Chapter 5: Genius my sweet patootie - or how hard work can turn you into a great assassin
Summary: In which Calla scrambles to catch up, fails miserably at making friends and decides that figuring out how chakra works hurts her head.
Yeah, Calla definitely can't say this often enough, this world is so, so weird.
She has been given one week off to prepare herself before joining the higher class. Orphans are shuffled in classes according to their teachers' estimation – there are no parents or others to ask or who intervene on their behalf, nor are they themselves consulted. Or, well, at least she certainly hadn't been. She'd just been presented with a fait accompli and told when to be where and sent out.
So yep. Calla now found herself in Hermione's version of heaven – the library. Its size is minuscule compared to Hogwarts, mainly because this village has only existed for a short space of time. And information and knowledge are power.
Anyway, she has to investigate how chakra works.
Yeah, Hermione would so have been on her case about not doing this sooner, but to be fair, she has had a lot to deal with in the scant few months she's had in this world and Calla had presumed she'd be taught at school in a few years' time giving her plenty of leeway. Not so, apparently.
Magic had always been obvious to her.
It was all around her. It was this deep well of power inside of her, the one thing which healed her, helped her and followed her wishes. It was this fearsome, awesome power which seemed almost sentient at times and which worked through her. Calla needed to only wish, visualise and intend something and her magic would do its very best to do as she asked it to.
There were some similarities; magic needed a wand to facilitate it as much as chakra needed handsigns – which is to say, not at all. Both magic and chakra could be used without handsigns but it was both more difficult and more complicated without them. You had both chakra and magic since you were born and both grew if you used them. Magical and chakra exhaustion both had potential to be fatal.
On the other hand, there was this issue: Magic existed inside you in a deep well. So did chakra – but chakra fluctuated a lot. It increased with your mental acuity and physical prowess. So although it looked like one pool of magic, it was, technically, two. And each jutsu required different combination of yin and yang energy and don't even get her started on elements.
So, suppose you wanted to create a fireball – well, first of all you need to convert your chakra into fire-nature. And if you are, say, inherently water-natured this will make things so, so much more difficult for you. Water doesn't like turning into fire but you can do it repetitively until you create the pathway of least resistance where you chakra knows what it is you need and is used to the conversion. Then you also have to use more yang than yin chakra; as it turned out, different natures tended to be lean more towards either yin or yang chakra and the effect of the jutsu further dictates the nature required.
Genjutsu required a lot of yin as it required a lot of mental skill to pull off (the visualisation alone was insane! Hermione would have loved it). A ball of fire was a physical manipulation, shaping your chakra into specific shapes and manipulating it. The water dragon jutsu, however, needed a lot of yang to create and a lot of yin to maintain it. To shape and create it needed more physical chakra whereas its continued manipulation required yin.
Yeah, this was so, so weird and really bloody difficult.
At least she had a headstart on the meditation bit thanks to Snape's failed occlumency training. She never had gotten any better at it and it was an impressive and so very handy skill to have, but no use crying over spilt milk and all that.
It was tough. She needed to manipulate chakra and learn chakra control, but her magic kept trying to help. Because Calla was concentrating and trying hard, her magic was trying to follow her intentions and she kept having to subdue it instead of being able to fully focus on just her chakra.
No wonder school started so young, trying to wrap her head around this, using it and chakra control was difficult. And who knew how many jutsu they knew in the upper classes? They would have had years to learn it.
Additionally, she needed to learn how to fight. Calla had learnt and knew how to fight with magic – she had never learnt how to fight physically.
The Dursleys had taught her how to duck, how to roll with a punch (literally, not in the metaphorical sense) and, best of all, how to run. Now she would have to learn how to punch back. Her only lesson in that had been from Hermione in Third Year.
Did you see how she punched Draco? Mi, you have to teach me how to do that! Only if you swear you'll never ever call me that again. Sweet! Deal, definitely!
And taijutsu was not something you could just learn by yourself. Another sigh and Calla dropped her head in the middle of the large book, closing her eyes. This was too much. She needed like at least 5 versions of herself running around, more preferably, to manage all this in a week. She'd spend ages catching up!
This was so not fair.
This was exactly why she had wanted to remain unremarkable. Stupid Ringo-sensei and Kondo-sensei.
Calla had spent her week well. She had used her magic to give her artificial boosts so she had managed the week on only a few hours of sleep (0 out of 10 not recommended; don't use your magic to artificially alter brain chemistry and accelerate processing. Definitely not a good idea. It had worked. Calla suspected there was a large amount of luck involved – there usually was when she did something risky and it magically (pun intended) worked out alright.
