispering among themselves. Obito could see why they might think that, but it was pretty obvious she wasn't from Kumo. She wasn't trying to destroy Konoha, for one, and she hadn't once tried to take his eyes.

"Although," she said, maintaining eye contact with Yukio-sensei as a smile slowly spread across her face. "I think it's safe to say that not everyone who looks like me is from there. Just saying."

"Where are you from, then?"

Beni turned to look at the girl who spoke, one of Rin's friends. "Taki. Which you should know, sensei," she said, turning back to the chunin at the front of the room. "Since I watched you flip through my paperwork."

Everyone's heads swiveled on their necks, looking expectantly at Yukio-sensei and waiting for his response with bated breath.

The ever stoic chunin didn't react beyond a twitch of his lips, but even that was enough to tell Obito his new friend had gotten to him. Her first day at the academy and she was already cooler than Bakashi!

"What can you tell us about Taki, then," Yukio-sensei asked. "I'm sure I'm not the only one interested in the most secretive Village in the world."

Everyone turned back to Beni. Obito couldn't remember a more entertaining school day.

"Sure, why not?" Beni shrugged and leaned back in her seat, folding her hands behind her head. "In Taki, genin aren't allowed to leave the village."

A scandalized gasp left Obito's throat of its own accord, but he wasn't the only one.

Kakashi scoffed loudly over crossed arms. "What kind of ninja Village is that? How do they expect to make any money?"

Beni turned her smirk on Kakashi. "Money isn't everything, you know. Besides, Taki shinobi are specialists. Konoha can catch all the cats it wants, but if you want to kill a daimyo, then Taki's the way to go."

The stunned silence in the room didn't seem to bother her. The weight of so many stares must have been terrible, but she didn't budge from her relaxed lean.

"Taki was even hired to kill Hashirama," she said nonchalantly, as if she hadn't just revealed a terrible secret. "They failed, obviously, but the assassin survived the attempt. With such high profile targets, they can afford not to send children to their deaths."

"Are you criticizing Konoha," Kakashi demanded, turning to face her. Obito wasn't the only one leaning in, watching the class prodigy and the new kid go at it.

Beni looked down at him, the five year old incredibly small compared to her tall, lanky frame. "Tell me, Bakashi, why was Konoha founded? Surely your propa—I mean, history classes covered that much? It can't all be empty stereotypes."

"Konoha was built to bring an end to war."

Benihime nodded, her smile never wavering. "And tell me, what is it doing right now? Honestly," she said with a shake of her head and a sigh. "I think Konoha could do with some constructive criticism. Then again, it doesn't exactly have the best track record with it. The last guy to do it was betrayed by his clan and killed by his best friend, so…"

"That's treason!"

"It's historic record," Beni returned, not even bothering to look at the kid who'd spoken. "I'm just saying, if Konoha is as perfect as you've been taught to believe, then a little criticism won't be enough to bring it down. Makes you wonder why it's so heavily discouraged, huh?"

"That's enough."

Everyone turned around at the sharp tone of Yukio-sensei's voice. He was glaring with such force that Obito shrank in his seat, not wanting to catch his teacher's attention.

"I suggest you watch yourself," he said after a long moment of silence. "Or you might find yourself arrested for sedition."

Obito stiffened in his seat as the sound of Beni's scoff carried in the deathly silent classroom. "You realize disappearing me will just prove me right, don't you? One of these days you'll have an actual traitor and they'll get away with so much shit because you taught an entire generation of soldiers to never question orders and then what? Who will you blame? Your students or the system which molded them?"

Obito's heart beat heavily in his chest. He really should have slept in. His initial excitement at having a new friend in his class was completely overwhelmed by the tension now filling the classroom. Yukio-sensei rarely emoted beyond an exhausted sigh, but one conversation with Beni had veins in his neck ticking.

The problem was…Obito kind of agreed with her. It wasn't something he'd ever really thought about, but hearing her say it he knew she was right. If he didn't question his orders, how would he know they were good? It made sense, but he didn't want to think his leaders would lie to him. If he questioned the orders of someone he trusted, wasn't that mean?

Yukio-sensei sighed, breaking the cloud of angst hanging over his students. "I can't deal with this shit. All of you, outside. Go practice your katas."

The students all watched as he got to his feet and limped out of the room, closing the door behind him with a clack.

They all sat there. Silent. Not really believe what had just happened.

Then, Beni chuckled, the sound low and unconcerned. "Welp. Guess I just got expelled. That has to be some kind of record."

