She was sitting in the back of the classroom. It all was familiar, and so she was calm, and the smile lingered on.
Kinko stared blearily forward as the man called Iruka went to stand before them. And it was "them". Others, all younger than her, surrounded Kinko. But she did not mind.
"Now as many of you have probably noticed, we have a new student!"
His voice carried as if he had had much practice doing this sort of thing.
The students before him blinked and many turned towards Kinko.
She ignored their stares and continued to watch Iruka in a daze-like fashion.
But that daze was broken when she realized the man was motioning for her to stand.
Suddenly she seemed so much more fragile than before. Kinko normally appeared to be a force to be reckoned with. Or at least, she was able to confuse and frighten those she met.
But the girl had never been in a situation quite like this.
Slowly she began to rise, keeping her eyes forward, though they had a new gleam in them. It did not make them life-like, but it did give them sheen. They looked as hard as river stones.
She stared at Iruka, and he looked back. Several of the students coughed, but Kinko did not move.
The tension was mounting and the very air seemed to buzz.
"Well…?"
"Well," she replied, remaining motionless. She looked the same. Same smile, same eyes. Dead.
"Aren't you going to introduce yourself?"
"No."
"Nani?!"
"No."
Iruka was confounded. He had never had a student say outright "no", to him. Even the worst student had some respect. This was completely outrageous.
"Please introduce yourself. Need I remind you who is the student?" This was all said with forced calm. Every student was watching with rapt attention. They had never dreamed that someone would go so far as the strange girl had.
Kinko watched Iruka for several moments before reacting to his statement.
"I am Kinko."
Her voice was soft and scratchy, which caused several of the students, and even Iruka to blink.
"Yes…? And…?"
Iruka was trying his best to smile warmly but those cold and oddly vacant eyes had not moved.
"Myself."
"Yourself?"
"Maijika"
"Thank you, Kinko. That will due for now," he said curtly, motioning her to take her seat.
The kunoichi sat down as quickly as she had stood up slowly. Her classmates blinked once more.
"As an extra little note," Iruka was now addressing the entire class, "Kinko, whom you have now all met, is a genin already."
There was whispering at this, which was quickly silenced by a stern look.
"And she will only be staying with us a short time."
More scattered whispering, which Iruka did not bother to put an end to. At least not right away.
After about a minute or so he called for attention.
"Now today we are not going to be using our books—"
The class started talking in excitement. The surprise about Kinko seemed long forgotten at this great news.
"Instead we will be practicing throwing kunai. Now that means we have to all go outside. Now, please follow me in an orderly line. Orderly."
His directions were ignored and every student jumped from his or her seat and rushed from the room.
Every student that is, except Kinko.
She slowly rose from her seat and took her sweet time in exiting.
Iruka stood beside the open door and waited for her to pass.
Once she did, he quickly closed the door and ushered the slower students (not many) towards the small training grounds. When they were all accounted for, Iruka began handing out the knives.
"Now as you all know, these are not toys. You all want to be genin right? So act like one and don't mess around."
This was the part of the school day when nearly every student shut his or her brain off. They knew the drill and his speech was not the most interesting. They had all heard it before.
The kids began to move towards the targets where they would practice throwing the kunai.
A few started right away, while others were more tentative about it.
Kinko was one of them. She held her knife with her right hand and trailed her left index finger along its handle. She stared unblinking at the midnight black weapon.
Beside the kunoichi were two boys and a girl who were using the target next to hers. She ignored them however, despite their closeness.
But the three could not stop glancing over at her.
At this moment they were whispering together, every now and then tossing a kunai casually at the target to maintain the image of hard work.
The orange-haired girl and the boy with glasses nudged the second boy forward.
After being pushed slightly, he moved towards Kinko, who ignored is approach.
"Go on, Konohamaru," the two in the back whispered as they gave him another little nudge.
"Yeah, okay," was his gruff reply.
In a daring move he walked the rest of the way towards Kinko and stood squarely before her.
"So…."
She ignored him once again.
"Okay lady, what are you doing here? Iruka-Sensei didn't make any sense. I mean, you're a genin, why are you here with us?"
Silence.
"Did you break a rule and they made you an academy student again?"
Silence.
The one called Konohamaru turned to his friends, a confused look on his face.
The two waved their hands, motioning for him to continue.
Konohamaru turned back to Kinko, though he shifted nervously when he realized that she had moved her gaze to him.
