Let's play a game called 'pinpoint the exact moment Reishi dies inside and starts sulking'.
"No." The curt man standing in the Hokage's office seems almost offended. After remembering who is he talking to though, his shoulders relax a bit and his eyes lose their piercing edge. "Hokage-sama, an apprentice that doesn't belong to the clan is completely unprecedented, the elders will not approve-".
"The elders can't contradict the word of the Hokage. Besides, I am not asking you to pass down your clan jutsus to anyone, just to supervise her training and teach her what you see fit," the Hokage replies with a calm voice.
Fugaku is sure that there is something behind the 'child prodigy' excuse he is being given. Usually these so-called prodigies came from renowned clans, and that means that they could be trained by a jōnin of their own family; which in this case is impossible, as the girl in question is the last member of her clan so it's not an out of line petition.
This is too sudden though, and usually the Hokage would gather a few jōnin and see which one had the time to take in an apprentice. Being this selective is... odd. Unless the Hokage wants her to learn something specific from Fugaku, but in that case he would just have him teach the girl the thing in question, not just dump her on him.
Fugaku doesn't like to be kept in the dark and he'd rather have the Hokage just tell him what he wants from him, but he is sure that Sandaime must have a good reason for this and he wouldn't ask him to do it if it wasn't in the village's interests.
"Very well, Hokage-sama, I trust your judgement."
Hiruzen relaxes visibly; in truth, he wants the girl to join the Uchiha police force in the future. That way she will be kept at all times within the village and the risk of her defecting will be lower. Besides, in a few months Fugaku will be a father and he thinks that that kind of atmosphere could benefit Reishi. Also, women grow attached to kids very easily right? Maternal instinct and whatnot. If she sees the little Uchiha as a little brother or something of the sort the chances of her becoming a missing nin would be lower. He hopes.
Obito is chatting happily with Rin about the progress he has made in the great fireball technique. Reishi has seen him practice it a few times during their training sessions and she can't say that he's the best at it to be honest.
Most times the fire disperses too quickly to resemble a fire ball or even a flamethrower –she had noticed that Obito had some difficulties compressing the chakra to form shapes–, and in some cases he can only manage to breathe smoke, somehow. When prompted about this Obito just shrugged and said that it happened sometimes when the technique didn't have enough chakra poured into it, so she supposes it's nothing to worry about.
She looks at the leaves rustle peacefully in the wind, tuning out the conversation. It's still odd to her how the trees are green during the whole year, the worst weather they get is rain during spring and wind on autumn and winter, not a single snowflake. She misses the cold weather, being warm the whole year has its perks, true, but she misses huddling in a blanket and sipping hot chocolate.
For an instant another image overshadows the trees; another treeline, another sky. The trees in the impromptu memory are still, not being affected by any wind, and the light has a pinkish hue, like a sunset. A man's voice echoes in her memory.
"Rei-chan?" Obito's voice startles her and the image disappears, she should have been paying more attention, now he looks worried again. He has been giving her worried looks the whole week, probably because she's more pensive than usual.
"U, yes? Sorry, I kind of zoned out..."
Rin pouts, making her feel kind of guilty that she's been ignoring them. This is the third time – maybe? Reishi hasn't been keeping count – that they've hung out together since she met her and the girl is kind and gentle in a way that unnerves her. Reishi knows, deep down, that her dislike from the girl stems from her likeability. Meaning that she is only trying to hate Rin because it's terribly easy to get attached to her and that girl is going to die and then Reishi will be sad because she lost her and then she will feel guilty because she knew about it and did nothing.
Not that there is anything for her to do in the first place. How is she supposed to prevent Rin from being kidnapped? She has no idea how it happened, or when exactly. She knows that it's somewhere between Obito's 'death' and Naruto's birth but that can only take her so far.
Obito is different, she rationalizes, because even if after the Kannabi bridge incident she doesn't see him anymore she will know that he's okay. Physically. Kind of.
Well let's be honest here, she still can severe any ties she has with Rin before it's too late, but Obito is here to stay. He has been her only friend besides Ryouji for three years now and he has grown on her like a cancer. She's going to need some hard ass chemo to get rid of this one.
