Here we go again!
It is fascinating what one can get used to.
He wedged the door shut with his hips, wincing as it banged shut unexpectedly. Slipping his shoes off, he navigated to the kitchen counter. Once upon a time, he'd have made a clone. But now, with his ongoing projects, he practically lived like a civilian. It took nearly all he had to maintain Kurama, and work on Kioku's project simultaneously.
Crossing the tiny sitting room, he was in the kitchen in five steps. It still seemed unbelievable to him that he could live in an apartment even smaller than that of his previous life.
His body moved on autopilot as he arranged the groceries he'd bought. Cans of cheap food lined the open shelf to his left, arranged by expiry date. He had diversified from his one true love - every bit of chakra that wasn't being used to nullify the effects of the excessive, one dimensional eating habits he onced possessed was chakra that Kurama could use.
He resisted the urge to sigh. As always, thoughts of his partner made him sad.
Kurama had woken up briefly a few months back - enough to assure him that he was still alive. He'd been sleeping ever since, the link between the both of them functioning in the reverse for the first time since it was applied to him. Possibly for the first time since it was ever conceived in the mad minds of his long dead ancestors. His relationship with Kioku made it possible for him to act as a conduit, enabling the avatar to channel nature chakra directly to Kurama without him needing to convert it to Sage chakra at all. It was the only way to ensure he didn't get addicted to Kioku's chakra. I'd be worried about the effects on Kurama, but he kinda needs to be alive before I can do that. He snagged a drink from the fridge as he moved to his room, tucking it under his arm stump as he pulled out the mail he'd stuffed into his pocket as he made his way into the house. The address on the envelope got him excited.
With a deft twist of his fingers, the cap of his drink came off, and he absently flicked it into the bin at the other end of the corridor just before entering his room. He hit the light switch as he dropped into a chair, sipping the drink a bit before balancing the bottle on the arm of his chair.
The envelope contained something he had been expecting since his interview three days ago. His eyes skimmed the letter, and what he was reading made him smile, a quick curve of the lips that was far removed from what anyone from his previous life would associate with him.
He made a lot of money while he was laid up in the hospital. His complete lack of records was a legal problem - at least until he became the ward of the eminent right wing representative of the Tokonosu district, Takagi Souichiro . Without someone that powerful taking personal interest in him, he would probably have ended up like all the 'special interest' cases of his world - disappeared for the 'greater good'. As his ward however, he received compensation for the attempts to study him - attempts that yielded nothing as far as he knew, but gave him a nice, fat account balance.
A few underground moves with that money, and he became one of the wealthiest individuals in Japan under a pseudonym - easy to do when you had officially lost an eye and had few modern scruples. He still needed a front though. That was the reason for his small apartment. That was the reason he was applying at one of the more prestigious institutions of 'learning' in Japan - the much vaunted Fujimi High. For a school, the level of corruption was, quite frankly, startling to the displaced transmigrant. It was probably the reason his patron wanted an inside man in the school his daughter was set to attend.
After all, if that was all the Takagi patriarch wanted in exchange for his patronage, it would be well worth the exchange.
Jiraiya would never have approved. For all the old toad's appearances, he had a nationalistic streak a mile long.
Thoughts of his previous life always made him melancholic, but thoughts of them always dragged him into the dumps. He felt Kioku's reassurance swirl around him. Sometimes, it was merely cold comfort. Now was one of those times.
He allowed the thought to weigh him down a bit longer, deriving some form of perverse pleasure in the intensity of emotions that felt like Sasuke's hand was in his chest all over again, heavy with lightning chakra.
The morning began as normal - for him, that is.
Kohta's chest heaved as he dragged himself through the school gates, already exhausted. Even after a week of this in the new school year, it still took a lot out of him. As always, the new PT coach was just inside the gates, watching him as he ran past.
It was starting to creep him out.
He was not surprised to find himself alone as he half ran, half limped to his destination, his backpack weighing him down. He flew to America just for a chance at turning his life around. This is nothing! It was also possible that he was simply a sucker for humiliation and punishment - his bullies providing the former, and the latest attempt at self improvement the latter. He saw the gym doors ahead, and gladly slipped in, slowing down as he reached the end of his route. As usual, the PT coach's eyes were on him up until the doors closed behind him.
