Chapter 4
As Reina had predicted, she was very behind in school.
Her first day was not going smoothly. After a long lecture on prominent shinobi, They had started to talk about maps and numbers. Things she knew very little about.
Her life in the cave taught much- like how to wield different weapons, and how to utilize natural energy to find intruders. She had honed her instincts, rationalization, and even learned how to find her way around outside her village- by . . . Feeling it out.
Maybe I know less than I thought I did?
Was she ignorant? Why would they need maps in their education? She had always been praised as the brain of her class, but she could not understand why something so useless needed to be used. All she needed to know was what the primary affinity was of the area, and from there she could figure out where to go based on feel.
Thinking on this for a minute, Reina almost hit herself at her stupidity.
Of course they would need to know this! Normal shinobi couldn’t just ‘feel it out’ like her. They didn’t have the natural abilities that she had to rely on- they had to learn it through study and hard work. It really struck her then, how much her and her people had relied on their abilities.
“Ah … So interesting” She murmured out under her breath, “I must do some self study on these things.”
Iruka looked from the board to Reina.
“What was that Reina?”
Reina sat up in her seat, and shook her head, trying to give off the impression that she understood what the man had been saying prior.
“Ah, ok. Well then, can you tell me how many days it would take- based on the mileage in this map- to get from here to sand?”
Reina thought about this.
“Sands power is historically Wind- Right?”
Iruka looked at her strangely, but nodded.
She knew that he could feel her activating her energy- any shinobi could- but this was the only way she knew how to answer the question. She had tried to pay attention to what he had been speaking on, but she had problems reading the numbers they were talking about. She knew basic math, but the numbers he had on the board were different and much larger than she’d seen before.
Reaching out to pull at what she knew as wind, she took the strongest source and followed it. She couldn’t sense distance, but based off how strong the link was, it seemed a similar distance as konoha to her caves.
“Two days”- that’s a little under how long it took her at least.
The man looked at her as if she was nuts, which confused her, and then gestured back to the map.
“I’m sorry Reina, but it’s actually 5. I guess if a jounin ran all day and night it could be 2, but unfortunately that is impossible for genin hopefuls like yourself.”
Oh yeah, That’s right. She had run off of desperation and natural energy to get to konoha as fast as she did. It made sense that iruka gave her the look he did at her answer
Reina sighed when she heard the snort behind her. She knew It had come from the young boy with the black hair- sasuke, because he had done it when Naruto had gotten a question wrong earlier. It was a dignified snort that seemed to say ‘I’m better than you’.
It was unfortunate.
He had seemed to be more mature than the rest of his classmates, and had a large amount of chakra for his age. He even had the same look of rage that she was so used to looking at. Not to mention, the large amount of female attention from the class seemed to hint at him being a good person. Or at least that’s what she thought it meant.
She’d heard a few girls call him hot, which she had assumed was a reference to his affinity to fire chakra- a commonality among konoha citizens according to what she had read in an old copy of “konoha today”. The mention of his strong affinity must have been about how deep the will of fire ran through his veins!
She wished someone would call her “hot” as well! It would have been a true sign that she had blended in with the people here seamlessly!
But alas, he seemed to be rude to Naruto, and she had already decided that she liked him. Her resolve to favor Naruto over the other boy was probably from her family's innate stubbornness. She could see herself befriending sasuke. His rage and maturity reminded her of her hometown, but there was something about the blonde boy that really interested her.
His chakra was downright insane.
When she had first opened the door the morning he had picked her up, her surprise wasn’t just from his unnatural features. It was from the mass of chakra that seemed to be his, but was almost segmented away from his natural supply. It was almost like it was sealed away and he could not use it.
But that wasn’t the only thing.
The energy was tinted a strange color that she had never seen from someone before, and it felt almost demonic. The closest thing she could compare it to, was her sensei’s chakra-something entirely inhuman.
Was that the key to balance her bloodline?
Naruto seemed to be careless and happy go-lucky, but his internal core was restless and almost evil. Could her clan learn from him to calm their inner rage? It was certainly something to look into, and she would have to ask Naruto to drop her off at the library later. Maybe ask a few questions on his unnatural aura.
“Ok guys, time to break up for lunch! Be back in an hour for the beginning of our taijutsu practice!”
Iruka’s announcement had brought Reina out of her thoughts, and she cringed in realization that 30 minutes had passed since she had actually paid attention.
Watching her new classmates file out for lunch, she looked over to Naruto who was with a boy with shaggy hair- and if she was smelling it right- a dog hidden somewhere in his coat. They seemed to be animatedly talking about the hokage’s position and how cool it was. Based on their big smiles and almost sparkly eyes, they seemed to really look up to the position. That, and the fact that she had only known Naruto for less than a week and had mentioned the position more than twice.
Walking over to them, she stood silently by Naruto and listened in.
“I’m telling you kiba! It’s going to be me as the next hokage!”