Now, her fourth week at school and her first time in the new class.
"Good Morning, Kara-chan. My name is Abe Jiro, you may refer to me as Abe-sensei. It is a pleasure to have you in my class."
Another civilian or orphan. She wondered if there were any clan Academy teachers when Konoha wasn't running its shinobi ragged in an effort to appear unaffected or if that would be seen as preferential treatment. Then again, both civilian and orphaned teachers gave preferential treatment to clan members any way. There were only a few which actually focussed on the ones who needed it more (usually those from civilian families and orphans without anyone to help or correct them at home).
"Good morning, Abe-sensei," Calla performed the customary bow and reminded herself that she really needed to investigate how deep a bow should be and how to judge it appropriate lest she offend someone. This entire world was run like politics – look underneath the underneath, if you think you have discerned the hidden meaning there is probably under meaning hidden behind that you haven't yet deciphered. Insults were not like her relationship with Draco, overt and spiteful, but rather hidden behind polite words and gestures and you lowered yourself only further in their eyes if you were unable to get the message.
It really couldn't be said often enough. This world was so, so weird. She missed the lack of patience and open insults; it was so much easier.
"Thank you for having me in your class," Calla continued without pause, "I will do my best to catch up with the material."
Abe-sensei looked like he was in his late twenties or early thirties. The shadows under his eyes were large, but that wasn't too uncommon at the moment. Everyone was working on very little sleep currently. He had blonde-brown hair and a large burn scar crawling from his cheek down to his neck and was made of lean muscle, tall and on the thin side.
Abe-sensei quirked up his eyebrow.
"I was under the impression you were mute," his tone was relaxed but she had immediately picked up on the increased tension in his muscles, ready to respond to a perceived attack.
"I didn't want to finish the Academy too fast as I don't know much of what a shinobi actually does," Calla clarified, recalling her discussion with Hashirama. She still really hoped it was more the silent ninja rather than full on confrontations, yet all the mentions in history had been of head-on confrontations with massive loss of life rather than sneaking in. It did not speak well for what was to come.
One war had been more than enough for her, thank you very much, but she understood sneaking in like an assassin and getting rid of the target. So many more would've been alive if they could have done that with Voldemort. At least this world didn't have horcruxes.
"While that demonstrates admirable self-awareness," Abe-sensei's eyes were flinty and had gone cold, he clearly disapproved and scorn dripped of his words. Calla didn't need her experience with the Dursleys to know that she had just been written off. "Konoha needs everyone pulling their weight; subterfuge against your comrades and sensei is an act of treason. Let that be a warning; next time we will not be so kind."
And she had just been written off as an outsider, despite her history stating her family was from here and threatened with T&I in rather obvious ways.
Boy, she was so, so glad she wasn't a teenager anymore (oh no, puberty would be coming again. Maybe she should ferry a few souls to the afterlife after all and skip this entire shindig – puberty was way too much to deal with and definitely avoided if she could. And, well, technically she could avoid it). Calla's hormone cocktail, continued endangerment, lack of information and abusive childhood had made her a rather suspicious and angry teenager. A teenager with the power of Death may not be the healthiest mix. Lucky she wasn't there yet.
Bowing again before Abe-sensei, deeper than before this time, Calla was glad that she had experience apologising to people who felt she'd wronged them even when she was certain she had not done anything.
"Please accept my sincere apologies, Abe-sensei, for this error in my judgement. I accept your criticism and will do better in future. I didn't think I would be able to serve Konoha well, but I have no intention of avoiding my duties."
Abe-sensei gave her a sharp nod, acknowledging her apology while also, somehow, simultaneously dismissing her as inconsequential. Very impressive; she kind of wished she knew how to do that. With a quick gesture which she interpreted to mean follow me, he led the way into the class and introduced her.
Calla suppressed a sigh, bowed yet again, to the class at large this time, and attempted to smile at the children in front of her. They were around nine to ten years old.
"Good morning. My name is Kara and I will joining your class today. Please take care of me," with another half-bow to Abe-sensei, she joined the other children.
Lunch. Finally. While she could follow along well enough with the reading and writing, half the knowledge, including historical, and shinobi skills still flew over her head. Looked like she would not return to a normal sleep schedule any time soon. Calla figured about 4 hours of sleep would be doable, with her magic compensating for the remainder. Any less would be hard to make work.
Just as she finally found a nice niche, on the ground underneath a large tree which provided a bit of cool shade – a happy reprieve from the glaring midday sun, she was interrupted.
