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Point of view: Hound
Naruto was crying, great hiccupping sobs shaking his tiny shoulders. Hound cringed a little and skittered backwards. For the first time he found himself falling back on one of Minato-sensei's mannerisms—he fluttered his hands uncertainly, not knowing what to do with them.
He wanted- he wanted the crying to stop, both because the noise was horrendous and because there was no need for Naruto to be sad.
'He's six,' Kakashi thought incredulously. 'Why would such a little thing upset him so? When I was six…'
Granted, when he was six, he was already a shinobi and had fought for his life. Perhaps the comparison was invalid. Still… He didn't know quite what to do about a child breaking down into tears over being snubbed by a prospective friend's parent.
It had been more than unfair. Naruto had been happily chasing a brunette girl with trailing pigtails across the playground when the girl's mother had snapped to attention, noticed her child's playmate, and barked out that they were going home. Naruto had watched the confused exodus with a blank expression that told Hound and any other discerning observers that the boy understood he had just been deemed an unsuitable playmate. And why not? It wasn't the first time.
The blond had turned and headed home without another word, clumsily unlocking the door to the apartment he shared with his sister using the key hanging around his neck. He had then proceeded to crawl onto the couch and bawl his eyes out.
Hound caught himself wishing that Aiko hadn't chosen today to haunt the library, so that she could comfort her twin. She seemed to be the comparatively logical one, reserved and quiet. Had he only seen her in public he would have thought she was a stone-faced little girl, but she was considerably different around Naruto. Fond and –indulgent, perhaps?
He licked the inside of his lips, feeling vaguely guilty for being such a sub-par human being that he would rely on the parenting expertise of a six year old girl.
But what else could he do? Hound couldn't do a thing himself, even if he were allowed to show himself to Naruto. He didn't have the social skills. The only children he'd ever dealt with were… were…
Hound backed out of the apartment without alerting the child that he had ever been there and rushed through a familiar series of handsigns in the hallway. A moment later, Pakkun, the proud new father of a litter of five puppies, blinked up at him.
His request was wordless and nearly instantaneous, a combination of handsigns and pleading body language.
Severely unimpressed, the pug raised one ear and tilted his head. "Not now, pup," Pakkun said lowly. "I'd call Bisuke, if I were you. He's good with puppies, and he won't accidentally shout out if someone pulls his tail or pets his fur the wrong way."
"Right," Kakashi said quietly, acknowledging the logic there. "Thank you, Pakkun."
The pug nodded, hesitating. After a moment, he sighed. "I wouldn't mind playing with them when I'm not so busy," he admitted balefully. "I do love puppies."
Hound shook his head. "I think this is a one-time deal."
With that, he released the summoning and called upon the right dog. Forty seconds later, Naruto's head shot up at the sound of scratching against the door. He sniffled, giving it a suspicious stare. After a few moments of continued scratching and quiet whines, the boy hauled himself up and answered the door.
Bisuke bowled him over with gentle enthusiasm, licking the salt off his face and nuzzling. Naruto gave a surprised giggle.
Hound nearly smiled under his cold mask as the boys rolled around on the floor and wrestled. There, he'd problem-solved without a six-year old's help.
And this was supposed to be the relaxing mission, a break from real ANBU work. Ha. Protection detail was far more stressful than anything he did outside the village, in some ways. He was good at hurting people. Keeping them safe was a personal weakness.
When the older twin came home, Bisuke's ears pricked to attention. Hound silently dismissed ANBU Crow. The boy nodded and left. There was no need for two watchers now that the twins were in the same place.
"Tadaima," Aiko called, shucking her shoes messily. When she received no answer the girl padded around the couch—and her posture instantly relaxed at the sight of Naruto sleeping peacefully, using a vicious nin-dog as a pillow. She bit her lower lip in thought for a moment before cautiously approaching the hound. At the gracious nod Bisuke gave her (like a queen acknowledging a subject, Hound noted in irritation) the little girl dropped to her knees and all but fell over herself to scratch behind the dog's ears and rub at his back.
Oddly, Hound was disappointed with the twin he'd thought was more perceptive. She should be more suspicious than that of a large animal wearing a vest in her home.
