5
Age: 10

Things at school were never the same after the events that transpired.
The first day of school after vacation, Ryou walked in chatting away with her friends.
She really didn't like to draw attention to herself so she would usually sit in the back of the classroom and participate where no one could look at her.
This one morning as soon as she got to school, she took a seat in the back next to a boy named Ebisu and an outcast girl who had recently transferred to school named Anko.
She had opened her book ready to take notes when she felt a chill run down her spine. The chill grew down and was unpleasant, it was more like needles pricking down her back slowly.
She cautiously turned her head and her eyes went wide when she saw Kakashi towering right behind her.
Ebisu adjusted his dark glasses and looked at him with a frown as well.

"Beat it." He sneered coldly at Ebisu with a menacing glare.
Without thinking it twice, the poor boy stood up and moved as quickly as he could.

Ryou swallowed the lump that had been forming in her throat, and hesitated before turning to face the boy. He was already looking at her, his dark eyes burning with hatred.
She couldn't even fake a smile, instead only faced forward again and decided her best to ignore him. She held her shaky hands together, in an attempt to make her nervousness more conspicuous.

'Just what could he want from me?' she thought to herself as she arched her back sitting taller.

Class began, it wouldn't be long until graduation so most of the students were beginning to slack off. That left most of the participation to the top students in the class. Ryou noticed that with every question that the teacher asked whenever she would raise up her hand to answer so would Kakashi.
Eventually it got to the point that both Kakashi and Ryou were standing up both hands held up high, both trying to push the other one down. It soon started to catch the attention of the other students, some girls giggled thinking it was cute and some other students were uncomfortable with the growing tension growing in the room.

"Anyone else? Other than Ryou or Kakashi?" The teacher asked with an annoyed sigh and decided to start picking on Obito Uchiha.

Realizing that the class was growing bored, the teacher decided on a different assignment.

"Alright, class. Now, how about we practice your clones and transformation jutsus. As a review before your final examination, which is just in a few weeks."

Obito began complaining so the sensei made him go first. He miserably failed to make two illusions of himself appear, and proceed to turn himself into a cheap copy of their sensei with a stupid face with big lips on. The sensei immediately started scolding him, and the rest of the class didn't even bother in hiding their snickering fits. Gai followed and then Shizune along with he other students. Finally it was Kakashi's turn. He stood on the floor all the students eager to see what he had in hand, and then in a puff of smoke 4 identical clones of their teacher, including a transformed Kakashi, stood with a smug look in their faces. He had done both jutsus at the same time. Some of the kids wowed and awed at his skills and many of his fan girls clapped and cheered.
When he was done he glared at Ryou with a challenging glare.
Ryou who had been wearing a frown the entire time raised her head and walked past him with her nose high.
She stood her ground for a long time focusing a large amount of chakra.

"What's taking her so long?" Some of the children would whisper.
Kakashi crossed his arms and didn't take his eyes off her.
"Ryou?" Her sensei asked tapping on his notebook raising a concerning eyebrow.

With a small grunt. A massive puff of smoke filled half of the room. Where about 15 Kakashi clones stood, herself transformed amongst them. She attempted to compose herself and hide her harsh breaths and her racing heart. She was dressed exactly like him in his sleeveless black shirt with his dark mask and his silver hair standing up even slightly covering part of his face.
Her eyes focused on him with a smug deathly glare.

He was absolutely speechless.

She even raised an eyebrow in a challenging matter. Seeing his reflection challenging him was daunting.
Everyone in the room was cheering, even the sensei took the time to give Ryou the praise she deserved and made an example out of her for al kids to follow her.

"You'll own up to great things, I just know it." The sensei said.
Some of her friends approached her and hugged her as she turned back. Class had been dismissed.

Once again humiliated, he stormed out of the room. Not that anyone cared to notice. He stormed to his small apartment where he lived. It was nothing compared to Ryou's millionaire mansion. In a fit of rage he scrambled for yesterday's newspaper which had a decent sized picture of Ryou and a bit of her biography congratulating her as rookie of his generation. He should be in that picture. Not her.
He had worked himself to the bone in an attempt to redeem his, and what was left of his family's name. Everyday he put all the effort he could to be the best. To make people forget. To stop people from whispering "That's the White Fang's son," whenever they saw him on the streets. He cut out the picture of the smiling girl which could've been the picture of a child model in a fashion catalog.

He took the picture and pinned it on his wall where he would be able to see it every single day.

He hated Ryou Noa. He hated her with a burning passion.
It wasn't fair that this uppity rich girl, who had everything. Friends. A loving family. Money. Absolutely everything. Could take away his glory. His one chance for honor.

