Chapter 5: Training to Graduate [Rewrite]

When we were ten, Neji and I started to intensify our training more. We were both already gifted with our Byakugan, but we wanted to push it further.

"Seven." Neji calls out as we stand in the forest. We're trying to see how many birds there are in a tree in the distance, while also seeing through several objects and not moving. "80 meters at 30 degrees south west."

I pull a thread to release a kunai that way. We are in the part of the forest owned by the Hyuga's that is attached to our compound. When we want to practice more ranged techniques or just need more space, we head out here. We set up each time, placing kunai's and attaching them to wires to be released from a central location. So when he gave the direction, I released that particular thread. We heard the impact in the distance, and both looked up to count the birds. 

"So there were eight." Neji says discouraged.

"You'll get them next time." I say smiling to him. We're training our blind spots at a distance, so we're specifically not moving our heads to compensate for the blind spot, but instead attempting to predict around it. "My turn. Six, 100 meters, 20 degrees north." I call out after using my Byakugan. I still get baffled at how far I can see when using it, and we've had it activated since we were three.

Neji pulls the string. "There were eight. Two flew out from one spot together. You still did good though, this is the farthest range we've done so far. Let's go again." Neji says kindly to me. He's never mean to me nor puts me down, he always encourages me as I do for him as well. It's not often that one of us is worse or better than the other, but his eyes are a little bit stronger than my own in overall sight, though I can focus better on one single direction in front of me better than him. In our fighting styles, I am a little bit faster in running and combat than him, while he's slightly stronger than me. We are still two of the top members of the clan, even if the main house doesn't acknowledge us. The academy does though, and we're the top ranked boy and girl in our class.

For our academy training, it's very different than schools I am used to in my past. Even though we may sit in a classroom and study some basic topics like reading and math, the applications for them are very different. In my old life, we would find the hypotenuse of a triangle using math. Here, we use the same concept to figure out the best angle to throw a kunai at an enemy while in a tree. In my old life, we read books in class and would discuss characters or plot developments. Here, we read a scroll and look for hidden meanings and decipher codes. I find myself far more interested in learning while in this world, which is why I end up being the top of my class. I don't like the fact that I'm technically a 'kunoichi' and have to take girl specific classes. It might be my stubborn American mentality, but I don't want to take flower arranging while the boys gets an extra sparring session at the end of each day. I still do it because I don't like losing, but I have little to no interest in much of what they teach in that class. In our later kunoichi courses, we'll be learning more useful stuff, like deception, seduction, and poisons, but for now, I find myself annoyed and bored in those classes. I personally choose to practice sparring outside of class for an extra hour, usually with Neji if he's not too tired from his own.

Over the years, I found a good balance with all my training, academy time, and my few friends I have made. I don't see them too often, maybe only once or twice a month each, a little more frequent for Sasuke though. I dragged Neji along once to go explore the forests with Kiba and I, since I figured he would like it. I was right and he did like it, though he stayed quiet and chose not to interact much with Kiba, which was fine. At first, I was the same, since Kiba was just so much energy and talked a lot. Over time though, his persistent talking brought me out of my shell a lot. He liked my calm nature, and enjoyed my slightly darker comments I would make, or my sarcasm I would use. I was surprised it never put him off like it used to on others in my past. Whenever Kiba was being too annoying or persistent, I had taken the habit of throwing a knife at him to shut up, a habit I developed with Sasuke already. He grew used to the tradition, and would make it his goal to dodge them faster each time, seeing it as extra training. Neji had a respect for Kiba on his knowledge of the forest, and since Neji didn't like it when others knew more than him, he would listen to the boy attentively, even if he didn't look like he was. Kiba and I would often have races through the trees, either up in them or on the ground. All the races we have was probably why I was slightly faster than Neji, yet he still didn't want to participate in them. 

