Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto
Yoshino's Boot Camp
Our success is short lived. We underestimated the amount of noise that we would make. Nor did we even have an understanding that holding a coup in a fourth-grade class was pushing things too far. Not even half a minute passes before a balding man, the principal whom we have yet to meet, storms down the hallway, demanding to know what the ruckus is all about. Needless to say, what he saw was one for the record books.
The teacher was released. Our masks, extra ninja wire, smoke bombs, and mud were all confiscated. The teacher returned to her class with the promise of discussing workers' compensation at the end of the day. All of the students filled in after her; all except us.
Standing outside in the hallway, facing the staff room; the six of us stand shoulder to shoulder with our arms up in the air. After a long-winded speech from the principal about "how in my day…" and, "I have never seen such a blatant disregard for one's elders", we were told to stand here as we are to wait for our guardians to collect us. Though how they are going to notify our guardians, I have no idea. Perhaps they will be sending out staff members to do it, or maybe ask some genin. But I do not think the genin are currently accepting any d-ranked missions. The principal retreated to the staff room after that and has not come out since then.
"I get that this is supposed to be a punishment" starts Ryo. "us standing here with our arms raised above our heads. Slowly, the blood flows out of our hands, and they get that numb tingling sensation. All the while we're stuck here thinking about the sensation and the reason why we have to hold our arms in the air". I try not to moan. The only thing that makes the tingling numbness worse, is talking about it. "But does this actually work? I mean it seems like a very laxed consequence."
I nod, even though none of them can see me. Coming to this school has given me the impression that shinobi hold their children to a higher standard that civilians do. "Imagine what would happen if we had tried to do this to Iruka-sensei" I said.
From the opposite side of the line I hear Kouta's gruff laugh. "He would've know we were up to something before class even started".
"We wouldn't have been able to use ninja wire" pipes up Shouhei from where he is standing between Ryo and Izumi. "We'd need rope, and something to stop him from using the escape jutsu."
"And it wouldn't work to just tell him our demands" Said Akio from his spot next to me and as an end point in our line. "We'd have to go full T&I on him". Collectively we all shudder. Very few academy students want to end up joining the T&I division. Just the name, torture and interrogation, should be enough to understand why.
"If we did manage to tie up Iruka- sensei though", said Ryo, "we wouldn't be standing in a hallway, holding our arms up".
"Yeah, we may get some extra credit for capturing a chunin, but…" Izumi does not continue. This is probably the first time she has ever been in trouble at school.
Lucky for her, Akio and I have plenty of experience getting in trouble with Iruka-sensei. "He would have given us at least a year's worth of detention. We would be cleaning out all of the classrooms and upkeeping the grounds every day after school until the sun went down." I said, remembering all of the detentions I have had.
"But not before kicking all of our butts during taijutsu practice" Akio adds. "And yelling at us until he's so red in the face that he looks like a tomato". It is a bigger problem overthrowing one's chunin sensei than one's civilian teacher. Since at the academy we are all training to join Konoha's military force, committing mutiny is a big no no.
"I never thought I'd say this", Kouta speaks up in a softer voice than his usual abrasive one. "But I kinda miss him". Zuzu whines in agreement. Summing up how I feel too. At this point, having classes resume at the academy with Iruka-sensei leading them would be a dream come true.
The first guardian to arrive is Chouji's mother; Izumi's guardian. She comes rushing down the hall with a light gleam of sweat on her forehead. At the sight of us, her eyes widen. "Izumi-chan" she calls, hurrying down the line until she sees her charge. "What happened? Why are you holding your arms like that dear?" She squats in front of Izumi to make eye contact.
Before Izumi can answer, Ryo's guardian, the carpenter arrives. His tools on his tool belt thump against his thighs with ever step he takes. The look on his face can only be described as utterly exhausted and forlorn. The moment his eyes land on Ryo, standing in the middle of all of us, the tension in his shoulders decompress and he sighs. "Ryo" he drawled. "What did you do?" he asked, in a way that makes me think that he really does not want to know the answer.
I can almost hear the smirk in Ryo's voice as he said, "we took over our class by hogtying our teacher". Based on the dumbfounded expression on Ryo's guardians face, I guess there is some accomplishment in causing trouble for your sister's significant other.
"What" gasped Chouji's mom, having heard what Ryo had said.
The next to come is a member of Kouta's clan. A tall old man with a scarred face and sporting a buzz cut stomps down the hall. Our at least I thought it was a man until I heard Kouta call out "Aunty Junko! Why did it have to be you!" Looking around my raised arms, I make eye contact with Akio. That's a woman? By his wide eyed and slightly terrified expression I would say that Akio is having similar thoughts.
The woman dubbed Junko, with a sheep dog following close to her heels marches right up to Kouta and slams her fist on top of Kouta's head. "It's always the runts that cause trouble" she growls as Kouta makes pained sputtering noises of protest.