Well, they were just children, even if he deluded himself into thinking that there was something strangely knowing about the way she looked at his ninken before she grinned at the dog. They couldn't be expected to connect all the dots.
~~~
Aiko didn't much like taijutsu practice at the Academy when it was finally started in earnest- by which she meant supervised spars using the katas they had been taught. Iruka-sensei and his assistant Mizuki-sensei did a passable job of making sure that no one got hurt while learning to kill. There was a thrill in realizing that her body was so much better than she thought it was, that she could bend back to put her palms on the ground and then lift her feet up without doing more than shaking if she really worked at it. It was an enormous relief to start feeling less like she was trapped in a sub-par body and more like she was capable and strong. Those aspects were really enjoyable, even though her sparring partner sucked. Hyuuga Neji was a little monster, and he beat her with embarrassing ease every time they fought.
Once she managed to pull her attention away from her own problems, Aiko discovered that Naruto had his own issues with taijutsu practice. Finding out that Iruka's growing discomfort and confusion about how to relate to Naruto meant that he got less attention than he should was displeasing. To be fair to the Chuunin teachers, everything that they told the twins was correct, and they wouldn't let either of them move on in the material before it had been mastered. So it was clear that no one was trying to allow unprepared genin to graduate and get themselves killed.
It was still insidiously harmful that Naruto was almost always the last one picked, and his sessions were often cut off by the bell for the next activity. The consistently shaved times in conjunction with Naruto's less mature body (now seven years old to their peers' nine) was a formidable handicap.
'He has plenty of time to work out the kinks in his taijutsu,' Aiko reminded herself as they trudged home, reaching out to take Naruto's grubby fingers into hers. He tolerated the touch absently, kicking and glaring at a rock that seemed generally inoffensive to her. 'In the anime, he gets held back twice. The Hokage must know better than to let a ten year old graduate. In a way, he did us a favor by giving us extra time to learn.'
Trying to look on the bright side didn't always help, but it didn't hurt to hope that not everyone was either incompetent or malicious. Still, Aiko privately thought that she would do a much better job with the really important village administration efforts if she were the one in charge. Like keeping the jinchuuriki safe and stable, for example.
She was thankful that Naruto was a social, fluttering personality. Right now it caused him hurt because their peers had either been warned off of them or didn't want to play with the babies of the class, but at least it meant that he didn't constantly cling to her. Aiko loved Naruto dearly, and would gladly bash Mizuki's head in with a brick to defend his honor if she thought she could get away with it. That didn't mean she never got tired of spending time with him. She liked being with Naruto, but it felt like she was one of those tacky pez dispensers: Naruto took a little bit out of her every time they interacted. That was fine, that was what she was there for—but eventually she was empty and in need of time away from him to refill.
It felt like she was his mother, not his sister. They had been moved out of the orphanage and into an apartment with an attentive landlady and a cook who came by once a day when they had been entered into the Academy, but the rest of the parenting was all up to Aiko to teach or Naruto to figure out on his own. She could handle a lot of it—homework, making sure he was properly fed and dressed—but there were areas in which she just couldn't help. How could she possibly teach a little boy to relate to other people? Aiko couldn't relate to adults because they condescended to her, and she couldn't relate to children her apparent age because they had nothing in common intellectually.
He was doing something right, because he'd gone and made friends with a pretty teenager whose father plied Naruto with ramen when he came to visit.
"Are you coming?"
Naruto practically hovered at the apartment door the moment it turned six—the time that Ayame-san started her shift at the ramen stand.
"Sure, sure," Aiko sighed agreeably, gathering up Naruto's homework into a backpack. Now, where had she left her library text about the cultural history of the northern regions of Fire Country…
Her otouto scowled helplessly, but took the bag she foisted on him in silent agreement to complete his assignments while his friend was preoccupied with customers. She didn't bother restraining the laugh at his morose expression.
"Cheer up," Aiko taunted, raising an eyebrow and tilting her head slightly. "It won't take that long to finish your work, and then Ayame-san will know you're as smart as you are cute."
