A/N: So, it's been literally almost a year since I've updated this thing, but just know that I am planning to finish this because it's very important to me, like I'd explain in the earlier chapters. These are my oldest characters and they've been with me since 4th grade, only this time around, I'm planning to get to know them better so you can all love them as much as I do.

Chapter Four: Rev This Space

Rikachi moved his fingers restlessly in his pockets. "We're going to be late," he said, looking at Hien simply. "And then we'll have to hurt someone in order to get in. And then Baki will yell at us. Again." He swiveled his eyes meaningfully toward the tightly locked door just feet away from him and his cousin.

Hien looked absolutely aghast. "I did it last time," he half-shouted. "It's your turn, asshole."

Rikachi blinked simply. "No. It's not only not my turn, but you did not do it last time. You not only did not do it last time, but I did it for you twice in a row. And so it is definitely your turn, dear cousin."

His cousin deflated from aghast and landed somewhere near begging and pleading. "Do you know how fucking embarrassing it is to go walking into the Chunin Exams with a black eye?"

"No, but I s'pose you're about to find out."

Hien's jaw set irritably. "Rikachi."

"She doesn't always, you know. She usually just gets really pissed at you for the rest day—and it's not like you don't piss her off on your own for no good reason every day anyhow."

Hien sighed. "Fine. Kill me." And with heavy steps, he dragged his feet toward the door, glared one last time at Rikachi and then knocked as softly as possible on the door with his knuckles. "Um…"

Just as it looked like Hien was about to speak up, the door burst open, ricocheting off of Hien's forehead, and Himawari daintily stepped out with one hand buried in her clearly freshly blown hair, and the other hand focused on carefully smudging the corners of pitch black eyeliner. She regarded Hien's outraged expression for less than two seconds before passing him without a single word of acknowledgement or otherwise, and stood before Rikachi, tipping her face up to him. "Ready?"

"You look nice today," he said, sniffing the crown of her head politely.

"I know." She ruffled her bangs to the side slightly, as Hien tried to compose himself in the background (along with rubbing out the oncoming redness on his forehead). "I thought that it might put some of our competition of their guard."

Rikachi tugged teasingly at a lock of her hair. "You're already short enough to do that without the slut-paint."

"It's make-up."

"Is there a difference?"

She grinned. "Not really." Scrunching the ends of her hair one more time, Himawari turned and raised her eyebrows at Hien. Rolling her eyes, she walked over to him, and wrapped her little fingers around his wrists—her fingers didn't even reach three-quarters of the way around—stopping him from rubbing at his forehead. He blinked down at her in surprise. "That's just going to make it worse," she said, sticking her tongue out at him.

"You didn't have to knock me with it that hard," he said sullenly, as soon as it was made clear she wasn't going to hit him. Rikachi almost rolled his eyes in unison with Himawari as Hien very obviously pouted.

But all Himawari did next was run her fingers through the ends of Hien's still slightly shower-damp hair, fingertips brushing somewhat with Hien's neck, before smiling this odd little smile that was crossed with a smirk and said, "Yeah. I did."

Sometimes, Rikachi thought that his cousin must really be an idiot.

Natsu liked to say that he was a rather affable person—often amiable and rarely irritable. And for the most part, he thought that this was quite true of him and others around him would agree that this was the best way to describe him. But lately, it seemed that there were a few things that were starting to irk his normally amiable character, and he liked to think that these were things that could irk someone even nicer than he was.

From all the happenings that had occurred to him in the past month or so, Natsu had learned that even the most affable and agreeable of people could have things they hated and Natsu had a list of about eight to ten things, with some of those things interchanging sometimes.

And it just so unfortunately was, that Natsu was heading to the Nakamori household after having had to set his alarm for half past five in the morning. Waking up before the sun did was already near the top spot on the list of things he hated, but the Nakamori estate was probably a few spots above that.

At the very least, if nothing else, he knew he wouldn't be suffering alone, although it was questionable in his mind whether the person walking beside him suffered from the same things he did—it was rather hard to tell when this person suffered in life because it felt like she suffered all her life and still somehow managed to make it seem comical.

"So," Hana said slowly, looking at the ground as they walked—Natsu suspected, knowing Hana, that she did this probably to avoid tripping on grass again. "Which do you think is scarier—the Chunin exams or Amaru?"

Natsu shifted his hands in his pockets and glanced at her once. "Well, that depends. Do you want to get killed by a sadistic ninja or molested by one?"

She sputtered incoherently—tripping on grass.

"Yeah," Natsu yawned, walking on while his teammate tried to regain balance. "Me, too."