There was a tiny child with black hair and black eyes and some sort of insignia on his shirt which meant he was either from a clan or a big civilian merchant family. Her research into the clans had to take a backseat to all the other things she had to catch up.
So far she knew there were the Luna-lookalikes with no pupils who could mind-read or take over your body? Something like that?
The Nara who were Hermione-like clever but also exceptionally lazy; they could move or take over shadows? It was all incredibly unclear, but they sounded like prime assassin material to her.
Akimichi, on the other hand, burned fat and turned it into chakra and were the physical frontline attacker.
The Uchiha… well, she'd intended to look them up after the Senju but it was hard to find a notable dead Uchiha who was not Madara. She'd tried one of the names on what she'd thought was the war memorial of the dead, an Uchiha Obito, but he hadn't been dead.
In conclusion, she knew very little, nothing about the noble clans or other famous clans and her theory of the war memorial stone was disproven as well. She wondered what it stood for instead. Another thing to research whenever she found she had breathing room.
And the little she did know could turn out to be wrong. Being a shinobi was hard, and information was sparse, especially about the clans. It was all word of mouth which as an orphan pretty much amounted to "ooh, they're so amazing, if I marry into a clan when I grow up, I'll never have to worry about food again". So, yeah, the extent of information from that front was incredibly limited. Clan people were amazing, stupendously awesome and gods among mortals as far as most orphans were concerned.
Yeah, not useful.
"I apologise," Calla started with a deeper bow, hoping she had judged the depth right, "is this your lunch spot?"
Dudley had always claimed wherever she was, was his usual spot and she had better make space for him post-haste.
"No," a mild headshake, eyes still intently fixed on her, pretending obliviousness to the other children watching their interaction. He seemed popular; probably a clan kid then. "I wanted to introduce myself. You were put in an upper class as well. I am Uchiha Itachi."
"Ah, pleasure to meet you too, Uchiha-san" so stiff, Calla internally mourned, watching the rigid child in front of her who was clearly worse at social interaction than her – and that was a feat in and of itself – and resorted to utmost politeness in its stead. Not so great for tiny children who wouldn't know what polite was if it hit them over the head.
"Thank you for introducing yourself. Would you like to share lunch with me and we can exchange our views on the educational system? What class did they put you in?"
Never rush, Calla reminded herself. Like a startled animal. Convert them slowly. Approach with caution and speak in their language – even if that means being formal, stiff and polite. She could do this. Just like Buckbeak – soon he'd let you get close enough so you could pet his head.
He really was adorable and so, so tiny. Luckily, Calla had a lot of practice hiding away the part of her that was vicious and angry on behalf of all these tiny children being sent into fights when they were too young and it was way too soon.
It wasn't right. From what she'd garnered from history and Hashirama, the very principle on which Konoha was founded and why the clans joined was because they didn't want child soldiers, they had wanted to build a better place for future generations and yet here they were right back at the beginning.
Her stilted conversation with Itachi resulted in her knowing pretty much nothing about the child except that he had a younger sibling who was born recently and who was the light in his life. Tiny Sasuke brought the child to life, eyes and expression growing more animated as she actively listened as he expounded on the virtues of the most amazing, lovable baby in the world – according to Itachi. While Itachi's fervent love for his brother was adorable, it saddened her to know that he clearly cared little for the shinobi career other than to protect his baby brother from it and any who sought to harm him. He should not yet have been exposed to the harsher realities of life, especially as life as a clan kid should have shielded him, but her talk with him about the Academy had made it clear that he had seen and understood more than he should at his age.
They parted after lunch going back to their respective classes; Itachi was a year above her. His father was the head of the Police department. For a few moments she had entertained letting either Itachi know about the abductions or bringing it to the attention of his father directly, but quickly dismissed it. Itachi hadn't spoken much about his family at all, but what he had said, made it clear that part of the reason for the pressure he was under stemmed from his family. A father who saw nothing wrong with his five-year-old (six? She hadn't asked but probably should) learning how to kill grown men and graduating at a young age, well, she wasn't sure he'd care about what happens to orphans. And she had no intention of involving Itachi in this; let him at least believe that his home was safe if they'd already disabused him of the notion of adults keeping him safe.
To be fair, Calla had never met him, talked with Itachi's father or interacted in any other way but her bad opinion was only reaffirmed when Itachi clearly avoided her the next day. Presumably family disapproval. Was it because she was an orphan? A girl? Because she wasn't as clever as him? Because her teacher had told her off as a potential traitor?
No matter which way she looked at it, she wasn't a danger to the boy and the father should not be prohibiting him from contact with other children; no wonder his social skills were in the toilet.
