A/N:

hi
I forgot to finish the chapter on Saturday, which is why this is being posted today instead of Sunday
ahah
whoops

enjoy! :D

I jinxed it , Rei thought miserably as he stared up at the Third Hokage.

"Hello, Rei-kun," the man greeted. "May I come in?"

Rei suppressed the urge to simply slam the door in his face and instead stepped aside. The Hokage lowered his head in a slight bow, and after closing the door, Rei followed him into the kitchen.

"I brought your allowance for the month," the Hokage said, sliding a familiar, brown envelope onto the counter.

"Ah," Rei let out mildly. "Thanks."

The Hokage hummed before turning back towards Rei with a smile. "How have you been lately, Rei-kun?"

Rei wished that they could just skip past the pleasantries and get to whatever the man wanted to talk about, but answered nonetheless. "Fine."

"Has school been treating you well?" the Hokage prodded. "Have you made any friends?"

Rei pressed his lips together from beneath his mask, which the man had eyed briefly with a sort of pained expression before it transformed into something more welcoming. "It's okay. And one, I guess."

"Oh?" the Hokage let out curiously, as if this wasn't exactly where he was trying to steer the conversation in the first place. "And who would that be?"

"His name's Kiba."

"I see. I'm glad you've found someone to spend your time with," the Hokage said, wearing a grandfatherly smile that only served to irritate Rei further. "Are you two close?"

Rei hummed and offered a one-shouldered shrug. "He's alright." He wasn't sure how any other response - whether it be negative or too positive - would be taken, and he wasn't too keen on painting the boy - or his clan, for that matter - in a bad (or suspicious) light.

"So does that mean you're only school friends?" the Hokage asked. "Or do you spend time outside of school as well?"

It was like he wasn't even trying to be subtle. Then again, maybe he wasn't, and just thought Rei was as dense as a brick. For a man who must've had at least two children, he seemed pretty terrible at interacting with them if he wasn't putting on the kindly grandfather act.

"I went to his house the other day," Rei offered. And, because he knew he'd be questioned on how it went, he added, "We pet his ninken and he showed me around his room."

"That sounds nice," the Hokage offered warmly. Rei squinted at him. Quite honestly, he wasn't sure whether or not the man was actually nice. It seemed like it - especially since Danzou had always seemed to whine about how he was 'too kind' - but he was also known as the 'God of Shinobi' and allowed several war criminals and village traitors to get off scot free, so he could be wrong.

"It was," Rei said eventually, when he realized that the man had been waiting for some sort of response. "I had fun."

'Fun' as in 'my depression turned from crippling to something more manageable' and 'I got to pet a dog, so that was cool,' but he digressed.

"Well, I'd love to stay and chat," the Hokage said, "But unfortunately, I have to get going. If you ever need anything, though, don't hesitate to let me know. If you can't find me, just look for someone in a green flak jacket - they'll likely be able to point you to me."

"I will," Rei said, even though he knew that he'd never go out looking for the man unless he was horribly desperate. Even then, he'd be more likely to go to one of his ANBU guards - or even Iruka, honestly - instead.

The Hokage's eyes crinkled at the corners, which did make Rei feel a little bit guilty for his (admittedly rude) short, doubtful responses. Said guilt turned into minor annoyance when he realized that his emotions were being manipulated, intentionally or not, by a man sixty years his senior.

"Spend your allowance well," the Hokage offered on his way out as he had for the past few months now. Different, however, was the addition of, "Maybe you and Kiba-kun can find use for the extra together."

Rei hummed as per usual, trying not to give him an odd look. It was only when he could see the man stepping outside the building through his window did he finally relax.

He hoped that his last comment indicated that the Hokage would direct the council's immediate attention away from the Inuzuka Clan, and that they wouldn't face any issues because the Clan Head's son had decided to (literally) drag the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki into their lives.

Only time would tell, he supposed.

Clearly, nothing had gone wrong, because Kiba continued hanging onto Rei like a limpet as-per-usual. And, much to his surprise, he'd even ended up inviting him over during the latter half of Spring Break, when Akamaru would finally be trained enough to follow Kiba around without issue.

He accepted, though only so he could see Akamaru again, of course.

It wasn't half-bad, even though it gave Kiba even more time to talk his ear off. Except for when Hana found out that Rei was 'the worst shot she'd ever seen' and proclaimed that 'a thumbless, blind ape' would do better than him, and had promptly taken it upon herself to become a ruthless drill sergeant.

