Little feet patted against the floor moving quickly in one particular direction with one mission at hand- a mission he was going to complete and that was to wake his nii-san up. Finally reaching the destination he slowly pushed the door up, revealing the poorly lit room. His curtains were still draped closed.
The only source of light there was, was the one creeping in from the hallway.
His small face scrunched up as he saw the position his brother was sleeping in, it looked uncomfortable, there was an arm and a leg hand over the edge of the bed, and he found it funny. Covering his mouth, he tried to stifle his laughter.
"Silly Nii-san" he whispered as he tiptoed over to the bed.
"No… stop trying to blow up my house- stupid creepers" the voice was low, but he knew it was from his brother.
Creepers? What was that? The word sounded foreign… it was a weird word. "Cr..cre-epers" he tried repeating the word himself, finding it hard to pronounce the strange word.
"Nii-san!" he yelled loudly. With that, his brother jumped up immediately.
"I'm up!" he too yelled back. He was standing on his bed his eyes wide open, still tired, looking around his room franticly finally stopping at his brother, and he relaxed.
"Kashi, what have I told you about not shouting to wake me up?"
"Hm… did you say something?" the little brat responded, looking bored.
"Brat." He mumbled as he sat down on the bed, his back hunched over as he closed his eyes, letting his hands rub them, getting rid of the sleep.
He didn't move nor speak when he heard the shuffling beside him, it was obvious his brother was struggling to climb onto his bed. "Tou-san told me to wake you up for the academy." The boy of two years spoke as he finally climbed onto the bed.
He removed his hands from his face and turned to his brother and groaned loudly before throwing his head back until he was lying completely on the bed, "The academy" he groaned out again in annoyance. How he wished he wasn't so eager to attend that damn place. He started once he was four and the academic year started, he was the youngest one in his class, instead of being with the 6-year-olds he was placed with the 7-year-olds skipping the first year because of his entrance exams.
Apparently, he didn't get anything wrong. He was confused at first, he assumed they only put questions that they expected or hoped an incoming first-year would know but they apparently also add extra questions- difficult questions to check for 'prodigy's' when he learned of this, he released his suspicion of that particular question on calculus seemed strange.
The whole ordeal was so boring, he thought it would be more challenging, but it wasn't he was always struggling to stay awake in the lectures, the only interesting part was when they spared and that wasn't even every day just 3 times a week.
Although he was glad, he didn't have to wait longer to join the academy. A war broke out which led to the admission age to be 6 no longer the usual 8, so it was easier for him to get admitted even with his young age. Apparently 'prodigies' are highly wanted. The second shinobi war they call it. Their father had been out on a lot more missions due to it.
Kakashi tilted his head as he watched his brother cover his face with a pillow.
"Nii-san?"
He heard a loud sigh from Takahashi.
The elder removed the pillow and faced his brother, "Tell tou-san I'm not feeling well, okay?" he told his younger brother and he rushed to cover himself with the duvet, smashing his head onto the pillow.
Kakashi just stared at his brother with a raised brow.
"What are you still doing here brat? Go on, be useful." He waved his hand at his brother was sat there.
Kakashi's face scrunched up and shook his head, "That's lying."
"Oh kami" he groaned into his hands, it was like he didn't even help raise the boy, "That's lying" he mimicked the boy's voice under his breath, "I'll help you with the tree walking exercise if you do it" he compromised.
Kakashi's face lit up and nodded as he jumped up from the bed, racing to the door.
It only took about 5 minutes before the door was opened again. He closed his eyes shut, hearing the footsteps of his father.
"Takakashi?"
Should he respond? He hadn't practised sick voices yet; he would surely tell.
He opened his eyes slowly and was faced with an unimpressed Sakumo.
"Kakashi told me, that you asked him to lie for you. Why don't you want to go to the academy?"
That brat!
He sighed and sat upon the bed, "It's just boring, I learn more from you than I do at the academy and you're barely even home! That says something." He hadn't noticed the look on his father's face.
"Come on, you were the one that was excited to go to the academy, look just go, you'll graduate in no time."
Right, he had to go to graduate… it was fine it wasn't like he had to listen at all wasn't it? He could just daydream the whole time and do the work they give quickly then go back to making scenarios in his mind. Maybe even learn to sleep with his eyes open.
--
Takahashi tapped his pencil against the desk in a rhythmic sequence as he stared forward at the wall in front of him, his other hand was doing a good job at holding the side of his head. The class was quiet all the other students struggling to answer simple maths questions but then again it might be simple to him but not them.
The teacher was walking down the class, his arms behind his back, looking for whoever needed help.
"Remember to line up the numbers" droned the teacher.