Oh well, neither was a reason to make Itachi's life worse at home (she knew what well-meaning intervention could do to make things worse at home, no way she would do that to someone else). So far, Calla didn't think there was any clear child abuse, maybe emotional neglect? One conversation only went so far and most kids here walked around with bruises or even casts as their childhood was built around fighting.
Maybe the adults in this world weren't entirely incompetent. One of the reasons she had so many young people die – so many babies and toddlers abducted and murdered – was apparently a guy called Orochimaru. He had been experimenting on the children. Yeah, somehow, he managed to surpass Voldemort in his casual disregard for human life. Or maybe Voldemort had merely been hindered somewhat by appeasing his followers in some ways; it's not like he had ever tried to tell Fenrir to stop biting or killing children.
But they had let him escape. She wasn't entirely sure how that happened. If you knew about him and had time to set up an ambush, how could you miss with so many highly trained elite assassins?
Either way, children were still dying, but not as many, and not as young. The kids were usually between the ages of six to ten. So far, she'd sent them onto the afterlife. They deserved some peace and healing.
Itachi graduated a few months later; she had never spoken to him again and would have to remain at the Academy for another year. At least Calla was slowly moving on from her spot as one of the last ones in class to the middle. Catching up on theory, history, chakra, jutsu and taijutsu all at once was no joke. She still wasn't entirely sure how she was doing it.
For taijutsu she'd taken to calling on a ghost to correct her – the difficulty had been in finding the right one. It couldn't be one who'd teach her clan kata or kata from other nations (she really didn't want to reinforce Abe-sensei's opinion of her as a traitor or spy) so it had to be someone in recent history familiar with the Academy stances who could correct her.
On a side note, Calla was unaware she was proving an intriguing puzzle to the Nara clan. The part of the forest where she trained was adjacent to Nara clan grounds and one of them had noticed her practising and, before he could say something, correct herself. This happened over and over again before she left at around midnight for the orphanage. Calla had noticed the man's soul nearby but as he hadn't bothered her, she'd let him be. He didn't appear to be in distress. As he returned to the same place, she picked a new training ground, but was unaware that didn't mean that Shikaku didn't spend his rare free time snuggling his baby son and pondering the orphan child and how she knew what to correct. It was an interesting puzzle. He'd mentioned it to one of his cousins and now there was the occasional sighting to reinforce that, yes, it was still happening, and there was a lot of speculation on how she did it.
Despite her actual age, Calla only managed to climb up to the upper ranks slowly and steadily but not the top spot. Konoha was breathing easier and people were returning to normal sleep schedules. The village had managed to, despite the massive loss of life, retain their normal mission quota. And despite Orochimaru's defection from the village, another blow to their reputation and more lives lost in the ensuing fight. The Kyubi attack had occurred nearly 2 years ago. Orochimaru had been discovered over half a year thereafter.
And she was going to be put into a team. Unfortunately, Calla still had not figured out how to handle children when they thought of her as the younger than themselves. They were either patronising and arrogant or derisive and upset. They didn't understand what they had signed up for and saw it as fun, exciting and appeared to also have somehow talked to Hashirama, because all of them seemed to think the kunoichi would be the damsel in distress and the boys would beat people up in a full frontal assault.
Yes, something was definitely rotten in Denmark. She blamed Hashirama; not sure how, but she was certain that this was all somehow his fault. And yes, she did understand that she was in a class without any clan kids which comprised of orphans and civilians, but a belief this pervasive and entrenched had to come from somewhere, right?
So, Calla remained ostracised by the class and had also failed to reach out to any clan children other than one chat with Itachi a year ago. The mission to be memorable was not going so great. And now she would be on a team with people who either thought themselves superior or were upset if she was better than them at something; either way, her teammates likely already disliked her. Not the most auspicious beginning.
It was like Hogwarts all over again; your house will be your family speech McGonagall had given them in first year. Poppycock. Her so-called family vacillated between loving and hating her, bullying her and praising her and remained silent when others came after her. Some family. This looked like it would be the exact same thing again. Nice speech but in reality nothing more than a big fat load of lies fed to gullible children.
At least she'd finally get her own apartment now that she had graduated – small victories and all that. And maybe someone somewhere could finally record her actual age. Well, at least the age of her physical body. At least she'd been thoroughly distracted from dealing with anything to do with the war or her part in it. Maybe once she'd been on missions, they would actually organise some sort of mental support for them. Hopefully, at least. Oh well, team assignments were in a few days and there was nothing she could do at this stage but wait it out.