Chapter 17: High School Orientation Arc - Enrolling Stones
Just a quick heads up: I might not write the high school parts correctly, since I have not experienced high school for myself. However, I will try to recreate it as if it were middle school, so that you won't be too surprised to see everybody learning about middle school stuff in high school. Enjoy, and please leave a review if you did!
Disclaimer: Naruto and the Akatsuki do not belong to me!
Kaiya's POV
I was woken up early by my suddenly excited little sister.
"Onee-chan!" screamed Kagami, shaking my covers and annoying the living daylights out of my two roommates. "Get up, now! I need to tell you something important! You too, Konan-chan and Pein-san!"
Yawning, I glared at my little sister with exhausted eyes. "Let me guess. Something exciting happened in one of your dreams where a unicorn and a fairy rode the rainbow into tomorrow? Or maybe Anakin Skywalker became a good guy again, but not like how it happened in the sixth episode?"
She shook her head, giggling and clapping her hands in front of my face. "Nope, but it does involve a dream! Onee-chan, can you help me wake up everybody else in the entire house, too? Please?"
Kagami shot me a pair of baby-doll eyes, despite knowing well that they had no effect on me. Nevertheless, I decided to go with her, since now that she had scared the instant ramen out of me, I couldn't get back to my snoozefest anytime soon.
"Fine," I groaned. "But be very kind about it, especially to the Akatsuki members. I'm not sure if they take kindly to being woken up so rudely at—" I turned to check my alarm clock and gasped— "6:00 AM?"
She grabbed my arm and began to tug me out from under the covers. "Onee-chan, just get everybody up! It's very, very important!"
Seething, I reluctantly exited the warmth of my bed, trying to remember exactly why I had adopted Kagami in the first place. But then again, maybe it was important. Perhaps Kagami wasn't talking nonsense, but then again, she was only seven years old. And the way I knew it, seven-year-olds have really big imaginations that often got them into trouble. This was well supported by the fact that she had slept through dinner the day before, for more than twelve hours. If anybody could easily fall asleep peacefully, it was her.
"What is it now?" grumbled Pein as Kagami began tugging on his and Konan's arms. Konan said nothing, but squinted skeptically at the little girl who was trying to yank her out of her comfortable sleeping bag.
"There's something I need to tell you!" she trilled, letting go of their arms. "Help me recruit everyone to the living room!"
Jumping up and down rapidly, she ran towards another room, almost as quick as a bolt of lightning.
Who gave her sugar so early in the morning? I wondered, grumbling as I followed her out of the room, with Konan and Pein behind me. I hope it wasn't Tobi, since he is her buddy and roommate. In addition, he seems to have a knack for being annoyingly hyperactive...
"Naoki-nii-chan! Naoki-nii-chan!" she shouted, diving into her brother's room and bouncing on top of him. "Get up! I have to tell you something!" Next, she began screaming the same words into Sasori's and Deidara's poor ears.
All of a sudden, I felt like I had been spared.
"What the hell, un?" roared Deidara. "We're trying to sleep here! What could be so important that it involves us getting up?"
"Same here!" huffed Kakuzu from the hallway, clutching an extremely irritated Twinkleshine as Tobi bounced up and down next to them. "Why can't we all just get some rest? It's freaking six in the morning!"
"Tobi was ordered to wake everybody up!" the masked man trilled in a singsong voice. "So Tobi did! Wheee!"
Deidara facepalmed, watching as Yukio, Itachi, and Dragon filed into the hallway. "Who in the world ordered you to wake us all up so early — oh wait, I know it already — Kagami, right?"
He clapped in response, cheering loudly for the blond-haired boy. "Yay! Senpai guessed it correctly, Kagami-chan! Deidara-senpai guessed it!"
No wonder that he followed her commands, I thought to myself. He even calls her "Kagami-chan" now. What exactly are these two up to, waking us all up so early? But now that they've gotten me up, they also indirectly reminded me that I still need to buy lavender perfume to return Twinkleshine and Dragon back into Hidan and Kisame.
"So," I began once everybody crowded into Naoki's room, "Kagami-chan, why did you and Tobi wake us all up so early today?"
She took a deep breath, then began. "It's about...this dream I had last night. It was kind of scary, but at the same time, fascinating. It was all dark, and then, an random voice spoke to me from the darkness. Luckily, he was friendly, so we had a small conversation with each other. He even told me what his name was."
"What is it, then?" Naoki asked her.
"He told me that his name was Shisui Uchiha," she answered, which made a couple of people in the room gasp, namely Itachi and Naoki.
"What exactly did he tell you?" Itachi piped up, surprising even more people in the room by his sudden curiosity. "Recite to us word for word everything you heard from this man."
Realizing that both Itachi and Shisui had the same surname, I opened my mouth to speak, but my little sister beat me to it.
"I don't know about word for word," she told him, "but he did tell me an important message regarding the jutsu that brought you to our world as cats. He called it the Neko Asuka Noroi no Jutsu, or the Cat Perfume Curse Jutsu. It can be used to turn up to ten shinobi into cats at once and sends them to another dimension. But once the user turns the tenth shinobi into a cat, they will die."