When the man was introduced during the first assembly of the term, Kohta could not help but be struck by the second teacher introduced alongside him - Naruto Uzumaki, the Martial Arts Instructor. Reddish hair cut short made him look young, and he was taller than all the teachers on the dais. He carried himself confidently, but not overly so. He was normal, if you ignored his foreign looks. Standing up with the teachers as he was, he stood a head above them all. Overall, he gave off the strange impression of some mismatched article of clothing. His missing right arm seemed even stranger - a lingering sign of violence that didn't seem to belong in a school, no matter how much it seemed like it fit on the man. His voice, when he eventually spoke, was as unique as his appearance. It came with a slight rasp, as though he'd shouted himself hoarse a few minutes before speaking. Somehow, the voice seemed more of a mismatch than his missing arm.
The warm water of the showers helped to calm him. This early, no one was around to bother him, and he could freshen up in peace before classes started. His place as the 'lard' of the class cemented all of two years ago when he started high school, no one bothered with him any more, dismissing him from habit.
The day went by in a blur. He slogged through the first two classes, forcing himself to focus on boring classes that he could not see any use for. Only the words of his SEAL instructor room six months ago kept him at it.
The third class was when it started going downhill.
The teacher for the class, a strangely charismatic man called Shido, announced the bane of all right thinking students - an impromptu test.
As the papers were handed out, he struggled to bring his rising panic under control. He always seemed to do poorly on the tests for this course - not enough to fail, but enough that his average was always weighed down.
When Mr. Shido called to begin, he flipped the papers over. The thin teacher began walking the rows as he was known for, searching for those trying to cheat on the test. Kohta pushed this to the back of his mind as he lost himself in trying to beat the questions before time.
It was why he was shocked when he felt a hand on his shoulder.
Jumping slightly, and feeling just the tiniest bit of shame at his cowardice, he turned to see Mr. Shido eyes boring into him, and framed by a severe expression.
"Drop your pen and stand, Hirano,"
The boy stood, still feeling slightly confused about what he did. The teacher reached for his papers and leafed through them, his eyes getting even darker, if it was possible.
"Get out."
His heart dropped. "Sir," he barely managed to stammer.
"I said get out!" Mr Shido repeated, his voice tightening into a snarl.
Cowed, Kohta left the class, shame dogging his steps. The quiet snickers as he left threatened to move him to tears, but he refused. Not again, he thought. Never again.
He lingered outside the class door, the whispers of the test in progress that made it through the door sending stabs of complicated emotions through him. In a few minutes, the prospect of a lost summer was suddenly very close, and very real.
In what seemed like hours, the test seemed to be finally over. The noise from the classroom picked up again, and suddenly jumped in volume as the doors slid open to reveal the teacher. The man completely ignored him, brushing past Kohta's attempts to suddenly make space as though the boy was not there at all.
The bell rang.
He kept it together as he made his way to the roof, allowing the press of the crowd now on the corridor to move him in the direction he wanted to go. Going through the motions of social interaction - an uncertain wave here, a loud greeting there - he masked his feelings.
She swirled her drink in her cup absently as she watched the rest of the cafeteria through her blonde bangs. For once, no one was bothering her. There was no need to engage in mindless prattle all in the name of interacting with her co-workers. At the other end of the cafeteria sat the object of her attention.
Uzumaki Naruto.
She remembered him clearly. During the final year of her training, he was the 'interesting case' that had the entire trauma department in a frenzy. The last time she saw him, he looked nearly dead. Clearly, two years had done a lot for the young man.
He sat surrounded by other teachers. The soccer advisor Koichi Shido, the ping pong advisor Hayashi Kyoko, and the judo advisor Maeda Teshima. For someone who should have looked dangerous, the foreign-looking man was somehow not out of place among the teachers. He was a newly hired martial arts instructor - another luxury that a private school like Fujimi High provided its students. As she'd noted when she first saw him, he was cute. However, as had become her nature, she was always suspicious of situations where it seemed like her animal brain wanted to abandon all rationality and common sense. It was a habit formed from adapting to the… advantages of being an exceptionally beautiful woman.
