Cosmetic author's note, to get the first few lines away from the chapter index:D
Whoop for cosmetic formatting!
New chapter, here you go:
All regret she might have had about being mean to a child vanishes completely, when she realizes just how much clout Ino has with the Academy students of all years. The children now watch her with a mix of awe and fear and nobody dares to approach her. What sounds like a lonely existence and is, apparently, a cause for concern to Ito-sensei, is in fact a small blessing. Classes are more enjoyable now that she isn't constantly afraid to be noticed anymore.
While sometimes boring, they are also easy and for the first time in her existence she is the smart girl, a prodigy. She isn't quite sure if her brain works differently now, after all the Uchiha are quite famous for spitting out geniuses like nobody's business, or if simply because everything is easier the second time around. It doesn't take long for her to physically catch up with the others either.
Thanks to a very informative, very voluntary, and therefore very empty, health class she has soon worked out a good training regime and the next time she faces the Hyuuga girl she lays her flat out on her back. She still worries, of course. In only two short years she would graduate and, compared to what she'd have to face then, dragging her team along, this is quite literally child's play. Confronted with ninja twice her size and mental age, would she still come out on top?
On a brighter note, Sasuke seems to have forgiven her. Or maybe he just forgot, it's still that age, after all. The likeliest answer though, is that he is just too busy to stay mad at her, trailing main cast members like ducklings.
Just the other day she ran into Naruto for the first time. He was cute – unimpressive but cute. A chubby faced, dirty, extremely determined little boy stalking her cousin as if Sasuke hadn't already noticed him. Sakura turned up as well, rather unexpectedly, as well as a little Hyuuga girl that could only be Hinata, all following each other around the village, as Sasuke became visibly more distressed with each little follower he gained. And so she spent a few amusing afternoons watching Hinata watch Naruto, and watching Sakura watch Ino watch Sasuke, the latter desperately searching for HER.
The ridiculousness of the whole thing strangely calmed her nerves and reminded her that yes, while all of them would be dangerous one day, right now they were children. Malleable and still at least a little innocent. But all innocence aside, when a few weeks later the whole thing turned into 'Ino, Sakura and Naruto badgering Sasuke while Hinata stands confusedly on the sideline' she was more than willing and able to kick in a few baby teeth, because Sasuke-baka is still her cousin and family comes first.
So now, on a Wednesday afternoon, dirty and scuffy from Taijutsu class, she has her hand bunched in the collar of Sakura's dress on her left and Naruto lifted by his waistband on her right, Sasuke but a distant a dot on the horizon, with Ino still hot in pursuit.
"Ok," she says, shaking them both a little. Naruto squawks at the almost-wedgie. "What exactly makes you think it's a good idea to stalk my cousin every waking hour of the day?"
Sakura turns red. Her lip wobbles alarmingly, and it would surely have gotten her out of trouble with Iruka-sensei. But Hisana is no adult. Also, she is a woman, and more importantly, she used to be someone's little sister, who regularly squirmed out of ridiculous situations – sometimes engineered by her older sister, but mostly by own stupidity – and so she easily recognizes the clumsily layered deception by the stubborn glint in the girl's eyes. Naruto, not half as clever, simply rambles and cusses with a surprisingly extensive vocabulary for a seven-year old.
"Shut up,, she snaps, setting him down so forcefully, that he stumbles and lands on his butt. He's even smaller than Sasuke, who is already rather short for his age. A little pang of guilt makes her instead turn to Sakura first, who already towers over both boys.
"I-I just wanted … You don't understand. I like Sasuke-kun. I just want him … to notice me." The whole thing sounds whiny and pathetic. She might have laughed, but knowing what kind of kunoichi this girl would become – could become earlier – does nothing for Hisana's patience.
"Now listen, princess-" the girl makes an insolent face "-Sasuke might be the heir of the Uchiha clan, but I'm three years older and until he comes of age I will be the matriarch of the clan. Guess who gets to decide who can date him?"