Obito jumped out of his seat, rushing to her side. "Are you crazy! How are you supposed to be a shinobi if you don't graduate from the academy?"

She just smiled at him, not at all concerned by the rising voices of their classmates. "The same way Hashirama and Madara did—by beating the shit out of people until they learn to stop pissing me off."

…

There wasn't much he could say to that. She was right. Before the Village system was a thing, no one learned at academies, but they were still ninja. If she got super strong, then there wasn't anyone could do about it.

Or was there?

"You're a disgrace," Kakashi hissed under his mask, dark eyes boring into the side of Beni's face as she ignored him. "What gives you the right to speak like that?"

Obito watched as she turned to look at the much smaller boy through the corners of her eyes. "The fact that I have a mouth? Freedom of speech may be a foreign concept to you, Bakashi, but it's not something I'm willing to compromise. The only reason I'm here is so the academy can shove the same lies they've been feeding you down my throat, anyway. There is nothing I can realistically learn here except loyalty, and that's not something that can be forced."

"What, are you already a genin or something?"

Beni turned her gaze to the girl who spoke, the same one who'd gasped out the 't' word. Obito grimaced. Her name was Miura Tooru and she wasn't very nice. She'd never done anything that would get her in trouble, but the people she didn't like had a tendency to be miserable.

"No," Beni answered with another shrug. "But I would be, if I wasn't an immigrant."

Tooru crossed her arms over her chest, clearly not believing Beni's claim. Obito wasn't sure he believed it, but he knew it took serious skill to live in the Forest of Death. Even if she wasn't at genin level, she was definitely stronger than Tooru.

"You can't be stronger than Kakashi-kun," she crooned, bringing everyone's attention back to the youngest kid in class. "He's going to graduate early."

Obito's mood soured as the girls in class started fawning over Bakashi, Rin among them, though more subtle than some of the others. The blush on her cheeks was a physical blow to Obito's heart.

"Pfft," Beni covered her mouth, visibly struggling to restrain her laughter. "Holy fuck, you can't be serious. I'm twice his age, hon. There are real, Konoha born and bred genin out there my age. You can't honestly be comparing me to a toddler. He still has his baby teeth!"

Obito watched with no small amount of joy as Kakashi grew increasingly agitated. No one talked about the precious genius that way. Even the teachers sang his praises, using him as an example to inspire their other students. It was nice to finally have someone call him what he was: a baby.

The girls who claimed to love that baby were not happy with Beni's dismissal. Tooru stepped forward, her face flushed with anger.

"What do you know? I bet Kakashi-kun could beat you in ten seconds!"

Benihime just rolled her eyes, not at all impressed by the girl's boast on Kakashi's behalf. "I'm not gonna fight a kid just because you want me to. I don't even want to think about how I'd explain that to his dad."

Kakashi startled everyone when he stood abruptly, his chair falling with the force of his movement. He was fuming, the anger radiating off him in waves. His dark eyes were locked on Beni's surprised face.

"Fight me."

And then she wasn't surprised at all. If anything, she looked a lot like Obito's baa-chan when she caught him eating candy before dinner. A sort of fond exasperation that didn't belong on a face as young as Beni's.

"Bakashi," she said gently, voice devoid of the bite she'd used when arguing with him earlier. "I'm not going to fight you."

Kakashi didn't like that answer, hands curling into fists at his sides, and Beni sighed.

"I know you don't like me, and I completely understand why, but that's not a reason to go picking fights with me. I get that violence is the only answer you've ever been taught, but there are alternatives. This Village was supposed to be one, remember?"

She was trying to talk him down, but it was only making him angrier. Obito watched the kid who never showed any emotion, good or bad, was consumed by his anger. There was a history between these two, he realized, one that affect Kakashi much more than it did Benihime. In fact, it looked like it wasn't affecting her at all, beyond her attempt to calm Kakashi, of course. The younger boy was so angry, the visible portion of his pale face red with the strain of his rage, that Obito thought he might pass out.

He didn't. Instead, he lashed out at Benihime. His fist moved so fast, Obito could barely see it. What he couldn't see was Beni's response. Somehow, Kakashi was now on the other side of the room, cracks spiderwebbing out from where his back hit the wall. Gravity remembered its job and pulled him down, his little body landing in a slump.

"Fuck."

Baa-chan would slap him for even thinking such a word, but Obito agreed.

Fuck.

Kakashi isn't too OOC, is he? I feel like it's reasonable for him to react this way, given previous chapters, but idk. Let me know what you think.