The next day, all of the students that came from Suna were given an official tour around Konoha. We didn't all leave as a collective group, and were instead just split up with random Konoha-nin and whomever we were currently rooming with. That would be Jin and Taikan, in my case.
I'm forced to revisit all of the places Obito had showed me the day before (and a few new ones too, like a flower shop and a tea house). Our tour ended at the Academy, which resides at the base of the Hokage Mountain.
After that we were released from the Konoha-nin's care and were allowed to go where we pleased. My first instinct was to try and find the training grounds, but when I felt Jin grab onto my hand, I knew that wasn't where I'd end up. Taikan left us to our own devices, probably having to meet up with the other Suna chūnin.
"I'm guessing you have something to show me?" I asked the orange-haired girl, exasperated.
"Correct," was all she replied with. Her turquoise eyes remained forward and focused on our destination. It seems she'd gotten used to Konoha's layout way faster than I did, because I had no idea where we currently were.
All I could tell you was that there were a lot of trees and just foliage in general. A few dirt paths veered off further into the woods, reminding me of hiking paths that I used to see at the local parks in my past life.
"A civilian park?" I took a shot in the dark, still taking in my surroundings.
"Yes, but that's not why we're here."
I raised an eyebrow in question, but continued to let her guide me through the area. We crossed the park and reached the border that bled into the forest. It looked tangled with bushes and briars, and, honestly, I didn't want to go through it.
"Um, we're not going through that," I said, more than asked.
"I cleared a path—" Before she could finish (or I could ask myself when she had time to clear a path) I had already shaken off her hold and lept towards the trees. "Show off..." I heard her mumble before following after me.
While I jumped through the trees like Spider-Man, Jin took the more practical approach and jumped from branch to branch. It didn't take us too long to get there, but we were far enough away from the park that we could no longer hear any civilians.
Jumping off the final tree in my reach, I found myself in a clearing. Looking around, there were a few training dummies that looked worse for wear, and a few logs that had been badly beaten out of shape.
"An abandoned training ground?" I asked, looking to my classmate. When she nodded, I raised an eyebrow in confusion. "Since when did you find this? We've only been here a day."
"You're not the only one who left the hotel yesterday," was Jin's only reply.
'Fair enough.'
"So you just decided to randomly veer off from that park? Take a detour through the woods?" I followed her to the training dummies, watching as she began to stretch before taking a swing.
"Yes."
I sighed. Though I was used to talking to a brick wall, it didn't mean I enjoyed it. During times like these, I really missed the energetic bundle that was Murai. Don't tell him I said that though.
"Let's get to work the—!"
Swoosh!
Before I could even finish my sentence, I was interrupted by a giant fucking fireball of all things. It randomly came shooting through the trees, and if it weren't for my reflexes, Jin and I would— well, we would be dead, judging by the scorched trees and ground that the fireball left in its wake.
I was laying over Jin, having pushed her out of the way instinctively. She stared up at me with shining turquoise eyes.
'Well, shit.' I thought, staring back at her with a displeased expression, 'Now I'll have to deal with hero worship.'
"T-Thank you, Kyojin-ouji..." Jin uttered, allowing me to help her back up. If possible, my face managed to look even more disgusted.
'That damn nickname again...' It had been so long since I last heard it, that I had hoped it was long forgotten. Apparently not.
Before Jin could continue to fawn over me (I could see her inching closer to me from the corner of my eye), a familiar figure in a tasteless blue and orange outfit ran through the path that the fireball had created moments before.
"I-Is everyone okay?! I'm so sorry, I—!"
Obito's eyes widened when he noticed who exactly he had almost killed. From over his shoulder, I saw one of his peers also approaching us hurriedly. She had short, brown hair and eyes, which were complimented by the purple markings on her cheeks.
Obviously, this had to be Rin Nohara. Unless she had a twin in this universe, which I strongly hoped not. One Rin had doomed the world, so just imagine what damage two of them could do.
That being said, I eyed her warily before sending a smirk to Obito.
"You're that kid from before! What are you doing here!?" The Uchiha exclaimed, completely forgetting that he had almost commited a double homicide.