She shuffled quickly back to his pace and whispered urgently, although in Natsu's opinion, it just came out funny again, "He's not going to go pedo on us again, right?"

"He went more hardcore pedo on me than you, if I remember right," he replied, disgruntled at the memory. "'Sides, he just sort of flirted with you."

Hana squeaked. "I'm twelve. I am twelve."

Natsu blinked. "Cool—so am I."

"That's not the point!" she squeaked again.

He wrinkled his nose and teasingly shoved her forehead until she staggered backward and tripped (again). "Let's just hurry up and get there before it gets too bright out—maybe if we're there early enough, the pedobear won't be awake yet or he'll be awake but he won't be awake enough to sense his prey or something."

Hana's cheeks puffed out. "You shouldn't push people." She rubbed her forehead dryly. "And it's like you don't even care that if we hurry, we're hurrying to get our death certificates."

He kicked a pebble as they turned the corner, bowing out of the way of an elderly farmer. "Well, who knows," he said plainly as soon as they'd gotten out of earshot of the old man, "maybe we'll actually not screw up and save our death certificates for another time." In a lower tone, he added, "It's not like we're civilians."

The look she gave him made something in his stomach drop to his ankles. "We might as well be—even if he somehow miraculously survived for whatever bigger part of the exam there is, the only one who's actually going to make it to Chunin is Yujo. You know that, right?"

Natsu was silent. He merely shrugged one shoulder in ambiguous agreement, and picked up his pace. Hana peered at him. "Look," she said, somehow sensing the rainclouds that were starting to appear over Natsu's head, "I'm not saying that we're going to fail—I'm just saying that we need a few more years and Yujo's been ready since his mom popped him out, so let's just try to stay alive until it gets down to individuals and then bow out for him."

However, instead of making the rainclouds evaporate, Hana's words seemed to turn them into storm clouds. "So what you're saying," Natsu's eyebrows furrowed, "is that we're not only not even supposed to try to make it, we're supposed to just be there for Yujo to make it? Are you stupid?"

Natsu had never bothered to control his temper when he was around people because they always thought that when he gave in to an outburst, it was just amusing because they were so common. And for him, it didn't really matter if he wasn't taken too seriously because most of the time, his anger dissipated in a matter of minutes anyhow. But after he'd met Hana, and after the first time he'd yelled at her (it might've been from crankiness after a long practice or because of hunger, he didn't quite remember), he'd thought to himself that she was probably the first person to not only take him seriously when he yelled at her, but also to look sort of scared.

It wasn't a kind of scared that made him feel powerful or cruel or anything like that—it was the kind of scared that made him feel like he was stepping on a puppy's tail or maybe stealing a baby's teeth ring. The best analogy that he sometimes used to amuse himself was that of a frightened turtle retracting its head back into the depths of its shell.

But sometimes, it was also just irritating.

Hana's cheeks puffed out again, but this time out of what looked like apology, and she stared down at her walking feet.

They walked for another ten minutes before Natsu had pushed off enough embarrassment to talk properly. "Don't you want to be a chunin, too?" he asked quietly, as the sky began to gain orange light.

She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. "To be honest, not really."

He frowned. "Seriously?"

"Maybe someday—I don't really want to right now. For one thing," she snorted. "I don't know about you, but I'd like to be alive for a little longer. Maybe learn a bit more about being a ninja so that when I do become a chunin, I don't get killed on the first mission and screw things up."

"How do you know you'll die?" Natsu finally sighed, exasperated.

"How do you know you won't?"

This time it was his turn to put his eyes to the ground. "Touché," he grumbled.

She grinned.

"They were supposed to be here by now," Nojiko said, staring at the progress of the sunrise, arms folded and leaning against the thick, wooden post of the Nakamori front gates. Yujo stood silently beside him, looking infinitely interested in the way two pebbles were overlapping each other on the ground. "They're either still asleep or not awake enough to walk faster."

"Maybe they're having sex." Amaru's voice floated down from the top of the stone lined walls. He was laying spread-eagle, face to the sky, his long, exaggerated kimono-styled sleeves (a staple of the Nakamori clan's uniform) and the thin arms they hid dangling off the sides.

Inside of the Nakamori manor, Nojiko didn't often see Amaru clothed. In fact, clothed or not, he usually tried not to see Amaru at all—since that was what anyone who wished to remain sane should do. But on the not so rare, but not so common, occasion that he bumped into Amaru at work, whether in the Hokage's mansion delivering signed papers or on their separate ways to or from a mission, Amaru clothed was almost better than Amaru naked.

