The next day we were back in class. I took the trouble to take notes for Kirin, although she was diligent, I wanted her to have as much ease as possible and it was through my sense of organization. Kirin and I, like all Uchiha, have a photographic memory – it was an open secret that our eyes, even without the Sharingan are betters than those of others and connected to our brain in a very specific way: the evolution of the Uchiha has done its job and allowed us to retain a well organized image very easily, whether by the colors or a very precise pattern. (Only a few geniuses had the joy of getting an eidetic memory which I had fortunately benefited.)
My sister had not the necessary perceptive to make such a note instantly – she contented herself with writing everything the Sensei said word for word, as most of the other students, except for Nara who was too lazy (and intelligent) for it, and Minato who was too smart. So I was taking care of it for her, I already knew all this anyway.
The rest of the morning passed with the "civil" lessons of the academy, once the bell for lunch rang, the Sensei said "after the meal, these are the lessons for the Kunoichis. During that time, you are free to do what you boys want." Surprisingly, no, it wasn't that amazing, this idea disliked me very much. Before anyone could get up or the Sensei leave the room, my hand was lifted: "Sensei, why do the Kunoichis have an extra lesson?"
He blinked eyes on me, as if I were the idiot here "well, there are some things that girls have to learn." Kirin beside me bent her head, she had a keen mind when it concerned the differences between women and men: a vestige of our mother's inheritance. "But Sensei, I must learn all that my brother learns. Why couldn't he learn everything I learn?" Morisada-Sensei looked at us both before sighing, he seemed to have understood something, but I was convinced that he was mistaken "it will be necessary to separate you both, one time or another." Well, Sensei had the wrong problem. So I was repeating my question "Sensei, what are they going to learn?" He shrugged his shoulders "I'm not going to teach it, but I was told it was the language of flowers."
My eyes were growing, any feminist idea had left my mind and only selfishness reigned: "I want to participate. If one day I irritate a Kunoichi and she sends me flowers, I would like to know how much I risk to die poisoned... Or worse. " Minato beside me nodded fervently " I too want to participate. Plus, we could be the ones who need to send the flowers." I had to agree with him. Especially...
Kirin by my side laughing "Sensei, you must let Suzaku participate. He's very afraid of flowers." She remembered it then. Morisada-Sensei looked at us strangely but shook his shoulders: he looked so little motivated "very well, but do not come to complain when you find it annoying."
He left the room and Tsume threw herself on us "afraid of the flowers?", Minato beside me looked at me with curiosity before encouraging Kirin to speak. I was at this moment so embarrassed that my face took a neutral tone immediately and until the end of the day, Kirin began to tell this event... "We were at the flower shop Yamanaka two years ago, I think? We were looking for flowers with father, and Suzaku went away to walk alone in the shop." She laughed a little more, probably remembering the scene "We heard a scream, so we went to where he was gone... He was being eaten by a carnivorous flower! » Tsume and Minato laugh with her heartily.
The trauma of children was not to be taken lightly. I really thought I was going to die, I came out of the flower almost in tears and my clothes smoked of the acid that the plant had cleared to kill me and reduce me to mush. The worst? I think father was as traumatized as I am. Or at least, much more angry, because he burned the plant and almost refused to pay for the damage done to the store. Infact, it had been such a controversy at the time that the Hokage himself had to play mediators between the leader of the Clan Yamanaka and father.
I believe that the Yamanaka and the Uchiha will never forget this moment – since then the store is secretly dubbed "the Mouth of Hell" by the Uchiha. As much to say that they lost all Uchiha client and that they were not close to regain them. Our neighborhood was very dull before an old woman Uchiha and her daughter opened a flower business, bringing a little life into every home of the clan.
No one doubted of the famous saying anymore "a Uchiha never forgive so don't antagonize them." anymore.
