A/N

Before we get started I'd just like to thank all of you who were willing to give my lovable garbage a chance and have decided to read the second chapter. Now like I said at the end of last chapter, that isn't my typical writing style. There is typically a lot more dialogue and descriptions but I really wanted to get through the prologue. Anyways, there is a timeskip at the start of this chapter that makes Tsuya 14 when he returns to the village. I also realized that I didn't show anything about Kurama last chapter, but I'll touch on that a bit during this chapter. Anyways, I think that's everything I wanted to mention before I got started so let's get going. Please enjoy chapter 2 of my garbage dump for my ideas.

Konoha Academy

"I get that I technically never finished the academy, but why am I here? I mean, I was an ANBU elite for 2 years. Do I really need to do this?" Tsuya pleaded his case to Hiruzen. Right now he was standing in front of the door to his new classroom, although it would only be for a month. Standing at 5'8" with lean muscles and a swimmers build, he seemed much older than he really was. His face was ordinary with no definitive features, however, his dark amethyst eyes paired with his neck length, dull, balck hair gave him an eerie and mysterious vibe. He was currently wearing a plain gray t-shirt with straight-leg, black pants and black combat boots. He had a black hoodie, open front to show his t-shirt underneath, with a depiction of the Greek god Khaos in a white circle on his back(think like the knight sky but in the shape of a human. It isn't really important but I kinda used him as inspiration for Tsuya's kekkei genkai). Standing next to Tsuya was Hiruzen, looking much older and much more tired from the last time Tsuya saw him. He had much more defined bags under his eyes and his left hand was half metal. This accompanied with the scars on his face and the look of a dead man made him seem much older than Tsuya remembered "Yes, young Tsuya. It will be good for you to connect with people your age. Besides, you'll only be here for a month." Hiruzen said in a soft, gentle voice, trying to convince Tsuya that it'll help. Truth be told, he honestly wasn't sure if it was a good idea to send Tsuya into the academy like this. Tsuya didn't play nice with others.

During Tsuya's travels, Hiruzen would often hear of a mercenary that wore an ANBU style fox mask, only instead of the traditional white with black paint, it was black with a white paint. They went by Kurei, which did worry Hiruzen a little as that's what Tsuya called himself the day of the incident a few years ago. All the missions and requests he ever took were solo missions, or the entire rest of this team died. After the 4th incident where his team died, it became common knowledge that working with him is a death sentence. But despite that, he never once failed a mission and he always returned unscathed. While Hiruzen was happy he was never hurt, he was also sad that he never managed to actually make any lasting connections.

"Yeah, but after that I'll be paired with at least 2 of them until the chunin exams." Tsuya said. "*Sigh. Please just deal with it for a little while. Some of the consolers aren't sure if they can trust you. Especially after you disappeared after our little fight." "By some you mean Danzo?" Tsuya stated. "Oh and before you leave," Tsuya pulled a scroll out of his pocket and handed it to Hiruzen. "What is it?" Hiruzen asked. "It's a scroll for the safety of the village. I know I'm not the most, shall we say, stable shinobi and when I let loose I could cause harm to the village. I've placed restraint seals on me to keep me in check, but if they fail or I release them for whatever reason, they will alert a seal in that scroll. It also comes with instructions for how to use it. Simply put, if you send chakra into it in a specific pattern it will either knock me out, or kill me." "Tsuya I… I can't accept this. You're 1 of my best shinobi, I couldn't use this knowing it could kill you. If you were in a state where you needed to go all out, I would rather be there to back you up than kill you." "That's what I'm scared of." Tsuya said with a grim look on his face. "*Sigh. Fine, I'll take it. Now, we've wasted enough time here as it is. You need to get to class. Iruka is your homeroom sensei. He already knows you're coming so just knock on the door. Good luck, Tsuya." With that Hiruzen shunshined back to his office.

