Nao stares him down, unflinching.
He stares back, poised to strike.
Neither of them are willing to be the first to move, both of them ready to attack at the blink of an eye.
He moves his foot and that's all the signal she needs.
Diving towards him, Nao grabs Kiku by the leg and he squawks and scratches at her face, but she's got a solid hold and won't give up now. After a long, drawn out struggle that ends in numerous bleeding scratches on Nao's face and feathers stuck in her hair, she manages to get the syringe into Kiku's beak.
"See, that wasn't so bad, was it?" Kiku yanks a beak-full of hair in protest. "Okay, it might have been pretty bad, but you're the one that keeps pulling ya own feathers out! If you didn't do that then we wouldn't have to be doin' this every morning!"
Nao gets a face full of wings and claws for her efforts.
"You know, I don't think Kaito would blame you for returning him if he's too much for you to handle," Takeo says from his place leaning against the balcony where he'd watched the whole thing.
"Oi, don't be a dick!" Nao growls, whipping around to stare him down. "Kiku is the best bird ever, it's not his fault this stuff tastes like shit," Nao snaps back, screwing the lid back on the bottle of medicine.
"How do you know it tastes bad?"
"Obviously I had to try it, to make sure it's not poisoned or something. Turns out it only tastes like death in a bottle."
Takeo's expression almost makes the lingering aftertaste of camel dung worth it.
Strolling into the Academy is routine by now, and the man's sour face behind the front desk is unwelcome but expected. Honestly, does that guy ever not look like he just sucked a lemon?
Still, she passes him by without doing anything, no matter how much she wants to spill the inkwell on his desk. She needs some plausible deniability for later.
For the first time the classroom is completely empty, Chairo nowhere to be seen. Nao takes up her usual spot in the back corner and picks up the lizard to place him on the windowsill. Today is kind of overcast and he'll be grumpy if he doesn't get enough sun. Kiku flies off her head and perches himself on the classroom door, which is just slightly ajar. Nao raises an eyebrow but doesn't question it.
Nao takes out her old, beat-up picture book to have a leaf through. She hasn't really looked at it much since leaving Kiso, but the familiar drawings still instil a sense of calm in her that she's never had doing anything else.
Eventually she hears the loud footfalls of a group of students down the hall, and she looks up just in time to see them start to open the door, which is when Kiku lets out the loudest screech she's ever heard.
The group of girls scream in fright and jump a mile, much to Nao's amusement. Kiku looks far too pleased with himself.
"Control your bird, freak!" the brown haired girl shouts, face scrunched up in a nasty scowl. The Uzumaki girl elbows her, but the damage is done.
"The fuck you jus' say to me, shit for hair?! I'll have ya know Kiku is an angel, he was just startled by your face. I mean come on, how did you leave the house this morning? You'll have to tell me the secret to how you don't vomit when you look in the mirror."
The girl looks murderous, but the Uzumaki girl drags her off to the front row before she can say anything else. The third girl with them sends Kiku an unsure look and follows.
After that groups of kids start entering rather quickly and Kiku manages to freak out at least half of them. Sometimes he screeches, others he swoops at their heads, and once he even manages to grab a boy's hat and fling it across the room. Nao has to bite her lip to keep from cackling at the mayhem.
None of them say anything to Nao about it, though plenty send a glare her way. The Kushiro are the only ones that don't react in any negative way, and Nao swears she caught one of them sending Kiku a pitying look.
Chairo enters last, though she nearly doesn't notice him. By then Kiku had lost interest and flown back to Nao's desk, and the sound of idle chatter drowns out his entrance. He has his head down, hair covering his face. When he sits at the desk next to her she catches sight of a large bruise on his cheek and red marks on his wrist, but before she can say anything he's pulled his long sleeve down and the teacher has started talking.
It's none of her business, anyway.
By the time lunch rolls around Nao is restless and buzzing with pent up energy. The subjects they learn about are interesting enough — so far it's been mostly basic things like general history and geography (which she's pretty good at, having visited most of the major countries on the map) — but there's only so long Nao can sit still in a chair. After a couple hours she can't concentrate on what the teacher is saying and all she can do is watch the clock slowly tick away.
