NOVEL NEXT 1.11
Kakashi-sensei took me to my apartment later that same day. We didn’t talk much. He entered the house with me, and I did spot the dried blood near my bed. Yikes, couldn’t they at least have cleaned the place a bit?
A hand falling in my shoulder brought me back to reality. Kakashi knelt by my side. “I’m giving you a S-rank mission.” His voice was serious, but I wanted to laugh. Really? What was he up to now? “What you told me about the dream? It’s a secret. Don’t tell anyone. Not me, not your friends at school, not even the Hokage. If I need to talk with you about the dreams again, I’ll mention the S-rank mission, understand?”
Ooh. Not gonna lie. That did all sort of things to my fan-girl side. I knew he was just messing with me, trying to keep me quiet, but I had to hold in the mute squeal of joy. I mean, man, ninja! I nodded, fast, decisive. Maybe too fast, I got a little dizzy.
Kakashi patted my hair, once. — How could he be this cool? — Got up, took paper seals from the walls. I hadn’t seen him placing them. Left without saying anything else.
The next days flowed by. I thought I would be involved in the aftermath, that someone would keep me updated, tell me things. No one bothered me. No one even asked me questions. During those days, my chakra behaved strangely a few times. Like when the dead ninja used a jutsu to keep me asleep. My chakra surged into my head, did something there, before retreating. I had no idea what happened. But it happened only three times. Someone tried to cast a jutsu on me? A genjutsu? At least, that was my guess.
Participating in the academy training with a broken arm wasn’t nice. The instructors didn’t care I was hurt. I mean, they cared. They just didn’t let me avoid the training because I was hurt. I got an endless amount of quotes that basically meant the same thing: a shinobi should be able to function even injured. Those jerks. Cooking food also became a hassle. Using only one hand took some time to get used to.
On my own brand of training, I decided to postpone water walking on account of a broken arm. I didn’t want to drown. No sir, thank you sir. I kept the sticking exercise, raised the number of stuff glued to me. To make up for the lack of the new exercise, I varied the things in size and weight. Let me tell you, it was hell.
In the evenings, it was fuinjutsu time. Seal techniques were interesting. It used these building blocks. Each chunk represented a concept, and a seal master arranged those concepts in order to express an effect. Somehow, it reminded me a lot of those visual programming languages, the ones each function was a tile, and you just connect functions using wirelines through input output. Trippy. Which meant it was route memorization work, and boring word at that.
The scrolls old man Hokage gave explained the theory, then listed dozens of basic building blocks. It gave examples of how to combine those blocks to create an effect. This wasn’t really what I wanted. I wanted to understand, learn how these seals worked. This would let me create my own seals, sure, but I was limited by the existing vocabulary. It felt like something missed there and I didn’t know what.
Days blurred in a haze of physical training, chakra training, route memorization. The stress of not knowing if my plan worked only made things worse. Kakashi-sensei didn’t visit again. I had no reason to see the Hokage. Not until I mastered the seal vocabulary, which I wasn’t nowhere close to.
Days turned to weeks, and before I realized, first semester of Academy ended.
I didn’t know what to do. Had my plan worked? There were nothing unusual, nor people behaved differently. Sasuke didn’t change. Still a kid, still a stuck up kid, still a stuck up jerk kid. The anime implied Itachi had been accused of killing Shisui, even got in a fight with his clan about it. That would affect Sasuke, right? But no, Emosuke didn’t change a bit. Arrogant, stupid emo.
I put that out of my mind. I had tried. Stressing over unknown results wouldn't help me any.
Second semester rolled in. Cast on my arm finally gone. Training introduced other type of activities. Tree climbing. Tag games. Hiding games. Capture flag. Shinobi rules games, the works. Some of the simpler kids loved it. Loudmouth Naruto delighted in those games, even if most of the other kids played with him only when ordered by a sensei. It was on the second semester he started pranking people. I felt bad for him. But the lazybones hadn’t learned how to read yet, I couldn’t talk with him.
Sasuke, as expected, excelled in almost all activities. Almost all, because I still beat him in mental games. Perks of being older? I was better at maths and physics. I had an easier time understanding and solving problems. I felt really ashamed of gloating my mental prowess over a kid. Urgh, I’m the worst. But really, the jerk went out of his way to prove himself better than me in everything else.
At least, that was what he believed. I still kept true to myself. I didn’t advertise learning fuinjutsu. I hadn’t any reason to show off my chakra control. My taijutsu was a mix of Konoha’s basic martial arts and whatever I could remember from the Hyuga gentle fist. It was a mess.
By the end of the year, most of the class could read. Slow, stuttering, syllable by syllable. That made my days less lonely. Not that I really bonded with the other kids. Even if they didn’t fully behaved like fives or sixes years old, they were still toddlers in my eyes. Cute, killer in training toddlers, but toddlers nonetheless.
It took me more time to master water walking. It just wasn’t my focus. Fuinjutsu took most of my attention those days. When I finally did mastered the exercise, I paid another visit to the old man. Or at least I tried to. Kunoichi Secretary-chan didn’t led me in to see the old man. She handed me another set of scrolls.
“Hokage-sama left these for you.” Was all she said.
Damn creepy lazy old man keeping tabs on my progress. I debated if I should retaliate. I shrugged. I wasn’t that petty. I wrote on my board. “Can you deliver these for the old man and Wolf-san?” I took the prepared cupcakes from my bag, placed on the woman’s desk. Lemon flavored cupcakes. Don’t judge me, I was feeling bitter.
She read the board, looked at the cupcakes. Her eyes glinted with curiosity.
I dug inside my bag, took the ones I had separated for myself. Offered them to Secretary-chan. I had already eaten some in the morning. I could survive without my sweets in the afternoon.
The teenager smiled. Took it. Smelled it. Took a nibble. Squealed in joy. Yeah. Girls and sweets. Perfect combination.
I pocketed my new chakra exercises, bowed to the woman. Left the tower. The girl’s reaction had been pretty funny. I might use her to taste test my other concoctions.