With that said he blocked everything out and let his mind wander. He actually liked learning especially when it was something he wasn't sure about, just like this world! He loved learning about this world because it was new it was something he had no knowledge of but maths? That was something he already knew a lot about; he was starting to think he knew more than the Chūnin teaching them.
Learning was great… but sitting through school a second time? That wasn't something he wanted. In all honesty, the propaganda made it seem like all that was taught was how to be a shinobi, but it did make sense as to why they taught literature, or even maths- they were all important and could be needed down the road of their career.
He wasn't a fan of the homework, but it was better than what he would have gotten in his previous life- he grimaced at the remembrance of the load of homework he was always given, each class as worse as the next. The homework he got now, wasn't at all bad, it was all too easy nothing challenging.
Hm? Did this world even have universities? He knew they had an academy for civilians, but did they have anything after that or was it just that? Maybe if this whole ninja thing doesn't work, he'll be some kind of teacher.
It was quite fascinating how he managed not to question his existence here, did he really belong? How was it even possible that he was here and no longer… there? It was a surreal situation. The thought of reincarnation was absurd but… here he was experiencing it.
How did reincarnation work anyways?
"Hey!" a loud rather soft voice broke him out of thought. Lazily he turned his head to his right standing there in all her glory was a girl named Hasua, her brown hair braided into two ponytails each one rested at her shoulders. She smiled at him after finally getting his attention.
"Yes, Hasua-chan?" she was one of the five other students who tried talking to him and didn't avoid him. He didn't actually expect a bunch of 7-year-olds to be intimidated by the fact a four-year-old could be in their class.
"You were daydreaming again! Class is done, let's go play outside" her smile never disappearing. He forced himself to smile back at the girl wanting nothing more than to rest his head on the desk and take a nap.
"Alright, I'm coming." It was like she made it a mission to include him in everything, but the thing was he didn't want to be included, that was why half the time he escaped the school vicinity and went wandering around the village at this time of day.
Sluggishly he packed away his books and headed outside for the equivalent of lunchtime. Actually, playing with these children was exhausting, but it was easy to just 'fit' in, but times they would mention that he said 'strange' things or just that he was flat out weird… well sorry! Sorry, that I don't find fart jokes funny!
It was rather amusing to watch the children play though, every game they came up with would have been frowned upon in his previous life, seeing as most of the children at the yard all of different ages, whether 6-year-olds or 10-year-olds, they pretended to kill each other with knives, swords- anything of their imagination.
"Sato-kun!" a Chūnin called out to a boy, "Please don't bite other students! Shinobi don't bite people, remember?"
Well, that's a complete lie. He was pretty confident that some trained killer wouldn't care whether they bite someone or not, when fitting for your life surely anything can become a weapon- there are no rules to fighting when actually out there.
He watched as the chūnin tried to keep the other student from fighting back.
Finally looking away from the scene, it seemed to have lost Hasua. He glanced around unable to see here and then sighed, oh well.
With that began to leisurely walk around the yard before setting eyes on another student, this one seemed around 7.
The boy seemed overly concentrated on what he was doing and that was playing chess? Was it chess? It didn't like chess, but he couldn't really think of anything else it could be.
"What's this?" he started the conversation drawing the boy's attention, "Shogi" was the simple reply, his voice wasn't hostile or annoyed more so laid back and Takahashi took this as a go-to sit opposite him.
"Can I play?" he asked.
The boy gave him a suspicious look, "You know how to play?"
"Not exactly but you can teach me?"
The boy seemed to ponder on it for a few seconds before nodding, then proceeding to rearrange the pieces on the board. It didn't take long after the explanation for him to understand.
It was somewhat similar to chess but had its differences.
The pieces were different. Both games had one king, knights, but Shogi had 1 Bishop while chess had two, while chess had 2 rooks Shogi had 1 and it had 9 pawns while chess only had 8.
The boards were similar to what he remembered the chessboard to look like but the shogi board was definitely slightly larger, shogi was a game of 20 pieces.
He spent the whole break sitting there losing to a 7-year-old. The kid was good, he mentioned how he had been playing since he had been two and it was somewhat of a thing his clan did, the Nara clan. He would definitely beat Sharu Nara the next time they played, he was planning on buying his own shogi set, maybe his father knew how to play.
After his first eventful 'recess', the class continued as normal. He had expected that his class be dismissed after the so-called 'history' class it was more so a propaganda class, he was curious how true everything there was, and how different another village might tell it. Instead of being let go the teacher instead held them back for some kind of 'special' announcement.
"Children", their sensei called out, attempting to sound excited, but it was obvious it was forced at least to him.
"I have great news! Tomorrow, there will be two shinobi coming to talk to our class. It's that wonderful?"
With that said the class burst into chatter. Shinobi? Why? Ah well, he began to wonder what food they were going out to eat, he knew for certain that his father wasn't cooking unless the man decided to experiment again.