Our Own House
"Came in like the breeze, I felt it in my knees. Never will it leave, Each day it is retrieved"
A new year in the Academy always meant new classmates. Even though Konoha had fully adjusted back into peace mode, we were still dealing with the impact of the war. All of the casualties meant Konoha's military force was still tragically understaffed, and the only way to bolster it was to push kids through the Academy. Fast.
The average graduation age had dropped dramatically over the past few years. These days twelve was a more common age for a newly minted chunin than an academy graduate. I think most new ninjas might even have been as young as 9. When you thought of it that way, I didn't have too much longer as an Academy scrub.
Anyways as I was saying, every graduation exam they held meant some sort of class restructure for the rest of us. Kids who failed needed to be placed in lower classes, and if there wasn't room in the lower classes, they would make room by moving struggling students down a year as well. For the most part, my class hadn't been touched too much by the constant circulation of students. Most of the kids who were pushed back were civilians coming from families who'd never raised a ninja, and they mostly avoided clan kids like me.
Most of the people I interacted with on a day to day basis weren't going anywhere. This year was a little bit different though I suppose. See, this was the first year that Jin-sensei had walked into our classroom and offered us the chance to take the graduation exam ourselves.
"What? We can graduate?" Obito blurted out stunned when she made an announcement.
Jin-sensei smirked. "I said you could try Obito-kun. Most likely none of you will pass just yet. You need to have mastery of the transformation jutsu and the clone jutsu. Plus you'll have to pass a written exam and a taijutsu demonstration exercise. I didn't want to offer it to you all just yet, but Hokage-sama insisted. He said it'd be good practice for you all for the next few years."
"She thinks we aren't good enough," Asuma muttered under his breath, clearly insulted.
I sighed. There was no question in my mind that I wasn't good enough. Not yet anyways. I'd probably ace the written exam and maybe get a satisfactory in the taijutsu demonstration, but I still couldn't use my chakra. Biwako had run at least fifteen different medical tests on me at home over the past year, and I'd passed every single one of them. At one point she'd even brought in a friend with the Byakugan, and still we found nothing. With no idea what my problem was, my training efforts were getting me nowhere.
Yeah, I wasn't winning any headband today.
"You can't do clone jutsu yet Asuma, plus you're awful with the written stuff," I elbowed him. "She's just being honest."
He made a face at me, but I could see it in his eyes. He knew I was right. Bicker as we might, Asuma respected my judgment. Most of the time.
"Alright, who wants to take the exam?" Jin-sensei asked, waving her clip board at us.
Immediately half the class raised their hands. I looked around, taking inventory- Kumade, Asuma, Obito, Guy, Kakashi, and surprisingly Kurenai were the only people of note that would be participating.
"See you in a few," I smiled at Asuma, teasing. He stuck his tongue out at me, but didn't seem too upset.
"Hey, she said it'd be good practice," he said, crossing his arms at me. "Anyways I don't want to graduate just yet. We've got to go at the same time Nat, so you better hurry up and learn some jutsu 'cause you're holding me back."
I crinkled my nose and gave him a light shove.
"Just keep telling yourself that," I retorted, feeling equally touched and disappointed at the same time.
I'm trying to learn Asuma, I thought to myself.
An hour of independent-study later and Jin-sensei came walking back in with almost everyone in tow. I counted them all, taking inventory. Obito and Kumade were both back, looking upset; Kurenai and Asuma strolled back up to our seats in the back, mostly unperturbed; and Gai walked back to his seat on his hands - I'm sure I'd be feeling the punishment of his failure later during our daily work out. The ten or so civilian kids who took the test were also back.
That meant that almost everyone was accounted for...
"It wasn't so bad," Asuma told me as he slid back into his seat.
"Says the kid who failed," I smiled.
"It was the clone jutsu," he groaned, rolling his eyes. "And the written test. There was some math on there we haven't learned yet. It wasn't fair."
"Jin-sensei said I almost passed the written part anyways," Kurenai beamed at the two of us. "It's like the Hokage-sama said though. Taking it was good practice."
