White cats and a lair
We were just cooling down on the terrace of a house after a training session, it was one of the uncommon times when everyone was there, which made perfect sense, after all, everyone in the group had their own lives and when you're a group of eight people that just amplified it. This did, however, make it the perfect time to bring up the subject I had been wanting to talk about for ages. As such, I cleared my throat to get everyone's attention, stood up, and put on my most serious and somber face, the kind other, less fun, people would use to tell you your grandmother had passed away.
"I want to speak to you about a certain idea I have, and, while I know many here will not be receptive to it, I still feel it is an idea worth speaking of," I said, making eye contact with everyone, to ensure that they knew that what I was about to say was not a joke. "I want to ensure that no one thinks this is a cruel joke, a mean-spirited prank, or anything of that nature, and I realize that to some of you this will seem like a cruel and unusual punishment, but I assure you, It is not..." I breathed in deeply, preparing for what was to come "...I want to bring Ino and Sakura into the group"
A deep silence settled over the group as most of them stared at me in open disbelief. There were of course outliers, like Naruto, who looked delighted, or Hinata, who looked uncertain as to whether or not it would be rude to be annoyed and as such just looked slightly hurt, then, then there was Sasuke and he was not happy, not happy at all. He looked at me like I had just slaughtered his entire family, which is to say, murderous, and boy was he good at making that facial expression, which was fair I suppose, he did have a bit of practice after all.
"You can't be serious. First, you make me train by refusing to feed Choji if I don't, and now you want me to put up with the two biggest fangirls in the world while they are within fifty meters of their idol? If you do this you'll be a bigger pain than both of those two combined" Shikamaru half whined half growled.
"I know you aren't happy but let me explain-" I tried to explain but I was cut off.
"We are more than just un-happy you self-absorbed idiot. We, don't, want, them, here." Sasuke ground out, speaking far more than he usually would.
"look," I said with a voice that was filled with sympathy "I understand that you guys don't want them here, honestly? I don't really want them here either. But chances are that Sakura will be our generation kunoichi of the year, which means she'll be in a team with at least Sasuke-"
Naruto suddenly interjected "hey! I'm way better than Sasuke, I could become rookie of the year!"
"fine, which means she'll be in a team with either Sasuke or Naruto..." Naruto sent me a satisfied smile "...if Sasuke happens to break all the bones in his body the day before the exams."
"HEY!"
"And Ino will definitely team up with Shikamaru and Choji in the Ino-Shika-Cho formation, so no matter what some of us will end up being in the same genin squad as them. Besides, it's not like they don't train at all, after that rumor about Sasuke liking strong kunoichi started they started training seriously, we might even be able to fix them... slightly" I said with as much conviction as I could, even though I wasn't that thrilled myself.
I looked around at everyone's faces. Choji looked convinced and slightly hopeful, maybe he wanted to get his childhood friend back, after all, he and Shikamaru had known her since they were kids because of how close their parents are. Shikamaru looked more resigned than hopeful, but I swear I could see a glimmer of something in his eye, maybe the same hope Choji felt, maybe just annoyance. Sasuke still looked like he wasn't happy about it but like he had accepted that he would be paired with Sakura and that if she could become more tolerable by doing this then that was acceptable. Naruto looked happy, as even though he found Ino a bit mean he liked Sakura, while Hinata was looking terrified that Sakura would either steal Naruto from her or make Naruto start ignoring her again. The others just looked like they had accepted it even if it wasn't ideal.
"by the expressions of utter despair and hopelessness you wear, I would dare say that you have reluctantly accepted the idea, so! I'll go get them" I smiled brightly at them while some of them grumbled good-naturedly at me in return.
Then I turned around and called out "you can come out now!"
And the topics of our discussion walked just around the corner of the house we were staying at and into full view. the instantaneousness of their arrival leaving no question as to whether or not they heard everything, that and the fact that both of them looked incredibly hurt and on the verge of tears. The people of our group looked at me with shock, clearly confused and a little hurt that I had tricked them into insulting people they once viewed as friends. Guilt immediately came crashing down on me like a titanic wave, however, I have to continue with the plan or it will just be for nothing.