Naruto flushed a deeply amusing shade of vibrant pink. "Nee-chan!" he squawked indignantly, hugging his bag to his tummy. "Ayame-chan is really old! And I'm not cute, so there." The little stomp he gave was startlingly unconvincing.
Unwillingly, Aiko's face twisted into a pout and her eyes softened.
Her brother flinched, knowing what that expression meant. "Aikoooo," he whined, backing up cautiously. "Don't look at me like that."
"Too late!" She leapt at him, bringing him down to the floor in a tumble of warm skin and giggles and little boy legs kicking futilely. "You're sooo cute," Aiko crooned, scrunching up her nose.
His replying, "Am not!" was cut off by the loud shriek of surprise he gave when Aiko hauled herself up enough to start planting kisses on his forehead and cheeks.
She didn't really even know what she was saying—it was just a babble of baby talk along the lines of, 'who's the cutest? You are! You are!' in-between artificially noisy "muah" sound effects as she peppered his face.
"Nee-channn," Naruto wailed when he finally gave up, legs stilling. "You're embarrassing. We're at home alone and you're still embarrassing."
"I have to get my kicks somewhere," Aiko said practically, ruffling his hair one last time. "Now get up, you look a mess and you have a hot date with Ayame-san."
He just made a high-pitched whine and stomped away, ears flushed a hot red.
~~~
The twins' fifth year in the Academy was remarkable for a few reasons. They had been taking classes with the age group Aiko recognized as the bulk of the rookie 12 for two years. Aiko found eight year olds slightly less contemptibly dull than six year olds, but not by enough to spend her free time with them.
Naruto, on the other hand, had formed a lazy sort of camaraderie with Nara Shikamaru and Inuzuka Kiba. It wasn't good for his attendance record or his grades, but it was good for his mood. They began skipping classes on a weekly basis, sneaking in before the final bell smelling of ramen or barbeque.
Aiko highly doubted that the other two were fooling the clan members that came to walk them home from classes, but she didn't much care either. She had considered trying to straighten Naruto out into a conscientious student, but had been halted by a bout of apathy. Why? What was the point? He got very little out of the structured classes. She wouldn't be surprised if he was dyslexic—he could read, but he complained that it gave him headaches and that the squiggles wouldn't stay still.
Those complaints seemed to generally be dismissed as an attempt to squirrel out of book work by Mizuki and several of the specialized teachers. Iruka-sensei had given lectures to that effect for a while until he seemed to clue in. Their primary teacher had tried, to give him credit. He had taken Naruto to a medical appointment with a medic-nin, and then to a specialized civilian sector optometrist when the first testing didn't reveal any abnormalities.
It was a pity that neither specialist could figure out what was wrong, but at least Iruka-sensei believed Naruto that something was genuinely affecting his ability to participate in classroom learning. Aiko considered speaking up—but how? It wasn't like she knew anything about how dyslexia worked, or even if that was a medical problem that modern medicine was aware of.
It was stupid to waste time mapping out complicated math problems to figure out projectile trajectory or how much blood was lost per second for different wounds. No one was going to do that math in the field. Practice and experience were what mattered. Naruto would flourish there.
' At least Iruka-sensei warmed up to Naruto.'
Aiko tried not to smile the first time that he showed up at their apartment with bags of takeout, clearly worried that Naruto was surviving on ramen and optimism. Iruka-sensei was mildly flabbergasted to see that the one-bedroom that the twins shared was in fact well-stocked and relatively clean.
To be fair, the fund that was provided for them to live off of was less than impressive and would have been hard to stretch enough. But there were clearly adults interested in the twins' welfare, even if they didn't want to meet them. The Hokage was certain to keep a careful eye on the state of the twins' equipment and get them new clothing at the changes of season, and two different parties left care packages.
It wasn't hard to piece together that the food that mysteriously made its way to the doorstep or kitchen table was from different people. The things that ended up on their kitchen table were always homemade and prettily wrapped, and the woman (Aiko was sure it was a woman, there was a faint trace of perfume that was so familiar) that left it had a habit of doing their dishes. In contrast, every so often, a disheveled and confused jumble of odds and ends that all but screamed 'bachelor' was left on their doorstop with toothmarks on the battered basket it was delivered in.