Yoshino arrives next. She says nothing to Akio and I, though she does converse with the other guardians. But when she looks at us her lips are pressed thinly together, and her forehead is creased in anger. From that look alone, Akio and I know that this is just a prelude to the mother of all punishments. Why did we think holding our teacher hostage was a good idea again?
The last to arrive are Shouhei's parents. Clean cut people that they are; they look a little older than one would expect the parents of a ten-year-old to be. At the sight of her son standing in the middle of us with his arms over his head, Shouhei's mom breaks down. "Where did I go wrong" she sobs into her husband's shirt.
It is then that the principal makes a reappearance. He coughs to make his presence known. "Thank you all for hastening here" he said before launching into an explanation of our crimes. He shows our guardians our masks, our list of demands, and everything that he confiscated from us. Chouji's mom listens passively, letting all the information sink in. While Shouhei's parents seem to react to every word. Especially when he takes credit for the wire trap that bounded our teacher.
"You were so docile as a baby!" His mother wails.
Kouta's aunty Junko and her sheep dog are on the opposite end of the spectrum. They are reacting too, but with anger instead of remorse. I can just image Kouta and Zuzu cowering before the pair.
During the explanation, Ryo proudly announced that he was the leader of our mission. Ryo's guardian covered his face with his hands. "Your sister is going to think I wasn't watching you enough" he laments.
Yoshino does not say a word. Instead she oscillates between looking at the principal and glaring at Akio and I with a dark pensive face. As if she is plotting our deaths. At the end of the Principal's speech Chouji's mom had one question. "But why are the children holding their arms up in the air?"
The principal coughs again. "It's a punishment, a tool to help them reflect on their wrong doings as they waited for you to arrive". And then to us, "you may lower your arms now". Which we do slowly. The feeling of blood rushing into my numb arms almost burns.
Chouji's mom blinks at the as she rubs Izumi's arms, almost in a curious nature. "Really?" She asked. "That actually works?"
The principal coughs once more. "Either way, they are all expelled and will not be welcomed back at Konoha's elementary school anytime soon. You may take them home".
From there a lot happened at once. Shouhei's father had to catch his wife as she collapsed. "Ma" cried Shouhei, as he dropped to his knees to be by her side.
Ryo's guardian apologizes profusely before apologizing to the rest of our guardians, even though none of them are paying attention to him. Finally, he guides Ryo away by gripping his upper arm, all the while muttering, "your sister is going to kill us". Ryo looked absolutely thrilled.
"Izumi-chan" said Chouji's mom as she went back and forth from rubbing Izumi's arms in comfort and shaking them in castigation. "This isn't good at all" she said. I have to say that I have never seen a more confused expression that the one that is currently on Izumi's face.
Kouta's Aunty Junko is the loudest of them all. She thumps him on the head with a closed fist for the second time, and yells, "you brat!" Kouta tries to break in to say his piece, but Junko will not allow it. "The clan is strained enough as it is, and you go cause trouble!" Growling a bunch of obscurities under her breathe, Junko plucks Kouta up by the back of his jacket and hauls him away, as her sheep dog follows behind, carrying Zuzu y the scruff of her neck in his teeth.
Yoshino, by far, handles this situation in the most poised and foreboding manner. With a force I never thought her capable of, she pushes our heads down until we are bowing at ninety degree angles. Apologizing to the principal on our behalf, she promises him that we will never disturb the structure of his school ever again. Next, she pinches my left ear, and Akio's right ear between her thumbs and her index fingers, and pulls us to walk in step with her. Akio makes sounds of protest and I flinch with every step I am forced to take. And that is how we walk all the way back to Yoshino's home.
