Disclaimer: I own nothing. This is purely for entertainment purposes, and I am making no profit off of this.
The clock on the wall ticked by so slowly and I wanted to leave and I wanted to train and I wanted to become strong and I wanted to live and there was no time.
I held the forehead protector in my hands, staring at the leaf symbol that was emblazoned along its metal front. Tomorrow, team assignments would be announced.
The fruits of my labour were apparent now.
Train. Stay alive. Do what you are told. Do what you are told until you are the one telling others what to do. That is the philosophy by which the strong live.
I had trained. I was alive. I had done what I was told, more or less. I was well on my way to becoming strong. The fight for strength was not over yet, not even close, but there were visible results.
I looked back down at my headband. I pushed my hair out of the way and tied it around my head. I felt an odd sort of weight come onto my shoulders as I put it on.
I took a glance in the mirror, and studied my reflection.
My eyes rested on the metal that now adorned my forehead.
I could almost imagine a jagged slash running across that damned leaf.
"... and Yamanaka Chisei, unfortunately because of your early graduation, you will not be placed on a team."
My heart stopped in my chest. My sweat, my blood, my time, my life all came to a halt. No training means no strength. No strength means weakness. Weakness is a sickness. Sickness will kill me. So I will die.
I will die.
The teacher sighed, "However, a jounin has requested specifically for you, so you will be operating under them. You will be assigned teammates at a later date, at the next graduation.
What?
I blinked, the tension that I had felt suddenly defused.
"And for what it's worth… "
Crash!
"Come with me Chisei-kun, for together we shall stoke the ever burning flames of youth!"
The proctor looked at me with exhausted eyes, "... I'm sorry."
Oh my god.
"Yes! Let us praise the greatness of youth!
Oh my god.
The man in the green jumpsuit struck a pose and grinned at me, his glaringly bright grin forcing me to shield my eyes.
Oh my god.
The is the man that I will be spending the foreseeable future training with.
No other event in my life so far has been so simultaneously upsetting and amazing. Gai was an undoubtedly skilled taijutsu user, and would most certainly be a good teacher. But…
"YOOOUUUUTH!"
Oh my fucking god.
Sweat poured down my face as I climbed up the Hokage monument. A blur passed by me, and the glaring midday sun nearly blinded me as I looked up to try to get a better look at the blur.
"Yes! Faster! More youth!"
That blur was Gai-sensei.
Of course.
Of course Gai could run up and down the Hokage monument like it was nothing. Of course he would shout about youth while he was at it.
Of course!
My new sensei was fucking insane!
My fingers found purchase on the lower lip of Tobirama's giant stone likeness, and I pulled myself up higher, the muscles in my arms shaking in exhaustion as I did. I judged the distance between my current position and the top of the Hokage rock. For all of the extra physical training that I had been doing, I would barely be able to complete the first task that Gai had set me to.
I suppose that was the difference between having an actual dedicated teacher, and trying to piece things together yourself.
Whatever. With Gai as a sensei, physical fitness would soon be a non-issue.
As soon as I could get up this goddamn monument.
The green blur ran down the monument, blitzing past me in an instant. I could literally feel the heat as the friction warmed Gai's body.
And the worst part?
With my sensing capabilities, I could figure out when somebody was using chakra or not, so imagine my horror when I discovered that Gai was only emitting the barest traces of chakra, basically just leaking a normal chakra signature.
Which meant that he wasn't using chakra to enhance his muscles.
Does not compute.
"YOOOUUUUTH!"
And Gai was running up the monument again.
Gritting my teeth, I swung myself onto Tobirama's nose. This all would have been easier had I been allowed to use chakra to just walk up the damn monument, but Gai had strictly forbidden the use of any chakra, saying that this exercise was a purely physical one.
I get where he was coming from, because my physical training was the weakest of all the categories of shinobi combat that I was familiar with, but still…
Tobirama's eyebrow felt rough beneath my fingers, and my feet scrambled to gain a foothold on the rock below.
After a few more minutes of struggling, I, panting and exhausted clambered onto the top of the monument, where Gai gleaming smile greeted me.
"Very youthful work out there, my new, cool and hip student!"
"Thanks… Gai… sensei." I managed to wheeze out an answer.
"But I'm afraid that the flames of youth wait for no one! We must go out and fan them ourselves! I shall stoke the youthfulness in both myself and you, my student! And if I cannot do that, I will run one-hundred laps around the village on my hands! And if I cannot do that-"
"Why did you choose me?" I asked suddenly.
Gai looked at me, breaking out of his youth-induced reverie.
"What do you mean, my student?"
"The teacher that was announcing the teams- he said that a jounin had requested specifically for me. Why did you ask? Why did you choose me?"
Gai looked at me for a moment, then grinned widely, "Oh my lovely, youthful student! I saw you in the forest training! Oh the utter passion burning inside you! To have that kind of drive! How truly youthful! I could not help but add to my own training regime after seeing such a passionate display of youth from one so young!"
Wait… Gai was the weird chakra signature I had felt in the forest? Gai had… he had stealthed me?
That seemed rather… uncharacteristic.
"Oh how inspired I was! After seeing you training I immediately ran to the Hokage and requested you as an apprentice!"
Gai's smile then faded as he adopted a serious expression that almost looked out of place on his face.
"You would not have been satisfied with having the attention of a sensei focused on two others. Your dissatisfaction would have lead to bitterness, and it would be a shame to let such a bright flame of youthfulness die out."
Gai's expression was practically icy at this point. I had never seen this. I could only remember a tiny handful of times that the show had depicted Gai as serious.
"And burn out it would, because if you had continued down the path that you had started…"
Gai gave me a hard look.
"You would have killed yourself. You would have broken your own soul."
And then 'Serious Gai' vanished and was replaced once more with Gai's normal exuberance. He grinned and shouted about youth and how I would become 'most youthful ninja the village has seen since Hashirama-sama,' but 'Serious Gai' stuck with me.
You would have killed yourself.
"... and as a genin of the Yamanaka clan, you have been deemed responsible enough to handle the most basic of the Yamanaka clan jutsu. What I will teach you must be used responsibly and with great caution."
I nodded, "Hai, Inoichi-sama."
Inoichi's eyes scanned my face for a second before he continued, "Further specialisation in the clan jutsu will require you to acquire more skill and experience, and also pass a security check."
A mind rape then. I had heard this, even read about it in official records, but hearing it directly from the clan head was something else. The more advanced mind jutsu would be closed off to me forever.
Unless…
I thought back to the day that I got my headband. That one idle thought that I had had while looking into the mirror.
I could almost imagine a jagged slash running across that damned leaf.
And I thought back to Yamanaka Inorei.
The vultures soared overhead, their distant, screeching cries filling the air with a faint, but deathly song.