Iruka coughed, shifting his feet in the genkan and not bothering to disguise his examination of their living space. "It's nice?" he tried.
It wasn't particularly nice. The twins all but lived in a shoebox, as far as Aiko was concerned. It was hellishly small for someone who liked to pace. But that seemed to be a trait shared by Konoha's architecture and not a snub against the twins themselves.
"Food!" Naruto shot out of the bathroom, banging into the wall as he went. He cheerfully flung himself at Iruka without care for the fact that his bare feet inadvertently kicked the bag the man was holding.
"Oof-" Iruka choked, attempting to wrap his arms around the boy, and failing because Naruto had already slipped away and shoved his head inside the plastic bag.
"You would think he never got fed," Aiko remarked blandly, unimpressed by Naruto's enthusiasm. There was no point in getting worked up about it. She had learned the hard way that there was no changing the fact that he had ten times the energy and enthusiasm that she did. Naruto didn't harm anything or mean to be rude.
"I was starting to wonder," Iruka said doubtfully as Naruto absconded to the kitchen with the meal and began pulling open drawers and flinging serving spoons and chopsticks onto the table.
Any response she might have made was cut off by sudden angry sirens. Iruka tensed and all but shot to the door, securing it with a series of handsigns that Aiko couldn't see, much less list off.
"What's going on, Iruka-sensei!" Naruto half-demanded, excitement warring with discomfort from the godawful noise. He had clapped his hands to his head at the same time Aiko did.
"Lockdown," Iruka said grimly, pacing through the apartment. "Everyone under Jounin is confined to the closest safe location. What windows do you have?" He sealed the window in their bedroom with the same handsigns, and the three had a tense dinner. The audible alerts cycled through several pitches and patterns while Iruka maintained a forced calm. The last one seemed to be some sort of all-clear, because the tenseness in Iruka's shoulders fled and he unsealed the door and windows so that the twins didn't hurt themselves by getting too close to them.
"I need to go see if I can help," Iruka explained at the door, ruffling Naruto's hair. The blond scowled at him. The teacher's eyes softened, and he bent to give Naruto a hug. "Don't worry, I'll be fine. The danger is passed. I will see you two in the morning, right?" Iruka made an awkward, aborted motion towards Aiko as if only realizing that he might hurt one child's feelings by paying more attention to the other. He stopped at her expression, and only gave a wave.
"Have a good night, sensei," Aiko said absently as she closed the door.
They were never told what had happened, per se. But the Academy was noticeably depleted in its supply of dark-haired little boys and girls the next morning. Only one of them came back. When that finally happened, Sasuke was grim-faced and a far cry from the cheerful little boy he had been a week before. He decimated his usual training partners Kiba and Hinata in every match with enough viciousness that Aiko was rather glad she'd started official taijutsu training a year before and been paired with Neji, even if he wiped the floor with her and sent her to the hospital the first time they fought.
The homemade care packages stopped coming. Aiko tried very hard not to think about what that meant, but she had dreams of silky black hair and her 'aunt' from the orphanage for weeks.
~~~
Aiko started to feel like she had less and less free time for Naruto as their sixth school year slipped by. It had been a long time since her disastrous first match with Neji and the painful, equally bad matches that followed it.
Out of sheer self-preservation and not genuine desire to improve, Aiko had begun to haunt the Academy training grounds and work on her own for hours every day. Practicing alone wasn't optimal, but it was better than nothing. (Although she desperately wished that one of the other students in their cohort would undergo a sudden increase in abilities that got them reassigned as Neji's partner. Wasn't Lee supposed to be good at taijutsu?)
She was finally starting to get to a point where she could nearly compete with Neji. It might have partly been that she'd hit a growth spurt—she was almost ten to his eleven, and had a good two inches on him. That made it harder for him to keep her at distance. She had to remind herself that it wasn't an advantage she could count on—she'd be smaller than practically any other opponent out of the Academy. He was still stronger than she was, but Aiko had managed to improve both her speed and her blocks to the point where he almost never landed a hit on her.
Of course, she couldn't get a hit on him either, which led to painfully long and boring spars until Iruka-sensei inevitably called the match in Neji's favor.