The other boy smirked and crossed his arms.
“nuh uh! It’ll be me!”
The conversation that followed was just variations on the two arguing why they deserved to be the leader of this village.
To Reina, they didn’t seem like very political people. It made more sense that they would just be strong shinobi like the sannin she had read about. It was weird that they were fighting for this position, when it seemed they were more inclined for elite ninja positions that actually fought.
But what did she know, she had just learned who and what the hokage was about a week ago.
She had learned from her “konoha’s shinobi structure” book, that this elite position was most likely the Captain of the ANBU or a relative to a previous kage. Personally, this was what interested her the most, because her whole village was like one giant ANBU. They didn’t really have a position similar to Hokage, because one- they were not a big village, and 2- had no need for diplomatic endeavors, because they were always neutral(and largely kept to themselves).
Studying the boy- kiba- as Naruto said, she realized that during their argument about the hokage(which was still going on), his dog had peeked his head out from the boy's jacket.
It was also staring at her very adorably.
Without asking, she plucked the dog out of his jacket and started petting the adorable animal. Her brother had always had more of a knack of speaking with animals, but she could pick up a few tells from them without actually having to speak with them.
This one, for instance, loved having his head scratched .
The tiny dog rolled on her back and showed her belly to the girl in a sign of comfort. Reina obliged and gave the puppy tummy scratches.
The two boys just stared at her with the dog, both in disbelief.
“Did you just…. Take my dog?” Kiba said incredulously.
Reina gave him a blank look and shrugged. “They wanted scratches”.
Naruto looked like he would burst out in laughter as Kiba snatched the puppy from her hands. The dog whined a bit, but snuggled in his owner's jacket. Apparently angry from her actions, he stomped out of the classroom.
Reina was skilled enough in reading people, so she knew she had made the boy angry, but without enough background information on why- she couldn’t understand why he had gotten so upset.
Naruto let out a big laugh as soon as the door was closed, which made Iruka look towards him. The class had filed out pretty quickly, so it was only them left.
“HAHA I can’t believe you took Kiba’s dog! No one I know would EVER steal an inuzuka's partner!”
How was she supposed to know that? Looking back at Iruka in confirmation, he nodded with a grave look on his face.
“The Inuzuka’s are known for their unbreakable bonds with the ninken”
Reina nodded, she was aware of her brother's delicate feelings about nature, so she could understand. It seemed weird to only have one ninken, but it must just be another one of Konoha's oddities. I certainly wasn’t as weird as the fact that they had a weird child with whiskers running around with demonic chakra. . . Maybe his thing was with cats? It explained the marks and evil energy- but not really the seemingly bubbly nature of the kid.
“Hey Naruto, do you have a bond with cats?”
The boy tilted his head in confusion.
“No? Why would you think that?”
Reina rubbed the back of her neck, but decided to voice her thoughts- it couldn’t be impolite if he had asked right? She didn’t want to mention a clan- because the boy obviously lived alone, but maybe she could word it so it was just about him?
“Well… I mean the marks on your face?”
Iruka snapped his eyes towards her in alarm, but she kept going, already ready to ask.
“It looks cat like, and that doesn’t even touch on the fact that your chakra looks like an animal demo- mmhhhph”
A hand was clapped over her mouth as their teacher realized what she was going to say. If he had let the conversation go further, Naruto would have started asking questions. Luckily he was ignorant enough to not realize what she was going to ask, and he just looked at his teacher who had put the young girl in an almost headlock.
Unfortunately, Reina didn’t understand what the ninja teacher had done- as she had never witnessed someone trying to shut her up before- so her body went into crisis mode. Sclera turning black with yellow pupils, her sage mode was activated.
Reflexively, the muscles in her child body pumped up and she slammed the teacher into the ground. A sound between a skwak and a growl left her mouth, as she held the teacher down. Lifting her hand up, she went to take another swing at the man who had attacked her, but hesitated when she saw his eyes.
Had she almost raged out?
It had almost been like a fight or flight response. She hadn’t even realized that she had semi transformed- if she had gone even further she would have gone full bird-tengu mode.
Lowering her hand and jumping off the ninja, she resembled a cornered animal. Eyes turning back to normal, she looked to Naruto and saw his eyes wide in fear. It wasn’t a look she liked.
She wasn’t used to making people around her scared, she had always been the non-scary one, the only Ryuuchi who didn’t have random bouts of rage.
No, that was still her.
This wasn’t random, it was a response to being restrained. He obviously hadn’t meant to attack her, as he hadn’t fought back, and that must have been why she was able to falter out of the beginnings of her rage.
Hanging her head the girl bowed towards both of the people in the room.
“I apologize. I fear I may have committed a social Faux pas and had an inappropriate response.”
The older ninja, who was still on the ground, looked up at her with contempt, and then towards the boy who was now trying to sneak out of the classroom.
“we are going to go talk to the hokage, I’ll have mitzuki teach the taijutsu practice today.”