Three months since he started school. And he still had not had anything resembling a conversation with any of his classmates. They naturally hesitated in the face of the outstanding grades he got in each and every one of their classes. All of them had ever-so-timidly spoken to him once, but Itachi’s responses were always so concise and definite that none of them wanted to try to speak to him again.
He was not going to school to make friends, though, so he was fine with that. The larger dissatisfaction for Itachi was how he felt like it was never enough, no matter how excellent his grades were. The limit for grades was one hundred percent; it was impossible to get anything more than that. But he felt like this was unproductive.
Can I really learn the true nature of the ninja in a place like this?
School grades and actual ability were not the same thing. That’s what he felt, which was why he was always dissatisfied. Itachi was truly concerned about the fact that being number one at school was not directly connected to his own dream of being a great ninja.
“Make sure you show this test to your parents,” his teacher instructed, and Itachi carefully folded in half the page with the 100 on it.
“Um,” a voice said suddenly, and he looked back slowly.
In the hallway after school, all around him were boys waiting for friends to go play with, and girls chatting and squealing with laughter. Filled with a sense of liberation at their release from the formalities of lessons, they were excessively energetic.
“You’re Uchiha Itachi, right?” the girl said, looking at him with upturned eyes. Her brown hair reached down to her shoulders, and she had both arms crossed in front of her chest. The eyes below thin eyebrows were almond-shaped and bright, while at the same time having a mysterious charm that made him feel bittersweet somehow.
“I am.”
“I-I’m also a member of the Uchiha clan.”
“You are?” he returned, curtly.
It wasn’t just with this girl. Itachi always had this attitude at school. Most people would crumble at this point in the conversation. And then they would never try to step into his space again.
“My name’s Uchiha Izumi. I’m in the class next door.”
“So?”
Shisui had the day off today for the first time in a while, so once school was over, they were supposed to train together. He didn’t have the time to dawdle here like this now.
“We take the same way home, huh?”
“There’s only one Uchiha compound. Of course we take the same way.”
“Uh, um,” the girl Izumi said, hanging her head. “M-maybe we could—”
“Sorry, I’m in a hurry.” Itachi turned his back to her, and started racing down the hallway.
“So how’s school?” Shisui asked, wiping away the sweat on his forehead with a towel.
Itachi jerked his shoulders up and down, and exhaled heavily.
They were talking at the park in the center of the compound, after running for about four hours. And not just running: running at top speed. They ran for four hours, maintaining their top speed the entire time. Anyone not diligent with their ninja training wouldn’t have lasted five minutes.
Shisui looked slightly cooler than Itachi felt, and the younger boy glared slightly as he opened his mouth. “It’s way better for me to train with you.”
“But you’ve gotten pretty good at talking since you started at the academy.”
“I haven’t changed.”
“I guess you have always been pretty mouthy.” Shisui laughed and put a hand on Itachi’s head. “I guess there’s no one in your class who can take you on?”
Itachi said nothing.
“Is there?” Shisui asked, surprised.
Itachi shook his head from side to side, his friend’s hand still pressing down on it. “I don’t know what kind of grades everyone else gets. But as far as I can tell from watching them in the schoolyard, there’s no one amazing or anything.”
“So you’re only looking at yourself?”
Itachi felt like that might be exactly it. He couldn’t see his classmates. What should he do? How could he become the best ninja? That’s all he had thought about since he was a little kid. He had no energy to spare on anyone else.
“There’s no one more amazing than you at that school. I’ll tell you that right now.” Shisui’s hand tousled Itachi’s hair.
“Quit it.” He pushed the hand away.
“As long as we have you, the future of the Uchihas is secure,” Shisui said, laughing, but his smile was a little sad somehow.
Listening to Sasuke breathing softly in his sleep beside him, Itachi laid down on his futon. It had been just over a year since they moved to the new compound, and he had gotten very used to the look of the ceiling above his bed.
Beyond the bedroom where the two children slept was the family’s dinner table, where Fugaku and Mikoto were sitting.
“Itachi’s grades are amazing, hm?” He heard his mother’s voice from the other side of the closed sliding doors. She apparently thought the children were already asleep. Without trying to listen, Itachi stared absently up at the ceiling.
“He is my son, after all.”
“I suppose so.”
His father was praising him. And his mother was happy about it. There was nothing to feel bad about.
“How is he at school?” his father asked.
“What do you mean? Look at these excellent grades—”
“I’m not talking about that,” his father said, cutting his mother off. “Does he have any friends?”
“He doesn’t really talk about his friends.”
“That boy doesn’t know how to take it easy.”
“That’s not such a bad thing.”
“But he goes too far. It’s like he’s rushing, like he’s hurrying to become a full-fledged ninja.”
Dad sees right through me … The slightest heat colored Itachi’s face.
“The way he’s so earnest about ninjahood, sometimes I feel like I should take lessons from him, even though I’m his father. But a thread stretched too taut is fragile. I’m worried he needs to let loose somehow.”
“He’s a gentle boy. You just have to watch Itachi cuddling Sasuke to know that. He’ll be fine. And lately, he really looks up to Shisui like a big brother. They train together; they’re quite close.”
“Shisui of the Body Flicker, hm?”
Itachi was also aware that Shisui had been drawing attention as a ninja lately, garnering the nickname “Body Flicker.”
“It’s all well and good to have an older friend too, but it’d be nice if he could talk with friends his own age, and learn at least a little of what fun feels like.”
“I’m sure he will.”
A friend the same age … The face of the girl who spoke to him suddenly after school floated up in the back of his mind.
“Uchiha Izumi.” Murmuring the girl’s name, Itachi quietly closed his eyes.
Six months after starting at the academy.
Itachi’s fame spread throughout the school. He excelled to such an extent that some teachers and students said his level of talent had never before been seen at the school. Given the fact that the first-year classes had nothing to teach Itachi, his teachers gave him special homework and tests. But Itachi easily mastered it all, and his teachers threw up their hands in defeat.
He was more than advanced enough for the genin level, and so, just over four months after he started school, his teachers unanimously agreed on his graduation after his first year.
The village of Konohagakure, exhausted from the Great War and the attack by the Nine-Tails, urgently needed ninja. Because of this, a select number of students judged by their teachers to be particularly gifted could take the graduation exam without waiting for their full term to be up. If they passed the exam, they would then attend the graduation ceremony with the older students, and be assigned duties as a genin.