"What was that all about?" Tsubomi asked as Hisashi took a seat at their desk. She was a chubby, nerdy looking girl with dark, unkempt hair and square glasses who wore a black turtleneck.
"Just me taking the rare loss."
"Hmm. Rare. Right." The girl put two hands on her cheeks with her elbows firmly on the desk, looking at him with squinting eyes and a knowing smile.
"Eww, quit looking at me like that..." It felt like he was on trial or something.
"Why? Does it make you uncomfortable?" She leaned in closer, her eyes squinting harder and her face looking even smugger. How was that possible? He used his index finger to take her glasses from her face. From her lack of reaction, one could tell that this was hardly a new occurrence between them.
"If you can't stop looking at me weird I'm not gonna let you look at anything at all, then!" He put them on himself and, surprise surprise, he was as blind as a bat. Tsubomi could only laugh, for as beady as her eyes looked without, they really did not fit him whatsoever.
"Hehehe, I'm sorry, I'm sorry! How could I possibly get you to forgive me?" She asked with a mix of laughter and sarcasm.
Hisashi pushed the glasses closer to his face with another poke from his index finger and clasped his hands together like a criminal mastermind.
"Show me 'that' thing."
Tsubomi faked a gasp.
"You don't mean..?"
"I do. The prototype."
"Alright... just be careful."
An exchange happened between them, her glasses for the super secret prototype weapon she was making: the almighty sling. An almighty superweapon, it was said (by her) that it could turn the smallest of pebbles into a tool of mass destruction. Such was to be expected from the Hagane clan, known for selling fantastic quality weapons under the supervision of Hagane Tenten herself, the village's premiere weapon expert. Well, Hyuga Tenten would be more accurate, the name of her former clan merely followed her from her prowess.
"Man, you guys are really weird." Inuzuka Tsuki, current heir of the Inuzuka, commented plainly. His partner Aomaru, barked in agreeance from atop the boy's head. And atop the pup's little body, a kitten agreed with a meow. It caused quite the scandal, maybe a bit overblown, when the leader of the Inuzuka, Kiba, married the granddaughter of the Nekomori clan leader—a woman named Tamaki. Since then, the two were forced to put aside the eternal rivalry of cats and dogs for the sake of unity between clans, the product of which was the pretty annoying guy in front of them and the little kitten in Shinobi attire named Okaneko who served as his second partner.
"So's the smell of your dog breath but you don't hear me saying anything about that." Hisashi replied calmly.
"Ha! My dog breath didn't matter when I was beating your ass in sparring!" The young kit said with a wry laugh.
Now on the defensive, with a hint of annoyance in his voice, the young Uzumaki replied, "Well duh, how could I win when you always smell like you just finished eating your own crap!"
"I'd rather smell like crap than be a midget like you!"
Hisashi started spinning the sling in an enormous circle of rope out of irritation, immediately grabbing the attention of a sizable chunk of the class. It was an odd relationship they had. The two of them had grown up together on account of their parents being old friends but it was a roll of the dice everyday whether they would act like good friends or mortal enemies.
"H-hey, not so big." Tsubomi always lost faith whenever she thought that they were getting too much attention. They were friends since the beginning because they were the "weird quiet kids" at the start, but as he grew to be more boisterous every single day, she was just as much of a wallflower as she ever was whenever anyone else came into the picture. Regardless, he slowed down his spinning, rolling the sling into a compact shape before wordlessly passing it back to his friend.
"Well you better enjoy it while it lasts. I've gotten way better at the Gentle Fist so you're not getting a single win from here on out, you dumb mutt." He huffed, albeit with a touch less of the flame he had before.
"I'll believe that when I see it, 'cause I definitely haven't yet." He gave a condescending chuckle. Hisashi furrowed his brows in deep irritation, drumming his fingers on the desk.
Until, he got a strange look in his eye that immediately had Tsubomi on alert, watching him with curiosity. He was squinting his eyes as though he were planning something outright malicious. He turned slowly to see that Tsuki had already moved on to talk to one of his friends who had just come in, about what, he neither knew nor cared. He raised his arms up as though to stretch his body, both hands clasped together, fingers interlocked. But from the right sleeve of his sweater slowly emerged a snake.
Okaneko's eyes dilated, with Aomaru napping and blissfully unaware of what was about to transpire. All of a sudden, the snake launched itself out of the sleeve and directly at the cat. Okaneko's back lurched up into the air, hissing, his sharpened claws pricking into Aomaru, sending the once docile pup into a barking frenzy at the sudden attack.
"OW! STOP! WHAT'S GOTTEN INTO YOU TWO?!"Before Tsuki could blink, the pup and the cat were hissing and barking as they moved across his head in a rotating pattern, digging their claws from his head to his neck in their alarmed states. So alarmed, Okaneko never noticed that scary snake had phased right through him.
Hisashi covered his face with his fan, snickering to himself, eyes squinted so tight they resembled a fox's. That snake had been nothing more than an illusion. He took great pride in his skill with genjutsu, it had helped conduct many a scheme in his day. After all, he could always pull out the exact thing he needed. It not being hardly factored into matters, because if you could get someone to believe something was real, you practically had the genuine article right there in front of them.