Sasuke and I would train together almost weekly, unless one of us had something else to do, which wasn't often on our day off. We would practice throwing and basic jutsu's, but we would never spar in our home styles. Once or twice we did spar in the academy style of fighting, but it wasn't fun and we didn't do it often, just when one of us needed to practice a certain part. Since I was a year ahead of him, my jutsu's were more advanced and he couldn't yet follow along, but I noticed him watching attentively when I would perform them. We got along well, we were both generally quiet people and didn't fill silences needlessly, but when we did speak we had something of value to say. This made me grow quite close to him as a person, and he easily became one of my best friends. Eventually, he did tell me about his brother, and his whole backstory about his clan. In return, I told him about the Hyuga clan and the curse. For him, I tried early on to subtly plant a seed of doubt that his brother wouldn't just massacre everyone without a reason. I've been working out a plan to try and find him proof before telling him about Danzo, because he is a stubborn boy and I know he will demand evidence to believe anything different.

Shikamaru and I advanced our friendship as well, with him introducing me to shogi. Shogi is much like chess, which I used to play a little bit in my first life, but never all that much. It was a lot of fun to learn to play with him, even if he beat me every time. Over the years, I came close to beating him, but then he would change his strategies on me. He was the one who let me know that I was becoming predictable, that I would always plan a trap and then an assault, so I worked hard to become unpredictable. There was one game we played where I was so sporadic in my moves, that he had to spend almost an hour in his contemplative state before he made his next move. He still won, but I made him work for it. I liked being around him, he challenged my brain in ways similar to how Neji would challenge my body in training. 

When we were eleven, we were coming up close to our graduation. I truly think if we wanted to, we could have vouched to graduate early, but I didn't want to mess up the story like that, so I let it flow as normal. Neji and I finally started to change in our appearances as we were hitting close to puberty. He started to put on a little more muscle than me, his shoulders broadening and he was about an inch taller than me. I started to grow more of a feminine shape, with my face narrowing slightly and my chest growing. He and I both had 'fans' at the academy, girls for his good looks and boys for mine. Because neither of us were interested, and honestly I was annoyed by both sets of fans, we kept to ourselves at school or worked to scare the others' fans off. I did make a small attempt to talk to Tenten or Lee though, but they were in a separate class from us, though still in the same year. I could often see Lee out of the class window trying and failing to use jutsu's, or see Tenten vigorously doing target practice. Neji never really attempted to make many friends, and whenever I asked, which wasn't often, he would go into a destiny speech that I would promptly tune out.

Another thing that happened when we were eleven was that Neji and I discovered some of our father's scrolls about the Hyuga main family's advanced techniques. The Gentle Fist style was the basic form we were taught as Hyuga's, but the scrolls showed the eight trigrams 64 Palm and 128 palm techniques. We also found the one for the Rotation defense technique, and made it our goal to learn all of these. Technically, our father was not meant to have these scrolls, and we were not meant to learn them. So, we practiced in the forest in secret together. They were very difficult to master, and not something that we could learn quickly. They were largely based on muscle memory for the forms and complete chakra control. In time, I knew we would master it, so we just practiced hard each day.

Our jutsu's for the academy training came a long way. I found my favorite one to use was the substitution technique. It was a simple one, but if used in quick enough succession, it was basically teleporting. I really wanted to eventually learn the Fourth Hokage's Flying Thunder God technique, but that scroll was kept somewhere at the Hokage's tower, and I would have to become either very convincing to let them give me the scroll, or become very sneaky to steal it. On the reverse side of my favorite, I found that the clone jutsu was my worst. It involves mentally picturing your exact self and making an intangible copy. Unfortunately, sometimes, not often, in my mind I still pictured my old self. When I tried to make clones with my mind not focusing on my current self, the clone would come out a dud, and would sometimes have traits of my old self. Neji would always be confused with me when a dark red haired and older person would form as a deflated clone that vanished almost instantly. We usually both excelled at basic things like this. I could quickly correct it, and focus on my current self and flawlessly make them the second time, but those few times I messed up were strange. I just have to keep remembering that I'm not that person anymore. I just knew that eventually I would have to track down Naruto, who I've seen around a few times over the years, and learn the shadow clone jutsu from him once he learns it. That one was much better than the basic one, since they were tangible.