Because as much as Nojiko really would rather not have to deal with Amaru's unfathomable way of thinking, bumping into him naked brightened his day whether he wanted it to or not. And considering that he'd already had sex with Amaru, he'd locked that away because he really didn't want to do it again, not that it hadn't been amazing, but more so that Amaru was just really too weird for him. During sex, everything had been peachy keen and for a short moment when they were lying in bed in the quiet after-glow, he'd almost thought that maybe he could learn to love Amaru.

And then the kid had to talk.

But really, all of the Nakamori, as most purebred clans (Uchiha, and the Hyuuga) were, were all good-looking people and looked, appropriately so, even more good-looking in their traditional uniforms. But Amaru seemed to make the perfectly modest traditional uniform extremely untraditional just by wearing it.

The Nakamori had a uniform similar to the combat uniform for the Hyuuga, with the billowing sleeves that extended well past their fingers, the white kimono, only for the Nakamori, they cut and tucked it into the regulation black shinobi training pants. And because of most Nakamori males' slight frames, they wore numerous metal meshes and protectors to hide all of the skin that might be shown from the kimono's collar loosening during combat—as there was no obi holding it together, just how apt one was in tucking fabric into a waistband.

Anyone who knew Amaru would laugh at the idea of him ever wearing that much padding for the sake of hiding skin he'd want to show anyway. Rightly enough, he only wore a thin layer of metal to protect his shoulders and torso underneath the white kimono, but everything else that the loose collar showed, Amaru just let it show.

Nojiko should also probably one day rip all of Amaru's pants so he'd buy ones that were less tight and maybe toss his boots into the river, too. It didn't really matter to Nojiko that they were perfectly in harmony with regulation dress code—it just really drove him up the wall that Amaru always looked that immaculate (and lots of other adjectives that Nojiko should never let Yujo catch him thinking of) when the kid was that obviously mentally unstable.

Life wasn't fair.

And it honestly just wasn't Nojiko who thought this—he'd spoken to a variety of others who thought that even though sex with Amaru was a form of seventh heaven, it just wasn't enough to keep them from losing their marbles trying to keep up with Amaru's much-too-unique thoughts. At the very least, no one ever doubted why Amaru was one of Ibiki's leading assistants in the Interrogation and Torture department.

Nojiko sighed and massaged the left side of his forehead. "They're not having sex, Amaru. They're twelve and I'm sure that Hana might not even know what sex is."

Amaru sat up, his arms switching places with his legs and the soles of his boots knocked steadily against the stone wall as his feet dangled. He smiled brightly down at Nojiko. "That's mean, Ko-kun—all girls know what sex is." He nudges Yujo's shoulder with the toe of his boot. "You know what sex is, right, baby cousin?"

Yujo spared a glum, sleepy glance at Amaru. Nojiko sighed again. "Please don't pollute any of his brain cells this early. At least wait until after the exams are over—the last thing I need is to send my students in after you're done with them. They're already going to go through enough in the course of the next few days."

Amaru pouted, but his eyes were sparkling with laughter. "How would you know?" His smile brightened an additional hundred watts. "You don't work under Ibiki."

This—Nojiko did not know. He felt the little ache in his left forehead pulse harder and perhaps his eyes might've bugged slightly at those words. He turned and gripped Amaru's ankle. "Please," he said, staring right up at Amaru's beautiful, amused face, "for the love of all that is sane, tell me that you're just fucking around with me again."

Amaru doubled over, arms reaching down and hands cupping Nojiko's face. "I would love to have you fuck me again," he laughed—whenever Amaru laughed, Nojiko had never once heard it done insincerely. Amaru's laugh was always full and childlike—fascinated and true and earnest. Perhaps that was what made Amaru even scarier sometimes—because his amusement of odd things wasn't a cause of any sort of trauma or childhood tragedy but just rather that that was how Amaru was.

"Amaru, that's now what I—" Nojiko began irritably.

"I'm sorry, Ko-kun," Amaru said, with the most infinitesimal hint of actual sympathy in his voice (just because Amaru was always sincere, didn't mean he was the most empathetic of people), "but Ibiki's really proctoring. No one's supposed to know, but I don't think he'd care if I told you."

Nojiko's mind started shifting into high gear. "Would it matter if I told the kids?" Yujo's head turned.

Amaru's cheeks puffed up and his lower lip pushed out as he shrugged. "I don't think it would, but it's not like it'll make a difference. Ibiki always makes sure that being prepared and unprepared will matter jackshit. 'Sides, if you made them cheat like that, then it'll forego the point of making chunin anyway, won't it?"