"Where's Kakashi?" I asked tentatively, looking down at the one empty seat on the left side of the classroom.
"Kakashi-kun passed. Jin-sensei was very impressed and said he was going to be a splendid ninja," Guy said, turning around in his seat to answer me. I exchanged a look with Asuma, who just shrugged. I guess I should've been expecting as much- I knew Kakashi was supposed to graduate pretty early.
Guess that would be the last of the little white-haired grumpy squirt that I'd be seeing for quite some time.
Up in the front of the room, Jin-sensei was ushering in some new kids now. I turned to look at them with moderate interest. There were three of them in total - all boys. The first two were both older, and must've been dropping down from the class ahead of us. One of these two looked none too pleased to be joining our small group of rugrats. He was wearing dark circular sunglasses, so I couldn't see his eyes. Yet I felt like he was glaring at us all nonetheless.
The other one, beside glasses kid seemed to be the exact opposite. His relaxed expression was completely apathetic to the room full of seven year olds that was staring at him. He had a piece of straw in his mouth, and a jacket two sizes too large resting on his shoulders. The kid couldn't seem more unbothered by the world.
Finally that brings us to the last newcomer. The third boy was maybe three feet tall with black hair that curled around his temples and big dark eyes. He was way too small to be coming down from the older classes. In fact, he had to be at least a year younger than me, and I was already the baby of the group. He was an Uchiha too if I'd ever seen one. If his features weren't a dead give away, then the blue wide necked t-shirt that hung on his skinny shoulders was.
Glancing over at Obito, I saw that our resident klutz looked less than happy to see the younger kid here.
"Alright everyone, my condolences to those of you who had trouble with the graduation exam. Better luck next time," Jin-sensei tapped her clip board, looking almost amused. "Anyways, I have three new classmates to introduce to you. Boys would you like to do the honors?"
"I'm Ebisu Date," the first grumbled.
"Genma Shirinai," the second shrugged.
"Hi, my name is Shiusui Uchiha," the third waved happily.
"Hi it's nice to meet you," the class chorused in response.
Jin-sensei smirked. "Alright, very good. Now go find seats boys and we can get on with the day."
I was of course, thoroughly distracted now though. I watched as Ebisu and Genma sat down next to each other up front while Shisui hopped back to take a seat by Obito.
"Hi Obito-kun, can I sit here?" he smiled.
"I guess," the older boy shrugged. Shisui grinned, seemingly oblivious to Obito's scowl. Geez, what was Obito's problem? I'd never seen him be rude to so much as a fly before. Part of me wanted to make a mental note to yell at him later during lunch or something, but I knew I wasn't going to do that.
I still tried to stay away from Obito when I could, and it only took a second glance at Shisui to know he was also going to be on my avoid-at-all-costs-list. Somewhere in the back of my mind I could see an older version of him, crying tears of blood and holding his fist outstretched closed around his remaining eye.
Shisui's entire life was going to be filled with tragedy, and as always, I felt I had enough problems without having to bear his burdens too.
There was always some good things that came with new classmates. Namely, it meant new training partners. After three years of training with the same people, you reach a point where you know their quirks and they know yours. For example, when I sparred with Asuma, he knew to always exploit his size over me. If I ever seemed to be winning too much, he'd start absorbing my punches to trap me at too close a range, and despite my many efforts, I hadn't found a way to outsmart his brutish strategy.
Ever since I'd started training with Guy though, I'd been improving a lot. I might have been tiny, but I was strong. I could lift weights four times my size, punch through cinderblock, and jump fifteen feet into the air all by myself. Talking as someone who knew what it was like to live in a sub-par normal body, the things I could do right now as a child were incredible.
Yet somehow, I felt like it wasn't quite enough. With Kakashi gone, I should've been top of the class without a problem; however, while I was the clear front runner with all the written material, I felt like physically my classmates were always exploiting my weaknesses.
This was never clearer than during our taijutsu training session the day Genma, Ebisu, and Shisui joined our class.