Tsubomi could hardly hold in a chuckle herself, though for slightly different reasons.
"You know, your eye's look just like Lord Hokage's when you do that." Instantly, he snapped his fan close, eyeing her with an icy glare. Uh oh. She struck a nerve.
"O-Oh, I mean... you look just like... the perfect Hyuga. One hundred percent."
"Thought so." He flicked the fan open and waved it at himself, now entirely uninterested in the chaos going on behind him, even as the entire class was practically roaring from the display.
"Attention!" A stern voice from the doorway broke through the chaos. It was Aburame Shino-sensei. "Do I need to remind everyone that this is meant to be your graduation day? Please be seated and remain silent."
With that, the instructor had immediate control over the classroom. The jovial air that had permeated throughout had dissipated as nerves began to rise. This was it. The culmination of what they had worked for for years. Hisashi, on the other hand, was fairly relaxed. What was there to be worried about? He had studied intently for every portion of the exam with Tsubomi. He had practically already passed. The same could not be said for his study partner, who was borderline hyperventilating as she looked down at the desk, her anxiety on an absolute rampage.
"Hey." He put a hand on her shoulder. She jumped up at the touch, before looking back at him.
"Y-yeah?" She stuttered.
"We're gonna do great. We studied super hard, remember? So don't worry, alright? We're shoe-ins."
She broke out into an awkward smile, before turning away from him, heart warmed yet embarrassed by his kindness all the same. "Yeah, you're right. Thanks."
Hisashi nodded his head before glancing back to check on his friends. Kazuya radiated tension not helped by the fact that the first portion of the exam was the written section. For an outsider, it was difficult to imagine why. He was, after all, considered the "good" twin. Levelheaded, polite, talented, a pretty-boy—the works. That was what he appeared to be on the surface. As his brother, he knew that Kazuya could be a total slob, lazy, pervy, and above all else, completely study avoidant. Mind, the two shared the first three out of four of those (much to their mother's exasperation) but he could at least get a good study session going. You practically had to crack a whip to get Kazuya to study. It was as he said, he was a doer not a thinker. Lucky for him, Hisashi exercised his big brother authority to badger him into studying so he had little to worry about in theory.
Akihiko was a different story altogether. In the moments leading up to the start of the exam, he was still chatting away with Fumiko, who was snickering with each remark she heard from him. He saw her pinch his yet swollen cheeks a few times, knowing him, right after he had teased her about something.
The spiky haired boy sighed, crossing his arms behind his head before turning back to face the front. Kazuya was one thing; Akihiko was a separate beast entirely. With him, he could barely tell if he was here to become a ninja or as another excuse to flirt with more girls. Only time would tell, he supposed.
"Students, please be clear that there are no books or notes remaining atop your desk... nor animal companions resting on your head."
Begrudgingly, Tsuki ordered that his animal companions stand down. There had been an incident where he used the pair to cheat off the other students during a pop quiz. Served him right, what kind of idiot would lay out his secret weapon on some easy little quizzes? That was a crime way worse than his cheating could possibly be.
With that, their test would begin. It was about as much of a breeze as he imagined it would be. The questions on the exam were fairly simple, such as: What are the five elemental affinities a ninja can have? What are the weaknesses of each one? What are the hand signs for Clone Jutsu?
He had drilled the answers so deep into his brain that the test might as well have been a coloring book for the amount of effort he was putting into it. In fact, he had managed to finish with around five minutes to spare before time was eventually called.
From there, it was the transformation section, which went off mostly without a hitch. The majority of the students were content to transform into Aburame-sensei, their parents, fellow students—but Hisashi had decided to go the extra mile and transform into a lady he had seen Aburame-sensei walking with on a Sunday. A cute, bookish looking young woman with braided hair, a tight purple sweater, and round glasses. The vizors he wore covered his eyes as this transpired in front of him, yet his feelings were quite easy to gauge as he stared wordlessly at the image presented in front of him... before he placed a hand down the wall and looked down at the floor in depression. Oops. He could feel his classmates staring daggers into his eyes as they attempted to console the older man. It, uh, hadn't worked out, apparently.
And lastly, there was the clone segment. Where each and every student was to create a clone of themselves. This one, again, went off without a hitch. Despite the low expectations the other students had of him, they were right that he and Kazuya could easily make clones of themselves, given who their father was. Kazuya could do a bit more than that, but that was neither here nor there.
With that said, the exams had finished and they were asked to step outside for a half hour as three teacher's assistants walked in through the door to grade their performance and let them know if they would finally be able to move on or be chucked right back to the academy.
Author's Note
Well, that ended up being much longer than a month or two! Sorry about that, I slacked behind on reading the source material and that hindered my progress quite a bit despite me having most of this chapter done over a year ago. I'm wary of making any more promises, so all I'll say is I'll do my best to get the next chapter out when I can. If you would like to help me, feel free to message me if you're interested in beta reading for me. I'm pretty embarrassed about reading my own stuff so having someone else to help me would be gargantuan. On the bright side, I AM caught up to the original Naruto, at least. Anyway, that's all from me, ciao!