"Rin was saying that she has to go home now."
"Sorry," Rin says, dejected, "it's getting late and my parents are probably waiting for me." She gets up, dusting her skirt; they've been sitting on the grass of training ground 12 and they didn't bring a blanket this time.
To Reishi's surprise, Obito doesn't get up to accompany her home like always, instead he waves her goodbye from his spot near Reishi. Rin also directs a small wave for Reishi, to which she responds with a nod of acknowledgement.
To his credit, Obito waits until Rin is out of sight and earshot to turn to Reishi. He seems upset. "What's going on?"
"I don't know what you're talking about Obito."
"But Rei-cha-"
"Obito, we've talked about this, just Reishi or Rei is okay."
Obito frowns, clearly frustrated about her attitude. "That's not the point right now! You've been acting weird!" Reishi snorts and rises an eyebrow at him. "You know what I mean, weirder than usual. And you're ignoring Rin; just- You were so nice to her the first time you met her, what changed?"
Reishi crosses her arms and frowns, looking at some random point besides Obito's foot. "You know I don't- I just don't feel very comfortable around new people okay?"
"But you were so nice the other day..."
"Yeah well, she's your friend; and I thought I wasn't going to see her ever again so, yeah," Reishi says awkwardly. They stay silent for a few uncomfortable seconds, Obito picking at the grass.
After a while he starts talking again, quietly.
"I've seen how you act when you don't like somebody, that's not all there is, is it?" He waits for Reishi to answer but she stays silent, her mouth drawn into a tight line. "Is this about the psychiatrist thing? Did... did something bad happen?"
"No, no, she just asked me about things and stuff."
"Reishi if you ever need someone to talk-"
"I know," she interrupts him; because she knows that, and because she doesn't want to be reminded about how everyone in this world seems to be a better person than she is, even if they've been raised by a military society and are trained to kill.
"Okay, good. That's- That's good... Uh, then, about Rin... Do you want to stop hanging out with her? I mean, I would like to spend time with both of you but, if you're going to be uncomfortable..."
Reishi thinks about it, it will probably hurt Rin's feelings if she says she doesn't want to hang out with her anymore, and it will definitely make Obito sad. They'll get over it though, life goes on and Rin doesn't seem the type to resent someone for a long time, or resent them at all.
"I'd like that," she says after a pause. Obito nods, clearly not very happy with that but respecting her decision, he's such a sweet boy. She doesn't deserve to have him as a friend.
The apology dies in her mouth, she was never good at saying 'I'm sorry', she is too proud for that. "Do you know what you're going to have for dinner yet?" She asks instead.
"I think I have some leftovers in the fridge, why do you ask?"
"Well, I still have to make dinner, and there are a lot of vegetables that will spoil soon if I don't cook them so... If you want you could come over?"
She wants to think that she's offering him to compensate, or because she's worried about him not eating healthy, but in truth she's just tired of coming back to a silent house and maybe she wants some company. It's a mix of the three, of course, but mostly the last.
Obito lights up at the offer. "I'd love that! Your cooking is the best Rei-cha- I mean, Reishi."
They both start walking at a slow pace towards Reishi's house, it's almost night already and the street lights are starting to turn on. This isn't the first time Obito has had dinner or lunch at her house, she started to invite him over even before Ryouji left for his last mission. Both Ryouji and Fuhaku used to be delighted when the boy came visiting and Fuhaku even smiled sometimes, a rare sight those days.
He started to invite himself after Ryouji's death, Fuhaku had been on the first stages of her depression and Reishi seemed to have closed off to the world around her even more than before, so he had been very worried and reluctant to leave Reishi alone, knowing that her aunts were unlikely to take care of her.
Obito sneaks a glance at Reishi, who is walking beside him without looking where she's going; her neck is craned at an impossible angle to look at the sky.
He still remembers the week after Ryouji's death. He hasn't seen much of Fuhaku since then, she is always holed up on her room now, though he could hear her cry through the thin walls back then (now there's only silence).
Reishi had been very silent, but she had never cried, not a single tear. He doesn't remember having seen her with red puffy eyes either, just those horrible shadows under her eyes that kept growing and that seemed to be here to stay.