"Alright everyone find a partner and get going - remember pairs have to be different from last time," Jin-sensei told us. People immediately started splitting off into familiar groups.
If we had been following normal patterns, I would've been sparring with Guy today, as I'd fought Asuma during our last session. I'd fought Guy a million times though, there was no point in doing it again when we had some new meat to try out.
"Oi, you two," I grinned pointing at Genma and Ebisu. "Will one of you fight with me?"
Ebisu crossed his arms, looking annoyed. "Who do you think-" he started.
Genma cut him off with smirk.
"Sure kid," he said, picking the piece of straw out of his mouth and dropping it onto the ground.
"Wha- Genma!" Ebisu protested.
"Come on man, it's fine. That kid in the green looks like he needs a partner.," Genma shrugged, pointing at Guy who must've been off behind me. "Anyways, I've heard of this kid. I want to see if she's as good as everyone says."
"You've heard of me?" I blinked, pleased with that.
"Sure, Tsunade-hime's sister or something right? But can't use an ounce of chakra? Am I close?" he raised an eyebrow.
The moment of satisfaction passed almost immediately. Of course, of all things to be known for - it'd be that. Nobody cared that I excelled in literally every other subject. It was always about the chakra problem.
"Guess that's me yeah," I sighed, falling into the ready position.
"Well let's see if your half as good as your reputation," Genma nodded.
"Fine, we'll play with the children then," Ebisu grumbled, stalking off towards Guy. My eyes followed him for a moment as he walked away, before returning to Genma.
"He's just upset about the graduation test," Genma explained. "They wouldn't let him take it because one of our classmates framed him for writing graffiti in the alley last week. Ready?"
I nodded and he made the confrontation seal, as we were always supposed to do before we sparred.
"What about you then? Hopefully it wasn't your taijutsu that was the problem," I asked, as he returned the seal.
With little warning, he closed the gap between us, immediately on the offensive. Spinning around, he threw all his weight into a twist, aiming his elbow for my gut. I ducked, maneuvering under him, and bringing my knee up. He was fast though. The moment he realized I was dodging, he swung his own foot around, stepping squarely on my incoming knee, and flipping backwards.
He grinned.
"Nah, I fell asleep during the written test," he shrugged. "It was my bad. Stayed up too late last night with my Dad."
I blinked at him. Who just decides to take a nap during an exam? Did he want to be in the Academy forever? Genma seemed unperturbed despite my shock. He raised his hand up and made a hand sign that said: Come get me.
Without anymore chit chat, we went at each other. I initiated this time, throwing a simple punch forward, he caught it, trying to pin me in place while he retaliated with his foot. I flipped forwards to miss his kick, while also trying to catch him in the face with my free arm. I couldn't quite reach though and ended up redirecting towards his bicep instead. He released my arm with a yelp.
Before I had time to recover completely from the first bought, he was leaping towards me again. He sent a kick forward, followed by a punch. He was too fast to dodge this time, so I was forced to block. A small grunt escaped my lips as his foot collided with my forearm. I could see him grinning as I grabbed the leg I'd just caught and tried to flip him over my shoulder. He caught himself on the ground with his palms, almost in a push up stance. Then came his other foot, hitting me square in the back.
I stumbled forward, recovering just before my momentum made me face plant. Spinning around, I saw that Genma was brushing some dirt off of his baggy jacket. He must've fallen after he'd landed his kick.
"You're not too bad," he told me. "But you're too small. A strong punch only works if you can reach your target" He pounded his chest, and I scowled. We spent the next twenty minutes in an intense back and forth. A pattern quickly emerged between us. I'd land a hit on an arm or a leg, then he'd somehow manage to retaliate immediately afterwards with something just a bit stronger. In order to hit him, I had to get too close. Any success I had made me vulnerable, and I walked away from every exchange just a little worse off.
By the end of the session, we were both out of breath and a bit banged up. Genma seemed to have enjoyed himself thoroughly.
