7 7

--Yr 54—27, Jan—

He glanced to his left side and stared, using his hand he lifted it up and reached towards his left side which had a blank piece of paper that was on top counter he was sat at- the sheet was face down.

He lifted it up, turning it around, the page no longer blank, as he turned it around it revealed writing, the kanji he had written as he started practising.

He stared at a specific symbol on the page before groaning. He dropped the pen he had in his grip down on his lap and looked to the piece of paper that was sat on the other side of him, the scribbles he had made, staring right at him.

It was wrong.

He had written the correct kanji he was attempting to learn, with it written down, he had it face down at his side, while he had a new piece of paper in front of him to practice what he had just looked at.

He was trying to understand the seal the man had given him. He knew most of the symbols that created the seal but were still unsure of the other symbols that would complete it.

Before leaving the other day, Yurie had given him a seal, one that was placed on his upper arm to keep the scroll- he didn't expect him to be able to hide it from Kano nor the Anbu that might go looking around the apartment.

In the seal, he had also put the Senju wrist band.

He only had a few kanji written out, ones he knew he hadn't seen before, so he could practice them. He had yet to try and replicated the seal, in the way it was supposed to be arranged- it reminded him of how he memorised essays for his French class, he would learn specific words before he tried to put them in a sentence.

The kanji he was trying to perfect wasn't something he was familiar with and he couldn't help but feel frustrated. He couldn't think of a way to easily remember the kanji that he wasn't used to yet. The others were more symbols with similar strokes but the one he was currently working on, had too many distinct strokes.

"You look a bit frustrated there."

Kiyoshi looked up to the sound of the noise, "I guess- why is Kanji so hard."

Ito shrugged his shoulders where he stood, which was behind the counter Kiyoshi was sitting at with crumpled pieces of paper surrounding the bowl of tempura soba he had yet to touch, the bowl no longer steaming, as he was too concentrated on practising instead of eating.

He was in the small restaurant he had visited not too long ago, the day he first met 'Yūrei', there was no doubt about it, the place was now his favourite place to come and eat, 'Anago'.

The name of the small restaurant was called 'Anago'.

Kiyoshi then shifted the bowl that was sitting in front of him to the side, replacing the now empty spot with his piece of paper holding the kanji written on it.

Having Ito's attention, he then pointed to a specific symbol, "Do you know what this one means?" Kiyoshi asked, looking up at the man.

He lazily nodded, "Nothingness." He responded.

With the response, Kiyoshi quickly grabbed his pen in his hand again, he jotted onto the page, under the specific kanji the meaning of the symbol as Ito watched with a raised brow.

"What are you doing anyway," Ito asked with a raised brow, his elbows rested on part of the counter, as his hands were used to keep his head up, with both his palms placed under both sides of his jaw, leaving his chin to poke out.

With no one else other than Kiyoshi, he decided to take a break.

"Nothing really, I'm just practising my Kanji," Kiyoshi responded nonchalantly.

"Well, you seem to be in a rush to know it, You're like what? 2? You have plenty of time to learn them off, and why are you learning them if you don't even know the meanings?"

"I don't need to know the meaning of a kanji to be able to learn how to write it, I can learn the meaning afterwards like I just did," Kiyoshi responded back with.

Nothing else was said as another customer walked in, "Hello" a gruff voice sounded from behind Kiyoshi.

Ito sent a wink at Kiyoshi's direction before heading towards where the new customer went to take a seat to take their order.

He looked down at the pages, picking them up, one by one. As he had the pages in hand, he folded the ones he needed and then proceeded to shove them into his pockets. He then pushed the crumpled pages to one side, so he wouldn't forget to throw them away.

With him finally finished practising his kanji, he dragged the casted bowl back towards him with a gleeful look, not caring that the dish was now cold he grabbed onto the chopsticks.

Whispering as he held the chopsticks before eating, "Thank you for the food."

--

Once again, he had lost the Anbu that were set to watch him, different ones, it was obvious to him that they had shifted, well it made sense. He wasn't sure what excuse he was going to use if he needed one, he was hoping he wouldn't have to use a cat again.

