So I heard you want Dan. In my plan, Dan actually didn't show up until chapter 50 or so. But I wrote this chapter just for everyone who wanted some Dan. Apologies Walter is not good with people yet.
I own neither Naruto nor Watchmen. I own Emmy DeWitt.
Six months to the final academy exam, Nelson-sensei announces that the class is going to start a month-long project that will teach the fourth-year students how to lead a team of subordinates.
Each fourth-year student is to lead a team of two first-years, children fresh-faced and only just starting to realize what life as a ninja was like and what it required from every citizen of Konoha. Only fifty percent of the original class will make it to their final year, let alone graduate. Therefore there are two first-years for every pre-graduate.
The project seems simple – help the younger students with their schoolwork and develop camaraderie with them over the next five weeks. Both the fourth years and their underlings are given an hour of class every day to interact. And every Friday the group of three goes through a group test – graded on how well the fourth-years lead, and how well the first-years obey orders. And horror upon horrors, at the end of the month, the fourth-years are to take their charges on a three-day survival test.
He'll do fine, Walter thinks. Two snot-nosed children to tell what to do. One month, and he'll never have to see them again. Show off just enough to make them in awe of him – newbies are like that – and they'll be pliable enough. They don't have to like him. Why would they, anyway – few children anywhere close to his age ever do like him, after all.
Walter hopes they are slightly skilled – or this is going to be a nightmare.
He has no idea.
*******
As he surveys his charges, Walter decides Nelson-sensei belongs to the Devil.
Because he's assigned him one Emmy DeWitt, and a plump boy by the name of Daniel Dreiberg.
Emmy, who still speaks in exclamation marks, pretends they have not met before, and they therefore manage to avoid awkwardness. Her introduction was chipper, her handshake crushingly tight.
Dreiberg has either had a very bad day, or is an insufferable prat.
"Dan Dreiberg," He says, pudgy hand outthrust, a scowl on his face. "I'm not related to the Akimichis in any way, kapeesh?" Walter blinks, for once out-scowled, but shakes the boy's hand firmly.
"Is obvious, Daniel. No facial tattoos. All Akimichi have them." Emmy snickers, blue eyes bright.
"Oh." Daniel looks miserable. "Don't… Don't call me Daniel. Only my dad does that." His father – use the authority figure, Walter thinks, he doesn't have to like you, just obey you.
"Yes, Daniel." The redhead says carefully and tolerantly, ready to analyze the reaction.
The eight-year old refuses to talk to him for the rest of the hour.
That could've gone better.
******
Nelson-sensei could not have given him two more different subordinates.
Emmy is a lovely flower of competence, ninja-raised and born. Walter knows she'll graduate, make something out of herself.
Daniel he is not so sure of.
The boy is a conundrum, at once puppyish and desperately eager to please, and simultaneously crabby and disheartened. He is clumsy. He is chubby and slow. He is very smart and has very good aim. And his civilian banker father does not want him to be a ninja. He is so, so innocent. Walter does not think he has ever been as naïve as Daniel is.
And he does obey Walter after Emmy takes him aside and talks him into submission.
She has a way of doing that, saying strange things as if they are completely reasonable and convincing everyone else that what she says is, in fact, reasonable. Emmy is a strange creature – there is plenty of evidence to support this, also. After all, she seems to adore Walter, despite her mother's hatred of him.
And she speaks in exclamation marks, which makes her cute and perky in a way that makes Walter's brain melt under the realization that she is his half-sister but is absolutely nothing like him.
The group of three manages to scrape a pass in the first weekly test – which makes Daniel miserable, because he is clearly the one slowing his partners down.
"Maybe… maybe I'm no good at this. Maybe I should just quit." He says forlornly, brown eyes miserable behind coke-bottle glasses. Walter reaches over and pinches the younger boy until tears come to his eyes.
"Don't you dare, Daniel." He says, glaring. "Ninja don't quit. Want to be worthy of name? Never surrender. Never give up. Hard work, hard life. Is worth it." Running out of ideas for his scolding, he adds desperately "Quit and I will tie you up. Will never be found. Then what?"
Dan looks terrified, and leaves early. Emmy, who has an older brother, doesn't seem to find anything unusual with Walter's behavior, but then, she is Emmy Scarlett DeWitt – the exception to everything. Walter is a little worried he's scared Daniel off for good, but he doesn't think long on it. He's managed to pull a muscle in his calf during training one day, which makes walking agony. Furthermore, the apartment he shares with his mother has developed an infestation of cockroaches. The filthy little buggers crawl on him in the night, making sleep all but impossible. Sore, and almost catatonic with fatigue, he has far more immediate worries than an awkward first-year struggling with a career choice.
So he's surprised when Dan awkwardly thanks him on Monday, for his support. He shrugs it off, and helps Daniel with his fighting forms. Perhaps one day Daniel will no longer fall on his behind every time he attempts horse stance, but it doesn't seem to be happening soon.
After that first week, Dan tries a little harder, stops giving up so soon.
They make it through the month okay, not stellar, but they pass the next three Friday tests within a comfortable margin. Daniel is over the moon.
The survival test is all right. They don't actually leave Konoha's walls. They are simply assigned a training ground in the woods to camp out in.
Daniel turns out to recognize every bird in the forest simply by its song. He also turns out to be a dab hand at finding good firewood and starting campfires.
Nights are kept from being awkward – Emmy is terrified of the dark, which requires both boys to sleep on either side of her to keep her safe from whatever demons her mind conjures in the night. Walter hopes she grows out of that fear – it will only impede her.
When the three days are over, they return to the school, pleased to find they've passed the project, and part ways.
If they were closer in age, Walter might consider Daniel a friend. But Daniel is eight and Walter is eleven – the three years are insurmountable.
Three years will not seem so far, nine years later. But that is in the future.
Yay for Dan.
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