A couple months passed, and we celebrated Shuu's sixth birthday on December 31. It also just so happened to be the last day of the year, so Imiki wrapped my poor tiny body up in a yukata and paraded me down into Konoha to celebrate the coming of the new year with Kouko and Shuu, who showed up in sleek Uchiha-branded yukata. We spent the night getting pushed along with the crowds, snatching sticks of treats whenever we could. I felt like a kindergartener from my first life all over again, gripping at my friends' hands so we didn't lose each other. At the end of the night, we watched the fireworks go off, and Shuu showed us his fireball jutsu progress in an attempt to flashily light our sparklers, but it...got a little out of hand.
At least no one had gotten any third-degree burns that night.
Winter seemed to freeze and thaw in the blink of an eye, but the cold air stuck around long after the last bits of frost had melted away. It was almost time to enroll in the academy, and Imiki made the trip down with me to pay the fees and sign me up properly. I was just excited to have something to do, finally. Imiki had been preoccupied with missions and...disappearing without notice lately, so I'd had to train on my own. When school let out, I had Shuu and Naruto to talk to, at least, but making the trip all the way to the academy just to see them was tiring, so I saw them more on weekends than weekdays.
And before long, it was the day of the entrance ceremony.
I regretted making fun of Shuu for being nervous then, because I sure as hell was nervous now. What was I supposed to wear? Would the usual tunic and poofy pants combo cut it today? How was I supposed to do my hair!?
"Futaba-chan?" Imiki stuck her head into my closet, where I stood ironically at a loss at what I should wear.
I turned around, fixing my aunt with a look of desperation. "Imiki-nee…I dunno how to get ready…" I all but blubbered.
"I actually have something for you," Imiki said, brightening up. She held out a pale yellow tunic to me, and I took it curiously. My aunt continued, "It's a shirt to commemorate your first day of school! Put it on, put it on!"
I obliged, slipping off my sleep shirt and tugging on the tunic. It was loose and breathed well—ninja-grade fabric, but small enough for kids. Before, I had been wearing standard clothes, but this tunic felt...expensive.
Is that what Imiki had been saving up for?
"But what's the thing on the back?" I asked, craning my neck to get a good look at the symbol. It had a three-pronged crest that almost reminded me of the Adidas logo in shape, with a yellow centre, and underneath it were two additional black leaf-shaped marks. From what I could see of it, I was tempted to call it a flower.
Imiki looked at the symbol with a sort of fondness, explaining gently, "It's a water lily, Futaba-chan. It's a very special symbol to me, and it was to your mother, too."
The topic of my mother never stopped being a sensitive subject for Imiki, so I tried not to linger on it whenever it came up. Still, the water lily piqued my curiosity, and I couldn't help but pry further. "Why?"
That was when Imiki paused, her enthusiasm faltering. "It was the symbol of our clan."
Clan? I never knew that my mom was part of a clan. My father hadn't been, and I later found out that my dad had been an orphan for most of his life. But Mom had never talked about her lineage or her past, and all I knew about her family was that she was related to Imiki. "We have a clan?"
Imiki nodded. "The Nagayuu clan, yes…"
The name rung a bell vaguely. Nagayuu Imiki was what people called Imiki whenever she was called for missions, but most people called my aunt by Asagiri under the assumption that she was my mother and not my aunt. Imiki never corrected them with her proper last name, either, almost like she was hesitant to even disclose her true identity.
"Where are they now?" I asked, starting to frown. Why didn't I see any of the other clan members at the funeral? If we really were part of a clan, why were Imiki and I always alone? Where was our support after Mom's death?
Imiki stayed silent. I knew how to interpret silences at this point.
But that wasn't enough of an answer for me; it didn't even begin to answer my questions. I'd never seen anything resembling the name Nagayuu on the memorial stone. That was what was adding to my frustration—why didn't I know anything? Why hadn't I heard of the Nagayuu clan at all? It wasn't even the same anxiety I felt as I failed to recall what it was that was bugging me about the Uchiha clan, it was a plain lack of information entirely. And I felt helpless, useless whenever I didn't know anything about something.
As my emotions started to build, the frustration ignited a familiar tingling under my skin. The chakra condition. What was that Imiki said about it? That it ran in our family? "And this glowy chakra problem, is this a clan thing?" I demanded, my frown becoming deeper. Just how much had Imiki been keeping from me over the course of my lifetime?
Imiki sighed, shaking her head. Her eyes were mournful, a deep bitter pain present in them that made me falter for a second. "Futaba-chan, calm down."
"How am I supposed to calm down when you never tell me anything?" I snapped, my grip on my tunic white-knuckled. The tingling sensation spread and grew until it began to sting, at which point I gasped and loosened my grip on my tunic. My arms had red blotches all over them now. I scowled at them, then at Imiki. "Tell me what is wrong with me!"
"Nothing is wrong with you, Futaba-chan!" Imiki finally snapped back. Her eyes shone for a second—not with tears, but with light. She took a deep breath, closing her eyes and seeming to collect herself. "It's something that runs in the clan, that much is true. Our chakra has a tendency to bubble up with emotion and hurt the user in the process, like you've just demonstrated." She took a step towards me, taking out a roll of bandages from her pocket and getting started on my arms. "The Uchiha clan has the sharingan, and you could almost say that the Nagayuu clan had this."
I balked at my aunt. So I had a chakra allergy for a kekkei genkai!? "Why haven't you been teaching me to control it?"