"But then again… life isn't fair…" He said to himself with a scowl on his face. He approached the picture in his wall. He approached it real close and glared into the lemon green eyes of the happy girl. Life was not fair.

Days went on to become weeks, and weeks into months.
Time passed by. The class had already graduated and received their official hitai-ate, also known as shinnobi forehead protectors, and the Genin had been put into 3 man cells. Kakashi had been grouped with Rin and Obito under the guidance of Minato Namizake, Konoha's Yellow Flash. Ryou had been put under the guidance of one of the Hokage's sons and Asuma's older brothers, Saisho Sarutobi, alongside with Asuma himself and her friend Kurenai Yuhi.

It wasn't that Ryou didn't like being in a team with Asuma and them, but-…

She stared at her teammates before her. Saisho-sensei who strongly resembled Asuma was tossing his younger brother's hair and teasing him about liking Kurenai who stood at the side with a flustered face….- sometimes she just felt a little left out.
Often times when being with her team, Ryou felt as if it was Asuma's family affair. Her sensei didn't particularly show favoritism, but it seemed like his attention was mostly on his younger sibling and the siblings love interest.

She just felt a little left out.

That day she returned home feeling both irked and annoyed. She was completely drained due to a hard day of training, and the annoyance wasn't helping. Ryou didn't like her team at all, and the connection that her entire team seemed to share, except for her, really displeased her.
Things at home weren't looking that great either.
In an attempt to avoid it all, she stopped at a tea shop to have a drink in an attempt to disconnect from everything.

She sat in the teashop by herself. Her tired eyes and 100% of her attention was engrossed in a small notebook in which she wrote her simple anecdotes and potential stories. The smell of tea brewing put her at ease and aided with the flow of words to her writing. She was presently waiting for her Jasmine tea to brew. A long sigh escaped her lips. Suddenly she felt something was off. There was a dark vibe lurking by- Her eyes shot wide open and she saw Kakashi sitting in a table across the room. He didn't have any tea on his table and was just looking at her. He wore a large stretched malicious smirk under his mask. Her heart stopped when they made eye contact, and holding her breath she turned her eyes down again in an attempt to ignore the silver haired ninja.
He didn't look away, he could see that the girl was clearly upset and he was enjoying seeing her in this state of anguish.

And now she had to deal with him too…

A couple of moments passed and still feeling his eyes burning into her. She rapidly stood up and walked away from the scene to the counter and asked to have her tea to go. She got it in a small plastic cup and quickly stepped out of the teashop. She turned around seeing if Kakashi was still in the shop, realizing he was gone. She turned forward only to bump into something or someone. Some of the hot tea spilled on her clothes and she hissed at the burning sensation in her abdomen.
She looked up and saw Kakashi standing before her with his dull eyes looking at her with a bored expression.

"Why don't you watch where you're going?" He said in a menacing tone still not blinking.
"I'm really not in the mood today Hatake." Ryou hissed back. Ryou was feeling her anger boiling in the pits of her stomach.

She had grown used to him getting on her nerves like this every single time she ran into him, but today- he had chosen a bad day to mess with her.

His hand stretched out for her plastic cup of tea. She looked at him with challenging eyes he certainly wouldn't dare...
Her lips were ready to mouth "Don't you dare-" She didn't get to say anything. Not breaking eye contact he slapped the burning hot tea out of her hands into the ground splashing her face in the process.
He looked at her with cold eyes, the girl couldn't take it anymore.
She stood there awestruck and felt the pools of tears beginning to boil in her eyes.
Kakashi saw himself reflected in the teary green eyes of the girl before him, he knew he would never forget this day. The day he made Ryou Noa cry. Tears began spilling out of her face. The girl choose to run past him bumping shoulders in the way and she left. The satisfied smirk still plastered on his face.

Pleased with himself, something called his attention and made him turn around. And there sitting on a table he saw a small little black book. The same black book Ryou had been writing in.

Could his day get any better?

As it had been previously mentioned things at home weren't going that great. It wasn't her parents it was her sister that was the issue. At 14 years of age, Miharu's teen years were proving to be harder to deal with than expected.
On the bright side dad's business was going well…

The family had all gathered at the dinner table except for Miharu who for reasons deemed as ridiculous had excused herself from the dinner table.

"Hormones." Her dad shook his head with a tired groan.
"She'll bounce back to normal soon- I hope." Natsume said with a small smile. "Anyhow, how's work?" She asked her husband.
"Not good either… Business is good, but I'm afraid there's been villainous characters lurking wanting to get their hands on me. I think we should heighten security..." He said in a dark tone.