There hadn't been many times when Amaru was wrong. In fact, Nojiko only needed one hand to count the number of those times.

"Fuck, I hate when you're right," Nojiko groaned, and then hating himself for sounding like the eighteen-year-old that he was rather than the sensei he should be. He yanked himself away from Amaru, trying to block out the sound of that childlike laughter.

Amaru abruptly jumped down, stood right in front of Nojiko and tipped up his smiling face. "Of course you don't—you love it when I'm right."

Nojiko made a face. "Not really."

But Amaru merely smiled. "I believe you, then."

Nojiko felt his eyebrows twitch just a little because Amaru obviously didn't. Not that Nojiko could blame him, because he'd just acted like an idiot, although Amaru had a special gift of making everyone around him seem like an idiot.

"Just, please," Nojiko pleaded, "when Hana and Natsu get here, please, for my sake, act sane—pretend you are sane. I will blow you for a month if you do this for me and don't scare them shitless."

Amaru raised his eyebrows. "Really?" Anyone else Nojiko knew would have been dripping with sarcasm, but Amaru, being Amaru, just sounded eager.

"Amaru, I'm begging you," Nojiko snapped, "And no, not really."

"But I am sane." The Nakamori jonin grinned.

"I don't care," the sensei went on. "All I care is that Hana and Natsu think you are completely fucking off your rocker and I didn't even want you here in the first place, but since you fucking threatened me—"

"—Ko-kun, I'd never—"

"—it was either let you be here or be late handing them their forms because you said you'd have my ass shredded into so many pieces, they would have to sew them all back together in the span of a week."

Amaru sighed delicately and looked up at Nojiko with Yujo's eyes—those green, green Nakamori eyes—only instead of shining with timidity, they shone with playful pleading. "Kakashi's been too busy with his kids, so he never has time to come and play."

"So what?" Nojiko made another face. "I'm your new playmate?"

"I'm bored," Amaru whined. "What else am I supposed to do?"

The pulsing in his head was starting to form into a full-on migraine. "You're unbelievable. You are seriously…I don't even have words. Just—unbelievable." Nojiko whistled once, and then massaged his head more furiously. "Honestly, wow, you're just—fuck, you're the best. When Ibiki retires or gets bored or killed, you'll be first in line for his spot—hands down."

Amaru stuck out his tongue and wrinkled his nose. "I don't want to be the leader. That's not fun." Then he smiled. "And of course I'm the best."

"Completely," Nojiko deadpanned. "It's not even nine and I've already considered three different possible methods of suicide." He edged a few steps away from Amaru and watched him adjust the scabbard of his kodachi inside his waistband. "Someday that thing's going to stab you—I don't understand why you can't just be normal at least about weapons and wear a belt."

"How come?" Amaru yawned, shaking his overgrown bangs out of his eyes. "My pants are plenty tight enough."

Nojiko glared at the sun, well on its way to completing its rise from the horizon. He wished it would go back down and rise in ten minutes because at this rate he was going to end up cursing at Hana and Natsu again. "I hope you know that you're a walking talking hazard sign. Your hair almost covers your eyes and you don't tie it up with anything, your hitai-ate looks like it could slide off your leg when a breeze blows, you're sword is tucked into your pants, and you only have one layer of protecting under your clothes. I don't wonder why you're not for combat."

"I sweat when I fight," Amaru whined again. "Ibiki doesn't take his assistants on away missions, so I get to do my job in a cool, air-conditioned basement room."

Suddenly, Yujo came back to life and looked at his cousin pointedly. "In the winter, you complain that the heater's never on right."

Amaru wrapped his arms around Yujo's neck enthusiastically. "So you did listen to me that time when I put one of those civilian walkie-talkies in your room."

"I don't think he listened," Nojiko said, prying Amaru's tentacles off of Yujo. "Considering that they weren't walkie-talkies, but rather those things civilians put in their babies' cribs to hear them cry, and you kept the crib end and put the parents' end in Yujo's room—and then sealed it to his wall with jutsu."

Amaru remained latched onto Yujo and since Nojiko hadn't had breakfast yet, and the migraine was getting worse, he didn't bother trying hard enough to separate the prey from its predator. "It's because we never have enough family time, me and Yujo." Amaru placed his cheek on the crown of Yujo's head.

Yujo blinked.

Nojiko sighed. "You can't call what you do to him family time, Amaru."

"Then what do I call it?"