He remembers the funeral, Fuhaku was absent, and Reishi had stood alone as Ryouji's teammates and friends paid their respects. When the ceremony was over she had stayed behind, looking at the memorial stone with a blank expression and he had stood by her side.
She had grabbed his hand and held it so tight it had hurt, but he hadn't let go of it.
"You're very silent. What are you thinking about?"
Reishi's voice startles him, making him lose his train of thought. He can't possibly tell her that he was thinking about her father's funeral, that will put a damper on her already taciturn mood. But what is he supposed to tell her then? He's not good at making up lies on the fly. Reishi is the good one at that. He has to think of something quick, though, or she'll get suspicious.
"Do you remember that time I almost set training ground 28 on fire?"
She snorts. "I brought marshmallows and you insisted on trying to roast them with a jutsu. You set the forest on fire."
"And then a stuck-up jōnin started scolding us for practising fire jutsu on a training ground with a forest but he ended up being chastised by you for having been drinking during work and chickened out."
"I was completely bluffing, he just smelled of alcohol so I took a chance. Can you imagine if he hadn't been on duty? Awkwaaard."
"Then you wouldn't have been able to blackmail him and we would have been-"
"Fucked," Reishi finishes for him in mock solemnity.
"Language," Obito reaches to smack her in the head but she dodges under his arm, one of the perks of being so short.
"Ha!" She yells triumphantly.
"Oh no, you don't!"
Obito starts chasing her, and it quickly turns into a game of tag. They run over rooftops, jumping on the street lights and using the posts to launch themselves back into the air. The chase is exhilarating and Reishi soon finds herself smiling as the night air blows her bangs off her face, she can hear Obito laughing somewhere to her right.
She loves Obito's laugh, unbridled and free; it's so odd to her to hear it from someone who's suffered through so much, who's been alone for most of his life. She wonders if he will laugh like this when he's older and madness has taken over and her smile turns sour.
Dinner is a quiet affair because they don't want to wake Fuhaku up, she tends to get up in a foul mood these days.
Obito cuts the vegetables while Reishi seasons the meat and sets it over a low fire. They have a routine now, and Obito already knows where everything in the kitchen is so they don't need to talk much. The way Obito moves and moulds his movements to fit hers has a nostalgic feeling to it, like family gatherings on Saturdays on another life, like her grandson peeling potatoes and telling her about school and placidly watching a movie with her daughter when she was younger.
It's common for her to see the reflections of her past life when she's cooking with Obito, but by now she has learnt to ignore them. She will never be able to regain the life she lost so it's useless to dwell on them. Like finding the pieces of an already burnt puzzle.
When they are finished eating, Obito helps her clean up the dishes and the kitchen and not for the first time she regrets not being able to tell him to stay, to not go back to an empty house. She knows that he wouldn't accept it though, and that the proposition would be very odd, as it's not unusual for ninjas to live alone and Obito – even if he isn't a full fledged ninja yet – is no exception.
It still baffles her to see how this society has just accepted children living on their own. She supposes that, weren't he an Uchiha clan member, he would be on an orphanage, being taken care of. However, as an Uchiha he is expected to take care of himself as long as the clan provides him with enough money to get a roof and food. It's just bizarre.
She watches him leave, waving absent-mindedly from her doorstep.
The next morning an ANBU agent appears and scares the shit out of her. Apparently, she is to report to the Hokage's office at once. She is not required to take her mother with her.
She glances over her shoulder at Fuhaku's room, which has been closed since she arrived home yesterday, and decides that it's better that she goes on her own. She tries to take a peek at the inside of the room, as yesterday with Obito's presence she forgot to make sure Fuhaku was okay, and verifies that she is alive and breathing. Then she takes a shower, puts on the first clean clothes she finds – fuck it, she's not going to wear anything formal to meet with that man, she might have to follow his orders but it's the small acts of rebellion that count – and steps outside.