"Of all of the bright ideas" Yoshino said rather shrilly as she bangs pots and pans down on her stove top; putting dinner to together. Akio and I exchange looks from where we are kneeling across from each other on the kitchen floor; a bucket of sudsy water in front of us and scrub brush clutched in each of our hands. Since we made it back to the Nara home, we have been doing chores while listening to Yoshino tells us how irresponsible, wrong and serious our actions were. While Yoshino was quiet at the civilian school, she sure has no problem being heard now. "What if someone had gotten hurt!" She declares it more as a statement than as a question. Looking away from Akio, I dipped the scrub brush in the bucket and wince when the soapy water comes into contact with my raw knuckles. We started scrubbing the floors in the upstairs bathroom and have now made it to the kitchen. We had to change out the water three times. And now my hands are all wrinkled and I think it is only a matter of time before the irritated red skin around my knuckles break. I wonder if I get blood on the floor if Yoshino will let us stop or if we will have to start all over. "Someone could have breathed in too much of the smoke from the smoke bombs. I can only image what would happen if one of your classmates had asthma!" I hear the stove click on as Yoshino precedes with her cooking. "And the ninja wire" she inserted. "If the trap had been set wrong that poor woman could have been seriously injured. Sprained an ankle or a wrist, or the wire could have cut her skin. But did any of you think of that!" She turns off the stove. "No!" she screeched. "Because if you had I doubt you would have been stupid enough to follow through with this plan!" Walking to a cupboard, she slams it open to take out some bowls. Akio places his brush down on the ground and rolls his right shoulder, winces at the strain that he feels as he does so. Yoshino's punishment is much more taxing that any training Neji-sensei has ever put us through. For some reason, when the six of us were planning on holding our civilian teacher hostage, getting into trouble never occurred to me. I don't think it occurred to anyone, except maybe Ryo. Maybe it's because everything has been so different sense the war started. But for me, I think it is because I forgot what it is like to have parents to hold you accountable. If I had done something like this when I was living in the land of earth I am pretty sure that my mother would have disowned me, and my father would have had me running through my katas and chakra control exercises until I was too exhausted to move. If I was still in the land of earth, living with them, I would have never done something like this. But here, the only person who really tells me what to do and what not to do is Iruka-sensei, and he's not my parent. Naruto comes the closest to a parental figure in my life, as scary and unbelievable as that sounds. But I am sure he would find what I and my friends did to be funny. Maybe it was a mistake to think no one would care about what I did outside of the academy.
Now back at the stove, Yoshino dishes up the food that she has prepared; rice with grilled fish and steamed greens. It smells great. Yoshino walks between us and places the bowls on the table before walking back to get the third. "Wash your hands and come eat" she orders us. We are up and moving before she even finishes her sentence. I place the brushes in the bucket and Akio lifts it up to the counter top so there is not a chance of one of us knocking it over on the floor. I get to the sink first, and try to use as little soap as possible to spar my knuckles. The minute I turn away to join Yoshino at the table Akio takes my place. My shoulders feel stiff and my back aches as I slip into the chair that is to the right of Yoshino. Leaving Akio to take the left. Once we are all sitting, we thank Yoshino for the food and somberly dig in. A brief moment passes in silence before another thought occurs to Yoshino. "You parents expect so much more out of you Akio Suzuki!" She said, making Akio frown into his bowl. "And now when they come home I am going to have to spoil their homecoming by telling them what a delinquent their son has turned into." Looking at Akio I try to send him my sympathy, but by his horrified and ashamed face, I am not sure it is working. "What an odd way you have, young man, of honoring their sacrifice.". Yoshino pauses, just long enough to take a bite of food before continuing. "They left to defend our village, to protect you and you repay them by compromising the safety of others!" If he could I think Akio would sink off of his chair and disappear between the floor boards. I do not think he thought about what his parents would think about this either.
And then it is my turn. "And you, young lady!" Yoshino starts, turning her head to look at me. I flinch back at the harshness in her eyes. Usually Yoshino only looks at us with a strict sort of fondness, but this look is not anything like that. I wonder what she'll bring up. My parents are dead and she never knew them so she cannot play the guilt card like she did with Akio. "Before the war you lived alone didn't you?" Mutely I nod my head. "So, you have to be responsible if you are taking care of yourself. You should have known that this was a bad idea!" Looking away from, Yoshino goes back to her food, muttering to herself, "the very idea of letting a child supervise herself". And then back at me. "You have better believe that I will be telling your academy instructor about this. You are not getting off the hook". It becomes difficult to swallow, as all I can do is nod. At the end of the meal, I had only managed to stomach half my food. Yoshino dismisses us with a sharp incline of her head, and the order to "go straight to bed, and I better nor hear any talking tonight".
Tomorrow is not much better. Yoshino woke us up at dawn and told us we had fifteen minutes to brush our teeth, and to get dressed before we had to be downstairs for breakfast. Since we could not go back to school she had to take control of our education. Akio and I stared at each other with absolute dread, having no idea what that means. Though after breakfast, during the first five minutes, Akio and I figured out exactly what she meant. It occurred to her last night that Akio and I would have to work really hard to graduate from the academy or we would have no future as no civilian school would accept us now. And working really hard to Yoshino meant waking up at dawn, training in the morning, before doing morning chores, studying in the afternoon, and finishing the day with evening chores before retiring to bed after dinner and a bath. Free time is completely non-existent. For many days, we repeated this schedule. The only good thing that happened was that with the end of each day, Yoshino got a little less mad. But we missed the others, and at night in whispered voices we wondered if they were being punished like we are. Though we knew the end was near when during morning chores one morning, Yoshino did not have us doing house chores or cleaning out the feed trough for the deer, but instead sent us on errands in the village.
