Chapter 21

"I keep telling you that there has been a mistake," I frantically told the brown haired kunoichi dragging me by my arm into a classroom filled with girls. "Please, don't do this to me," I finally resorted to begging. Casual misunderstandings were one thing. But I was desperate not to spend the next six years at the academy being called a pervert by every single student in the building just because Ebisu thought it would be funny. I could see my short life flashing before my eyes as she slammed open the door and shoved me in.

The stern woman finally snapped at me, "I don't care if you're the Fourth Hokage himself. You're on attendance, which means you have to be in class. If you have a problem with it, go fix it later with Administration. Until then, if I find out that you've been cutting class I will hunt you down and give you enough detention to last until you graduate. Understand?"

"Yes, Ma'am," I said as she slammed the door shut behind her, sealing my fate.

"Hello, Haru-chan! I'm so glad you finally decided to join us." That voice. It was so familiar. I spun around to see Yuhi Kurenai standing in front of a blackboard that read 'Kunoichi Lessons.'

"You! You did this?" I asked, pointing at the woman.

"Maybe you shouldn't have sent those fake wedding invitations to the entire Sarutobi clan," Kurenai suggested. Her blood-red eyes made her hysterical grin even more frightening.

I dropped to my knees. "Please, have mercy."

The jounin looked at me for a moment before coldly ordering, "Have a seat, kid."

By then, the entire classroom was watching the exchange between Kurenai and myself. "That's it. My life is over." I trudged over to the nearest empty seat, which happened to be in the middle of a throng of curious girls.

As soon as I sat down, Kurenai spoke to the class, "Now that everyone is finally here, we can begin. Welcome to kunoichi lessons. I'll be your teacher this year." She wrote her name on the blackboard behind her. "Kurenai Yuhi. But please call me Kurenai-sensei. The topics we will focus on this year include ikebana, ceremonials, and basic medical skills. Most of what you will learn here is formally categorized as 'subterfuge and support', which is also technically the name of this class.

"Historically, this class has been a mandatory class for any ninja who didn't need the time for training in their clan's secret techniques. In practice, however, nearly every clan would withdraw their male children, for some reason or another, and now these skills are typically associated with female ninja. Thus, it became customary to refer to this class as kunoichi studies and simply release the male students automatically.

Kurenai continued her lecture, writing down key words on the blackboard to illustrate her lesson, "It is customary to assign one kunoichi to each 3-man genin squad. The theory is that as a ninja trained in several support skills, you will supplement the direct combat skills of your male teammates who will have natural advantages in reach and strength when they are older. They provide you with protection and you take care of the more delicate mission objectives. In all honesty, for most of your missions it will be irrelevant whether you are male or female. Usually it will only matter when non-ninja are involved, which is why much of what you will learn here is geared toward societal interactions. Can anyone tell me why we study ikebana, the art of flower arrangement?"

Kurenai called on a blonde in the front row who was raising her hand.

"Flower arrangements can have hidden meanings that can be used as a form of communication," the girl said cheerfully.

"Wonderful. As expected from the Yamanaka heir. Can anyone tell me why we study ceremonial procedures?" Kurenai continued with her lecture.

"Alright, that's all for today. I'll see you all tomorrow, except for you, Haru-chan. I want to talk to you so don't leave," announced Kurenai after a couple hours of genuinely interesting lecture. Literally every fledgling kunoichi looked at me sitting in my seat as they filtered down the stairs and left the room, most of them saying goodbye to Kurenai. If they didn't know before, everyone certainly knew now that the person in the pure black hooded coat was named Haru. I stayed in my seat and tried to be stoic.

When the room was empty, I spoke, "Kurenai-sama?"

"Don't you 'Kurenai-sama' me, you brat." She sighed and tossed a scroll at me, which I caught. "It won't work. A personal barrier that conforms to and travels with the user would require too much chakra to be useful, even if you attenuated it to only block yin release techniques. It might be manageable if it were stationary but there no way you can get a strong enough barrier that can do everything you want it to. Not to mention the number of hand seals would be ridiculous. That scroll is a copy of my notes."

"What about the signal encoding technique I talked about?" I walked down to a closer seat to talk to the fellow genjutsu user.

Kurenai glared at me. I couldn't tell if she was still upset with me or not. She put her hands on her hips and said, "That one might actually work. I'm still trying to figure out the hand seals and chakra moldings for that one. You realize that if it works, I might have to pick a new speciality." She smirked.

"Don't forget to consider fuinjutsu. And even though it sounds like a good way to secure yourself against mental tampering, someone who understands how a security measure works can always find a way to circumvent it."

"Still, encoding your thoughts and perception of reality to prevent unknowingly falling under a genjutsu? Maintaining decoy levels of consciousness to trap intruders? Compartmentalized consciousnesses that actively counter genjutsu? If any of your ideas work, you might completely revolutionize genjutsu. How do you come up with it all?"

I couldn't say "It's basic computer security." I could neither explain the concept of computer networking nor really how I knew anything about it. "Did I work with computers before? I don't feel like I'm an expert in computers." I was also good at gardening, math, and cooking among other things. But I wasn't an expert in those things either.

"It just comes to me," I admitted with a shrug.

Kurenai had spent a week with me and Ebisu before the academy, teaching me about genjutsu. Although she had underestimated the strength of my genjutsu the first time we met, she could do things with genjutsu that I hadn't ever considered. Ebisu had introduced her to me simply to teach me how to break out of genjutsu, but I wasn't going to let such a prime resource slip out of my grasp. I had constantly peppered her with years of stored up questions about how to counter genjutsu.

In my mind, genjutsu was like hacking into a computer with viruses and security exploits. You could certainly restart your chakra system to clear the intrusion, but by that point the damage would already be done. That was unacceptable to me. Especially since the Sharingan and Byakugan could already filter out foreign chakra.

According to Kurenai, genjutsu warfare was essentially hoping you got the first shot off and that it was enough to take down the other guy. There was so little in terms of defense other than simply breaking out quickly. Anti-genjutsu was a passion of mine simply because it meant I was bringing the Sharingan down even one notch lower.

"How did you like kunoichi studies, Haru-chan?" Kurenai asked with a wicked smile on her face.

"It was surprisingly interesting."

"Am I really going to have to come every day?" I asked.

"Don't be like that, Haru-chan!" Kurenai cooed in a motherly way. "There hasn't been a boy in Subterfuge and Support for generations. This is for your own good anyways. You should thank me for putting you in a room full of beautiful females! You're going to be so popular!"

"Or dead," I accidentally said aloud.

"Hey, Haru-chan, have some faith. You're always so gloomy. Trust me, sometimes things turn out okay. Just try to have fun and make some friends," the woman said with a smile.

"Okay, Kurenai-sensei."