The lunch area isn't much better. Everyone either sits around eating and chatting or plays some kind of game using a ball that looks rather dull for Nao's tastes. She contemplates sitting in the corner to eat again but she's not that hungry, so instead she looks around for something to do.
When she spots Chairo sitting alone she gets an idea.
"How long's lunch, anyway?" Nao asks, sliding next to Chairo on the low wall he's sitting on. "It takes forever to end."
Chairo hesitantly glances over and swallows the bite of chicken he'd been chewing. "Uh, I dunno, forty minutes?"
"Forty!? No way am I goin' to sit here for forty minutes doin' nothing every day." Kiku crows with agreement. Or maybe in annoyance at being jostled, Nao's still learning to read him.
"What else are you going to do?" Chairo asks, though it's obvious he's only replying out of social obligation. His eyes are back on his chicken and rice.
Nao drums her fingers on the stone wall, eyes wandering the area in search of something to occupy her time. If only…. Oh!
"Come on, I've got an idea," Nao says, already getting up. Chairo sighs, looking down at his chicken mournfully, and scrambles to put his bento away when Nao starts walking away.
"Hey, where are you going?" Chairo asks once he's caught up. Nao winks conspiratorially and grins, heading towards the other side of the building. He weakly smiles back, wincing when it stretches his bruise, and Nao turns to look where she's going so he doesn't see her frown.
They turn the corner, and Chairo looks very obviously confused when there's nothing there, just a door. Nao ignores his inquisitive look and opens the door, heading inside and gesturing for Chairo to follow. The hallway they walk down is short but echoey, so Nao makes sure to keep her steps light. Uroko is quiet too as if sensing the tension and Kiku had decided to stay outside in a tree, so it's just their footsteps making any noise at all. When Chairo follows her lead she's surprised that he's even quieter than her.
Peering around the corner, Nao smirks when she sees the front desk unattended. Reaching into her bag to take out the plastic-wrapped bento Takeo gave her that morning, she waves a hand in the direction of the hallway leading to the training area.
"You go ahead, I'll be there in a minute," she whispers, eyes still darting around in search for the grumpy desk guy. Chairo glances at her suspiciously but goes along with it.
Nao pads over to the desk after triple checking to make sure no one else is around. Ducking behind the desk she checks the drawers, finding the top two locked. The bottom one opens when she tugs it, however, so she quickly opens the bento box. Taking out the raw fish pieces, she shuffles the papers in the drawer and puts the fish right up at the back, making sure it won't be touched if someone were to reach for the papers.
Job done, Nao closes her bento and puts it in her bag to finish later just as she hears thumping footsteps approaching. Hands stilling, Nao holds her breath.
"Okay okay, fine! Get off my ass about it already. I'll go to the damn baby shower."
There's a muffled reply from down the hall that Nao can't make out. The desk guy's voice is coming from the edge of the same hall, his footsteps stopping temporarily so he could reply. Nao checks to make sure he's not looking her way before tip-toe sprinting towards the hall leading to the training area.
"What did you do?" Chairo asks when she shuts the door behind her, feet slipping a little on the sand.
"If all goes well, you'll find out in a few days," Nao replies with a shark grin. Chairo opens his mouth to reply, thinks better of it, and shuts it again.
"What are we doing? I don't think we're allowed back here…"
"Did anyone tell us not to come here during lunch break?"
"Well, not exactly—"
"Then it's fine!" Nao dismisses him with a hand wave, marching over to the low limestone wall in front of the wooden targets. She dumps her bag and starts rifling through it, and as she does so Chairo approaches apprehensively.
"What are we doing anywa—"
"AHA!" Nao shouts triumphantly, pulling out the dull kunai she'd nicked on the first day.
Chairo eyes it and then the targets, finally putting two and two together. "Are we even allowed to do that without a teacher?"
"I thought we went over that, already," Nao flips the kunai around to offer him the handle. "Go on, you can have the first throw."
Chairo eyes it wearily. His eyes flick down to his wrist so quickly Nao nearly misses it, and when he looks back up his eyes are set in determination. He drops his bag to the floor and grabs the kunai, walking up to the targets.
Nao cheers. "Hell yeah! Let's see what we can do."
Turns out they can't do much.
