Chapter Four: When the trio Meet's
He wonders if maybe the time spent alone had made him a recluse. He was just trying to train, yet... he didn't want to speak to people at first, but now he does, and everything is starting to get more confusing; this world's systems are odd.
There is a reason for the backward technology, though. Only certain people can get their hands on knowledge, and those who do are often more likely to create weapons than things to improve daily life. Then again, when war is constantly breathing down your neck, I guess that happens. It doesn't mean he doesn't find it annoying. There isn't much else he can find about chakra other than his limited knowledge of the series, and even then, they don't delve into the science of it.
It's a show aimed at young adults; they tend to provide minimal scientific explanations. He sighs quietly. It's been two years now, two years since he started training, two years since the attack of the Nine-Tails, and six years of living in this fictional world.
He won't lie to himself; he has contemplated taking himself out, but... he's curious, and his curiosity always wins out in the end—it's the only tether binding him to this world. He applies for the academy. His parents don't mind as long as he doesn't bother them. He doesn't, and instead opts for more unsavory ways of gaining an allowance. Nothing big, and he keeps to the ignorant people; otherwise, they might complain to his parents, and that'd land him in trouble bigger than he'd care to see through.
Really, his self-preservation instincts only show up whenever his parents are involved. It's not like he doesn't want them to yet.
As he walks towards the academy, one step after the other, he wonders why he decided to be a shinobi out of all the professions he could've picked. Why did he want to become a soldier? He doesn't know, but something is compelling him to, and maybe he could make this another tether to devote himself and his life to one place, one person. "For the buildings may decay, but as long as there is one loyal and determined one left, then it will be rebuilt." It's unlikely that the people will completely give up on their home.
It's so different yet not at the same time. Why would anyone, in war times, stay in a certain country or city? Shouldn't you be fleeing to another? What's keeping them there? Is it their pride? Perhaps their financial stability? He finds the latter more likely, but people have surprised him before. Humans are unpredictable in their predictability; there are too many variables for one answer to be absolute, and there is always a chance, no matter how minuscule it is.
Would probability manipulation of the highest degree allow you to bend reality? If there is a zero percent probability that, say, a plant grows eyes, then could someone who can manipulate that probability turn it to a hundred?
These were the questions that kept him here. He doesn't know what lies beyond the gate of death, and therefore, he doesn't know if these questions can be pondered. He doesn't like thinking more about it than that, or else he'll fall into a rabbit hole and start digging up reasons why he doesn't need this. Why he doesn't need to live.
But he does, and he will, and so he walks into the academy, not confident nor shy. He walks to where he believes his classroom is. He'd been shown this yesterday, and his memory had always been quite good, but there is still the chance that he forgot. He debates opening it, remembering how in his old school, they'd wait outside until they were allowed permission by a teacher.
He hears the sound of footsteps behind him and sees a smiling little girl looking at him. He sees a flash of grief and wonders what this girl has been through. Perhaps the Nine-Tails attack had taken a toll on her too—she had to have seen that –it shouldn't be possible to remember.–
The girl has platinum blonde hair with azure blue eyes that are more like pupils and wears an outfit consisting of whites and blues; they are all light and pastel, not the best thing to wear when they're likely to get down and dirty.
He turns around completely and nods with a greeting. "Hello." The girl smiles wider, almost more genuine. "Hi, I'm Kaito, and you?" He opens his mouth to speak, but it takes a second to remember. "I'm Itsuki." The name doesn't roll off the tongue too well, but it's right.
They stand there in awkward silence before Kaito gestures to the room. He turns and opens the door to see around four more early birds and their Sensei. As they walk in, he feels eyes on him for a moment before they slide to the girl behind him. She waves at the people; some wave back, some don't, and they all sit down.
He looks to his right and sees Kaito sitting there with a smile still on her face. How she can smile that much, he doesn't know. "Say, Itsuki, your hair is really short." He blinks before wondering if she thought he was a girl.
He remembers having long hair before; it was weird to feel his head so light. He nods. "Long hair gets in the way; anyone could grab it... also, I'm a guy?" He says the last part uncertainly in case that wasn't what she meant.
She blinks, and her eyes shine as if she caught something before a blush comes over her face. "S–sorry, I didn't mean to insinuate that you were female." The words are rushed, and her face is flushed with embarrassment. He feels a smile involuntarily creep on his face; this reminds him of something, something so far in his memory even he can't remember it.
He might not have a perfect memory, but he has a better one than most. It'll fail him at some point, but he isn't willing to write down what he knows, not yet anyway. Give him some time to at least become a bit stronger, and he'll see how he feels then.
For now, he just wants to talk with this girl who reminds him so much of his old friend. He feels like an old man saying that, but that doesn't matter. "Itsuki, right?" She asks, and he nods. "Well, I was wondering if we could meet up after school and maybe also at lunch." She's whispering it for some reason, but he nods anyway.