Holding out his hand, we made the reconciliation seal, and he helped me up to my feet from the place on the ground that I'd fallen.
"That last one was close," he said with a smile, as he pulled a new piece of straw out of his pocket and bit down on it.
"Not close enough," I groaned.
"Have you ever tried some sort of bukijutsu before?" he asked me.
"Bukijutsu?"
"Yeah, you know, weapons jutsu. Like swords or spears or something," he explained. "I'm working on using senbon, but that might be no good for you. You're really pretty good with the close range fighting, but a weapon might help give you a little extra reach."
"I've never thought about that before," I muttered, picturing myself wielding a sword like some sort of samurai. It wasn't such a bad idea. I'd have to find a decent teacher though, and that could be a task. Vaguely I wondered if there was someone in the Sarutobi clan who wouldn't mind helping me out.
"Well, it's just a thought. Fight again next time?" he offered.
"Yeah sure," I nodded with a smile, and with that I branched back over to see how Asuma's spar had gone.
I'm sure by now you've heard enough of my complaining about my chakra shenanigans, or lack there of. You know how badly I wanted to be good at jutsu, and you know how badly I was taking the skill deficiency. I don't need to elaborate on it much more.
Nonetheless, it doesn't change the fact that a good part of my life revolved around unsuccessful chakra training. I spent an hour in meditation every night hoping that one day, something would just click.
Nothing ever did work. That is, until one late night in October, a few weeks after Genma, Ebisu, and Shisui had joined our class. It was the middle of the work week, and the house was unusually quiet. Asuma was doing homework in the dining room, Biwako had taken a night shift, and Hiruzen was off doing Hokage things. Isamu, meanwhile, was supposed to be out of the village on an escort mission with his genin team.
I probably should have been calling it a night as well after my long day of training with Guy, but I couldn't fall asleep until I'd given chakra its daily go.
I was playing with the leaf exercise that night. If I could focus chakra onto my forehead, I'd theoretically be able to stick a leaf to it. Like always, I was having no success with it. It'd probably been about a half hour of training, and the leaf was starting to look a little withered from my frustrated attempts to pin it to my forehead. Honestly, I probably was going to give up soon.
Just before I formally threw in the towel for the night, I heard the sound of the front door creak open drift through the wall.
"Isamu-nii!" Asuma's voice disrupted the quiet of the night.
"Hey, shouldn't you be asleep?" Isamu replied in a forced whisper.
With a small smile, I hopped to my feet and poked my head into the hallway. To my surprise, I found that Isamu wasn't alone. My foster older brother had his two teammates behind him - Raido and Tonbo. All three of them looked pretty down trodden. Isamu's grey long sleeve had a few holes in it, revealing the mesh armor he usually kept underneath, and he had dirt smeared all over his cheek. They seemed well enough, however. No serious injuries and what not. I'd say they even had a certain post-mission glow about them.
I guess things must have gone well.
"You don't have to whisper, nobody else is asleep," I informed him. "Biwako-san and Hiruzen-san are out at work."
Isamu sighed, shaking his head, but he didn't scold us any further as I walked over to give him a hug. He caught me dutifully as I launched myself at him and gave me a quick squeeze. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Asuma sticking his tongue out at us. I'd make a hugger out of him one day yet.
"What's everyone doing here?" I asked, waving to Isamu's teammates.
"Raido leant Isamu a scroll and is getting separation anxiety," Tonbo smirked casually. "We had to get it back immediately."
"The house was on the way," Raido protested, rolling his eyes.
I nodded at the two of them. It was always nice when we got a chance to see Raido and Tonbo. They were good teammates to Isamu. Despite any light teasing between Raido and Tonbo, the three of them got along swimmingly. It was a stark contrast to some initial genin team dynamics I remember from the show- team seven being example number one. They just seemed to gel, and Isamu always was happy to be with them.
"Were they the scrolls on chakra control?" Asuma asked. "'Cause Nat stole those while you were away."
"Asuma!" I shot him a look. I wasn't done using them just yet.