With a small sigh, Tsuya knocked on the door. There was some murmuring inside before he heard Iruka tell everyone that they would have a new student joining them today and called for him to enter. "Class, this is Tsuya Konton. Treat him well. There's a seat in the back for you." Iruka said and motioned to a seat in the back left corner of the room. Without a word Tsuya started heading back to his seat. He had a blank expression on his face the entire time. Some of the girls would murmur things like "who is he," "is he trying to be cool like Sasuke," "where is he from?" Even some of the boys were whispering to each other asking similar questions like "do you think he's strong," "has he been here before," and "who is he?" Everyone was curious about him, even Iruka. While Iruka knew that Tsuya had returned from his trip, he was curious as to 1: why was he here, 2: what was Hiruzen thinking putting Tsuya in a class of genin and 3: if he would cause any trouble? He was also worried that Tsuya might… snap… like he had heard he did on the last mission he was on before he left. Most of the village knew about the incident, however, only a select few knew that Tsuya was actually involved. Even if they did, they likely wouldn't be able to tell that Tsuya was Tsuya because of how much he had changed since he was last in the village.

"Alright class, seeing as the graduation exam is less than a month away we're going to do a practice exam. Today we'll do the practical portion and tomorrow we'll do the written portion. First up is the kunai and shuriken test. Everyone head to the throwing range." Everyone got up really excited. Lately they've just been reviewing their history and chakra theory. Though they were still curious about Tsuya, they had mostly forgotten about him in their excitement. Tsuya had slipped into the back of the crowd and ended up next to Iruka without him noticing. "Iruka, do they know anything about me or do they simply think I'm a new student?" Iruka jumped slightly, not realizing that Tsuya had ended up next to him. "Some of them might vaguely remember you. You were only 1 year ahead of them in the academy so they might've seen you in passing before, however, I doubt any of them would know about the incident if that's what you were worried about." Tsuya simply nodded and slipped further up into the crowd. Unbeknownst to Iruka, although Tsuya did notice, Shikamaru had taken notice of their talk. Even though he was trying to hear what they were saying he couldn't hear a sound from them. He could see their lips moving but he couldn't hear a word of it. It intrigued him and he decided to try and figure out what this Tsuya character was all about. Tsuya, meanwhile, was smirking to himself. 'It seems that at least some of them have potential. Between the Nara trying to figure out what I was up to and the Uchiha keeping his eye on me. Maybe they aren't all as useless as I initially thought.' Tsuya thought to himself.

Now at the throwing range Iruka announced what they were doing. Everyone was given 10 kunai and 10 shuriken. 'There are many targets, the farther ones are smaller but worth more points, however, there is still a 20 point limit and there are no style points. Therefore the best method to score well without standing out would be to throw them individually and make it seem like you got lucky. Make at least one miss and then launch it with another kunai so it hits another target. It still needs to be subtle. This should be interesting.' These were the thoughts of Tsuya. It was no challenge for him, but he still wanted to make it entertaining. After all, if he was stuck here for a month he might as well try to get the most out of it.

When Tsuya was called up he picked one of the kunai and examined it quickly, taking into account the weight, center of mass, and edge sharpness he devised a plan. He threw the first kunai and it struck dead center of a close target. He picked up another 1 and aimed for 1 that was a little farther. This 1 landed a little bit low of the center, just as planned. Next he picked up a shuriken and threw it. It went soaring past the first 2 he hit and hit a target at mid range, only just barely sticking into the target. A kunai was next. It barely nicked the shuriken. This caused its course to be altered and it ended up barely sticking into the ground, however, the shuriken lagged itself more firmly into the target as a result of it being hit. He then proceeded to throw a shuriken rather low. It bounced off of the kunai in the ground and hit the target that had the shuriken in it in the back, dead center. Tsuya then threw 2 more shuriken, 1 at a time, 1 bounced off of both the kunai in the ground and the shuriken in the back of the target to hit the target immediately behind it. The next 1 went to the kunai in the ground again but it flicked it out of the ground using the loop, simultaneously sending the shuriken in a more upward direction due to the new weight on one of its blades. Both of them simultaneously hit 2 different targets. 1` up in a tree, the other on the trunk of said tree. However, due to Tsuya's position, most of the students simply thought he missed everything except for the last throw that got lodged into the target in the tree at the far back. They never even noticed all the tricks he pulled using the kunai on the ground. Feeling he had sufficiently tested his skills and that anymore would either get him caught he decided to throw the remainder of the kunai and shuriken 1 by 1, hitting all of the targets way in the back. Some just barely hitting the mark and others cleanly sticking into the target. During Tsuya's examination, Iruka was sweating because he saw what Tusya was actually doing and it was terrifying. He had heard that Tsuya had entered the ANBU and knew that he was skilled but he didn't know he was this skilled. Because of how Tsuya was throwing them and his position, Iruka could perfectly see what was going on, but unless someone was actively moving around to try to see what was actually going on, they wouldn't be able to tell what was going on. Shikamaru was able to tell that something was off because the kunai and shuriken kept disappearing and he noticed Iruka's stunned and slightly scared face. He couldn't actually tell what was going on but he knew that something was off. After Tsuya's little performance and everyone else finished Iruka announced that next they would be sparring.