The sensei was about to reply with something that combined personal space invasion and a mild-form of verbal sexual harassment, but his line of sight had caught two figures walking steadily towards them in the distance. "Finally," he breathed. "They're going to have to hustle if they don't want to be late to the waiting room."

Amaru released Yujo (although, it didn't make much of a difference, considering Yujo rarely moved in reaction anyhow), and stepped to stand beside Nojiko. "About that, Ko-kun, how come you're so worried anyway? The exams start sometime around noon and the sun just finished coming up. And because they're meeting us here, the place isn't even far."

Nojiko glanced briefly at Yujo, who was resuming his interest in the pebbles near his toe. "I don't want them to have to take in all they're going up against at once. If they get there early and see each team coming in one by one, then maybe they'll have some time to adjust and consider what this exam really is." In a quieter voice he said, "It's not really Yujo, I'm worried about. It's Hana and Natsu—at least in the beginning."

"Ah," Amaru drew out the sound. "Okay. That's kind of smart."

"Well, I'm smart," Nojiko gave him an odd look.

Amaru simply smiled back. "I know."

Nojiko decided not to respond this time because showing signs of life in reaction to Amaru's crazy never turned out well for anyone. Instead, he waved one arm frantically in the air, signaling for the two figures to start sprinting towards him. Hana and Natsu were, expectedly, panting when they reached him even though he'd made them run farther before.

Probably because they were the kind of genin that gave Nojiko migraines every time he thought about them.

"You're late," he said.

They weren't looking at him. They didn't even seem to be listening. All four eyes were glued to Amaru. Natsu immediately took a step back—Amaru smiled from beside Yujo, up against the gate. "Why the hell is he here?" Natsu said, alarmed, giving Nojiko a betrayed expression as though it was his sensei's fault that the craziness couldn't be locked up.

Hana was just standing wide-eyed, looking perhaps even more betrayed than Natsu.

"She's so cute," Amaru tipped his head to the side lightly and gave a little wave with his overgrown-sleeve-covered-hand. Personally, Nojiko had once thought (had once, as in—not anymore) that the way everything a normal human would've done with his hands, Amaru had to do with his sleeves in the way because they were just that long was far cuter than an infuriating twelve-year-old girl every could be.

But there was crazy.

When Amaru lifted his hand up, the fabric doubled over and shook a little in the morning breeze.

"I beg of you," Hana hissed to Nojiko. "Why is he—"

"Please just shut up," he cut in wearily. "It's not even lunch time and I already have a headache. I'm just going to give you your forms and tell you some crap and then you three can just go and try to stay in as long as possible so maybe I don't have to see you for the better part of a week."

"The exams are that long?" she said hoarsely.

Suddenly, Amaru jumped forward and through his sleeves around Hana.

She shrieked and started to flail—which would've been funny if not for the fact that it didn't matter how pretty and frail Amaru looked, he was still a jonin and his hold was iron. "Ha-chan," he said, cuddling her the same way any sane toddler would to a stuffed animal, "I hope you don't die in the exams, okay? But even if you do, it'll be okay because I'll make sure you're corpse looks really good." Amaru paused. "But if you want to be cute at your funeral, don't get cut up too much before you die, all right?"

Hana went up an octave.

"Amaru…" Nojiko felt all that was left of his strength ebb away.

Miraculously, as suddenly as he'd latched onto her, Amaru let go of Hana.

And commenced to latch onto Natsu.

Only it wasn't quite latching since Natsu was as tall as Amaru, maybe even taller by half a centimeter, so all Amaru could really do was wrap himself around Natsu's arm and enthusiastically say, "Nat-kun, I hope you don't die either."

"Sensei," Natsu shouted, frozen stiff as though afraid that if he moved, the poison on his arm would spread through his entire body. "Sensei—the homo—seriously, Sensei, I'm not laughing."

Nojiko knew he would pay for this in either blood or semen later on, but since he didn't want the first students he ever had to die before they were even legal to drink, he took Amaru by the collar and pulled him away from Natsu. He grabbed Yujo by the shoulder, stuffed his pockets with the forms and said into his student's ear, "Just get the two shitheads registered and make sure they don't get killed before the exam starts."

"What happens after the exam starts?" Yujo asked back quietly.

"I don't know," Nojiko hissed back. "Go—go." With his free hand, he waved them off, restraining the urge to flip them off as Hana and Natsu continued to shoot him betrayed looks the entire time they were leaving.

Once they were gone, Amaru glanced up at him from the corner of his eyes. "You must be really horny to grab me like that—and you're still holding on, too."

Nojiko let go of him hastily. "You'll be the death of me."