Imiki fixed me with a sharp look. "There is no real way to control it. All you can do is learn how to control your chakra in general and use it only in small amounts so that it can't linger under your skin and cause damage."
Small amounts of chakra...this was awful. No powerful jutsu used just small amounts of chakra. "But what about ninjutsu? Imiki-nee, you're a jounin!"
"I'm a bukijutsu specialist, Futaba-chan," Imiki stated like she was breaking the news of a pet's death to a child. "That's why I have so many weapons."
She finished bandaging my arms and I stood there in an upset silence. This was a great thing to learn on my first day of school.
"I'm actually glad we got to go over this," Imiki murmured. "Make sure you mind your chakra usage at the academy. I can't be there to help you anymore." She stood up and left my closet, looking in from the hallway. "I'm sorry, Futaba-chan. We can't do anything about our limitations, we merely work around them. Now let's go, or you'll be late for the entrance ceremony."
I was left standing in my little closet room, staring in the mirror at the water lily stitched onto my back.
I couldn't see shit from behind the hulk of a boy I'd been put behind.
At the age of five, Akimichi Chouji was already much bulkier and much taller than me. I thought that being near the beginning of the alphabet would give me better chances of being front row, but apparently I had no such luck, and they had sorted us in alphabetically-ordered columns rather than rows. So I leaned slightly to my right, trying to see around Chouji and peer at the Hokage himself, who was currently giving a speech I hadn't much been paying attention to. Something about the Will of Fire being carried on in our generation, our duty to our village.
I was honestly more preoccupied with identifying as many recognizable people in the crowd as I could without appearing too obvious. In front of me was Chouji, but in front of him was...bug boy. What was his name? Shino!
I stole a glance behind me, spotting Imiki in the crowd with a solemn expression on her face as the Hokage continued to speak. She didn't see me break the uniformity to look back at her.
I also spotted Sasuke way back in the crowd, his distinct hairstyle sticking out in my vision. A head of platinum blonde, possibly Ino, also stood near the back. A pineapple-like ponytail, maybe Shikamaru—but those were all I could catch before the commanding voice of the Hokage caught my attention once again.
It was impossible to pay attention to even the most commanding of speeches when the burns still tingled on my arms and the residual anger tingled in my gut even more. Head bowed, I gritted my teeth and wracked my mind for anything I knew from the original series—anything. Anything important. But nothing came to me except names.
Dammit, what was the point of being here if I couldn't utilize my greatest asset—my knowledge?
My memories were only getting weaker and weaker as time passed, and it'd been a while since I had had a dream concerning my past life. Soon, I'd have no advantages here, and no power, either.
It was only when children began to file out to find their classroom sortings when I was shaken back to reality, kids brushing past me. A hand gripped my shoulder, Imiki coming up from behind me and giving me a smile.
"Congratulations, Futaba-chan! You're officially an academy student now!" she said, giving my shoulder a squeeze. I offered no response, and she nudged me in the direction of the other kids. "Go find your classroom, okay?"
I nodded and started towards the bulletin board absently.
"Oi! Asagiri Futaba!" a familiar voice called from above. I looked up confusedly. The hell?
I immediately broke out into a grin once I squinted at one of the windows on the second storey and identified the voice. It was Shuu, sticking his head out the window and waving down at me. Had the other class been watching us the whole time? I could faintly see the outlines of other students behind him.
His shout seemed to draw attention from the kids around me, who started to murmur amongst themselves and direct their gazes towards me, staring up in the middle of it. Looked like Shuu had just exposed my identity to my entire new peer group. I pinked at the sudden attention, but the bad mood that had enveloped me since the start of my day lifted as I stared up at Shuu's excitedly grinning face. I beamed back and waved.
"Congratulations on becoming an academy student!" he continued to yell as best he could.
"Thanks, Shuu!" I called back, still laughing at the way his voice cracked as he shouted. Shuu gave me one last salute before he disappeared back into his classroom. I sure hoped the teacher wasn't waiting to lecture him for that.
With renewed confidence, I strolled right up to the bulletin board to find my classroom. I eventually did find my name on a list of other alarmingly familiar names.
Right near the top of the list was my name, printed nice and neat.
Asagiri Futaba.
But right above it?
Aburame Shino.
Akimichi Chouji.
I didn't like where this was going. My eyes skimmed down the list, growing more desperate by the second.
Haruno Sakura. Hyuuga Hinata.
Uchiha Sasuke.
Uzumaki Naruto.
Imiki finally found me, peering at the list easily with her superior height. "Oh? You're in the same class as Naruto-kun, too? Looks like your academy days will be plenty interesting, Futaba-chan!"
I pulled at my face. Between the whispers of who's that Asagiri girl, the complaints of a few girls at being placed in the same class as that Uzumaki kid, and the swooning I could already hear over guess who, I was starting to desperately regret not registering for the academy in the fall.
hkk ok i'm sorry again for the chapter mix up last week but it has been fixed (in case you haven't read it) and i've fixed up my organizing system!
in case you're curious, futaba's name is 朝霧フタバ (morning mist futaba) and imiki's is 永夕イミキ (endless evening imiki) :0
(i wanted to do more with the character 永 since it means endless/forever/eternal, sort of in reference to futaba's discoveries of reincarnation, but i couldn't figure out how to smoothly)
shorter chapter, i know, but my chapters tend to fall in the 2k to 3k range, and my original blueprint for this chapter would have had it way exceed the upper 3k limit i try to adhere to, so i split it in half :} i figure that consistent shorter updates beat less frequent longer updates and they're much easier to write, too.
find me on twitter at altssul!