"Alright everyone, here are the rules: You have 3 minutes. At the actual exam you will have to either have to survive the 3 minutes or land a solid hit. However for these matches it will simply be 3 minutes of sparring. Whoever lands the most hits wins. If you leave the ring that's an automatic loss. Any questions?" Nobody responded. "Alright then let's get started. First match will be…" Tsuya simply watched the matches go by bored out of his mind. Iruka made sure Tsuya never got the chance to spar because there was an odd number of kids in the class and after all of the spars they were all either too tired, too beat up, or too lazy to want to go for another round. But 1 kid decided to ruin Iruka's plan. "Hey Iruka sensei, Tsuya didn't spar and everyone's already gone. So what is his score going to be?" Iruka was sweating and nervous and sweating as he had hoped to avoid this. He really didn't want to see what happened to Mizuki happen to any of these kids. He knew that Tsuya wouldn't do that, but after what he saw he couldn't get the image of Tsuya doing that to 1 of them out of his head. Then, "I'll spar with him. What could he do anyway?" The great Sasuke decided to finally open his mouth. He was curious about Tsuya just as much as anyone else. But he thought it was especially odd that this kid, who none of them knew of or had even heard of before, suddenly joined their class right before graduation. To him it meant that he was either really skilled, or someone that was being trained outside the village. Either way it meant that he could potentially be someone that was really skilled. "I don't see why not Iruka sensei. It's just a friendly spar so nothing will happen." Tsuya said with a strange smile on his face. Iruka was nervous but he knew that he had no grounds to deny them. "*Sigh. Very well." Tsuya and Sasuke stepped into the ring, ready to fight.

Sasuke, not sure what he was expecting, got into a slightly lazy stance. However, when he saw that Tsuya was in a stance that seemed both dangerous and weak. His right leg was slightly forward, like he had just taken a step, his hands were in open. His left arm was up in a simple guard, elbow slightly farther out and fist towards his face, his right hand was in front of his left hand, but his arm was perpendicular to the ground. After Tsuya took a single step forward Sasuke dashed forward, intent on finding out what this kid could do and who he really was. Sasuke went for a right hook followed by a hook kick towards Tsuya's right side. However, Tsuya narrowly dodged out of Sasuke's reach and then ducked under Sasuke's hook kick. Tsuya went for a quick jab to Sasuke's left elbow, temporarily rendering his left arm useless. This gave Tsuya an easy opening and he struck Sasuke in the abdomen. Sasuke tried to dodge out of the way but he was still hit by the blow. He still managed to get out of Tsuya's range immediately afterwards. It appeared that Tsuya was more than meets the eye. With a smirk Sasuke dashed in, taking it a bit more seriously. "Sasuke, before we end this I'd like you to see something." Sasuke was thrown off by this for a moment but he got himself back together quickly and continued with his charge. He pulled his fist back, preparing to strike. He threw his pinch but then he noticed it, however, it was already too late. Tsuya had a smirk on his face. Sasuke had already thrown his punch and, as if he was a liquid, Tsuya spun with the punch, pulling Sasuke's arm, before quickly turning the other way. He flipped Sasuke's arm upwards when he did this causing Sasuke to lose his balance and flipped him onto his back and pinned him to the ground. "Yield." Was all Tsuya said. Sasuke used his legs to kick himself up and flip himself out from underneath Tsuya. Without waiting for Tsuya to respond he went for a roundhouse to the head. However, it never actually hit. It was as if he was frozen. Tsuya simply got up and turned around, his face towards the ground. For the briefest of moments, Iruka could've sworn that he saw a wicked smirk but it disappeared in an instant. Tsuya punched Sasuke straight in the gut, making him keel over. "I believe I won that match." The match was over in less than 30 seconds. "Y-yeah. Match winner: Tsuya!" Iruka declared. Everyone was shocked. Here was this kid that they assumed sucked because he missed almost a quarter of his shots during the throwing weapons test. Yet he beat their famed Sasuke in less than 30 seconds, without even being hit.