By the time Spring Break came to an end, he could make the shot 65% of the time on a non-moving target, which was definitely better than the shaky 25-30% rate he had before. Still, Hana was distraught over his results, but quickly became incensed and beat several of her clansmen into the ground when she found out that they had been betting on whether she'd be able to fix his atrocious aim. Kiba, meanwhile, cackled madly in the background along with his canine companion and amused-looking mother, having little regard for their clan members' health and safety.

Rei might have felt bad had they not laughed at him whenever he missed a particularly easy shot. Let them get what they deserve, he'd say.

Before that - during the first half of Spring Break - he also managed to struggle through a few children's books he'd scrounged up. And, with little else to do, he actually bothered to go through his year's normal physical routine every day, and he managed to wrestle his handwriting into something that was (mostly) legible.

When school started up again, Kiba was Mr. Popular for about a week because everyone was endeared by Akamaru. That ended, though, when a girl had called him a 'mangy mutt' and Kiba had bit her finger when she pointed in his face.

Even Akamaru looked surprised by that one.

Otherwise, things proceeded without issue or dramatics until Rei and Kiba ran into him .

When Kiba had been set on a run to the market on his mother's request, Rei wasn't surprised in the least that he was bullied into coming along.

He did wish that Kiba would stop running around like a maniac or walking without looking where he was going, though. But of course, Kiba wouldn't be deterred by things like 'sensibilities' or 'it being polite to have a sense of awareness for people around you,' and eventually, he ran into someone.

Almost .

Just before Kiba could walk backwards into someone's legs, a hand was placed on his shoulder, and he startled.

"Careful there," a boy said, a layer of beating wings hidden beneath his amusement. "I know it's easy to get caught up talking with someone, but you might wanna watch where you're going."

As Kiba turned around to look up at whoever had stopped him, Rei's gaze settled upon a pale face, framed by curly, black hair that was held back by a forehead protector.

Rei felt an itch in the back of his mind, like he recognized this person. Not a good sign, considering the last time that happened was when he'd seen a man in a green jumpsuit prancing around in public, shouting about the Springtime of Youth.

"Who are you?" Kiba asked with a suspicious glare, shaking off the teen's (?) hand, which he allowed to fall to his side.

"Ah, little old me?" Wings asked, placing his hand on his chest. "No one special."

Kiba squinted at him. "You're an Uchiha," he said, jabbing his finger towards the teen. Rei blinked, then scanned over his features once again as the apparent Uchiha huffed out a laugh.

"You could tell? Ah, well, I'm not surprised. Most of us look pretty much the same. The Clan likes to say that it's because of our strong bloodline."

Or it's all the inbreeding, Rei thought snarkily, then paused when he saw that the teen looked like he won the lottery.

"In-breeding?" Kiba echoed, furrowing his brows. "Like… dogs?"

Rei felt his face burst into flame, and Wings let out a high-pitched laugh.

"Yeah, guess so," he said with a grin. "Don't tell them that, though - I think that might ruffle some feathers. But inbreeding aside—" Rei choked "—I think I should get your guys' names first, don't you think? After all, you're the ones who ran into me."

Kiba eyed him for a moment before crossing his arms. "I didn't run into you," he said petulantly, but answered anyway. "I'm Kiba Inuzuka, you got that? I'm gonna be your Hokage one day!"

"Oh?" Wings let out, amusement dancing within his eyes as he glanced towards Rei. "And what about your friend over here?"

"That's Rei," Kiba answered for him. He might've been thankful, if not for the addition of: "He's gonna be my assistant."

Rei's expression soured, and Shisui snorted. When Kiba narrowed his eyes, he waved him off with a grin. "I'll be looking forward to that," he said, sounding genuine enough that it caught both of them off guard. "Do you think I can fit anywhere in that future of yours?"

Kiba eyed him contemplatively after recovering from his pleased surprise. "You can do the paperwork," he eventually said, and Wings' face spasmed, like he wasn't sure whether to laugh or be offended. "Unless you're strong. Then… you can be one of my ANBU!"

Wings looked more pleased with the latter response. "Oh? Do you think I'll make Captain? Or maybe Commander?"

"Probably not," Kiba said bluntly, and Rei almost laughed at the way Wings' face fell. "You're kinda weird."

"I see," Wings said, sounding almost dejected. It would be hilarious if it wasn't somewhat depressing.

"It's okay," Kiba consoled upon noticing the teen's state. "You'll still be cool as a normal ANBU. And I'm not usually wrong, but maybe you'll be able to do it anyway!"