'At least I only get bruises on my forearms and fists now', she consoled herself one morning after the initial spar of the day, running her cool-down laps around the short track. It was a visible improvement on the mottled look she used to sport daily. Naruto sped by, closely followed by—was that Ino? She looked pretty pissed about something.
From his position a few feet in front of her, Sasuke stiffened, then deliberately pushed his pace so that the more enthusiastic students didn't lap him. Aiko felt her eye twitch in exasperation. "A cool-down isn't a competition, 'ttebane!" she shouted, knowing damn well he didn't hear her.
What she heard in response was a quiet huffing behind her. Aiko blinked and drifted to one side, twisting her head to see who was coming up behind her. "Oh hi, Hinata-chan." She flashed a toothy grin.
God, that kid was cute. Her classmates almost looked like people at this age instead of dolls, which made it easier to talk to them.
Hinata's porcelain pale skin flushed a little, and she drew her arms closer to her body. She didn't slow down or avert her eyes, however. "Ah, hello, Aiko-san." She visibly hesitated. "You did well in your spar today," Hinata added meekly.
"Thank you, that's very nice of you to say. I saw part of yours too. Your foot work is really good," she praised. 'Hinata was always lacking in confidence, right?' "Is Sakura-san a nice partner to have?"
Hinata nodded, looking more comfortable when she wasn't the topic. "Haruno-san is getting better every day. I am glad to work with her."
Aiko bit her lower lip, considering a sudden thought. "Hey, Hinata-chan? Would you like to practice with me after class today?"
It could help her a lot to be able to practice against someone with training like Neji's…
The other girl blinked rapidly, clearly surprised. "Ah..." Hinata looked down. "I'm expected at home," she mumbled.
"That's fine!" Awkwardly, Aiko tried to give her a smile. It didn't seem to do what she intended- Hinato looked embarrassed and uncomfortable, not soothed.
'Well, I tried. Is it me she doesn't want anything to do with, or is she really just too busy?'
She decided she didn't want to know. Her gut was telling her that Hinata would have suggested another time if she hadn't just been looking for an excuse not to spend time with her.
' She probably doesn't want to help me against her cousin.'
The conversation died off, but after that Aiko started to notice just how much Hinata watched her when she sparred with Neji. Now that she knew to look, it was easy to see that Hinata's attention often wandered. When it did, she pushed Sakura harder—almost as if she thought she was the one fighting Neji. Aiko didn't say anything. Naruto was her only supplementary sparring partner. At least he was enthusiastic and good-natured, if not as technically skilled as Neji.
October came and went- she and Naruto spent their birthday alone at home, despite the minor festival going on outside.
She never actually beat Neji, but she was getting to a point where the blows that landed on his forearms (he was scary good at blocking) actually seemed to do something more than glance off. She could tell because his expression would tighten and he'd do his level best to beat the absolute crap out of her after she hit him. Naruto finally noticed her growth spurt, and was righteously furious that he didn't have one to match. He determinedly ate vegetables for a full week before quitting when he saw no improvement.
One Friday, she was idly rewriting the Lord of the Rings (in decidedly more pedestrian language, because she was certainly not a linguist or real author and had probably forgotten tons of stuff and made up almost as much) while pretending to take notes when Iruka announced he would be handing out the information sheets for potential graduates. When she got one, Aiko snorted and tried to hand it back. "Ano, sensei, there's been a mistake." He didn't take it.
"No, there hasn't," he said calmly. "You will be graduating this semester." He leaned in closely and gave her a stern expression. "All your teachers know you will be ready to graduate. Don't fail intentionally to stay with your brother. You're ready to move on, and he isn't. You won't do either of you any favors by flunking the year." Then he moved on to the next row, leaving her almost completely stunned.
'They tricked me when they put me against Neji,' she registered far too late. 'They tricked me into working harder than I should to get held back without realizing it.'
To be fair, it had never occurred to her that she would have to make sure she was held back. Sure, she was almost at the end of a standard term, but since she and Naruto had started so early, she'd really thought they would graduate with their age mates…
She looked up and it finally registered that Naruto was staring at her, as were several other students. Overall, the exchange seemed to have gone unnoticed. Instead of looking at it, Aiko shuffled the paper under her notebook and bent down again, trying to look engrossed.