Sakura pales a little.
"B-but I would be a good girlfriend! I can … I'm good with tea ceremonies and I can cook well and Suzume-sensei says I'm the best in class at entertaining guests …"
An incredulous laugh bubbles up her throat and very nearly escapes. Is this girl really trying to turn this into a job interview?
"Shut up. I don't care about that."
Sakura's face falls. She opens and closes her mouth once, twice, before settling for a confused frown.
"Then what? Isn't that what an Uchiha wife is supposed to be good at?"
Possibly. Hisana wouldn't know. But if it is, she decides in distaste, then that's real pathetic. "I want you to be able to kick ass. That's what's important. I don't want you to look at people and hem and haw over how to please them; you look at them and they're supposed to bend over backwards for you."
She's really getting into this. This clan is going to make comeback, and it's going to be great, or so help her. Whiny little housewives isn't what she needs for that.
"You haven't got the attitude yet and you certainly lack the skill to back one up."
Sakura's lips thin in thought before her jaw visibly sets and her eyes turn flinty.
"Ok. I'll show you. You'll beg me to marry Sasuke-kun someday!"
Hisana snorts.
"Good," she says, reaching for Naruto's shirt, as the blonde tries to sneak off. "I'll hold you to that. And what do you think you're doing?"
He whines, and there's something akin to genuine panic in his eyes. She turns to Sakura. "What are you waiting for? Go train or something."
As much as the jinchuuriki needs a noogie, she's not about to let a still arrogant and slightly bloodthirsty Sakura witness that. That girl needs to learn some compassion as well, she thinks. Maybe she should have added that…? But that would have been a little hypocritical. When the girl disappears with a purposeful stride on her chubby little legs she turns to Naruto. He looks up at her in a mixture of stubbornness and fear, and with a start she remembers, that he's probably used to being manhandled and yelled at. Instead of the more vicious noogie she settles for digging her fingers into his hair and rubbing until he wails, hair messed up beyond all recognition. He still looks stubborn then, but there's also a bit of amused wonder now.
"And you little punk? What do you want from Sasuke? You want to marry him too?"
"WHAT? NO!" he gags. "But…EVERYONE SAYS THE TEME IS SO STRONG…so I thought, maybe he does, like, super secret training or something."
His fingers reach for his hair, unsuccessfully trying to sort out the mess.
"And so I followed him to see what it was. AND THEN I'M GONNA DO IT TOO, DATTEBAYO!"
Perfectly valid kiddie-logic.
"If I get better in class, maybe the teachers will like me better…"
He trails off with a far-away look, half hopeful, half desperate. It's rather heartbreaking, she thinks. He's annoying, but he's also just a child. She watches him for a minute. He's already fidgeting, unable to stay still for long; if it's the Kyuubi's chakra fuelling him or his own nervous energy, she can't say. Should she do something? Get involved?
She vividly remembers her breakdown a few weeks earlier. Being Sasuke's cousin already put her in the thick of things; getting involved with Naruto directly could be disastrous. What if she freaks out again? She can't offer her friendship to this damaged little boy and then run away as soon as she gets scared again. She's not that cruel.
But she won't, because he's looking at her almost hopefully.
Please be nice to me, I didn't do anything.
Please don't hate me.
It's hard to be afraid when he's looking at her like that. Maybe, she muses, she is already catching a glimpse of what everyone else would still take years to see.
"Hmmm. I know what secret training he does. Wanna see?"
Maybe she could make Sasuke see it too.
Naruto explodes into a flurry of motion.
"YES, DATTEBAYO!"
"Good. Then wait at the swings after class tomorrow. I'll come and get you. You better take this seriously!"
"YES, YES!"
He runs off, nearly tripping over himself when he turns around to wave at her. Geez. She'd have to prepare Sasuke for this. He wouldn't appreciate being taken by surprise by this whirlwind.
Sasuke, as it turns out, doesn't appreciate the whole thing either way.