Wings huffed out another laugh. "Well, I guess 'maybe' is better than nothing," he said, lips twitching up when Kiba nodded seriously. "Ah, but you should know the name of your future ANBU Commander, shouldn't you?"

" Maybe ," Kiba stressed.

"Maybe ANBU Commander," Wings corrected, looking like he was trying not to laugh. "Anyway, like you said, I'm an Uchiha, but none of that 'Uchiha-san' stuff, yeah? I'm not really a formal kinda guy." He flashed an easy grin. "You can just call me Shisui."

Rei's train of thought came to a screeching halt.

"Shisui Uchiha?" Kiba said, trying the name out. After a moment, he hummed. "Okay, I guess that's alright."

Shisui looked briefly confused as to what that comment meant, only for his gaze to slide to Rei once he realized he was being watched.

"Something wrong?" he asked, tilting his head to the side.

Rei looked away from his eyes, which weren't ripped from his skull, and tried to force down his sense of unease. "No," he said unconvincingly. Thankfully, Kiba interjected before Shisui could even think about pushing him on it.

"So what do you do anyway?"

Shisui blinked, head jerking towards Kiba. "Huh?"

"You're a ninja, right? An' you got that flak jacket. Are you a chunin?"

"Ah… nope," Shisui said after a moment, "I'm a jonin."

" What ?" Kiba let out disbelievingly. "No way! My sister's probably as old as you are and she's only a genin!"

"Er… Well, sometimes, people climb up the ranks faster than others," Shisui offered somewhat sheepishly. "I was promoted during the war, too, so that probably has something to do with it."

"You were in the war ?!" Kiba practically screamed, causing both Shisui and Rei to wince.

"I graduated early," Shisui told him, speaking far more patiently than Rei ever could.

Kiba stared at him for several moments before demanding for him to, "Teach us."

Shisui opened his mouth, then closed it after several seconds. "What?"

"You've gotta be at least kinda strong if you're a jonin," Kiba admitted almost begrudgingly, "So you gotta teach us." When it looked like Shisui might protest, he narrowed his eyes. "I'm gonna be your Hokage one day," Kiba reminded him. "And if you say no, I'm gonna make you do all the desk work!"

Shisui paused, placed his palm over his mouth, and let out a short laugh. "That seems fair," he agreed, much to Rei's bewilderment. "But I don't know… Are you willing to put in the work?"

"Obviously!" Kiba replied indignantly. "Right, Rei?!"

Rei startled when two sets of eyes snapped onto him - one fiery, and the other searching. "...Yeah," tumbled out of his mouth before he could think, and he resisted the urge to slap himself in the face.

Shisui cocked his head to the side before a grin spread across his face. "Alrighty then!" he chirped, placing a hand on both of their heads and ruffling their hair. "Then I guess I've got myself two little students!"

Kiba shook him off, though looked pleased, while Rei tried his best to keep his expression neutral as the sound of a turbulent river echoed throughout his mind.

It was starting to seem like he was really, really bad at not finding himself tangled up with canon characters.

Two weeks passed without further incident, and Rei was beginning to think that Shisui had either simply lied about his intent to help him and Kiba, or he'd been put off by the council. That didn't last much longer, with them eventually being accosted on their way out of the Academy and dragged - in Rei's case, at least; Kiba came all too willingly, grievances about Shisui's lateness sprinkled in between exclamations of excitement, and Akamaru followed wherever his partner went - to a grassy training ground with beat-up training equipment.

"Alrighty!" Shisui said cheerfully, clapping his hands together. "Today, I'm gonna get a gist for your skill levels. First up, what have you done in the Academy so far?"

"Shurikenjutsu!" Kiba answered excitedly. "We've been usin' kunai for a while, so now we're gettin' started with shuriken!" Then, when Akamaru nudged his leg, he added, "Uh, we stretch and do normal exercise sometimes too, I guess."

Shisui blinked, muttering under his breath. "Huh. I could've sworn you should've been doing more by now… Then, again…" He trailed off, gaze sliding back towards Rei and Kiba. "Okay, well, we should definitely start off by doing stretches. Let me tell you, you do not want to know what it feels like to cramp up."

Kiba's face scrunched up. "Huh? I think you're just old."

Shisui's smile became somewhat stiff with annoyance. "You'll see what I'm talking about one day," he assured Kiba. "Now, chop chop! We don't have all day!"