Neither of them have very good aim, and while both of them manage to hit the edge of the target a few times Nao's convinced those were flukes. Although, Chairo is a bit better than her, so maybe it's just hers that were flukes.
It's pretty slow because they have to go get the kunai after every throw, but soon they sort out a system of each person getting three throws while the other eats and then they swap. Now that they have something to do the forty minutes flies by and Nao finds herself sad that it's over. Kiku flies down to sit on her head when the bell rings and they go back inside, doomed to more hours of sitting at a desk staring into space.
At least Chairo agrees to practise kunai throwing again during tomorrow's lunch.
After school Nao decides to walk around the streets at ground level today. The roofs are great and all, but people watching is a bit more interesting when you're walking among them. You can learn a lot about someone by overhearing snippets of their conversations with others.
Kiku bends his head down to look Nao in the eye and chirps, ruffling his feathers.
"If ya wanna go fly, no one's stopping you," Nao huffs. "You know where the house is."
One more upside-down stare and then he's off, gliding soundlessly over the crowd. It's a wonder he can fly so well while missing so many feathers. Hopefully they'll grow back in soon, if she can get him to stop ripping them out at night.
The advantage of having traversed the roofs is that she's seen all the hidden side streets and shortcuts, so it's easy to travel relatively unnoticed. Weirdly when she's out in the open she catches people staring, so she tries to stick to the shadows and side streets.
Eventually this gets boring, though, and she gets fed up. So what if they stare? What could they possibly do, with Takeo somewhere nearby? Why are they staring, anyway?
"You lost?"
Head jerking to the side, Nao frowns when she sees the boy that had spoken. He's more than a head taller than her and looks to be at least twelve, his shark-like grin making his green eyes glint with barely concealed malice.
"No," Nao replies tersely, half-wishing she hadn't sent Kiku off. That bird gives one hell of a glare.
"Are you sure? Because the merchant's area is at the docks, surely your mommy will be worried. I can…. escort you there," he replies, taking a slow step forward, mock concern dripping from his every word.
"I ain't no merchant's kid, asshole. So piss off." Nao turns to leave, but the boy grabs her shoulder. Spinning around, she tries to punch him in the face but he grabs her fist before it can connect. Yanking her arm back she stumbles, and he takes another step forward, backing her up against a wall.
"Hey, no need to be rude! I was just trying to help you. I mean, obviously you don't belong here. A scrawny dirty brat like you should go back to the sand bucket you call a country and leave us civilised folk alone!"
"I'm not even from the Land of Wind, dumbass. Maybe you'd know that if ya used some of your brain, if you even have one."
The boy's face scrunches up like rice paper in a toddler's fist, his ears turning red. "Why you—"
"Leave them alone, Kichi."
The boy — Kichi — flinches back, and Nao looks around him to see who'd spoken. Standing there with her hands on her hips and a rather frightening look on her face is an Uzumaki girl a couple years older than Nao with the most vibrant hair she's ever seen.
"Go away, Tomato!"
The second that comes out from his mouth Nao knows it was the exact wrong thing to say.
"What did you just call me!? I'm not a Tomato, ya know!" The girl punches Kichi on the shoulder so hard he stumbles despite being a fair bit taller, and Nao takes the opportunity to stick out her leg so he trips over it and falls on his back.
"You're crazy!" he yells, scrambling to his feet. The girl goes to hit him again but he's already running away, shouting profanities over his shoulder.
"Say that to my face, you coward!" she yells back, long hair swaying as she shakes her fist at his retreating form. Nao can't help but think she looks awesome.
"I coulda handled it myself," Nao grumbles, pride overriding her awe.
The girl turns around, frown still on her face. "You shouldn't have to! We Ukumaki are supposed to stick together, it doesn't matter where you were born."
Stunned, Nao doesn't know what to say.
"Besides, Kichi is an asshole. Got kicked out of the Academy but still thinks he's hot shit, what a disgrace."
"Wait," Nao says, brain finally catching up. "How do you know who I am?"
The girl looks at Nao as if she'd grown an extra head. "You're kidding, right? Everyone knows who you are. An Uzumaki born out of the village, returning with the traitor? I'd be surprised if anyone didn't know who you are, even if the island wasn't full of gossips."