Noting the seriousness in his eyes his face changed the subject and turned to Ryou who was quietly sitting between them just shifting eyes between her parents.

"How was your day Ryou?" Her mother asked her sweetly. Changing the subject.
"Not good… I'm still not used to my team, and I had to deal with that Kakashi again." She said playing with her food, it seemed like that was all she did in recent days. Pretend to eat and return to her room.
"The gray haired kid?" Her dad asked.
"Maybe he has a crush on you." The mom said in an attempt to lighten up the mood.
"No." Her father suddenly snap. Tension filling the room, "Natsume, there is a massive difference between abuse and infatuation. We do not teach our daughters that abuse is the same as infatuation, remember?"
"Yes, but what if he's only trying to get her attention Aru?"

The bickering, eventually turned into a full scale argument and without a second thought Ryou snuck out into her sisters room.
She knocked on the door and there was no answer. Still the 10 year old girl walked in.

"Miharu, what's wrong?" She asked in a weak voice.

Both of her parent's loud voices could be heard arguing from the kitchen downstairs.

"I didn't say you could come in Meiwaku."
Ryou frowned "I don't like it when you call me that…"

Her elder sister didn't seem to hear.

With straight hair and warm brown eyes it was hard to see the resemblance between the two siblings.
Still the young girl stood at the entrance of her sister's pink room.

"I'm just so, so, so done with everything. With work, still living at home with mom and dad. I just want to be free and have adventures, you know? I feel like I have a higher purpose… That I can achieve things, make a difference in the world, but I'm stuck here…" She trailed off.

"If you want to make that much of a difference, why don't you become Hokage then?" the younger sibling asked with a small smile. "That's a perfectly good waste of my time. Both you and I know we have more potential than that," she hissed coldly.
"Ryou, we should run away together! Both of us. Away from mom, dad, everyone." Miharu ran up to her sister and put a hand in her shoulder another on her cheek, she stroked her sisters curly mane with a smile and shiny eyes.
"It would be fun. Don't you think?"

The younger sister pouted, "Can my friends come too?"

Miharu pulled her arms away from her sister.

She didn't understand. No one understood her…

"Just go to sleep Ryou, it's way past your bed time..."
"But Ane-"
"Out." And with that Ryou was kicked out of the room "Out. Out," she said a total of three times... The arguing downstairs had ceased. Stepping down she saw both of her parents embracing each other with a worried look.
Ryou noted there was now a pair of papers on the kitchen table.
She hid behind the wall and crept her head out. Both of her parents were too engrossed in each other to see her peeking focusing all of her chakra on her eyes.
her sight increased and she was able to read the notes on the table. They appeared to be made with a cut out of letter and where threats to her father. 'No wonder, he'd been so stressed lately…' Unsure of how to proceed.
Ryou peeked out and rushed to hug her mother from behind. Pressing her face against her back.

"I'm sorry about the arguing Ryou. Mom and dad are under some pressure right now"
"I know." She repeated still hugging her tightly.
"Look," her mother said turning to face her, "All of this will be over soon, and then just the four of us go take a vacation. That sounds nice, right?"
The young girl nodded. Her mother kissed her forehead and sent her off to bed.

That night Ryou buried herself in her covers and fell into a deep slumber. She dreamt happy dreams, dreams that would become scarce in the future.

Meanwhile on the other side of town Kakashi sat on his bed with the small black notebook in which Ryou had been writing into earlier. He couldn't wait to savor this moment. To open the black book and indulge in the secrets of Ryou Noa.

As soon as he opened the first page he realized that it was blank. And so was the second, and the third, and the one after. The entire book was blank. But how?
He had clearly seen her writing and filling the pages of the blank book. He put the book against the light and saw that the pages still remained blank.
'Just what the…' He thought to himself in disbelief.

Kakashi didn't sleep that night while attempting to unravel the secrets of the little black book.

The following morning Ryou was making her way down to the market. Her mother had sent her to run some errands, which is what she was currently preoccupied with. For a brief moment she stumbled by a dango shop and rested her elbows on the counter as she asked for an order to go.
It was suddenly that she felt a familiar presence brooding over her. She cocked her head to the side and saw the angry familiar gray haired ninja standing next to her.
She noted that there were dark circles under his eyes and he looked like he hadn't slept. He slammed her book on the counter and glared at her.

"You forgot this yesterday," he growled out.

Ryou couldn't help but smirk, so he stayed up all night trying to figure out how read it.