I frowned, "It's Kyojin— Did you seriously forget my name already?"
Obito immediately reddened in embarrassment, "N-No, I just—"
"You know them, Obito?" Rin said as she finally reached us, eyeing us with worry and concern. I could tell she was looking for any potential burns from the fireball.
At the girl's arrival, Obito straightened and a huge smile appeared on his face, "Rin-chan! I, well— I guess I know them. Uh, no, I mean— I know one. Kyojin; who's name I totally didn't forget!" He looked pointedly at me as he said the last part.
Rin smiled knowingly. "Right." She bowed slightly to Jin and I. "I'm Rin Nohara— I'm sorry about the, um, fireball...We didn't know anyone was out here. Actually," the brunette looked around the obviously abandoned training ground, "Are you even supposed to be here?"
Jin stepped forward, obviously bristling, "Is it a problem?"
I quickly ushered the shorter girl behind me, a way too big smile on my face as I said, "What she means is— no one's using it anyway, so we're not really harming anyone."
Rin still seemed a little skeptical, but she nodded her head nevertheless. I held back a harsh eye roll. Sticklers for the rules were always a pain in the ass to deal with— 'Meeting the current Kakashi will probably drive me mad'.
"Obito! I know I told you to try channeling a bit more chakra, but— Ah? Hello...?"
'Ah.. Fuck.'
My luck struck again when the Yellow Flash and his pain-in-the-ass underling appeared on the scorched earth in front of us.
× × ×
For the sake of politeness, Jin and I were invited back to Team Seven's training grounds. Introductions were made, and we now all sat beneath one of the many trees in the area.
"So that's why you were late!" Rin said, eyes widening as Obito recounted the story of how he met me.
Obito flushed, "Wha- I've told you this already! I said I was helping some lost Suna kid!"
"And did you actually expect us to believe you?" A new voice chimed in dryly, and we all look over to Kakashi. He sat in a branch above us, acting as if he couldn't care less about our conversation, when really he'd been tuned into it this whole time.
Obito growled, glaring up at Kakashi. "Shut up, Bakashi!"
Minato cleared his throat, hushing Obito and Kakashi. It didn't stop them from glaring at each other, however. They both went ignored as the blond man spoke, "What were the two of you doing out here?" He gives us an expectant look, his eyebrows raised as he awaits our answer. Honestly, it reminded me of something a parent would do when their child did something wrong, and they wanted them to fess up.
"Training," Jin said bluntly.
Minato looked amused, "Shouldn't you leave that for the Academy?"
"If we did that, then we wouldn't get anywhere," I snorted.
JIn nodded in agreement. "I already snuck a peak at the lesson plans, and we already know everything they're going to teach us."
I frowned at the revelation. "Really? Did they stick us in a grade lower than the one we're qualified for?"
"Or Suna's Academy is really strict..." Obito mumbled, looking a little queasy.
Kakashi rolled his eyes, scoffing before he gracefully dropped down in front of us. "Whatever, they're probably lying." He looked down his nose at us. "You don't even look like much."
I knew Kakashi was a little prick at this age, and I also knew he had a habit of getting under people's skin. Did that stop me from getting irritated? Of course not.
"Is that a challenge, dumbass?" I taunted, glaring up at Kakashi from my spot on the ground.
Bristling, the silver-haired boy stood straighter. "It is now—"
"Enough," Minato sighed, placing a hand on Kakashi's shoulder to keep him back. "Kakashi, they're just Academy students. Don't antagonize your allies."
Kakashi gritted his teeth, his fists clenching at his sides. "They're not—"
"Kakashi."
We were given one last parting glare before Kakashi shunshined away. Minato sighed, apologizing on the boy's behalf, but Jin and I hadn't really been offended; just annoyed.
"Don't let Bakashi get to you. He's always an ass!" Obito said, playfully hitting my shoulder.
Rin didn't look too pleased, frowning in disapproval. "You shouldn't say things like that, Obito."
"It's the truth!"
Minato sighed, Obito complained about Kakashi, and Rin defended him. This was the real Team Seven alright. At least, this was a dynamic I definitely remember them having.