Her eyes reminded him of tombstones.
They were gray, hard, and lifeless. Utterly lifeless…
A shiver went up the boy's spine and he quickly looked down at his feet. He just couldn't meet her gaze for long.
"So umm," he muttered, talking more to his shoes than anything.
More silence on Kinko's part.
"So why are you here?" Konohamaru demanded, still staring downward.
"What Konohamaru is trying to say," interrupted the orange haired-girl as she stepped forward, followed by the boy with glasses.
"I can handle it, Moegi," Konohamaru muttered under his breath, but she ignored him.
"Well, it doesn't really look like it," she replied, crossing her arms.
"Anyway, what he's trying to say is that are you here because you need to touch up on your ninja skills?"
Kinko shook her head no, paused, then nodded yes.
This left the three children before her puzzled even more than before.
They returned to their own station and began to throw the knives in earnest, though they were silent in doing so; all were wrapped up in their own thoughts.
Several hours passed like mere moments, and before the class knew it Iruka had called for a lunch break.
There were several moans, sighs and general chattering at this, which soon quieted as the students scattered to start on their food.
Konohamaru and his friends headed towards a bench by one of the walls, mainly because a large tree shaded it entirely.
They did not notice, but Kinko had positioned herself around the corner of that very same wall. She had sat down with her back to it and had pulled out a jar of golden syrup. The kunoichi unscrewed the top and inserted her little finger into the contents. She stirred it, which caused a rich aroma to waft towards the three academy students seated not far from her.
Konohomaru sniffed at the air and a puzzled expression creased his features.
"What is it?" Both of his companions asked, noticing his change.
"I smell something. Something weird. It… it smells like..." He took another deep breath before continuing.
"Honey," Moegi said softly, finishing his sentence.
"Yeah…" Konohamaru sighed, nodding thoughtfully.
"What do you think it's from," asked Udon, using his index finger to push his glasses farther up the bridge of his nose.
"I'm not sure. It could be someone's lunch, but I don't know of anyone who ever has honey." Konohamaru was already beginning to stand up while saying this.
"But there's only one way to find out," he said grinning widely.
"Oh Konohamaru do we have to? I mean, lunch is only so long, and you've barely even started," Moegi motioned toward his half eaten food lying abandoned on the bench.
"Yeah I'm sure," he replied, crossing his arms stubbornly.
Moegi sighed and stood up, soon followed by Udon.
"Lets go then," Moegi stated in a fashion that showed her negative opinion on the idea.
Slowly the three began to walk away from the bench, doing their best to "follow their noses".
However, it was relatively easy to follow the trail, since the smell of honey was thick in the air.
Because of this, it did not take long for the three friends to locate exactly where the smell was coming from.
Cautiously they poked their heads around the corner and spotted Kinko, still stirring the golden substance with her little finger.
Round and round and round again she moved it, seemingly unaware of her audience.
Konohamru, Udon and Moegi (Who had now forgotten her thoughts about leaving their lunches) watched with rapt attention as her finger made a circle again and again and again. Three pairs of eyes were fixated completely on her actions.
Finally after minutes of this Kinko lifted her finger from the jar, revealing that quite a lot of it was clinging to her finger.
Slowly she inserted it into her mouth, sucking on it with obvious relish.
Her eyes closed halfway and she seemed to have fallen into a dreamlike state.
For several minutes she stayed like this, until finally, every last bit of honey must have been satisfactorily consumed, for she removed her finger and placed it, once again, inside the jar.
She stirred.
The three watching her blinked at the odd spectacle and spared mere glances at each other, showing just how confused they were.
It was at that moment that Kinko turned her head in their direction, still stirring the honey.
All three of them froze at her glance as they felt the affects of her cold gaze. One by one they walked towards her, knowing that they had been spotted.
Unable to contain his curiosity any longer, Konohamaru posed a question.
"Why do you eat honey like that? I mean, all plain like?"
Moegi and Udon nodded, showing that they were wondering the same thing.
The three friends waited for several moments for her to answer, and just when they thought that they had gotten into some sort of silent staring contest with the girl, she spoke.
"No salt."
Her answer left them speechless and Kinko turned back to stirring, and slowly eating the honey.
Its thick, sweet aroma hung in the air, overpowering the senses of the three classmates who stood before the strange girl.
And she stirred, and stirred, and stirred, completely mindless of the world around her.