Ruminant

xi

11.

"I want to patrol with the small animal today," Kyoya announced haughtily during breakfast, faintly sniffing in disdain at the thought of needing permission but seeing the wisdom of the action. "Hn."

"Small animal?" his father echoed bemusedly.

He nodded, taking a bite of his eggs daintily. "He's my pet."

The man raised his brows, looking at his mother in question. "Shikari has a pet? When did she get one?"

Yoshino wiped her hands on her apron before explaining impassively. "The Uchiha heir."

"That's a person, dear," Shikaku replied dryly.

"They met at the party yesterday and Shikari got...attached."

There was silence for a moment. Cleaning up the contents of his plate dutifully, Kyoya was about to stand up and leave when his father asked in a strangled voice. "How did Fugaku react?"

His mother pursed her lips. "He wasn't there."

"...Troublesome," Shikaku sighed.

Before Kyoya could react, he was suddenly picked up on his collar by the bald man. He promptly bristled at the action and glared at his father in warning.

Does the omnivore want to get bitten to death?

If he does, Kyoya would be happy to comply.

"Shikari-chan. How do you feel about ninja training instead?"

"Ninja training?" Kyoya repeated curiously, his ire reaching manageable levels when the statement finally sunk in.

"Ninja training," Shikaku affirmed resignedly.

-----

Shooting his pineapple-haired relatives a deeply unimpressed look, Kyoya scowled. "I did that already."

"You need to cultivate your muscle memory, Shikari-hime," one herbivore chided patiently, crossing his arms in an attempt to look more authoritative. "Falling properly needs to be second nature."

"Didn't you hear me, herbivore?" Kyoya bit out derisively. "I did that already. Don't you have anything else to teach?"

The herbivore eyebrows twitched in irritation when the others laughed at his expense. "Shikaku-sama said-"

Kyoya closed his eyes, tuning out the unnecessarily grating voice. Taking deep breaths to hold on to his cool, it took mere seconds before he gave up - partly due to his physical body's innate impulsiveness, but mostly due to the sheer irritation he felt for his "father" for foisting him on these herbivores.

Really. He expected more of the man.

Adopting his favored stance, Kyoya interrupted the mindless babbling softly. "For wasting my time, I'll bite you all to death."

The pained yelps of the young genin were music to Kyoya's ears.

-----

"Oi. What happened to you lot?" Nara Ensui shouted to his cousins amusedly, looking at the sight of bruised genin circled around something. "Did Tora wandered here or-"

He deadpanned. "Why are you surrounding our three-year-old heiress like that?"

Sporting a split lip, his nephew, Kasuga, glanced at him anxiously. "Not now, uncle."

"What?"

"Go!" His nephew shouted and, at once, shadows crawled towards the girl as the genin tried their hardest to restrain her.

Ensui took the time to appreciate how the toddler agilely avoided the approaching black tendrils with sheer skill and calculation. It was a very impressive display. The heiress was actually close to breaking out when she doggedly closed in on one who seemed to be faltering - the weak link so to speak - from the ridiculously unnerving aura the girl emitted. Taking pity on the poor boy who looked like he wanted to run and pee in his pants, Ensui decided to help them out and executed a more complex technique - making sure to avoid hurting the heiress in the process.

"Kasuga," he drawled wryly. "Ganging up on three-year-olds' your hobby now?"

His nephew shot him an indignant look. "She bit us to death!"

"Right," he replied sardonically. "A three-year-old did that to all of you."

All of the genin went bright red until one of them, Maen if he remembered it right, muttered, "You weren't here earlier. We tried to incapacitate her without hurting her too much but she's strong. Shikari-hime can break out in our shadow bind technique so we thought if we did it all at once she can be stopped."

Ensui looked at them dubiously before moving forward and cradling the wee heiress in his arms, ignoring the admittedly hard punches he received for his effort. "Train more, you lazy brats. All of you probably should thank your lucky stars that I'm the one who caught you and not our clan head. Really, all of you should have known better. You're supposed to be training her, right?"

Shaking his head exasperatedly when all of them ducked their heads, he turned to the toddler and asked, "Well. You want to move on to throwing kunai and shuriken then, Shikari-san?"

The toddler stopped in her assault, before nodding slowly. "Hn. Maybe next time." she yawned widely before leaning on his chest and napping - exhausted, apparently, from the exercise.