Iruka pulled Tsuya to the side for a moment. "What the hell did you just do? How did you stop Sasuke's kick from landing?" "Clan secret. But I'll tell you this. It's a quote from an old leader of my clan. "The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The chakra arts, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age." Basically, when faced with infinity, we must either ignore or we will go insane trying to connect all of the information." With that Tsuya started walking back towards the classroom.

After that no one really bothered him. They were all too wary or hated his guts because he hurt "their Sasuke." When they revealed the test results for the practice exam it was revealed that Tsuya had gotten second place. He got a perfect score for the sparring, however, because of his "bad accuracy" during the throwing test his score suffered. He also nearly failed the written test because he didn't answer most of the questions. Instead he wrote ways to improve the questions and corrections. So he didn't get credit as he never actually answered the questions. He also couldn't do the regular clone technique and lost points on the jutsu portion as well. For the next month he just kinda stuck to himself. Doing random things and giving himself challenges to make things harder. "Class. Today is the day of the final exam. I know all of you have tried very hard. After today, those of you that pass will be true shinobi. Good luck to all of you. Everybody to the range."

First up was Sasuke. He grabbed all of the shuriken at once and threw them and then proceeded to do the same thing with the Kunai. 1 of the shuriken missed and hit the edge of the target instead of the center so he didn't get a perfect score. 39/40. After that some randoms went, some passed others didn't. But finally it was Tsuya's turn again. He threw all of them 1 by 1 and got a bullseye on every single 1.

Next up was sparring. "Alright class. Now we'll be sparring. Today we have a guest who will spar half of you while I will do the other half. It will be 1 at a time. Now then, everybody please greet Yamato." With that Yamato walked into the room. "First up will be…" He said and headed to the private sparring room inside. After a while, Sasuke went up to spar with Iruka. He won in 36 seconds, earning him a 94 because he was still hit a couple times. Eventually it was Tsuya's turn against Yamato. He entered the sparring room.

"What's up Yamato? How ya doin?" Tsuya asked. "Can't complain. It's been quite a while though. What have you been up to since I last saw you in the land of wind?" "Not much. After that I had a few missions from Hiruzen and I trained." "So how much are we gonna do?" Iruka was a little confused but he assumed that they had met on missions at some point based on what they were doing. Then he realized what Yamato had asked. "What do you mean how much are you gonna do? You can't destroy the ring. I still have more people to test after this. Plus it's taijutsu only. You couldn't do that much could you?" Iruka asked nervously. He knew that Tsuya was a power house and he didn't want to ever see anything like what he did to Mizuki. In fact he was rather terrified at the thought. "There's no point in sparring if we already know who the winner is." "Oh about that. I have limit seals and gravity seals for training and to protect the people around me. Plus I got the furball to finally stop pouting so if I needed to he could stop the other thing." "Sooo?" "We can have an actual spar. Or we can just do an armwrestling contest like ursula. It's up to you." "Let's just do the arm wrestle. It'll be quicker." Tsuya shrugged and they both got on the ground ready for an arm wrestle. "On 3. 3!" And like that they both started using as much force as they could to try and move the other person's arm. However they weren't using chakra so they wouldn't break anything. After almost 2 minutes of nothing, Yamato's hand suddenly slammed into the ground. They both got up and did a quick hand shake before Tsuya left. "What just happened?" Iruka wondered. "Don't worry about it.