Isamu was unperturbed, of course. He really never seemed to mind me borrowing reading material - this was no exception. "Did they help at least?" Isamu asked as he stepped around me to get the scrolls from the study where I had been reading them.
"No," I admitted unhappily. "Still no luck."
"No luck with what?" Tonbo asked curiously. I felt my cheeks go red, not that Isamu's blind teammate could tell. I wasn't exactly fond of talking about my chakra problem.
"I haven't been able to do any jutsu," I explained, kicking at the ground.
"Hm, that's strange, you have a lot of chakra you know," Tonbo wondered aloud. I stared at the bandages that he had wrapped around his eyes for a moment.
Sometimes it was easy to forget, but Tonbo was a prodigy chakra sensor. By all rights, he shouldn't have been allowed to become a ninja, but he had proven ages ago that he didn't need eyes to be able to see just fine. It made sense that Tonbo would be able to "see" my supposed surplus of chakra.
"So I've heard," I shrugged. I didn't need a reminder of all the things I should've been able to do.
"Hey, maybe Tonbo-kun can help you out," Raido spoke up idly, as Isamu returned with his scrolls. "If you're doing something odd with your chakra, he'll know."
"I don't know," Tonbo rubbed the back of his head looking mildly embarrassed. "I'm not much of a sensei."
"Sounds like a good idea to me," Isamu said. "Worst comes to worst, nothing will happen, and it won't be any different from before. What do you think Natsuki-chan?"
"We can try," I said, equally the skeptic. Honestly, I'd learned not to invest too much into far-fetched ideas a long time ago. Jin-sensei and Biwako had tried so many things, it only made the disappointment worse if I believed in them too much.
"Well if you think it will help," Tonbo nodded with a frown.
"Come on," I grabbed Tonbo's hand and dragged him into the study, where my meditation mat was still set up. "I've been trying to do the leaf exercise," I explained. Isamu, Raido, and Asuma stood at the door while I sat down, all watching. Part of me wished they'd go away. I didn't want anyone else to see how much of a failure I was at this.
"Okay, well try it again I guess," Tonbo nodded.
I did as I was told, pushing the leaf to my forehead and concentrating. Counting down in my head, I squeezed my eyes shut. Three. Two. One. I let go of the leaf, and it fluttered down to the ground, my imaginary chakra having no effect.
"Yeah that's about it," I sighed.
Tonbo frowned. "You didn't convert any of your energy to chakra," he said. Kneeling down he pointed towards my stomach. "Your physical energy is here." Then he pointed to my heart. "And your spiritual energy is here. If you want to use jutsu, you need to mix them. Instead you're just kind of swirling them around."
"Everyone keeps telling me that I need to control them, but I don't know what I'm doing wrong," I groaned, frustrated. "It's like I can't feel it. How am I even supposed to know it's there? I don't feel like I have hidden superpowers. I just feel like me. How do you control something you can't even tell is there?" I ran my hand through my hair, frustrated. This was the first time I'd ever voiced exactly what was vexing me aloud, and saying the words had almost made it worse.
I felt hopeless.
But interestingly enough, Tonbo was suddenly smirking.
"Well of course it's not working then," he told me. "You're manipulating your energy right now, you know. They're swirling all over the place because you're angry. Chakra is you, that means it's tied to your feelings and thoughts. It shouldn't feel like a superpower."
"What?" I blinked at him.
"When I was learning to become a sensor, I had a lot of trouble at first because I was looking for some sort of mysterious power. My sensei corrected me on it. He said that looking for someone's chakra isn't about finding their power. It's about finding that person. Your chakra is a reflection of your entire being - and using it is about learning how to pull out parts of yourself you don't normally need and putting them to good use," Tonbo explained. "Try it again."
I obliged putting the leaf to my head, and making half a ram's seal.
"Great, now take all the frustration that you've been having and drop it from your heart to your gut. You should be drawing it from two places, okay? Take the spiritual part as your mind. Like the feelings and emotions your having. And then take the physical part from your body. So like, when you're mad and you want to hit something or you're shaking, that's the energy I'm talking about. Take that and mix them together."