"The reason I made sure that the two of you could hear everything was to imprint a concept on your minds," I said while smiling as cruel and vicious a smile I can muster "no one likes you, no one wants to be friends with you, no one wants you here, I Don't want you here and the only reason anyone even thought about accepting you joining is that they know they'll be stuck with you. Well would you look at the time, I have a lesson in the forge to get to, please excuse me"
Then, I turned away, leaving my speechless and dismayed friends with the two sniffling fangirls.
I was sitting in the smithy, and the man who swore on his grandmother's honor, that no matter how I begged and pleaded, no matter how persistent I may be, even if I cut his right hand off taking away his entire lifestyle, that he would never teach the likes of me. Was currently teaching me the intricacies of how to correctly insert a curved weapon into the quenching oil.
"When you want to quench a curved weapon, it's important to always insert it with the curve, when you do so, it will greatly increase the chance of your weapon staying whole. Of course, if you have to rely on a special quenching method to keep your project from shattering, that would make you a huge disappointment, but the technique is useful even when the weapon would stay whole without it, as it can be used to make the weapon slightly more durable" he thoroughly explained in his disappointingly normal voice, which didn't sound gravely in the least.
[congratulations! You have leveled the skill, Smithing, up! You have gone from level 41 to level 42!]
"and you swore on your grandmother's honer not to teach me," I said in mock disappointment
"eh, she never had much honor anyways, always cheated in card games, the old hag," he said with an uncaring shrug
"Are you sure you're not the one who never had much honor to begin with" I mumble under my breath
"what did you say? You arrogant little brat!"
"oh nothing you would understand, but if you want I could make it closer to your intellectual level," I say as innocently as possible.
"I have a better idea, how about I help you down to my intellectual level as you so finely put it? I think a couple of good hits to the head should do it" he said, also sounding completely innocent and helpful.
"I know you're good with a hammer but I don't think even you're good enough to bring me down to the hair-thin line you walk between just being incredibly moronic and being a vegetable," I said in a still very civil and polite voice.
"well, how about I-"
"am I interrupting something here?" a voice suddenly said from the doorway, I turned in surprise only to see Shikamaru standing there.
"not really, no. But what's up? Need help with anything" I asked as that damned blacksmith went back to his forge, grumbling all the way.
"I just needed to talk to you about earlier today," he said seriously
"of course you would be the first to figure out, at least in part, honestly, what did I expect with a Nara around," I said with a self-deprecating smile
We walked out and sat at a bench on the street, there was an awkward silence for a couple of minutes before Shikamaru finally spoke "I think I know why you did what you did, but why don't you explain, and I'll see if my guess is correct"
I practically sagged in on myself, I never knew how tiring it was to be heartless and cruel "as you probably guessed, the first part of my plan was to force them to overhear all their peers talking about how little they were wanted. I hoped it would give them a wake-up call, you know? I then realized that just me being incredibly mean wouldn't be good enough so I had to trick you guys into doing it, sorry about that, by the way. I wanted to make them realize that no one liked the way they acted, even if they didn't stop immediately I figured it might be enough to form a crack in their fan-girl armor. And that when they saw and experienced how real friends behaved from you guys, and how nice that is, that maybe they would leave behind being fangirls" I explained, sounding tired to even myself.
"I figured as much. I guess the second step in your master plan was being far crueler to them than all of us combined, that way you could make sure they saw you as the villain and stop them from keeping a distance from us, making sure the theory behind your plan worked" Shikamaru said explaining the rest of my plan for me.
"that's about it, I'm gonna separate from the group for a bit, just until they start improving," I said and then straightened up and smiled "but don't feel too bad, I have always wanted to play the villain. Who knows maybe ill even get a white cat or two and a lair, ill even kidnap Naruto and you can go on a rescue mission, it might even be fun" I said with a smile as we parted ways.