Eventually, Jin and I left, not wanting to take up anymore of the team's training time. As we walked back to our hotel, I thought back on the encounter. Out of everything, I'm stuck on the small confrontation I had with Kakashi, and how Minato stopped a fight from escalating.
In my head, I thanked Minato over and over again for stepping in when he did. Because if a fight did break out, Kakashi would have buried me in the ground at my current level.
× × ×
As predicted, the Academy was a waste of time. I spent a week actually attending classes before I decided it wasn't worth it. Jin was bored as well, but knew if she skipped out on them that her father would be informed, and that was something she didn't feel like dealing with.
So while Jin rotted in the Academy, I went back to the abandoned training ground she showed me. There, I worked on improving my taijutsu and ninjutsu (mainly the Academy basics). I'd yet to perfect water-walking, since we kind of lack it in Suna (other than that oasis Sasori showed me, but I'm too big to fit through the crevice in the canyon wall to go there now), so I planned to start practising that, too. First, I'd actually have to find a body of water to practise on.
That led to my visit to the third training ground.
Kakashi, Rin, and Obito were there— warming up by the looks of it. Minato was nowhere to be seen, so Kakashi was directing the two genin. The chūnin noticed me right away, giving me a glance before returning to his stretches. Rin was second, offering a polite wave before refocusing on the task at hand. Obito was the last to take notice of me, looking up with a confused expression.
"What are you doing here?" The Uchiha asked, stopping his stretches to approach me. Kakashi glared at at his back, looking ready to say something— Rin stopped him, however, by asking for help with one of the stretches.
"Yeah, shouldn't you be at the Academy?" Apparently Rin's distraction didn't last even a second, because Kakashi also stood in front of me now, his arms crossed as he glared at me. The intimidation tactic had no power, as the boy was a year younger than me... and also the same height.
I stared at the silver-haired boy for five seconds before giving Obito my full attention. "I needed your help with something." Kakashi noticeably bristled at my dismissal; which also went ignored.
"Help?" Obito asked, completely oblivious to what just happened. "I mean, sure! What do you need, Kyo?" He paused, flailing a bit. "I can call you Kyo, right? I mean, if not that's fine, but—"
"Yeah, it's fine. All my friends call me that," I cut him off. At the suggestion that he was my friend, Obito looked a little surprised, but happy nevertheless (his face even looked a little red). "I wanted help with water-walking." I gestured to the river that ran through the training ground.
"Oh..." Obito rubbed the back of his head nervously. "I actually—"
"That idiot doesn't know how to water-walk yet," Kakashi scoffed. "You're better off asking a monkey for help." Obito gaped at Kakashi, looking ready to wring the younger boy's neck.
"That just leaves you then, right?" I said, thoroughly unimpressed.
Even though I couldn't see half of Kakashi's face, I could tell he was more than shocked by the blunt insult. Obito laughed loudly, prompting Rin to smack the back of his head and scold him.
With narrowed eyes, Kakashi sniped back at me, "I do know how to water-walk, which is more than you can say, huh? You must be pretty desperate if you asked the deadlast for help."
"I asked Obito, because he's the only person I know in this fucking village."
"Well, I'm definitely not helping you— So, don't even ask."
"I wasn't, you piece of—"
"I think it's a great idea!" Rin quickly said, jumping in between us with a huge smile. "Kakashi-kun, since Obito and I don't know how to water-walk— you should teach us! That way we'll be more helpful on missions, and since Kyojin would also like to learn —and he's here— I don't see why you can't teach him, too."
"Well said, Rin-chan!" Obito nodded along.
Kakashi grumbled, "I can see plenty of reasons why I shouldn't teach this brat—"
"—We're the same age—"
"—For one, he's annoying. Two, he's not even a shinobi of Konoha—"
"Hey, that's not fair!" Obito interrupted this time. "Sensei said that we're allies now, so you shouldn't be so hostile."
"Yeah," Rin agreed, piercing an arrow through Obito's heart. "Kyojin hasn't done anything wrong to us. I don't know why you're so mean to him, Kakashi-kun."