It had honestly never occurred to her that she would be separated from Naruto. They entered the Academy the same year, after all. And he would graduate with his age group.. in… the… manga.
If it wouldn't have looked strange, she would have taken that opportunity to bang her head against the desk. 'Stupid, stupid! What happens to Naruto in the manga means nothing about you!'
Naruto gave her weak congratulations that night and fled to sleep on the couch. Aiko stayed up late, too busy thinking to fall asleep. Maybe she should take the opportunity- did she even have a choice, anyway? If she intentionally held herself back… well, she became one of Konoha's military resources when she entered the Academy, and the Hokage was her legal guardian.
So no. She didn't have a choice. If she tried to fail, she would just get reported for sabotaging military resources (a proviso usually used to force alcoholics to slow down or get sneakier).
With that in mind, she dutifully practiced the E-ranked jutsu the Academy had taught in the last month. Aside from the three she'd known about –Kawarimi, Henge, and the Clone- she'd also managed to master the finger-spark jutsu (used for burning paper evidence or lighting cigarettes) and managed to manifest one chakra string of an inch's length that could grab light objects.
She'd wondered why the manga had never shown these, but then the answer seemed obvious.
Sakura was competent but wouldn't have pushed for extra non-book work, Sasuke had better fire jutsu and used wires for that purpose, and Naruto… well, he'd barely mastered the three essentials (or a close approximation of them, anyway). Over the next week, she mercilessly drilled herself until she could replicate clothes down to the direction of a weave and switch with objects she couldn't even see.
Just as predicted, she easily breezed through the graduation exam- she led a team of first-years through a new obstacle course, dispelled a genjutsu, showed off her basic three jutsu in a low-pressure environment, and completed a three minute spar against Mizuki while Iruka took notes. When she landed a real hit, she was absolutely shocked by what a genius Neji must be. She took the opportunity to land several painful hits on Mizuki, but was eventually taken down into a panting mess. She was satisfied, though- she got extra points for thinking to use kawarimi in a mock combat session. It was a little unsporting, but 'unsportsmanlike' was practically a compliment to ninja. The kunai, shuriken, and paper tests weren't really even worth speaking about… they were embarrassingly easy.
She received her headband, one on the standard blue fabric.
Aiko found something vaguely disturbing about a ten year old in the standard military color. That night, she painstakingly scrubbed it with sand to dull the shine and pulled the stitches keeping it on the band. She cut up the bodice of a yellow dress that didn't fit anymore to make a new headband and secured it, playing with angles to find out how she wanted to wear it.
It felt strange on her forehead and she looked silly with it hanging around her neck. She liked it as a belt and a headband, so when she left the next morning she was wearing it around her waist and a jerry-rigged headband to match.
'I feel vaguely like batman,' she thought, checking herself out in the bathroom mirror. There was something strangely satisfying about her new look. She'd slipped into slim-fitting black pants that reached just below her knees and a short-sleeved tunic in the same color that reached halfway down her thighs.
She tugged at her leaf insignia. 'This is a pretty poor utility belt, though.' She momentarily amused herself by imaging pulling a gigantic batarang out of it… then she realized that with the use of seals that could be done. She could make her forehead protector into a small arsenal. The thought amused her. Then she took off the headband and ran her fingers through her hair, frowning at the length.
Her hair never failed to garner odd looks and some comments from her peers- despite what looked like a plausible (if a bit rare) color to her, strawberry blonde hair apparently wasn't a thing here. It wasn't very long—it only reached a few inches past her collarbones. 'Still… I don't look like a real shinobi. I look like a little girl playing dress up.' That in mind, she carefully but inexpertly hacked at it with a kunai, letting hairs pile up in the sink. She cut it as short as Naruto's in the back, with bangs that fell just above her eyes, but left herself chin-length locks on either side of her face… Mostly because she didn't want to look like a boy. She turned around, experimentally tossing her hair. It looked like a very messy version of Hinata's hair at age twelve, she thought.
