Twisted Pinwheel

"Mooooron." you say, thumping Ami in the head. "It's a gift from a Jounin suited to your specialization."

"I'm not specializing in anything yet!" Ami snaps back.

"Wear it." you continue.

"No!" Ami rejects without any form of hesitation.

Idiot girl. Is this about fashion? The fool. You can't sit back and just follow the trends. Better to set the trends yourself, and let everyone else follow in your wake like shifting water.

"I'll take one in gold!" you declare.

"Don't you dare. If you show up and start chasing us around with bodysuits and masked helmets we are through." Ami seethes.

Fuki sighs deeply, picks the suit up, and stretches it a little.

"Probably okay for training... maybe if you're wearing more stuff over or under it. Or both." She decides, dubiously.

"Don't give in, Fuki!" Ami yells.

Over it all, Gai laughs like he's watching the greatest show of manzai comedy in the world, for free. Then he says something about feeding the flames of your youth, but you can't quite make out what because Ami's gotten an elbow in at your ear and it's ringing like a bell.

And then he disappears, before you can wheedle further training or one of those suits out of him. There's a tag in the jump-suit that you've memorized, though, so you can show up and buy something for yourself.

"Haaah..." you sigh, wiggling a pinky in your ear until it seems like you can hear well enough again. "Oh, and shonen-girl. Keep in mind that breaking a few little rules only matters if you're caught. If you aren't, then who's to say they were broken at all?"

".... Not all of us have a clan to throw their weight behind us over that sort of thing, if we get caught." Fuki says, stiffly. "Or family that could do anything about it at all."

... You guess that's all that's going to be said, and huff in annoyance before stalking off.

Clan.

The ninja clan.

What's so great about being part of a clan? There are perks, but it really irritates you that people seem to think it's just sunshine on flowers all of the time, and disregard, or don't care, about the spiders in the garden.

You sulk most of the way back home, behind the walls that seem at the same time to both defend and imprison the Uchiha clan, then come to a stop as someone slinks out of the shadows.

"Hey there, little spitfire." Shisui chuckles, waving slightly. "Hoped I'd run into you. You might not want to go home right away."

You turn your head a little, looking in that direction, and then scowl.

"... Politics again, so soon?" you spit in slight disgust.

"Well, you know how it is. Your situation is kind of unique... and a lot of the elders are curious to see if it might breed true." Shisui admits. "So they've got elder Ryuichi's grandson waiting in there for a surprise omiai."

Ryuichi's...? Isn't that one a career chuunin? Made the grade and backed out of service to join up as one more member of the overstaffed police force. At this point, just a pawn of his grandfather, being jerked around on invisible strings.

You doubt that he's had the motivation to so much as take a shit on his own for at least the last ten years.

"Disgusting. I can't handle this the same way Mother did, yet..." you muse to yourself, scowling.

She ran the elders out of her house with a broomstick that could smash through trees whenever she saw hide or hair of them, after a while. You remember that very well.

... You don't like thinking too much about your early years, though. Too much wells up, of the memory of bone-deep exhaustion that never fades no matter how much you sleep, and the gnawing and ravenous hunger that isn't sated no matter how much you gorge yourself...

For the sake of your blood, the Sharingan never drained you to the point of death. But it was a near thing sometimes, and in spite of the elders' desires, you couldn't just start copying jutsu and throwing them around the moment you learned to walk. You'd have died for real, if you'd tried.

"Hah... that's what I'd expect the brat with the gumption to steal my body-flicker to say, really." Shisui chuckles.

"You have no room to talk." you snort. "Unless you're saying that you don't have your own instructions? Sabotaging a direct move to further your own chances..."

"Sharp. But y'know, while I don't mind throwing a few caltrops on the old folks' dance floor... I kind of prefer looking for suitors a little closer to my own age." Shisui claims, shrugging.

You'd like to believe that, but aren't inclined to trust him at his word. Shisui can easily be claimed to be the strongest of this generation. If the elders have some kind of breeding program in mind, he's probably someone most, if not all, of them could agree on. Probably drool over the thought, really. Your own situation matched with his demonstrations of skill... they'd probably think of it like the possibility of a new Madara.

Without a further word, you turn on your heel and stalk away. It's nice weather, and should hold. It doesn't hurt anything for you to take a nap somewhere, and leave your surprise marriage-interview to just stew.

....

That's right, Gai threw that shuriken... you unfold it and read the contents.

It takes a moment before you realize, a little baffled, that the note inside might as well have just been copied word for word from a basic-level textbook on chakra and its properties.

Chakra is generated constantly by everything that lives. Through training, you can generate more, faster, and more potent chakra. This chakra remains in your coils until used, and if you entirely run out of it, you're likely to die. Unless you get immediate medical attention, you probably will die.

The bit he scribbled down refers to the tenketsu, specifically. Tiny 'bleed-off' pin-holes in the chakra coils that vent the chakra, either when used or when it's built up to the point that your reserves are full, and the chakra that is generated has nowhere to go and pushes the old chakra out to dissipate and make space.

.... And that's it.

You don't see how that's relevant. Is he trying to say that he forms the illusion... that it's related to his tenketsu, or the natural process of venting excess chakra like sweat?

Ah, how annoying. You suppose you should have known better than to expect a direct answer, or everyone would know how that thing he does works, though.

Well, whatever.

Sensei is visibly unimpressed when you slouch into class the next day in the same set of grass-stained clothes and picking leaves out of your hair.

---

[ ] Ami and the other two get into a fashion disagreement with the Yamanaka girl and her pink pet. Blood is spilled, and a show-off with neutral judges is arranged. You weren't initially invited, which is a grave insult. Are you not worth including in a fashion contest? Bitch, you are fashion. What's more fashionable than coordinated armor and jumpsuits?
[ ] There's some kind of civilian holy festival going on, and while the standard Uchiha response to such things is 'what an adorable waste of time when you could instead be learning to stab better', there's enough civilian kids in the class that you can be justified in getting dragged along to the candy and games without much note. Sucks to be you, Sasuke, have fun not-having-fun.
[ ] The academy instructors have finally made it to a demonstration of the replacement technique, first of the standard three.
[ ] You feel like harassing the afro-girl in her medical studies.
[ ] The library is always an option.
[ ] ??