Kakashi rolled his eyes. "Well, he's—"
"If you say 'annoying' I'm going to punch you in the face," I deadpanned.
"Are you going to teach us to water-walk or not?!" Obito groaned, unintentionally ending a fight before it started.
Eventually, Kakashi sighed, "Fine, but if you can't keep up— That's not my problem."
× × ×
I could walk up walls, trees, buildings, and anything else without too much trouble. Water, however, seemed to be a whole league of chakra control on its own. Obviously, water isn't a solid surface like the many other things I mentioned, so I should have known it wasn't going to be a walk in the park.
Trial and error wasn't anything new to me, but having an annoying brat belittle you when you failed was a new experience.
Kakashi always seemed to be there when I fell into the water, staring down at me with a look that screamed "you suck". Even if he had been with Obito or Rin a few seconds before— it was like he sensed my incoming failure.
"The chakra in your feet is unbalanced. Try again." Then he would walk away and go help one of his teammates.
"Prick," I muttered under my breath, swimming to the shore so that I could try again. I had made it to the middle of the river this time, so at least I knew I was making progress. I could stand on the water, but moving around was my biggest problem.
Obito wasn't doing too good either; he was still trying to master the "standing" part. Rin, on the other hand, was doing the best of all three of us. She could already walk across the river and back, so now she was trying to perfect running.
"Just give up already," Kakashi sneered at Obito (his current victim), when he fell through the water again, only to turn and give Rin an emotionless "good job" five seconds later. Rin blushed at the praise (?) and Obito could do nothing but seethe. I'd be pretty upset too if my crush just ignored how terribly I was being treated.
After watching Obito fail a few more times, I decided to help him out a little. Kakashi clearly wasn't going to help us beyond explaining what we needed to do.
Obito and I worked together (he definitely refused my help at first, but after Kakashi insulted him again, he changed his mind), and eventually we could walk across the river and back without a hitch.
By then, Rin seemed to have gotten the hang of it and was sparring with Kakashi atop the river. The brunette was definitely struggling on that front; continuously falling back into the water whenever Kakashi went on the offense. I could always sense her doom right before I heard a large splash— Rin's chakra would spike in panic at the incoming attack, and then -sploosh- she's in the water.
"Pay attention," I said to Obito whenever he would glance over to Rin and Kakashi. I could feel his chakra slipping from his feet, and had to constantly remind him not to lose focus.
"Sorry, I just think he should go easier on her..." Obito replied with a scowl, turning his attention back to maintaining his chakra.
"If he goes easy on her, then she'll never learn," I clicked my tongue. Obito looked like he wanted to argue, but I cut him off, "This is too easy. Let's try running now."
Obito frowned, but still went along with me as I started to run across the water.
× × ×
Three days later Obito, Rin, and I all seemed to have mastered water-walking. Hopefully this would help Kakashi find some friendly competition within his teammates, instead of thinking of them as deadweight.
Turns out they just proved to be punching bags when it came to fighting on water, but they still fell through the surface a lot less than before. Kakashi wouldn't agree to spar against me at all, saying it'd be a waste of his time.
I was thankful for that, to say the least.
Obito and Rin were more on my level, whereas Kakashi was like the Final Boss™ in comparison.
Every now and then, I'd go to training ground three and Minato would be there. The guy was seriously intimidating, even though he was projecting nothing but friendliness. He seemed to take amusement in the way I radiated nervousness whenever he was around; Kakashi seemed to notice it too, and teased me relentlessly for it. By "tease" I should say "bully" because there was no kindness in it.
Meanwhile, Obito would give me this weird squinty look whenever my bravado died as soon as Minato appeared. Kakashi would roll his eyes at the boy's obliviousness, while Rin remained clueless, but suspected something, at least.
Regardless, I remained "that Suna kid who trains with us sometimes" in Minato's mind (err, probably). I showed up only when I was bored of training on my own, or if I desired to see Obito —someone who I would like to consider my friend.
The thing was, though, I never saw Team Seven outside of training, and I wanted to fix that. While I would try and focus on that later, for now I had other things to do. Such as finding out what was happening in Suna.