'Or Minato's,' she realized. Aiko frowned. 'That might be a little bit of a faux-pas… Well. Too late now.' She smiled at her reflection and pulled her headband back on. As she walked past her blue sandals sitting by the front door, she grimaced a little. 'I need to get some black sandals. I'm making a mental note- tonight, after I meet my team.' The thought sent exciting shivers up her spine. Aiko preoccupied herself in the kitchen. She was going to have her own team, like a real ninja. By the time Naruto had stumbled into the bathroom for the morning (and yelled something incoherent and vaguely accusatory about the mess in the sink) she had breakfast and was finishing arranging two bento.
"Whoa! Your hair!" Naruto wailed, skidding into the kitchen. "It was so pretty, Aiko-chaaaaan! What'd you do that for?"
Aiko turned to give him an amused look, pouring herself some hottea. She set it down on the table and walked off to the fridge. "Pretty, yes, but it wasn't practical. I'm a ninja now and I should look like one."
"There are ninjas with long hair," he argued. "I've seen them." She shut the fridge and slid the orange juice across the table to him. He took it sullenly and grabbed for his empty glass with his other hand.
"Yeah, but they're better ninja than I am." She pulled out her seat. "Having long hair is a sign of status, kind of. It's a declaration that you're good enough as a ninja to compensate for the disadvantages of possibly obscured vision and a hand-hold for enemies in close combat. I'm a fresh genin; I'm nowhere near that good. Besides…" She touched her new spikes. "I like it like this."
"I wish you weren't leaving," he said suddenly.
Aiko frowned, feeling uncomfortable. "I'm not really leaving, you know," she pointed out. "I still live with you. I'm not going to be leaving the village for a long time. My first missions will all be in the village. While you're in school, I'm going to be doing lame stuff like weeding gardens and painting fences." She made a fence.
Naruto flailed, spilling some juice. He caught the cup before it actually tipped, and looked back up at her. "What?! Why would you do that?"
"That's what D-rank missions are like," she said, amused by his ignorance. He really was cute when he overreacted like that. "Since I'm graduating young, they're not going to want me out of the village for a long time. I'm a little jealous of you, in a way. You'll probably spend a lot less time on D-ranks than I will."
He pointed and laughed at her for a while. She huffed and stood, brushing non-existent crumbs off her shirt. "Don't be a brat, Naruto. Hey, you need to get dressed."
He gave her a vaguely superior look. "Aiko, it's Saturday. I don't have class. Have fun at school!" he snickered. She stuck her tongue out at him and jammed her feet into her sandals.
"Hey, toss me my bento. Thanks." She shut the door behind her and set off for the Academy at an easy run. At one point she had to stop and stare at a person who just had to be Maito Gai. Granted, he was wearing completely normal ninja attire, and his hair didn't seem to be slicked down, so she might not have picked him out of a crowd if he'd been walking down the street. She could tell because he was walking on his hands and balancing a cactus on his feet, tongue sticking out a little with concentration. She waved weakly, feeling a little shell-shocked. He transferred the potted plant to one foot and waved at her with the other leg. He seemed to be concentrating too much to actually speak, so she let it be and backed away slowly.
The classroom she was to wait in was nearly full, and she recognized almost no one in it. Most of the kids here were from the other classrooms. Some of them gave her strange looks, but no one called her out. Aiko took a seat at the back of the classroom (she liked having a wall to her back and waited.
Iruka came in with Mizuki at his side and a scroll. She barely listened to his spiel (something about adulthood and responsibility) and only perked up once he began to read off teams. Team by team left the room… and she suddenly realized that it didn't look like the kids in the classroom ended up as a dividend of three. Alarmed, she began to count to be sure. 3-6-9-12-…13… There were thirteen students in the room…. Shit, she'd thrown off the count by graduating on time. Then there were seven students… Which turned to four, and then it was just her and Iruka-sensei was rolling up the scroll.
"Um… Sensei?" she said dumbly. Mizuki gave a quiet snicker, but didn't comment. Iruka looked vaguely sympathetic when he avoided her gaze and stuttered that her sensei should be by to get her soon, wait here please.
Then they left and she was alone… with a sinking feeling.
"Oh hell, I'm going to be waiting here a while, aren't I?"