Chapter 6: Dead on Arrival
As I followed my teammates and sensei to the roof, my smile remained as genuine as I could fake it. Which was pretty genuine indeed.
But inside? My head was spinning. My feet felt like lead weights as they tread on the cement steps.
Did the universe actually want me to die?
It had always seemed like hyperbole. A lie to keep me motivated. A challenge from the cosmos themselves to which I replied with a scream of defiance.
But this...
Was I in hell?
Or maybe purgatory?
Being punished for the sins of a past life. To have almost-chances dangled before me, only to be tugged away at the last moment. It seemed unreasonably cruel.
I loved my mother, and she was going to die. What had she ever done? Why? Just… why?
This was not the Kakashi of Naruto's time.
This was not the Kakashi who had more than a decade of life in ANBU to work through the pain of losing his sensei and surrogate family.
It was even odds we were the first Genin team he was going to evaluate. There was a fair chance that the mere sight of fresh-faced kids filled him with disgust and self-loathing. His face was blank, but was that a trace of hostility I saw? I couldn't quite stop my cheek from twitching as I carefully maintained the cheerful and attentive facade.
I would fail the bell test.
The only teams that passed did so on luck. It was an idiotic testing method for children who had never met each other before and had no hardening against psychological warfare.
I would fail, and then I would die.
Genin who failed their sensei's exam faced one of two options: bounced back to the academy for another year, or joined the Genin pool.
The pool was a dead end. Without proper training from an experienced ninja, scraping a promotion to Chunin would take years.
The academy wouldn't work either. I didn't have time to waste in that den of mediocrity for another year.
I felt a sort of surreal calm settle on me as the pristine white clouds drifted overhead.
This was it then.
I was going to die because of the luck of the draw.
Once more. It sort of lent credence to the theory that this was hell. If I was a year older, I wouldn't have to worry as much. If I was a year younger, I could maybe beg for mercy. Or at least live knowing that it was utterly futile to even try. Save myself the effort of working my fingers to the bone on the training posts almost every night for five years straight.
Hatake gave his non-introduction. The muscles of my jaw tightened imperceptibly.
No.
I hadn't worked this long and this hard just so this angsty asshole could give me yet another death sentence. I hadn't let that fucking Chunin instructor kill me with his 'average' evaluation; I would be damned if this social cripple did it with his indifference.
He must have heard my teeth grinding, for his attention fell on me. His half-lidded, bored gaze definitely became a trifle cool as he looked me over.
"Why don't we start with you, Smiles?"
My face stretched wider in reflexive response, before I experienced a frozen moment of panic. What should I say?
"Hey there! My name's Uchiha Hiroki. I like..." my mother—no, don't say that, idiot, "...trees! And dango!"
Nice. Moron.
"I dislike people who betray their friends."
Okay, weird looks. Might be coming on a bit too heavy there.
"My hobbies are training and... um... cat watching?"
Skeptical looks from the Inuzuka and Dog summoner. Brilliant fucking job.
"My dream for the future is to survive to my twelfth birthday and to be an asset for the village!"
Fuck it, might as well go all in.
Cue vaguely disturbed looks from my fellow Genin and the continuation of the flat, apathetic stare from my Jōnin sensei.
Kakashi blinked languidly.
"...Uh huh. Alrighty then, Mutt, how 'bout you?"
I shivered slightly at the sudden release of tension as we shifted our collective attention onto what Nikkei had to say.
That was awful. Worse, it was counterproductive to survival.
Pity was the death of cooperation. If my teammates thought I was too weak they would never play out the bell test as it had to be done. They wouldn't want me to pass, 'for my own good'. Intolerable. I had to act fast.
When Kakashi left us with the admonition to not eat breakfast before the test tomorrow, I immediately turned to my two teammates.
"Hey, how's about we get a little practice in before we all head home?" I asked, my voice brimming with manufactured enthusiasm. "I know he said we should rest up for tomorrow, but a little spar to keep our skills sharp can't hurt, right? And it'll help us get a better sense of how each of us can fit in on the team. Even if we haven't passed the test yet, we can still see if we work out together."
Wasabi yawned hugely.
"I think I'll pass."
My smile became slightly brittle.
"Ah, come on, what, scared to get beaten by an eight-year-old?"
I put a bit of laugh into it to keep the tone light. Too light, apparently.
"Oh you know it," he drawled. "I wouldn't want to be so shamed in front of a pretty lady like Nikkei-chan."
He hopped off the roof and began making his way off across the rooftops of the village.
I felt my last ergs of hope trickling away. I turned to Nikkei anyway, an inquisitive, hopeful expression on my face.
"Nah, I got some stuff to do. Want to be really prepared for whatever Hatake-sensei has planned for us. You should probably go home too, you've been twitchy all day. An early night will do you good, shortstuff."
My smile remained fixed on my face as my last-ditch attempt at survival fled into the late afternoon. The expression grew ever harsher as the light began to fade, distended shadows throwing my features into jagged relief.
Fine.
If they wouldn't help me, I'd just have to help them even harder to make up for it.
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