It was frustrating being so far away from my family. I feel like everything could go wrong if I wasn't there to supervise them. I knew I wasn't "all-seeing" or "all-powerful," but knowing where they were and what they were doing always reassured me. Now, I was too far away to do anything, nevertheless make a difference if something did go wrong.
All I could do was exchange letters with them, which I've been doing since I first arrived in Konoha.
So far, I was keeping in contact with Sasori, Chiyo, Ebizō, Komushi, and Murai. It was a lot of writing —fuck, my wrist hurt— but I had something to tell each of them, and they all had things to tell me.
Other than my own letters, I was also sure to send out the ones Jin had written for her father, and, occasionally, the ones for her cousin as well. The letters to her father were more likely to be reports, while the ones she wrote to Murai were more personal.
"Are you going to send out some more letters soon?" Jin asked me one day after she had gotten out of the Academy.
I looked up from where I had been writing said letters. "Yeah, do you have some you want me to mail?"
She nodded, pulling out the sealed papers and handing them to me. "Toshiki-senpai also said he wanted to mail some letters."
"Toshiki...?" I hadn't seen much of the pretty dark-haired boy since we got split up upon arriving to Konoha. I would see him in passing every now and then, but we never actually stopped to have a conversation. "Okay, I'll grab them from him before I send them out."
"His room is a floor above us, that's all I know."
"I can just search for his chakra," I shrugged, turning back to my own letters.
Jin nodded, watching me for several moments before she decided to meditate on her bed. I let her be, focusing completely on what I was writing.
× × ×
Nii-sama,
Nothing new to report. Time is passing slowly, and I can't wait to return to Suna so I can take the graduation exam already. This joint-training program has really held me back; I could be a genin by now if it wasn't for it!
Either way, I suppose you were right when you said this would give me time to grow even stronger. I'll be sure to blow those proctors out of the water when the time comes.
I know you told me to stop talking to the Konoha-nin, but I'm actually enjoying their company. It's lonely without you here, but I'm making do. Team Seven is helping me in not just my loneliness, but also in my training. I know how to water-walk now, you know!
Namikaze-san is a little frightening to me, but I know he means well. Maybe I can just feel the lives of our shinobi that he's taken, and I'm set on edge because of it? I don't know, but so far he's been nothing but kind. Not every sensei would let a foreign kid tag along during their team's training sessions.
The Nohara girl, Rin, that I mentioned before is still nice. It's just that "I'm being nice because it's the polite thing to do" kind of nice, though. That's fine, since I don't think much of her anyway. She has potential as a medic-nin though, I can give her that. Her chakra control is superb.
I know you're going to spaz out when you read this but, Kakashi is also a member of Team Seven. He's a chūnin, actually, and he's only a year younger than me. He's a complete asshole, and I want to say it's because I'm a foreigner, but I feel like he's rude to everyone... Now, the reason I said you might freak out, is because his full name is Kakashi Hatake.
I know what that last name means to our family. I know the weight behind it, but please, don't tell Obaa-chan. I don't know what she'd do if she found out I was within proximity of the White Fang's son. She probably already knows there's a chance we'd cross paths, but I don't need her stressing anymore over it.
I want to make it clear that I don't hold what the White Fang did against Kakashi. It's not Kakashi's sin to bear, 'kay nii-sama?
Out of everyone though, Obito is the only one I feel a sincere connection to. He's the Uchiha kid I mentioned in the past. He's very loud and annoying at times, but if he wasn't, I'd be worried. Obito was the first person in Konoha to help me out, and I won't tell him, but I'm thankful for the day he found me outside of his clan's compound.
That's all I have to say this week, so write back to me soon! I want to know what's happening on your end!
Love and miss you,
Kyojin
× × ×
(author's note) staring at the timeline i have written down for this story (stolen from the naruto wikia), and then staring at a much more detailed and updated one (also from the naruto wikia)— i crave death because i realize the one i used is wrong. slow clap everybody, that means this ride is about to get bumpy and i can officially label this story as "deviation from canon" because i'm not going to go and fix my mistakes since i'm lazy! and as the author (read: god) of this story, i can do what i want.
this chapter was beta'd by fortheloveofb!