We could not believe our luck and quickly ran from the Nara land before Yoshino could change her mind. "We're free!" Cheered Akio, with his fists thrusted over his head and Yoshino's shopping list clutched in one of them as we race to the center of the village. I crack a smile at him, ignoring all the looks we are getting. It has felt like an eternity since we last saw outside the Nara property. Once the quiet Nara grounds is no longer in view, we slow into a leisurely pace. It would not do to dawdle; for Yoshino is sure to call us out on any form of loitering, but that does not mean we cannot enjoy the change of scenery while we have the chance.
It takes us ten minutes to walk to the market. What used to be the busiest part of the village has dwindled down to just a few stalls, and lackluster foot traffic. Though at least Akio and I will not have trouble getting the vendors' attention. The first thing on the list is one onion. And we are in luck as in the produce stall all there is are onions and cabbages. In truth, with rations, we'll probably will not be able to find everything on Yoshino's list. For example, she also wanted carrots, but none are on sale right now. Akio holds the shopping bag with one onion in it; the reusable type that Yoshino always uses, and I handle the money. The next stop is just across the way to pick up some rice and bread if they have it. Rice is one of those commodities that is such a staple in so many people's diets that, even though Yoshino still has some at the house, if we can get more, we should. And bread…. Well the bread is mostly just hopeful thinking. Though Akio sees a familiar face before me make it to the next stall. "Ryo" Akio calls with alacrity, waving his free hand in the air until the shaggy brown haired boy turns in our direction.
His face is brighter than the last time we saw him. Ryo, approaches us with a partial grin on his tan face as Akio lowers his hand. "I see you two are still alive. The way that Nara was glaring at you I thought next time I saw you guys would be at your joint funeral".
His dry humor went unappreciated as Akio and I reflected on the past days. Akio shudders, "cleaning and studying" he said as I rubbed the skin around my knuckles, still raw from scrubbing Yoshino's floors clean. "That's all we've done since we got expelled. What about you?" Akio asked.
A pleased, almost happy expression comes to Ryo's face, did he not get in trouble? "I've been learning how to build things and helping Kaito-nii, that's my sister's boyfriend, at his job. Turns out that he's not such a bad guy after all". Which is a complete change of view from when we were all standing outside of the principal's office and Ryo was looking forward to causing his sister's boyfriend trouble. "He sent me to pick up lunch for us." He answered gesturing to same stall Akio and I were headed too. "but it's kinda hit and miss if I'll actually be able to find lunch food."
Akio and I nod as the three of us fall into step. We know what he means, everyone in Konoha know what he means. The vendor smiles at us as me enter his stall and we wave and start looking through his wares. He does not sell just rice and bread, but also pastry, in stand ramen cups, flour, and basically any type of grain or rice product. Anything that he can find to sell really. "Have you seen any of the others?" I asked Ryo as we start sorting them the food items. There is some bread but it's all stale. Would Yoshino still want it?
Having gone straight for the cups of instant ramen, Ryo looked over his shoulder at us. "I know Kouta and Izumi are still together. It sounds like they spend most days going back and forth between the Inuzuka's and the Akamichi's training. Apparently, they all only allowed to rest when its meal time and night time. But Shouhei probably has it the worse. Whenever he enters a room his mother breaks down in tears." I wince. It must be hard to have civilian parents.
"Hopefully they forgive him soon" said Akio softly as he brings up the small portion of rice he was able to find to the vendor. Ryo on his tail with two cups of instant ramen. I leave the bread. I think it is too tough to eat.
With groceries in hand, the three of us leave the stall with Ryo talking about all he has been doing as a carpenter's helper. "Most buildings are already done, and there isn't a whole lot of materials to build what hasn't been rebuilt. So, we mostly just make repairs." We pause in the middle of the street, an impossible task when the market is at its fullest. Hopefully it will be impossible again, once the village no longer needs to ration. "But did you know there's a whole section of the village that we aren't allowed to rebuild?" Ryo asked, shifting the cups on ramen in his hands. "Kaito-nii says it's because no one lives there, and hasn't for about three years or so. But I think that's suspicious. Why would the we not use every part of the village?" I freeze as the boys toss ideas back and forth. That sounds like the ghost distract, otherwise more likely known as what used to be the home of the Uchiha. And no one has been living there; not since Sasuke left. Which I think was three years ago, I never got the chance to ask Naruto for any specifics. And no one has rebuilt it? Not even after the invasion? For some reason that made me feel better; that part of my life is still confusing and scary, and right now it does not exist in Konoha. We parted ways with, "see you later" from all three of us. Akio leads the way carrying our purchases back to the Nara clan. He talked about how awesome it was to see Ryo, and that know that Yoshino finally let us leave the clan land to do her shopping, perhaps she would let us see the others if it was for the purpose of training. But my head was on other things. Like the ever-present question of what exactly did it mean to be an Uchiha? Should I be doing something about the ghost district? Should I be feeling anything, loyalty or grief, over it at all?