"Traitor?" Nao asks indignantly. She can't mean Eizo, surely. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"You know, the Uzumaki deserter? Up and left after the war, gone without a trace. My dad said he should have been killed on sight, I'm kinda amazed the Uzukage let him come back."
"Oi, don't talk about Eizo that way!" Nao yells, shoving the girl. "I'd be dead if it weren't for him, and all I've ever seen him do is help people! So what if he left, I'd want to leave this dump too if I were him!"
The village is beyond beautiful, but that's besides the point.
At first the girl looks beyond livid at being shoved, but then her face softens a touch and she laughs. "Well, my parents also said to stay away from you 'cuz you'd be nothing but trouble, but I think you're alright. Maybe they're wrong about him, too. My name's Kushina."
"I'm Nao, and this is Uroko," she sniffs, picking up the lizard to show the girl. Kushina looks sufficiently awed and gives Uroko a very soft pat, which instantly earns some brownie points in Nao's book. "You seem alright, too."
It turns out Kushina is, in fact, pretty alright.
The first thing she does is give Nao a tour of the island, which takes way more time than Nao first anticipated. The tour spans two whole hours, and that's without going into the residential areas or foreign trading docks, though Nao suspects at least a third of that time was Kushina saying hello to people.
Nao had thought that waving to everyone was some weird quirk of Takeo's, but now she's convinced the whole island is just crazy. Most every adult at least waves to Kushina and at least half know her by name, even though one old lady mistakenly calls her Kuchino.
"Everyone's super friendly," she says when Nao asks. "Everyone at least recognises each other, you know? Though, I do help out a lot and my parents are on the board, so I guess I'm a bit more well known than some."
Still, the tour is pretty helpful. Some of it Nao had figured out on her own, like the main shopping area, but it's a lot quicker to travel when you're not trying to balance on a roof or getting glared at constantly, so they're able to cover a lot more ground than Nao could on her own. There's the food market, the public hot springs and the Uzukage's building, to name a few highlights. They cross rivers constantly, many of them branching off the largest one, though hardly anyone over the age of twelve ever uses the bridges.
"No one is forced to learn water walking, but it's highly suggested," Kushina answers when asked, apparently eager to talk about the country she loves. "They teach it to us in the last year of the Academy, and free lessons are offered to civilians over the age of eleven. I think it's a safety thing, you know? You'd think drowning would be common on an island with this much water, but it's pretty much unheard of!"
This is perhaps the strangest thing Nao's heard yet. No one in Kiso knew anything about Chakra (except maybe Hiroshi, but she doubts he even knew that's what he was using to open the cave) and she's never heard of anyone except shinobi using it anywhere else. Count to think of it, Nao's never seen anywhere else where shinobi are so… liked.
They're everywhere, adorning the metal plate with one of the main fuinjutsu symbols — a circle with a swirl inside — engraved on it on their person with pride. None of the villagers send glares or untrusting looks their way, and many chat animatedly on the street.
Remembering the old man that lost his son to Konoha shinobi — a close ally to Uzushio, if her classes are to be believed — Nao feels immensely uncomfortable. How many have lost loved ones because of their alliance? How many have died to the weapons supplied by the island? How many have died to the hands of those that walk these very streets?
"Ignore them," Kushina says when she catches Nao glaring back at a street vendor. "They think you're the enemy, but Kayo says you're family, so they'll come around soon."
"The enemy? The war ended ages ago. We weren't even born!" Nao frowns. Is that why everyone is acting so hostile?
"Yeah, but everyone knows we were on the good side, you know! They killed members of our family. You can't really expect forgiveness for that!"
Nao stares at Kushina with wide eyes. How can she honestly believe that? Doesn't she realise her 'family' killed just as many, if not more members of other families? Are their lives somehow just less important?
Is Nao's life less important to these people? She's always known she's not valued or anything, has always had passers in the street think her a waste of space just because she had to steal what they could buy, but this feels… different. Being hated just because you were born, what? In the wrong country?
Nao hadn't really understood why Eizo insisted on her going with the lie of being an Uzumaki, but now she gets it. It's the same reason these people send her glares when they think she's not looking.
And she's sure they wouldn't stop at glaring if they knew the truth.