Chapter Seven: Renowned

The incoming academy students stood in rows as the Hokage gave a speech. After which, they were divided into two classes. Kakashi ended up in one while Yuina was sent to the other.

Class hadn't even started and she already yearned to return to their old routine.

The class sizes were a lot larger than Yuina imagined. Getting individual support would be difficult, but maybe there wasn't much of a need? Presuming everyone, or nearly everyone, was getting most of their training support from family.

Actually, if they expanded how long students were in the academy did that mean there was more content or was it just an institution to house kids until the village deemed them old enough? From a political standpoint it would make sense if the later were true. Have kids from various clans spend time together, bond, and make friends to deepen Konoha's internal bonds.

Well at least there were 'academic' classes, what Yuina considered to be 'normal' classes, so maybe there was something to gain out of that. Though, if you asked her a few years ago she never would have thought she would be returning to school. She had enough formal education for a lifetime.

Yuina took a seat in one of the many available spots picking up the words of a few kids behind her talking about how the Third Hokage's son was in their year.

Was that supposed to matter? Some people might try to get close to the kid because of his dad, but she can't imagine he would want friends who only wanted to use him. Or maybe she was projecting. Some people like the attention and spotlight regardless of how they get it.

It wasn't her problem to deal with.

Their teacher then walked in and hushed the class before introducing himself as Sato-sensei. He talked in a soft bright tone about basic class etiquette and procedures.

Yuina knew it was just an introduction but she didn't know how she was going to last the year, let alone five. On first impressions, Sato-sensei seemed to be the kind of person good with kids. She was used to Sakumo and Kakashi treating her like a person not a child and so the approach was extremely jarring.

Sato-sensei's manner of speech wasn't calming, reassuring, or easier to follow. To Yuina, his words simply dragged on.

Sato-sensei then went on to start roll call. Names were in seemingly random order, but they were asked to make their presence known when called so they could become more familiar with each other.

Hyuga Nao

Yamanaka Miruku

Kichiro

Sarutobi Asuma, though the teacher had called him the Third's Honorable Son before calling him by name. He seemed to shrink in his seat as eyes turned towards him.

Nakahara Hoshi

Morino Ibiki

Kurama Goro

Jun

Yuuhi Kurenai

Morikawa Mayumi

Aburame Susumu

Hatake Yuina

Yuina raised her hand to draw attention to herself when her name was called before lowering it so the next name would be called.

Once all the names were called the had their first official lesson which was literacy followed by numeracy.

She learnt nothing.

Yuina was happy when lunch came around, but apparently they couldn't get through one day before the bullying started. She felt she should have been more surprised than she was. She speculated that there were still internal tensions within the village. This was probably the first time for many of them that they interacted with so many people from different backgrounds.

"Why are your eyes red? Are you a demon?"

If Yuina remembered correctly, she knew she did, the girl who commented was Mihara Ume and the girl the comment was directed at was Yuuhi Kurenai. Regardless of who was involved she thought it stupid.

It seemed like some people purposefully kept their distance to not get involved while a few seemed displeased but unwilling to say or do anything.

Sato-sensei was already gone too as lunches were unsupervised.

Making a split-second decision, Yuina stepped in front to Yuuhi to direct the attention of Mihara to herself. "This isn't really appropriate."

Mihara through an insult at Yuina instead but she shrugged it off. Yuina wasn't going to let a kid get under her skin if she could help it. Mihara then through a punch when words didn't hurt Yuina.

Yuina wish it didn't have to come to this. She didn't want to physically hurt the girl, bullying or not, but Mihara threw a punch at her and they were still in the classroom. Yuuhi was still behind her, and even if the punch missed both of them there was still the stairs Mihara could fall down to consider. Yuina decided to grip Mihara's wrist and twisted her arm so Yuina could push her against the wall as lightly as she could.

Mihara was slower than Yuina would have expected, but chalked it up to being constrained in a classroom and the fact Mihara probably didn't originally mean to turn name calling into a brawl.

"What happened?" Mihara muttered. "Hey let go of me!"

"Can we peacefully co-exist now?"

Mihara struggled against Yuina's grip. "Okay. Okay already. Let me go!"

Yuina let the girl go only for the girl to glare at her as she rubbed her wrist. With all the eyes on them, Mihara walked out of the room without another word.

It would have been better for Mihara to apologize in an attempt to clear the air but there wasn't much else Yuina could do on that front.

"Your class in having lunch too right? What's taking so long?" Yuina heard the familiar voice of Kakashi so she looked up at the back entrance at the top of the stairs.

"I'm coming." Yuina picked up her bento before meeting Kakashi at the door and walking off to find someplace more secluded. Hopefully avoiding anymore drama that could start up on the first day.

"That was Hatake-san, right?" Jun asked to the person seated next to him. Both planning to stay in the classroom to eat. "That was so cool!"

"She has silver hair. Do you think she knows the White Fang?" said Nakahara.

Meanwhile, Kakashi and Yuina only made it part way down the hall before one of Kakashi's classmates asked if he wanted to eat with them.

"I want to eat with Yuina."

The kids eyes moved from Kakashi to Yuina who stood beside him. Yuina gave a slight wave as if to say that yes, she was the person referred to as Yuina.

"You have the same hair."

"We're twins," Kakashi said flatly. He just wanted to eat in peace with his sister.

"Twins?! Does that mean your face looks like that?"

"We're fraternal not identical." It was impossible for babies of different sex to be identical twins.

"What's fraternal?"

Could he not infer that fraternal was the opposite of identical? Kakashi picked up the language easy enough. How to simplify it… "We came from different eggs."

The boy laughed and pointed at her. "Humans don't lay eggs."

Nope. She wasn't continuing this conversation.

"Don't—" Kakashi began saying but Yuina placed a hand on his wrist and shook her head.

"Let's go eat." Yuina nodded to the other boy. "It was nice to meet you." She dragged Kakashi who easily fell in line with her steps as she walked away without asking his name.

Yuina was sad when they had to split at the end of lunch. The second half of the day was just as boring at the first half.

Note: Yuina speculates as she continues to try and understand the world. Sometimes she's right and other times she is off the mark but she obviously doesn't know which is what. ¯\_( ͡❛ ͜ʖ ͡❛)_/¯