The first months of the academy passed in a relative calm, Minato and I were just in the lead for the ranking. Our time together was spent between moments of complicity and extreme rivalries. Since we were getting the maximum scores in writing, Sensei could classify us on the physical part – I had started at the age of one year, I had a very good advantage. But that advantage was very quickly reduced. Minato a genius and something in me was afraid of it. What if an orphan civilian was stronger than me, the heir of the Uchiha clan? What if I finish being beaten? What if he gets stronger than me and I can no longer match him?
It was selfish questions and my brain knew it: that fear I felt was not justified, and yet... It always pushed me and never stop, my status as a genius was revoke for me. I had an advance of years and Minato would soon surpass me: I couldn't be a genius. Every day after the academy, I trained tirelessly until the evening fell. I was running faster, I jumped higher, I accelerated faster, I was silent, my katas were more and more fluid, I started to train at ShurinkenJutsu: I did not even realize all the abilities that I had increased and the gap that I dug between Minato and me.
I stopped the intensive training at the end of our first year, when Kirin decided that I had done enough. For fear of being overwhelmed, I had completely forgotten that I was not alone. My sister had let me do it, surely, she had felt my distress. She had spent her time at the academy quietly, the best Kunoichi of the class in terms of theory but she was behind Tsume in physics. They were, however, very good friends and no rivalry was born between them.
"Suzaku." My twin sister for once had a serious face, she had just entered the training field of the Uchiha district that I had been using every day for almost a year. "Someday you'll find stronger than you. Maybe it will be Minato, maybe someone else. But there will be someone. " I sighed and put away my equipment " and what are you getting at?" She reminded me so much of mother when she resumed the word "Minato is not your enemy. But if you keep seeing him with so much fear, it turned into hatred! One day, brother, maybe you will only look at it with disgust and this friendship that you have formed will be a bond that you will have broken from your own will, because of your selfishness." I had never heard Kirin speak like this, raising the eyes of a kunai, I made up, with her eyes. Without any smile on her face... I knew she was a mirror of what I looked like every day. She seemed so cold, so distant, so far away. But in her eyes, unlike mine, shine an ardent flame.
"You have to be stronger than that, Suzaku. This fear that you stir is not what you are. Mother told you to become an exceptional man: and an exceptional man would never give up a friendship! Pulled yourself together!"
It was a mighty slap in the face as well as in the heart that my sister gave me.
I was training less, I was no longer obsessed with Minato. Becoming strong to become strong had never been my goal, after all. Become strong to protect those I love... Yes, that was the one I was after. Mentally, I wondered how I lost myself so much? What pushed me to go that far? For the last few months, I had not given him a single word of advice. I had watched his progress without showing any emotion: Minato was smart, he realized something. But he had never questioned me, when I remember the past months, I realize that he patiently waited for me: it is as if he knew the instructions for a Uchiha.
But it was much more than that and I realized it quickly in the weeks following the Kirin's reprimand. The academy taught us the ShurikenJutsu, I had really taken a lot in advance, I thought a little shamefully seeing Minato and my sister having trouble. The low head, I murmured that only Minato hears "your wrist must accompany your movement." It was just embarrassing, after so long to have said nothing, I finally told him how to do it.
However, Minato surprised me, as always, he definitely did not usurp the light of his way: he smiled. "Thank you, Suzaku." Embarrassed, the fact that I had avoided him and that he still thanks me, I turned my head to look elsewhere, raising my shoulders for only answer. I heard him laughing before watching him throw his next Kunai: It was a perfect shoot. Sensei behind us applauds and Tsume whistled joyfully.
It would almost seem as if things had become the same again.
The day at the academy was over, Kirin had decided to follow Tsume to the Inuzuka district: Apparently, the puppies were born, and the leader of the clan had invited her daughter's best friend to see that. I had dragged a little more into the room, wanting to do my homework before I went home. Minato had greeted me then was gone. I finished my exercises after thirty minutes and left the room.