I was lying on my bed in the orphanage, thoughts of the day's events circulating in my mind, and thoughts of what I would do in the meantime when I couldn't hang out with the group. It probably won't be that bad, it might even be fun, I can practice my calligraphy as Iruka told me to do if I wanted to become a fuinjutsu master. and even if the name only covers a very small part of the endless possibilities the skill has, it will still be amazing to learn. I can smith every day and sell whatever I make in order to make some money, then I'll be able to pay back that shop owner I stole from, maybe even buy something expensive just to buy something. I can learn to draw... even to me, this sounds like a particularly sad mid-life crisis.
I let out a sigh, already feeling the familiar Icey claws of loneliness creep into me, no sound, no movement, like a completely frozen world where the only living thing was me, sitting alone in a dark and silent room.
I quickly snapped out of my bored brooding and turned on the oil lamp on the desk I got after moving into my own room when I became ten and started making plans. After all, there was a silver lining to my complete isolation, it will be the perfect time to get rid of the last debuffs without being incredibly suspicious. Now that I didn't train with someone every single day, as long as I made sure to never look like I was seriously trying in class no one will notice my stats suddenly doubling.
And I was so close too, one of the best parts of crafting is that it trains all my stats at once, not equally, of course, but you do need to put a bit of thought into crafting. I pulled up my status to see how far I was from getting rid of those debuffs after two long years.
[Status | Level: 5 ]
[name: Anno | Age: 10 ]
[HP: 680 | CP: 1280 ]
[CON: 18 | STR: 21 ]
[DEX: 22 | INT: 70 ]
[WIS: 58 | ATP: 0 ]
And over the course of the next three months a definite change showed in Sakura and Ino, they still have a crush on Sasuke, a very, very big crush, but they weren't screaming about it anymore, or even at each other, they were, dare I say, friendly, with each other, not even one fight. But it honestly was a great personal improvement, they were far more like Sakura was after the incident in the forest of death, instead of how she was at, well, any point before that. And with that great improvement, came great awareness of how they used to be, with that awareness only being compounded on by the fifteen marvelous examples of how they used to behave. All leading to what I was seeing right now, two cringing, ear covering, blushing, shame-filled and embarrassed girls looking at what they used to be.
"Were we really that loud" Ino spoke to herself as sakura tried to become one with the background. It wasn't very effective, with the bright pink hair, the bright green eyes, and the bright red and white contrast-rich dress but I appreciated the effort nonetheless.
"I want to say that, no! Of course you weren't! But I'm honestly not sure, after all, you and Sakura always were the first to squeal and after that first squeal blew out my eardrums I just haven't heard the others, so I really have no frame of reference" I said from the table behind them with a teasing smile as they turned to look at me, slightly worried I would snap at them again.
"I want to apologize, by the way, I know that what I said was needlessly cruel and I'm truly sorry for that," I said guiltily, I had realized later that It probably wasn't strictly necessary to be as vicious as I had been.
"it's fine, besides, we probably needed to hear it from someone, so thanks, I guess," Ino said with a sigh at first but then shifted over to a smile "as long as you admit that we weren't that bad"
"I'm sorry, but I would really hate to restart our friendship with a lie so I sadly can't do that," I said in response, my teasing smirk returning.
"ill be joining the group again, by the way, and while I know it may feel a little overwhelming to have someone as amazing as yours truly around you, I really hope the two of you will keep from falling into the fangirl trap again," I Said with an impressive and long-suffering pose, after all, they would never understand the pain of being as amazing as I am.
Ino giggled at my antics "I think that will be an interesting experience"
"Oh no! You giggled! You didn't laugh, you giggled! That's the first sign of becoming a fangirl! I've already broken three long months of effort, truly, woe is me" I said like I was alarmed and horrified with myself that I had already made her fall for me, "it was doomed to happen at some point, of course, but already?"
The laughter that rang out from the other people from the group who had gathered around me filled me with a warmth I had dearly missed in the last three months with only a grumpy blacksmith to talk to. It was good to be back.