Curiosity

An overgrown clearing amid the trees, if he had to guess, it was a long-forgotten practice field. A number dotted the village near the outskirts. The trail cutting off from a dirt path had been easy enough to find. Brittle grass trampled, debris kicked aside, low foliage snapped, there was no attempt to hide it. Anyone could find her, if they wanted.

Inada Renri sat on the ground, winding bandages over her hands. Neatly lined up in front of her were a few kunai. Opposite, on the edge of the cramped field, a perfectly painted target on the gouged wood of an old stump.

A flex of bandaged fingers with a flinch… Unprotected skin blistered after only a few hours of dedicated throwing; she must not have realized that. Or, through such thin coverings, blisters formed with extended use. Two days was plenty of time for that.

Collecting kunai, she stood, taking another few steps back. Five kunai thrown one by one, it didn't take long. Tightly packed cluster in the center, she hopped before running to collect them.

She had never made an attempt after arriving late that day. Not out of disinterest. Periphery of his sight, he caught her staring at the other line despite feigning interest in him. No one had taken particular interest in her arrival. A girl from her class aimed several unacknowledged glares at her -and him- but that was it.

Her lack of participation went ignored. Even after their teachers both stressed that everyone had to go once. Unfortunately, that minimum also gave an excuse.

He tended to have attention thrust onto him, but he had bit more difficulty understanding what kids his age wanted from him. Certainly not an educational lesson. Anything else was energy better spent training. His class was quickly learning to ignore him.

Maybe, because she had arrived late after classroom cleaning duty, she had been excused. Except, even those from his class with the same duty hadn't been excused from the participation rule. The two from her class made sure to take their turns. Maybe, because she had been a part of that almost-accident, she had been excused. But that had been at the end of the lesson, class technically over five minutes beforehand. The teachers were just letting the competition conclude before formally dismissing class.

Most likely, however, it was the reason why he was curious.

Inada. A name now spread to common use, but once exclusively a clan name. A shinobi clan name. A shinobi clan that had been chased from the Land of Fire near the founding of Konoha. The language cast them in an unsavory light, as another bearer of conflict. It tied them to a group called the Cult of Inari.

He couldn't find much information beyond that. Odd.

With only five kunai, she threw another round quickly. Metal worn, likely jagged and chipped, no wonder her hands were bloody beneath the bandages. Rough edges beyond fixing, they should have been discarded ages ago.

One kunai in the bullseye, the other four were equally spaced to form a near-perfect square around the first. She was good. Better than two days of practice alone, he believed.

Another possibility: She could have been tied for top of her class in throwing weapons, spared the role of instructor in favor of her classmate. Yet, participation hadn't been waived for him or the other. They simply had to throw first as a demonstration. The grouping her classmate threw was far from what he saw her doing now. And, if her other skills matched, she shouldn't have gone completely ignored. He certainly wasn't.

Inada. To his knowledge, the only Inada allowed into the village since its inception. Nothing in the books he had access to, he had gathered that from hushed complaints as she entered the academy a few weeks late. The resistance and reluctance, someone of influence had allowed her entrance into both the village and academy. Someone saw enough talent to bother pulling strings.

Other rumors unintentionally overheard, she had also been born in another hidden village.

Again collecting kunai from the target, she stopped with two in hand. Stabbing one into the side of the stump, she used the flat edge of the other to force it in further. Retrieving the rest, she returned to her starting point.

The first throw struck the handle of the kunai stabbed into the stump. Deflecting, it flew back towards her. She didn't flinch as it struck the ground at her feet.

He had happened to catch sight of her on his way home, being they were heading the same direction. He followed her, admittedly, on a whim, but this was part of why.

She had read the angle of deflection. Just like she had during the lesson. The rest of their classmates had been oblivious or frozen as the kunai flew towards them. In that flicker of a moment, she had seen the angle it deflected, predicted where it would go, and determined her only course of action was to fling herself in its path. To protect the girl that had done nothing but glare at her. With no expectation of the teachers stepping in, given their disinterest in even making her participate.

He had reacted equally as automatically. Thankfully, there had been a clear path.

Another throw. The kunai struck the edge of the ring, bouncing off to sail into the trees behind.

She was trying to copy what he had done. When she had returned the kunai to him, she had looked like she wanted to say more than thank you, her voice betraying more than her expression.

Her shoulders slumped before she plucked the earlier kunai from the ground, repositioning. One kunai tossed in an arc, she threw a second. Not even close. Both flew into the trees. Dragging her feet, she went to collect the scattered knives.

Why had she thanked him?

At the end of the week, Renri left the academy with her head hung in defeat. A lot of her classmates had the same dismal look as they dispersed for the day.

The fun thing Sensei had promised was a test.

Not a particularly difficult test. She probably got close to the class average, but surprise tests were difficult to balance. Some would do worse than usual to skew the average she targeted, often placing her just a little too high for comfort.

This test included practical skills, too. Those always left a bitter taste. Writing wrong answers on a paper handed back later didn't feel as disheartening. No audience to mock careful failure. Not to mention their student mentors from the week had returned to oversee the tests on their subjects. (Some of the older students got an earful for doing a subpar job, the tests including missed information that they should have taught. In their defense, she wouldn't have wanted to teach her class. They could be very stubborn.)