There's no room for suspicion here; these are children, and while he's been told not to underestimate them, that doesn't mean he's going to have an eye out for every one of them—except he will because the voices are now gone, his vision is now gone, and he might as well be blind without them–
He lays his head on the desk; it's uncomfortable to do that while also looking forward, but he takes solace in the fact he doesn't need to until the teacher comes—or instructor? He's a bit uncertain on what term to use.
It didn't take long for the rest of the students to trickle in. Then, the instructor arrived. He was nervous, but when speaking, he seemed to get lost in his speech and sounded more confident. The only problem was that he didn't see anyone's raised hands, so they all started shouting his name.
They didn't learn much that day. The first day had also included a ceremony where we introduced ourselves. We were expected to remember everyone's names or learn them as it came along. He only really remembered the important ones. That's why he couldn't remember Kaito. Kaito sounded a bit more masculine than feminine, but who is he to judge? Perhaps her parents simply wanted a boy.
It wasn't something out of the world; men were still seen as better by most. There's also the fact that there are still many traditionalists here, and, of course, there are many more shinobi than Kunoichi. He expected it to be like that.
Men were more evolved for fighting, they have the biological advantage, and aren't seen as fragile in society. He's never had to deal with the whole 'women are weak' thing.
He didn't have many female friends, but an old friend used to go on and on about how horrible it was, until suddenly it was all over the media and people started getting worse because some women wanted the good parts of equality and not the bad parts. But that wouldn't be equality at all, and everything snowballed from there.
He had decided long before that he wouldn't take part in controversial politics. Those sorts of arguments are always more annoying than anything else on that planet. The people there were also incomprehensibly stupid and incompetent. There were no good arguments, no matter how open he came into it.
He didn't even live in a place with much political strife and was still dragged into it. There's no reason for him to be discussing it. Let the country deal with its problems and wait with anticipation for the news.
Itsuki's eyes snapped open as they were being dismissed. There was no bell sound, which meant that theoretically, the instructor could keep them there the whole recess period, and no one would be the wiser. No, it wasn't recess; now it was lunch.
They were allowed to sit outside but had to be close to the window so the instructor could see. Itsuki opted to stay inside; there was no reason to go out into the sun. He's not too sure if he won't just fall asleep with the nice heat out there.
He grabbed his lunchbox out of his backpack. There wasn't anything special in there and then looked to his side where a smiling Kaito was. "Say, Itsuki," she started, and Itsuki wondered what she was going to say.
"You want to go outside?" He swallowed before answering, "The heat from the sun is pleasant, but I'll have to decline." Kaito blinked a few times before nodding as she pulled up her own lunchbox and offered some and an extra pair of chopsticks.
"My parents are really overbearing," she paused to give a little sheepish laugh. "So they decided I needed way too much food to bring along. Honestly, this may just be a ploy so that I gain more friends." She looked almost embarrassed. Itsuki didn't know why.
he nodded and turned in his chair to see better. They chatted about various things while eating. Kaito's parents were great at both cooking and baking, since they were bakers or so Itsuki was told. It was also a family business, which seemed nice to have.
Their instructor told them to go outside for recess and to tell the other children to pack their lunch. We all went outside; some of the more extroverted ones shouted out what our instructor had told us, while the rest stayed back. Everyone started dispersing into groups of friends to play different games.
"How about we sit by that tree over there?" Itsuki glanced at where Kaito nodded to and saw a nice tree with a swing hung on it. He nodded, and they sat down in the shadows. He looked up at the tree and remembered how previously he'd get scolded if he climbed a tree. But looking at the school grounds, there were multiple safety hazards that just weren't safety hazards due to the strange nature of this world.
He spotted another kid in a tree, and seeing as the kid didn't get scolded even when another instructor looked right at them, he decided that it was probably okay to climb up. He stood, dusting his pants off, and looked at Kaito. "Can you climb?" He asked, and Kaito smiled before nodding, immediately catching onto what he wanted. He climbed up and sat on the edge so that Kaito had space. The other kid that was sitting in a tree waved, and both he and Kaito waved back.
The kid grinned before jumping down. "Hey!" The boy exclaimed right at the trunk of their tree. "Yeah?" Kaito questioned. "Mind if I come up there?" The boy was quite loud, but neither of them minded, so the boy climbed to a branch that was a bit higher than theirs.
"I'm Kaito, and this is Itsuki. What's your name?" The boy grinned, showing off his perfectly white teeth. He had black hair in the smallest of ponytails, pale skin, soft features, and red eyes that were pretty much just the pupil, like Itsuki and Kaito. He wore an outfit consisting of dark reds.
"I'm Kage!" The boy, Kage, sounded happy, very happy. Itsuki wondered why he would be so happy around strangers; it was odd but a nice reminder.
The universe must be pulling a joke on him, getting him close to people so much like his old friends; either that or it's getting soft. He prefers to believe the latter, but the former seems more likely.