"You're lying," muttered Kakuzu grumpily. "There's no way that I will believe such a childish tale like that. In addition, you fell asleep for what sixteen hours. That's plenty of time to get a seven-year-old's imagination running."
"Perhaps my imouto is not making this up," countered Naoki, and Yukio nodded. "She is too young to watch Naruto, so she has literally no idea what a shinobi or a jutsu is. If she knows the name of the jutsu that sent you here, then Shisui probably did visit her in a dream."
I decided to have her continue her message to us from Shisui. "What else, imouto?"
"He said that he may have discovered a way to get you all back to your own world," Kagami continued, earning the attention of every single person in the room. "Shisui mentioned something about a scintillating orb, which can be made out of fragments that apparently appear every time you guys experience a strong emotion or concept. He said that things like finding peace, love, and happiness can lead to having shards of it appearing, which can be combined to make this orb that can help people travel through dimensions. Also, he told me how we can increase our chances of getting them to appear."
"How?" said Pein. "What exactly must we do in order to get the orb and return?"
Kagami stopped smiling. "He wasn't sure if you all were going to like this, but the best way to get the shards to appear is to go through the experiences one goes through in high school."
Nearly everybody groaned at that.
"School?" muttered Deidara in disbelief. "I don't need to go back to that boring place, un! I already know how to be a ninja!"
I laughed, shaking my head. "In our world, school isn't about teaching people how to be ninjas, or we would all be wearing forehead protectors and throwing weapons at each other. We're being taught how to solve mathematical problems and calculations, learning about world history and past wars, and exploring different potential careers, such as playing musical instruments or making clay sculptures in art class."
At the last line, Deidara's eyes lit up. "Did you say clay sculptures?"
"Yup!" I said happily. "They're really fun to make, and sometimes, we can paint them all pretty and take them home, like that clay pot you blew up the other day. But yeah, art class is pretty fun, although it isn't always sculpture-centric."
"Count me in, un!" responded Deidara. "If I can make art there, then I'll attend your high school!"
Kagami cheered. "Awesome! Actually, I've kind of decided on the ones that should go to onee-chan's high school and the ones who shouldn't. Deidara, Sasori, Itachi, Hidan, and Konan all look like teens, so they should go. No offense to the ones that I didn't say, but you are too scary to attend the school."
"Why don't we just use the Henge no Jutsu?" suggested Deidara. "That way, we can all go, un."
Pein shook his head. "It's not as easy in this world. Since our chakra prowess seems to weaken while we are under the effects of the Neko Asuka Noroi, even a simple transformation has proven to be difficult to perform. The only jutsu that we can perform are our specialty techniques, so we must be very careful."
"I don't really know about this plan," muttered Naoki. "Naruto is a very popular anime, so everybody might know who you guys are."
Suddenly, I got an idea. "Why don't we use our old collection of hair dye? That way, the other students won't be able to tell. Plus, we can have them assume false identities, so that no fangirls and fanboys come after them."
"Perfect!" exclaimed Kagami. "Let's get coloring, then!"
The Akatsuki members whose names were called backed away from us, except for Konan.
"What color do you want your hair to be dyed?" asked Kagami, but Konan shook her head.
"I practiced all night," she said, then quickly made a hand seal. "Transform!"
A smaller cloud of smoke filled the room, then quickly cleared to reveal Konan's new look. She had short black hair, a silver flower crown, and was wearing a casual outfit consisting of a white sweater and sweatpants. Her piercing and eyeshadow had disappeared, but her eyes remained the same, amber shade.
"I think that I can hold this transformation for up to six hours," Konan said. "That the usual length of a high school day, right?"
"Correct," I confirmed. "But what will you call yourself while in this form?"
"Osaka," she replied emotionlessly.
"Can anybody else do the jutsu?" asked Kagami. Everybody else shook their heads, and Deidara gave it a go before being proved unsuccessful.
She jumped up and down excitedly in response. "Makeover it is!"
Deidara's POV
I stared at my reflection angrily in the mirror, tick marks appearing on my head.
My beautiful hair had been bleached a light brown, and Kaiya had insisted that I should keep my hair straight from now on. I had also borrowed some of Naoki's extra clothes — a dark gray t-shirt and a pair of jeans — instead of the Akatsuki cloak. Because open-toed shoes could not be worn in school, Kaiya had also let me borrow a pair of black and white sneakers, as well as a pair of white socks.
The outfit was something that I was totally fine with. However, I wanted to return my hair to normal.
"Why did I have to dye my hair, un?" I sighed. "I could have practiced the Henge no Jutsu!"
"Deal with it, brat," mumbled Sasori, whose hair was bleached platinum blonde. He was wearing a red sweater over a thin blue t-shirt, along with a pair of jeans as well. "If you want to return to our world again, then just deal with it for a while. The children did explain that hair dye does come off, but we will need it to look like seventeen-year-olds."
I scowled. "Easy for you to say, danna! You're a freaking puppet, so you pretty much look like a sixteen-year-old boy no matter what, un!"
He shrugged. "Whatever. But get used to not calling me danna anymore. I'll have to call you Masaru, and you have to call me Akihiko."