The ANBU is still there, waiting for her when she closes the door behind her. He, or she, she isn't sure, guides Reishi to the Hokage tower at what must be a leisure pace for them but is actually a nightmare for Reishi. She considers falling behind to keep up appearances but something tells her that that isn't an option. That, and her pride won't let her.
The ANBU lands elegantly in front of the front door and glances over their shoulder to see Reishi land in a crouch a few seconds later, panting. They cock their head to the side, as if evaluating her, and then proceeds to enter the building.
She's starting to hate them a little. What is their mask supposed to look like anyways? It looks stupid.
The inside of the building is bustling with activity, she supposes that it's due to the war that's currently happening, as it was never so crowded in the anime.
A few of the younger ninjas do a double take when they see her, no doubt surprised to see a five year old here, but they go back to their jobs immediately after, too busy to care.
The Hokage's office is on the top floor so they have to climb a few sets of stairs to get there. This has a few perks, well, just one. The ANBU's ass directly in front of her face looks amazing. Never before had she been grateful of looking like a five year old, because she supposes it would have been awkward if anyone caught her staring appreciatively at an ANBU's ass.
Is that a thing here? Do people here have an ANBU kink?
She isn't able to continue her train of thought because when they arrive at the designated floor she is ushered inside the Hokage's office immediately. That is good because she doesn't want to wait and also bad because it means that whatever the hell has she been called for is important.
Reishi hadn't had much time to think while coming here, as she had been pretty busy concentrating on not falling off a rooftop – jōnin can do it effortlessly without even thinking about it and she's so jealeous of this – and she wonders if the ANBU did it on purpose.
When they enter the room the ANBU disappears from sight, though she can still feel them somewhere on the roof. Show-off. She deliberately tries not to look in the direction she knows the other ANBU are hidden.
Sarutobi Hiruzen is sitting behind his desk, giving her a warm smile that she immediately abhors. You don't get to act grandfatherly while sending children to the war. She remembers Obito's laugh and how it's partially this man's fault that she won't get to hear it anymore in a few years and her hate towards the man grows (how old is Obito again? Was he seven or nine? Did she ever ask him? She should do that next time she sees him).
She schools her features like her first father taught her when playing poker and hopes that she hasn't lost too much practice. They look at each other in silence for a few moments.
(Hiruzen sighs internally, he had hoped that by meeting with her one on one he wouldn't appear as intimidating. If her stiffness is anything to go by, he didn't have such luck.)
Finally the Hokage makes the first move, motioning to her to get closer and Reishi obliges. She suspects that she's fucked anyways so who cares anymore? Not her. She can feel her plans for the future slowly crumbling before her.
"Your teacher came to see me a few weeks ago, do you know why?"
"No, sir."
"She was very worried about your grades at the academy, she thinks she might have to make you repeat the year," he says with feigned worry.
Bullshit, all of it. She isn't even close to failing, she is almost in the middle of the rankings and not even the ones below her are close.
This manipulative asshole.
If she wants to keep up her appearances as a child – albeit a very quiet and weird one – she will have to act guilty and confess that she hasn't been showing her full capabilities because most children just crumble when adults catch their lies. That and they start ugly sobbing. She hates that.
If she just calls him out on his blatant lie, that will say by itself that she is smarter than she lets on.
Either way it's game over for her, he knows, and he knows that she knows.
Smart monkey.
Reishi might not like him on principle – not because he uses child soldiers, but because he is a hypocrite and if he is going to be a monster he should act like one – but she knows a good player when she sees one and he is undoubtedly better than her. Deep down she had known that even if she had always been a good liar there was no way she could lie to a full fledged shinobi, though she had hoped that by the time they realized her 'ruse' she would be already on the genin corps and that that stain would be on her file forever, making it hard for her to get promotions.
Reishi lets herself smile bitterly, she has already been caught, if the Hokage's subtle smug face is any indication, so what does it matter? He will probably have her punished somehow, maybe he thinks she's a spy and her fate is T&I.
She glances at the head of the Uchiha clan. Seeing him so young feels very weird, more so because he still isn't showing those horrible lines at the corners of his mouth so she's having a hard time reconciling the real him and the image she has on her head.