Kiba grumbled, but began moving into their first stretch, which Rei followed easily. Out of everyone in the class, they were probably among the most flexible. Kiba because his clan style required him to perform complicated, animalistic movements that often required his limbs to be bent in odd positions, and Rei because he figured that if he was never going to get particularly strong , he might as well be nimble enough to snake around his opponents. That, and he was still riding the high of being able to bend his body without his entire body violently rejecting the idea.

Shisui eyed them while they were going through the movements, and startled Rei when he pushed him into a more stable position.

"Don't want you giving yourself a permanent slouch," Shisui said with a teasing grin, then moved to correct Kiba. He helped them a few more times after that, then moved back to stand in front of them once they were finished stretching.

"Now, I'm gonna have you practice your shurikenjutsu. In the future, though, none of this will be in an easy order. In other words," he said with a grin, "You'll be doing 'sets'. Not only will it get you used to swapping between activities quickly, but you'll need to learn how to work under pressure and when you're already tired, and you might as well learn that sooner rather than later."

Rei eyed the anticipatory glint in his eye and felt a shiver run down his spine. He also took note of Kiba's slight wariness, which he'd only ever seen when Hana was running them into the ground.

That definitely wasn't a good sign for his physical and/or mental health, in Rei's professional opinion.

"Since I don't want either of you developing any bad habits, I'll show you how it's done first. Afterwards, I want you to copy me."

With that said, Shisui grabbed a kunai from his pouch, shifted the placement of his feet, and with a flick of his wrist, allowed the weapon to fly.

Not unsurprisingly - but still startling, nonetheless - the kunai buried itself in the center of the target with a loud thunk .

"So," Shisui said smugly, turning towards the two of them. "Think you can do that?"

Kiba tossed him a sharp grin, eyes sparkling. " Hell yeah !"

Shisui laughed, then handed over a kunai, which had Kiba fumbling.

"Why's this so heavy ?" Kiba asked incredulously, weighing the kunai in his hand.

"It's real," Shisui told him, causing the Inuzuka's eyes to widen. "Not like the ones they use in the Academy." A moment later, his amused smile flattened, and his eyes became hard. "I'm trusting you to take care of these, and to be safe with them. They're sharp, so you will handle them exactly how I tell you to, and you will never - and I do mean never - point it towards yourself or towards a comrade. Understand?" When both Rei and Kiba stared at him, a little shell-shocked, he crossed his arms and raised a brow. "Well?"

"Uh— yeah. Got it!" Kiba answered, holding the sharp end of the kunai towards the ground.

"Right," Rei agreed when Shisui glanced over at him.

After both boys received an assessing look, Shisui regained his easy smile. "Good!" he chirped. "Now, listen carefully…"

A/N:

if you're wondering about the timeline, the Academy started in January, and right now, it's around mid-April (which means that a little over 3 months have passed)
everything that could be said about those months has been said; the months were filled with learning Academy schtuff, Kiba dragging around Rei like he's a dog, and a few visits to the Inuzuka Compound after the Hokage okayed it

now, for the summary:
The Third Hokage (who he calls as such because it's what he's most familiar with; barely anyone in the series calls him 'Sarutobi' or 'Hiruzen') visits Rei to drop off his allowance for the month (which is taken from a scene from the anime), while also 'subtly' questioning Rei about Kiba to make sure that there's no clan influencing going on or anything. Because it was determined that nothing was going on, Rei's allowed to continue hanging out with Kiba, and he spends half of his Spring Break at the Inuzuka Compound, where Hana takes it upon herself to correct his terrible aiming skills. A while after the break is over, Kiba and Rei run into Shisui on their way to grab something for Tsume, and because they amuse him, Shisui agrees to train them for the foreseeable future. Two weeks later, Shisui meets up with them and their training begins.

bet you didn't expect that one, did you?
or maybe you did - i'm not subtle, and Shisui *is* tagged
can you tell which characters I love writing the most? hint, one of the main ones starts with A 'K' and ends with an 'iba.'
Shisui was actually difficult for me to write, 'cause he's a sunny sort of guy, but he's also not naive or stupid, so that's a rough balance that I hope I wrote (at least somewhat) well :P

(id also like to add: this is NOT a Hokage-bashing [or anyone bashing, for that matter] fic, Rei is just horribly suspicious of Sarutobi)

also, now you get to see a snarkier, less depressed Rei who's starting to leave his comfort zone, yay!

anyway
Thanks for reading!