"Hidan doesn't seem too happy with being called Eiji," I remarked. "But then again, leave it to him to be a complainer about being called a name that means 'peace', un. Konan will be easy to call Osaka, but I'm not sure about calling Itachi Takumi."
Sasori shrugged. "We'll all get used to it eventually. For now, I think we should be good enough to visit this seamstress that Kaiya was talking about earlier."
"Well?" Kaiya called to us from the door. "Are you done checking yourselves out? We've got to go before it's too late! Plus, we've got to get more lavender perfume to turn the kittens back to normal!"
I sighed. "Fine! But the outfit better be good, or else I'll jutsu attend your school in normal clothes!"
I followed her out the door, and Sasori came out last, making sure that he had locked the door behind him.
"Where is this tailor shop anyway?" I asked.
"Luckily, it's right around the block, where my high school is," replied Kaiya. "Kosaki-san, the main seamstress, should have a few school uniforms all set for us already."
We continued down the block until we reached the place: a small store that faced a huge school, which I assumed to be the school we were going to attend.
"Let's go inside," Kaiya said, and we all followed her into the small building.
As soon as we stepped foot in the shop, the seamstress was already there to greet us.
"Kaiya-chan!" she exclaimed, surprised. "What brings you here so early, especially on a non-student day?"
"Transfer students," she answered, and the woman began eyeing me and Sasori. "Four boys and one girl, Kosaki-san. We need five uniforms for them in order to enroll them in my high school."
Nodding, the seamstress reached into one of the stacks of clothes she had piled on her desk. Pulling out a couple of what I assumed to be school uniforms, she turned to me first.
At first, I expected her to hand me a male outfit, but imagine my fury when she showed me the horror of my life.
A female uniform.
"I'm telling you, I'm not a freaking lady, un!" I yelled at the lady named Kosaki-san, shoving the outfit away. "I'm a man! I'll even freaking prove it to you, if you still don't understand!"
In response, her face turned white, and she backed away from me. "Alright, alright! I know that you're a boy, but I thought the girls' uniform would look better on you. In addition, so many boys have enrolled in that school, so we're currently experiencing a small shortage of supplies for their outfits."
"Kosaki-san," Kaiya reassured the shivering seamstress, "I'm terribly sorry about Masaru. He...tends to get quite hot-headed and temperamental if you mistake him for a girl. But still, I guess three boys' uniforms and two girls' outfits would be fine for us."
"What?" I growled, shoving an accusing finger in her face. "You...You betrayer! I thought you just said that I'm not a girl! Make up your mind, because you were just fine the first time, un!"
She shook her head quickly. "I'm not, so chill. The reason why we're getting you a girls' uniform is to save money and help out Kosaki-san by not pushing her through the trouble of forcing her to make so many boys' uniforms. Besides, she's right. You won't look that bad at all in a skirt, long or short."
I sent her a death glare, and she smirked. "Kaiya, you are so going to pay for this later, un!"
"Actually, I kind of have to right now," Kaiya grinned, handing Kosaki-san the money to pay for all of the uniforms. "Wouldn't it be considered stealing if I left the store without paying for all of our clothes?"
"You know well what I meant, un!" I scowled. "I don't look good in a girls' outfit, no matter what color you bleach my hair!"
Kosaki-san gave me a weird look, then went back to retrieve the rest of the outfits for everybody.
"I'm going to contact the school," she announced once she handed the outfits to Kaiya. "The principal must know that they have five new transfer students coming to school tomorrow, when class resumes."
"Give all of them the same schedule as me," I told her. "That way, I can help explain all of the basic stuff to them as we progress through the year."
"Understood."
Suddenly, her eyes shifted towards a small display area, where bottles of perfume were being shown.
"Kosaki-san," she asked politely, "do you happen to have Asuka lavender perfume on you?"
She nodded, pointing towards the display area. "How many do you want?"
"Ten bottles," she answered, handing Kosaki-San even more money. "To keep our house smelling nice all the time.
Kaiya motioned towards the exit, and we all filed out of the store, our new school uniforms in Kaiya's hands. But still, I was quite upset about the situation that I had been selfishly thrown in.
"You know," I told her, "I think being around members like Kakuzu is really rubbing off on you, un. I mean, you could have just easily bought me a male uniform, but you absolutely have to buy me a girl's outfit."
"It was ten dollars less," she argued. "Besides, there are other boys who have female outfits, and even girls with male outfits. Nobody will care if you wear the wrong one or not."
I huffed, turning away from her. "Fine, but don't expect me to be happy about it, un."
Little did I know, there were much bigger things to worry about than uniforms in the strange place known as Kestrel Heights High School...
A/N: Next chapter, we'll see what the Akatsuki feel like in high school. But before I sign out, I'm going to list the new names for each member here. Deidara is Masaru, Sasori is Akihiko, Konan is Osaka, Hidan is Eiji, and Itachi is Takumi.
Question: If you could change your name, what would you change it to? I like being called Tenshi or Mitsukai.
Bye-bye, everybody! See you tomorrow!
— Tenshi —