Fugaku is more subtle about his staring, doing so by the corner of his eye. Sometimes he will be walking, looking ahead sternly and then looking at her like he had forgotten for a moment that a little girl is walking beside him, or like 'Woah, you're still there? I thought the heavens above had heard my prayers and you had vanished from this plane of existence'. Whichever it is, he doesn't look pleased about it.
"Must you stare at me that way, child?" He asks with barely restrained annoyance.
"Sorry." It's more of an automatic reply than a truthful apology. "But, uhm..."
"Speak your mind, child."
"Shouldn't I be at the academy now?"
If Fugaku is annoyed by the lack of 'sir' when she reffers to him, he doesn't let her know. Instead he glances at her for a second, frowning, before answering.
"The Hokage has trusted me with the task of testing you." His tone is final, letting her know that he'd rather bite off his own arm than have a conversation with a kid (she's sure Hiruzen just dumped her on the poor bastard, she doesn't hold it against him).
This is a really unexpected turn of events. She was prepared for a full on interrogation, maybe a Yamanaka reading her mind... but she wasn't expecting for someone with the same chakra signature as the ANBU that had guided her to the Hokage's office to enter said room again, without the ANBU uniform. Nor for them to be Uchiha Fugaku. Much less for the Hokage to present him as her jōnin 'personal tutor'.
She had stared at Fugaku's ass.
She had stared at Fugaku's ass and she had thought it was a good ass. Fugaku's ass.
Reishi suppresses a shiver, earning her yet another frown from Fugaku, but she honestly can't find it in herself to give a shit about anything anymore. She is going to die. They are all going to die. What is she supposed to do? Actually fight as a shinobi and change the timeline? No thanks, that's risky as fuck. Hell, the moment they leave her out on the field and she's sure no one is paying attention she is defecting from this god forsaken village. What does she have here anyways?
A part of her mind she usually tries to keep silent suggests Obito. It is true, but for how long? How long does she have until he 'dies'? How long until the Kyuubi attack? She really needs to ask him how old he is. He's going to be so pissed that she doesn't know.
Despite being enraptured in her own musings, Reishi notices Fugaku stopping in front of a house – more like a mansion, it's thrice as big as her own home – inside of what she recognizes as the Uchiha compound. She wonders when did they get there.
Fugaku steps inside, not glancing behind. "Come in," is all he says, and she follows.
The inside is not the blend between modern and old that she has seen in other houses before, but rather a 'classy' Japanese style. It suits the Uchiha's strict behavior.
To be honest, she would have preferred any other 'tutor' as long as it didn't belong to the Uchiha or the Hyuuga. Like Shikaku Nara, for example. He's a chill guy, he takes naps and stuff. Instead she gets to train with the guy with a pole up his business. Great.
The only perk is that he seems as thrilled about it as she is. Who knows, maybe if she is belligerent enough he will quit, or kill her, then she'd be done with this shit. Or would she? Would she reincarnate again in another world?
Her head starts pounding, she needs an aspirin.
They sit down on a table in what appears to be a living room and his frown deepens when she crosses her legs instead of sitting seiza style. She doesn't particularly care.
Correctly sensing that she isn't going to change her posture anytime soon, Fugaku decides to move on and slides a stack of sheets and a pen in her direction. No explanation. Well... Okay then.
She inspects the sheets and it becomes clear that those are exams belonging to the higher levels of the academy. A look at Fugaku tells her that he's probably waiting for her to start writing and that he isn't going to move from there until she finishes, which is very stupid because it's not like anybody told her about these exams beforehand so obviously she didn't come prepared to cheat but whatever.
The exams vary from advanced algebra and theoretical physics to biology, history and the most famous strategies used in said history. It's a walk in the park. Studying those things is the only activity besides Obito that has kept her occupied and sane ever since she learnt to read, so now that the cat is out of the bag she aces them effortlessly.
Fugaku manages to find faults in them anyways, and they debate for a few minutes on whether or not the Daimyo of the land of Wind was the political instigator in the shadows of the second shinobi war. In the end Mikoto enters the room with a tray of tea and Reishi completely forgets about her discussion with Fugaku in the midst of the sweets that are accompanying the tea.