One of the four said something, and Teshima roared in laughter, his booming voice bouncing all around the teacher's lounge. The man was loud and bombastic, a chronic boaster whose only redeeming feature to her was that he focused all his energies towards impressing the ping pong advisor who was chuckling demurely at whatever was said. Shido was the least respectable of the four - at least to her. The man was a parasitic worm, intent on throwing his weight around - and he had a lot of it to throw, given his family pedigree - in what he thought was a subtle way. She would not piss on him if he was on fire. To the lemmings that was nearly all the staff, he was a charismatic and dedicated man. However, he could not hide from her.
Her pager beeped. Eyeing it as she polished off the rest of her drink, she stood and began to make her way back to the school clinic.
When she finished her training, she could never have believed she would end up in a school clinic of all things. The fact that she was earning almost twice her contemporaries made it an easier pill to swallow, but it would not be a lie to say that she was bored. Extreme boredom, but access to potential influence - a situation she would choose time and time again.
Nevertheless, "bored" was not a good thing for her to be.
She attended to the reason for the initial page - a bruised shin that could have just been ignored like all other normal children. But heaven forbid that the children of the 'finest' of Tokonosu put up with anything more painful than a clipping toenails. With that out of the way, she turned her attention to the next major assignment for her office - the next batch of vaccinations for the school.
The schedule was set to start in a week's time, and was supposed to cover everyone in the school.
"Misuzu," she said, calling for one of the students who spent their time volunteering in the clinic. The girl came over, her face conveying her eagerness to impress.
"Yes, Ms Marikawa."
"Have the vaccination schedules gone out?"
"Ah yes, Ms Marikawa. The final copy was forwarded to the student's council for dissemination this morning."
"That's good. Are you free for the rest of the day?"
"Yes, Ms Marikawa," she replied. "What do you need me for?"
"We need to design the consent and data forms for the vaccination exercise, and coordinate some light paperwork with the clinics in the dorms," said the doctor.
"Kazu and Okada are already on it ma," Misuzu replied. "Okada is also working with the student's council to generate a vaccination ID that will bear the PRS-G617g and subsequent iterations."
"That quite the initiative from the three of you," commended Shizuka, impressed.
"Well, the vaccine is interesting to all of us. To think that a single vaccine can cover all viral infections - it is almost too good to believe," remarked Misuzu
"It's the power of science, Misuzu dear. People like your parents work very hard to produce breakthroughs in medicine for the rest of the world."
The brunette blushed at the praise, a shy smile sneaking its way onto her face. She was one of the few people in the school whose parents were not super elites, and it gave the outwardly confident girl intense moments of inferiority. Shizuka had taken to randomly pointing out how her parents were awesome to her, and she was gratified at how the girl seemed to latch on to her as a source of inspiration. The next major inferiority battle the buxom doctor foresaw was the one regarding bust size, but she would fight that battle when she got to that bridge.
The two others who formed her clinic trio were not present at the moment - one having classes, and the other at club practice. Together, they were hard, diligent workers who made the burden of paperwork more bearable for the doctor. That their parents were influential in the scientific community, or were on the way there, was simply a bonus.
"The difference between the both of us is simply this - I have failed more times than you have even tried."
The words called out to him as he fidgeted outside Mr. Uzumaki's office, trying to work up the courage to knock. Their simple black font stood out against the white and orange background of the plaque on the door.
Suddenly, the door swung in, opening to reveal the person he'd come to see.
"Hello Kohta," the teacher said. "Come on in."
"Yes sir," he stammered, as Mr Uzumaki moved to allow him to walk into his office.
The office was a plain room. There were no decorations on the wall besides a ceremonial sword that hung against a sort of leaf-spiral backdrop etched into the wall.
Mr Uzumaki had a reputation. Even as the martial arts instructor, he made time for students who could keep up with his standards. He was no smiling friend like Ms Marikawa, but he didn't need that here either way.
"So," began Mr Uzumaki, "how can I help you, Hirano?"
Kohta swallowed, gathering his courage and words. There was no easy way to say it, so he just blurted it out.
"I want to learn martial arts!"
"Alright."
"I am a hard worker! And I am already getting in… huh?" he stopped in surprise as what Mr Uzumaki said caught up to him.
"I said, 'alright'," repeated Mr Uzumaki, a small smile on his face.
Kohta's face broke into a wide grin to match the teacher across from him.