After that was Academy 3. When Tsuya got called in he and Yamato started chatting like old friends, but if someone played really close attention they would be able to tell that their expressions were forced, making it all seem fake. Which it was. This was how Tsuya kept up appearances. It's what he was used to. He faked everything about himself. His demeanor, his behavior, his speech, his weird quirks, everything was fake. It was a force of habit. Yamato seemed genuine but Tsuya seemed forced. It was subtle but still noticeable when someone looked closely. After a few minutes Tsuya left the room with his new headband on his left arm.

A week had passed since the final exam and it was time for the Jonin to pick teams.

"So, do you have any requests?" Hiruzen asked. He had already decided on 1 team. Although he was contemplating making Tsuya a 1 man cell, the whole point of this was to help Tsuya come back out of his shell. So he could have a life outside of the shinobi world. Surprisingly, Kakashi volunteered to take team 7. "Can I get Sasuke, Tsuya, and whoever else?" He asked. With a smirk and a small chuckle Hiruzen said, "I was already planning to give you that team. Good luck. And while I don't think I need to say this, be careful. Don't let him snap. No matter the cost." Hiruzen said in a very serious voice. Kakashi merely nodded. "I would like to take on a tracking team, is that okay?" Kurenai spoke up. "Sure." "I'll take whoever's left." Asuma said. "How about this year's Ino-Shika-Cho trio? I've heard that Nara is very similar to you." "Sure." "Then that is all. Kakashi, Sakura will be your last team member. Good luck." With that they all left the room.

After a minute Hiruzen singled for all of the ANBU to leave the room. Then Tsuya dropped down from the ceiling. "How long have you known I was here?" "I didn't. I simply suspected that you would've come in immediately after the meeting to give your report. Speaking of?" Tsuya tossed a folder onto the table. "The place is a cluster fuck. The curriculum is too easy to make real shinobi and because of that it dull's all the potential talents hidden within. The curriculum needs to be geared less towards studies and more towards the actual shinobi arts. It also needs to have required check ups to see how the students are doing. If they're depressed or in a state of mind where they can't do what they need to do then that needs to be known so that it can be dealt with. Don't get me wrong, keep the writing, math, and history classes, but condense them and make them go into more difficult territory to sharpen their minds. During their second year give them an aptitude test to see what shinobi art they might be able to become a specialist in. Make them cycle through them and if they don't find something they like or can really get into, have them try others until they do. Then during their third year make them make a final decision. During their fourth year they will do joint training with other specialists so they can get to working with each other. This will give the students a better chance to actually become something. That's the best fix I can think of. Oh and don't start the actual shinobi training until what is currently considered the third year. Let the first 2 years be exclusively for chakra theory and basic curriculum to sharpen their minds. And make the final test less rigid. What if you have another Rock Lee on your hands where he is incredibly skilled in 1 art but is incapable of doing another. Make the test something they can decide with some things still required such as the written and sparring portions." "Hmmmm. Interesting. I'll think about it. Though next time could you please come in after the meeting is over." "Sure." "Now go on. I still have paperwork to do." "Yes sir." Tsuya playfully said with a smirk as he walked out the door.

A/N

That's it. Phew. I'm surprised. I managed to write 2 chapters over 4000 words in just 2 days. I feel great. But I also feel like shit cause I didn't sleep last night. But that doesn't matter! I'm proud of myself! Anyways. So. Yes, that was a quote from H.P.L. for those who got it. I don't really have much to say on this chapter so yeah. Next time will be d ranks and teams meeting each other. Oh and if you think Tsuya was acting odd it's because 1 I haven't really decided on how Tsuya will be most of the time and 2 he isn't entirely stable because of his childhood and Kurei. Who will be important in the distant future. Don't you worry I have plans for Kurei. Oh and Kurama is kind of friends with Tsuya but not entirely. I might go into that more next chapter as well. We'll see.

Sincerely,

The author of this lovely garbage pile called a story