"How kind of you to return it," she drawled out sarcastically.
She picked up the notebook with her hand and placed it on the counter. She placed an index finger on the cover and spun it three times.
"It's a special journal. Needs to be infused with some chakra in order to reveal its secrets. If you were smart enough you would have figure it out," she stuck out her tongue.
"Yeah? And if you were smart enough you wouldn't have told me how to read it!"

And in a split of a second he had swiped the book from the girl's hands and was now sprinting down Konoha's crowded street.

"HEY!" The girl's voice cracked as panic surged through her body. She instantly dropped her groceries and abandoned her order of dango as she sprinted after Kakashi.
As soon as she reached the busy streets she noticed that she had lost him in the crowd. 'No. This can't be happening. This can't be happening.' She ran her hands through her curly wild hair.
She had lost him with her journal. Ryou felt her heart began jump to her throat, her stomach to churn with anxiety. She had to find him.
In a surge of adrenaline she closed her eyes and attempted to focus as much chakra as she could into her nostrils.

Her mother had been a tracker ninja, for Kami's sake she had to learn how to use her senses!

Suddenly she saw him, well his smell, it left a very particular trail in the crowd.

'Seems like I lost her…' Kakashi thought to himself looking over his shoulder. He found himself lost in a park and finally caught a break and focused on reading the damn little black book.

He opened the first page and began reading.

"AHA!" There was a sudden shrill. "GIVE ME BACK MY JOURNAL!" The girl shrieked loudly.

A smile grew on Kakashi's face. Even if the girl couldn't see it because of his mask, she had no doubt it was there.
She ran towards him and attempted to tackle him. He only used an arm to keep her at an arms length, with his other arm he held the book high above his head as he read it out loud to her.
He was evilly cackling at the embarrassing stories he was reading.
"Stop! Give it to me!" The girl cried out.

The boy only turned still laughing and looked at the girl's scarlet face. He continued flipping the pages.

"I have a crush."
He read out loud, becoming interested in the subject.
"No! No! No!"

The girl continued now actually hitting the boy who still wouldn't let go off her journal, pleading him to stop.

"He's super cute, and super smart and his name is…"

Kakashi's eyes became wide. Ryou was absolutely embarrassed. "Obito?" He read confused and turned to look at the girl who had gone quiet, her eyes were completely wide and her mouth had gone dry. 'But Obito isn't smart…' He thought sourly.
He flipped the page and the first sentence made freeze.

"Just kidding." He read slowly. "Even if he doesn't seem to know I exist and looks very lonely. It's Kakashi. I want to become stronger so I can impress him one day and that way he'll finally start noticing me…" He slowly lowered his hand with the journal and turned to look at the girl, his eyes wide in disbelief. The entry was old, from years ago. It was probably the first one she had written.
Ryou felt her face burning she looked away from the boy feeling mortified, her heart was hammering in her chest and her knees felt week.

"Ryou…" He said looking at her carefully, unsure of what to say. In a quick flash she swiped the book from his hands and used it to hit the book. "Don't flatter yourself Hatake," She scoffed in a cheap attempt to keep her cool.
"T-That was from years ago, and it was before I realized how much of a pompous jerk you are!" She hit him with the book once again before storming off. Kakashi didn't even flinch he just stared at the girl as she walked away. Completely unsure of what had just happened or what to think/feel in regards of the situation.

Ryou had returned for her forgotten groceries and then back home. At this point in the day she only wanted to disappear. This was probably the worst thing that had ever happened to her.

Unknowingly, two weeks later after that, the worst thing that would happen to her actually did- her mother would be found dead in her sisters room, facedown bleeding from one clean slice through the neck. Her sister would go missing. A trail of blood followed out the 2nd floor window into the woods, near a river where they found one of her sisters legs completely bruised up and laying there, some animal had even gnawed on it by the time it was found.
The official Uchiha police report concluded that that Natsume had heard an intruder enter the house, being a civilian she ran for her daughter's help. The daughter had already been apprehended and was held hostage. Natsume was killed or her daughter would die, which is why there were no signs of struggle. Miharu had been injured and was taken into the woods away from the village where she put a struggle by description of disturbed terrain and more blood loss. And near the river bend there was more blood and one of Miharu's legs which was simply lying near the river amongst a pool of blood. Due to massive blood loss Miharu Noa was declared K.I.A and dead as to the knowledge of the police force.

Ryou was never able to see her mother's body.

The murder had happened during plain daylight one Thursday noon. Ryou had been training with her team and wasn't making much progress in fighting her sensei when two Uchiha officers showed up and very seriously requested for her to follow them. Confused the girl was lead to the compound. Where she was told the news…