"Woah, this is some good dango, ma'am," she says, because nowadays the only thing that can drag her out of her apathetic state are Obito, sweets and very very annoying assholes. Like Fugaku.
"Why thank you, what a polite little girl!"
Fugaku lets out a huff, letting her know what he thinks of that statement, and Mikoto looks at him sternly. Fugaku clears his throat and looks away.
"Did you find the exams to be too difficult, Reishi-san?" Mikoto asks with a smile.
"They were fine, ma'am." She doesn't want to brag about how easy she found them because she's no prodigy, not truly, she's just a bored adult so that doesn't count.
Mikoto praises her profusely. It's clear that she really likes children and that she's ecstatic about having her own. Reishi wonders if she isn't using her to get used to little kids. She's not really the best subject for this, to be honest, but obviously Mikoto has no way of knowing that she's having a conversation with an adult woman and Reishi isn't going to tell her either.
When Fugaku finishes his tea, Mikoto takes the tray and the cups – and the very nice dango – away and he leads Reishi to a training ground, still inside the Uchiha compound. It's an arid place, well away from trees and she can see what seems to be a lake in the distance. This is probably the place where they train with fire-based jutsus, though she doubts he's going to teach her anything today.
He walks until he's in the approximate middle of the training ground, then stops and faces her without changing his stance.
"Attack me," is all he says, as if she has the will to attack a full fledged jōnin that can roast her both figuratively and literally without breaking a sweat. When it's apparent that she isn't going to make the first move – no thanks – he lunges forward.
Reishi barely has time to avoid him, jumping to the side while she keeps the scream of surprise from leaving her mouth.
She doesn't manage to completely avoid him though, and he grabs her by an ankle and throws her away.
Reishi rolls once on the ground and manages to turn the second roll into a crouch. She hurriedly scans the training ground again for some type of cover that would let her try to ambush him or at least limit his movements but, as she saw before, there are no trees to speak of in this place. She is sure now that Fugaku's plan was to force her to confront him head on from the beginning. Probably to test her taijutsu abilities.
She balances her possibilities, which are... none, really. She knows no jutsus, her taijutsu technique is quite lacking because she just started having taijutsu matches a few months ago in the academy, and she didn't bring any kunai or senbon because the first year students aren't still proficient enough to have permission to carry those around. She's pretty fucked.
The thought occurs to her that she doesn't really have to win the fight, just attack Fugaku and pray for the best, probably. There's no way he'll go all out on a kid; well, not on a kid from Konoha anyways.
The only thing left for her is to go head on with everything she has.
Reishi concentrates chakra on her legs and arms, trying to regulate it as best as she can for fear of chakra exhaustion, and breaks into a run towards Fugaku, who has been waiting patiently for her to get her shit together.
She has never moved this fast before, having suppressed her capabilities during her time at the academy. She likes the feeling.
She fakes a punch to his gut – a safe place to punch, soft enough not to break her hand and low enough so she doesn't have to jump to reach it. Fighting tall people can be a pain – but when he moves to catch her hand she jumps over him instead, hoping to kick him on the back of his knees.
The jōnin is too fast for her, however, and he has better reach than her, so he quickly twists and his open palm slams into her ribs. He's not trying to do real damage, as he could have easily broken her ribs had he used his closed fist instead. She will have a brush tomorrow though.
Reishi takes this opportunity to latch onto his extended arm and swings on it to land a kick to Fugaku's face that he avoids at the last minute. Her foot collides instead with his shoulder.
She's about to let out a small cry of triumph when a hand grabs her by the ankle again and she tenses, prepared to be thrown away.
She finds herself dangling by her ankle, watching Fugaku's frown upside down. Being upside down it kind of looks like he's smiling... Nah.
"Enough," he says curtly, and turns her upright with his other free hand, setting her on the ground firmly. She feels like a kitten.
He starts walking in the direction they came from and she trots to catch up with him. When she reaches him he glances at her, but otherwise makes no further comment; not that Reishi cares, she's always in a good mood after exercising.
"Did I pass the test?" She asks smugly when she sees Fugaku rub his shoulder absent-mindedly.
Fugaku sighs.