Alone on the dirt path, she let out a huff, blowing the hair away from her eyes.

Today… She really hated this today.

Picking at a loose bandage on her hand, the blisters stung. Air hurt. Moving really hurt. The lesson yesterday on quickly and correctly forming seals had reopened a lot of the cuts and nearly all of the blisters. Well, it had after class when she actually went to practice. During class she had been such a fumbling mess the older student teaching almost came over to personally assist. (No matter how small and cute, dogs made her irrationally nervous. She could thank her mother for accidentally teaching her that fear. An entire clan in Konoha was dedicated to giving her a heart attack, it seemed).

Adding insult to the injury of today, kunoichi class betrayed her as well. They were learning very, very basic medical ninjutsu to go with their first-aid training. She had managed to derail the lesson. In her defense, their teacher had turned her back to explain how the training worked, and Renri didn't think she'd make the same mistake again. Apparently, exploding the practice fish to spatter the room in viscera normally resulted in a lot of screaming and crying and cleaning. Not laughter at her adeptness in dismantling flesh opposed to mending it before being told to clean up the mess.

She stubbornly made her way to the seclusion of her overgrown training grounds. Even if to just read. Anything more would probably-

Her eyes snapped from the ground. Hand immediately hid behind her overly straight back, nope. Wasn't expecting to cross paths with anyone on her deserted trail.

"Good afternoon, Itachi-san." And she wanted to die. Could her voice sound anymore awkward?

His stare could probably kill. (Apparently, a charming family trait, according to her classmates' more irritated whispers during the earlier test. They didn't appreciate him pointing out their mistakes, even if he was quite polite, if blunt, about it.)

"Good afternoon, Renri-san," he greeted equally as formally, without the shocking levels of awkwardness Renri was radiating. Just a slightly raised eyebrow questioning her. Was she sweating? She felt like she was sweating. A lot. She couldn't seem more suspicious if she tried. Well, actually, she could still be covered in fish blood and guts. That, apparently, offended others here. Then again, this wasn't a fishing village.

It was stupid. So very stupid. She didn't expect him to know her name despite the fact he had stood there, in the classroom, every time teacher called her up for her turn. (Since their classes had done the practical skills tests together today, she was very aware he was amazing, having watched him ace everything. Very jealous.)

She absolutely could not form words under his stare. And it wasn't even a mean glare or anything. Maybe a bit intense, but nothing negative. That may be the issue; she didn't know what she should be doing and chose flustered as a default. Terrible habit.

"Why did you do so poorly on the test?"

His question knocked away some of her panic. Blunt, yes, but the most negative inflection in his tone and expression was mildly perplexed. Which confused her.

"My form was off," she repeated, "with one foot slightly turned. That angled my body leftward, causing my aim to shift as I was throwing right-handed and had to extend further."

Those were his exact words delivered as she stepped back from the target.

"I lied." His deadpan confession, she- "And you knew that. Why didn't you argue?"

Oh.

Oh, no.

She knew it didn't make sense for his analysis of what she had done wrong to be wrong when every single person before and after her had been outrageously accurate. Teacher had even complimented him over it! There had been no turn shifting her aim; she had deliberately aimed away from the center to lower her score, and he saw that. Then, his very believable lie, she thoughtlessly accepted it like any other criticism. As in in one ear and out the other. After all, she never showed off her actual capabilities in class.

"Why did you lie?" she asked instead, not seeing the point.

"Because you wanted to score low."

Which just brought them back to his original question. With the unsaid deliberately part more obvious.

"To not stand out."

She slapped a hand over her mouth, eyes going to the ground. Bad. Very bad. Should have lied. Why hadn't she?

Smile hidden behind her hand, that's why. He noticed she was good at something. She so very rarely got any recognition under her self-imposed rules, even this small bit made her a little too happy. The lightness, the relief at someone else knowing… Even if he was partly to blame.

He silently mulled over her response.

Her answer likely dug a hole. Without context, she could only look bad by desperately avoiding the attention she obviously craved. A few words from him and look! She was a mess! But the alternative…

She glanced at Itachi.

She was told to behave, but that never meant to seem inconsequential. To the contrary, her decision to play average probably came with much disappointment. Yet, she saw exactly what Itachi's excellence had earned him.

Her attention on the ground, hair hiding most of her face again, she lifted her hand away from her mouth enough to speak. She may as well. "I wanted to ask, before. How did you do that with the kunai on the practice field?" She struggled in repeating the first step on a static target. Such a small target from the distance he had been standing, she still clipped or hit the handle's ring after days of practice.

"You need someone else to throw the first kunai." Fresh heat crawling up her neck and face, he stepped around her. "You can't throw both yourself. You're just setting yourself up to fail," he said, voice quiet, passing her without waiting for a response.

She kept her hand held over her mouth. Mortified. He definitely must have tailed her at some point and saw her practicing alone. How else would he know? She had spent an hour trying to throw the first and pin it with a second, before deeming it impossible.

Her hand dropped back to her side as the heat in her face plummeted.

She had no one to throw the first.