"He is the deadlast," he says slowly and seriously, as if she might have fallen on her head on the way back home.
"Yes," she says, just as slowly. "And I'll make him not the deadlast."
"You don't even train with me!"
"Well, you never asked me to!"
He huffs.
"I don't need your help, I'm the best in class!"
"Well then, why are you so upset?"
Sasuke looks at her with all the impotent fury of a seven-year-old.
"B-but you're my family!"
She pauses.
"Yes. Yes, I am."
Well, this is unexpected. It's probably a good thing, she figures, that Sasuke has some real attachment to her.
"Listen," she says and tries to grab his shoulder, but he shrugs her off in a huff. "Listen! This is not about liking him better than you or such nonsense. This boy is kind of an idiot and completely alone. I just don't want him to end up dead in a ditch somewhere because nobody taught him how to breathe and walk at the same time."
So maybe that's a little extreme, but this is important. In Sasuke's eyes Naruto would be an idiot anyway, so she couldn't possibly make it any worse right now. She hopes.
"You've seen him in the Academy, right?" He nods reluctantly. "He's pretty bad, isn't he?" Another nod. "And nobody likes him." Sasuke shifts uncomfortably. She has him.
…"Ok, fine. But he better not be so needy."
Oh buddy, she thinks. Nobody's quite as needy as you are.
Training is, of course, a disaster. She didn't really expect anything else, but it still makes her a little ill-tempered to see Naruto mess up in such fundamental ways. Ways that teachers should have already corrected. The Academy style is an odd mix of fluid movements and harsh blocks and punches. This is supposed to make it easier for beginners to learn, because evasive movements are instinctually swift, while powerful moves are instinctually harsh. It would then be the jounin teacher's job to figure out which parts suited their students best and then build on that to evolve it into something more personal.
But instead of the powerful ebb and flow of Konoha's famous Burning Leaf style, Naruto currently boasted more of a Charred Cabbage Style – oddly disjointed, slow where it's supposed to be quick, and quick where it's supposed to be strong.
"No. NO. Your arm's like a wet noodle – it's a block Uzumaki! HOLD it. Again."
He moves from an evasive maneuver into a block. The leg movements are right, but his arms
don't seem to get the message.
"AGAIN. Punch me! And then evade again."
Her own fist lands on his cheek, when he stumbles over his own feet.
"Ne, ne, Nee-chan … this is too difficult! Swift and then strong and then swift. How can I do that all at the same time?"
She sighs. Naruto's style in the manga wasn't very sophisticated and mostly consisted of beating someone down with powerful ninjutsu.
Maybe…
She squints at Sasuke, who abandoned training a while ago and now shamelessly watches them, munching on a tomato for lunch. Good. He better watch this, she thinks. Before he thinks I'm keeping secrets and gets all huffy again.
"Ok, break time. Uzumaki, grab a tomato, it's time for the real secret training."
Naruto looks skeptical, but takes a fruit out of Hisana's bag.
"With a tomato?" he asks.
"No, stupid. You eat, I explain."
He eyes the tomato, before nibbling on it.
Hisana falls into the default stance of the Uchiha style. In contrast to the Burning Leaf style, the Rising Phoenix style looks a lot more defensive. It's designed to complement the Sharingan, but doesn't rely on it. The enemy's attack is caught and re-directed and the user's defense is full of apparent holes, to tempt the attacker into stepping too far into the user's range. It's far less aggressive that Hisana had originally expected from the Uchiha, but apparently they liked making a fool of their enemy far more than parading around their superiority through brute strength.
"What's that?" Naruto queries, tomato juice dripping onto his shirt. Sasuke looks back and forth between them, torn between disgust at Naruto's eating habits and incredulity that she apparently wanted to share their clan style with the heathen.
"It's a secret style," she says, watching her little cousin very carefully from the corner of her eyes. "It won't suit you as well as us, but maybe better than the Academy style."
"REALLY? That's awesome, dattebayo!"
Under her stare, Sasuke turns away in defeat.