I tried to do as he told me. I took all the anger I'd been feeling and I just let it settle in my gut. I thought about all the failure I'd had, and how easy my classmates made it look. I thought about the other week when Asuma told me I was holding him back from graduating, and when Genma said I had a reputation for being unable to use chakra. I took that and then I put it together with the urge to cry over it. I let all of that settle in my stomach.
Interestingly enough, I started to feel kind of warm there.
"Perfect, now you're mixing it," Tonbo said, sounding excited.
"Now raise that to your forehead. It should be easy to move, just like breathing almost. The hard part will be keeping it in one little ball at the exact spot the leaf is," he said.
For the first time in a years worth of effort, I felt like I had a grasp on something. Like Tonbo had said though, it wasn't that I'd found a skill that I didn't have before. It was more like I'd realized that something that had always been there had a potential to it. When I picked up the ball of frustration from my gut to move it to my forehead, I felt it move. It had weight to it, even though I was only moving it with my willpower, and as it passed out of my stomach and through my chest, it left a wake of tingling energy. When I brought it to my forehead, I knew without thought that I'd done it. Gingerly, I took my hands off the leaf.
One... Two... Three... Four... Five...
The leaf dropped to the ground, just as I opened my eyes. It'd been stuck to my forehead for a while five seconds before falling, and looking at it now, it appeared to have been singed.
"Did that just work?" I leaped to my feet.
Tonbo smirked. "Good job, I guess."
I leaped towards Tonbo, almost tackling him to the ground, I was so happy. "Thank you so much Tonbo-senpai," I grinned.
"Geez, senpai sounds so formal," he rubbed the back of his head. I didn't care.
Caught up in the excitement, I backed away to try out the transformation jutsu. Dog... I brought my emotions back to my center just like before. Boar... I pushed them out to coat my skin. Ram... I released it suddenly, pushing them out of me like a storm. The room felt thick with them when I heard a popping noise - looking down at myself I grinned. I was the mirror image of Isamu, who was standing a few feet away from me blinking.
"I did it!" I squealed jumping up and down again.
"Nice job," Isamu muttered quietly.
Raido snorted, probably because I still looked like my brother, and Isamu had never squealed in excitement before in his life. "Now you've just got to work on your efficiency," Tonbo critiqued. "That was a crazy amount of chakra for that jutsu."
I grinned, poofing back down to my normal self, and making eye contact with Asuma.
"Well it's about time," he said, crossing his arms. He was smiling though. I felt lighter than I had in years. I couldn't wait to show Biwako and Jin-sensei. With the little things finally down, I finally felt like the sky was the limit once more.
Arc Tittle/Chapter quote are from Our Own House by the MisterWives
Happy Update!
Hope you liked this chapter! Sorry if it was a long time coming. My life has literally been a mess of work the past few weeks, but the good news is that summer is coming (finals are next week for me)! Hopefully that means more frequent updates for a little while.
A few exciting things happened this chapter- for one, we had a few new characters introduced. Shout out to LuckyOne98 who was asking about Shisui after the last chapter was posted. Sorry he has been a long time coming (for someone who is listed as a main character), but trust me, you all will be seeing a lot more of him in the future. I've aged him up a little to make him fit in a little better with my timeline. Call it a fanfiction liberty, if you will. His age isn't going to effect what's considered "cannon" whatsoever - just pretend like he was roughly 7 years older than Itachi instead of 3/4 years older when all the events around the Uchiha massacre happened. Kishimoto never really made it clear how old he was anyhow.
On a different note, I'm trying something new with a song as the arc tittle and each chapter will start with a line or two from it. I'm going to back track and rename the intro arc and the second war arc at some point to fit with this, but I have to find a good song to go with them first. I'm open to suggestions if you have any.
Alright, wrapping things up here, as always thank you to those who left reviews on the last chapter, and remember to leave another one on this one :)
Until Next Time!
Aule