Before I completely left the academy, I heard noise, more precisely the noise of Kunai hitting the target. Only the orphans and the civilians used the training grounds of the school, I knew only one of them who will train after the classes. I was going, silently, and as I thought, Minato was training. Quietly, I sat on a bench in Minato's field of vision to spot me. He finished throwing the kunai that he had in his hands and turned to me, smiling as always. Sometimes that smile upset me terribly.
In a dull tone, I asked him, "Why aren't you disturbed by me? I dodged you for months. "Minato smiles a little more, his eyes pucker joyfully" You're my friend, Suzaku, I trust you." My heart is packed, my eyes grow a little more. A friend. I had always had only Kirin, of course, Tsume and Minato have been closed to me, I had even thought that I would become friends with them. But it had stopped there: My train of thinking had stopped to "become a friend". All this time, Minato and even probably Tsume me have considered a friend – and I had never returned the favor to them.
I knew I was a strategic and manipulative person – I knew Minato would be important, I knew I had to be close to him. I knew that Tsume was an heiress, I had to be close to her. I knew I might be teamed up with Nara or Hyuuga, so I had to be close to them. I had never seen things as they really were, I had never seen that I had become friends with two great people and especially with the one who stood in front of me and who expect of me nothing.
Minato trusted me. He had not told me anything, nor even acted because he believed in me, simply. For the first time, with someone who was not a member of my close family, I sincerely smile. A flame in me began to burn.
"Hey, how about we train together? We could go to the Uchiha district, to my training ground, we'll be in peace. His smile did not upset me at all. "It seems like a good idea."
In the middle of our second year at the academy, Minato beat me for the first time. When I don't lose the next time, it won't be his last victory. By training together, his forces had risen drastically, not because he was training against me – well, it was also playing, but it was mostly because I had the right way to train. As the heir to the clan, my father always took the time to explain to me the exercises I had to do in order to become stronger – and this is exactly the ones that Minato and I were doing together, every day after the academy on my (our) field training.
«Suzaku... Son, you're second in the physical rankings." Father and I sat face to face in the position of Seiza. I lowered my head, conscious but not ashamed – I thought I had made a great personal path to feel this way and I was rather proud of it. "Minato is the first." There was a silence "do you let him win for any reason?" Surprised, I raised my head: I could not decipher his expression. "No father. Minato is very strong, and we have been training together for a few months now."
While at the theoretical rankings, we both had the maximum score, the physical ranking was done with the most fights won during the evaluations. We had won against our other opponents and Sensei had the idea to beat us against each other – where I lost. So Minato was ranked first.
"Why did you help him to surpass you?" My father asked severely, he remained after all the leader of the Clan Uchiha and he had to ask me that excellence. In a way, I had to disappoint him that day. But I was not disappointed with myself, I did not want to go back to my first state: Too obsessed with something to not see the rest. How could I explain this to my father? How could I put words on all my feelings? The solution comes to me as an enlightenment, a flash of genius, a memory marked by the misunderstanding now deciphered slowly.
"Father, do you remember the poem of the Hokage? It began like this "when the tree is allowed to dance, we find flames". With a raised eyebrow, my father asked me without a word where I wanted to go, all I had to do was to put words on the idea that had just arisen in my mind: "in the Clan age, our ancestor Uchiha Madara called his battles dance. I think the Hokage meant that... Well, the tree would be Konoha and the dance a war or at least a battle against our village. As for the flames? It is you, the shinobi of Konoha and soon, it will be me as well as Minato, Kirin and all the others."
"I think... No, I'm sure, what the Hokage wanted to say is that we are comrades. Minato will watch my back and I'll have his. I trust him and I'm proud that he can already beat me. Maybe in a month, I'll be stronger again than he is, or maybe I won't be able to surpass him in 10 years. But we become strong for the same reason and this reason is to protect Konoha as well as all the people who live there." I didn't know how to explain myself, but I didn't need to do it anymore.
Father had risen and left the room silently, at the door, he glanced at me satisfied and nodded: "Suzaku, continuous as well."
Suzaku learns a lesson that he will remember with all his heart.
Next part: two characters make their entry!