Knowing exactly where they were, made walking around a whole load easier for him, but he knew at some point just knowing where they were wasn't going to be enough to ditch them behind, he needed to know how to conceal his chakra- better yet, he needed to get out of the village, so he didn't need to worry about them.

He was sitting comfortably on a branch of a tree, near the training grounds. His back leaned up against the trunk of the tree, as his legs dangled on either side of the branch, looking down at the branch, more so what was on the branch.

It was the small page different to the one he had been given by Ito the first time they had met, he had ended up soaking the page in water until it became nothing but much, the words seeped out of the page and the water took over.

He scratched the side of his head, with furrowed brows.

Slowly but surely, he brought the small pencil he had in hand down to the fifth line of the page and crossed the words out.

He thought it would be best if he wrote down what he planned to do, this was only the start of it.

Although just as he did with the last sheet, he would dispose of it once he was finished writing what he planned to do- it was his way of remembering. Writing things down just made remembering so much easier for him, even with studying that was what he had done, although remembering had become easier with this life.

Just as last time, the first line also had down on the page, 'Home' and 'Fuinjustu'.

He groaned as he looked at it, he really needed to get to that, in all honesty, if he hadn't written it down before, he would have forgotten about this task.

First, 'go back to the village he was born in.' He wanted to see it himself, he highly doubt they were all dead… perhaps it was closure he wanted.

Second, 'Find out who 'Yūrei' actually is. Yeah, that one might take a while, even so, I need to find out his true objectives.'

Third, 'Learn how to conceal chakra'. This one, I'll need to learn before I actually go back to that house for the notes, would be way handier with avoiding the Anbu and just sneaking about in general, I'll deal with the consequences of that later.'

Fourth, 'run a lap around the training grounds every morning. Well so far this is the only one in process, it's not even as bad as I thought it would be, it's getting easier and easier with each passing day- oooo, I should add getting chakra weights, so I feel lighter as time goes on.'

He brought both his legs onto the branch he was sitting on, no longer dangling over the sides. He dragged them close to his person as he used his knees as support as he wrote on the page, squeezing his writing, making it small, 'Get chakra weights, or make them.' He wrote, right above the fourth sentence, careful not to write on the third.

Finally finished looking over his so-called 'list', he didn't think there was much need to bother with the fifth line as he had already crossed it off, it is 'get more soba', which he already had done, earlier in the day.

Dragging his pen down below the crossed-out line, he added another objective, 'figure out what favour I want from Yurei'.

"This is stupid" he heard a voice mumble.

Glancing lazily down to the voice, he saw the brunette, he seemed about 9 or so. The boy was still there, he had seen the child approach where he was earlier without noticing Kiyoshi. It seemed as though he was studying of some kind.

He had contemplated on moving to another tree, with how often the boy would groan out loudly or just complain.

Seeing as he was now done with his list, he was now interested in what the child was studying with the few books that surrounded him where he sat at the base of the tree not too far from him. He was curious if the books had anything useful for him to learn.

He scribbled out everything he had written, carefully, so he wouldn't rip through the page, but if it did happen it would be a bad thing as he was planning on destroying it anyways.

Scrunching the page up he put it into his pocket, as he stood upon the branch he was.

With silence feet he hopped over to the branch that was attached to the tree the boy was at, once he was there and jumped down startling the child.

"AHH!"

Before Kiyoshi knew it a kunai was thrown at him.

He barely just dodged it with how unexpected it was, he turned seeing it stuck in the bark of the tree behind him. "…Oh" was the only thing that came out of his mouth as his hand felt the cheek it had nearly pierced.

The child stared up at him with wide eyes and his mouth hung open, "-I'm sorry, I so sorry- I could have killed you- not actually this isn't even my fault! You came out of nowhere." He ranted as he stood up from the ground staring down at Kiyoshi with a frown.

"…Sorry." Kiyoshi dryly responded.

The boy huffed as he crossed his arms, "I forgive you" he stated, before walking past him to the kunai.

As he grabbed, the kunai, Kiyoshi spoke again after getting into his childlike persona, "Are you a ninja! That was so awesome, I've never seen a kunai this close!" he said in awe as he neared the boy staring that the black object in his hand.

The boy's face flushed lightly at being called a ninja as the younger boy in front of him staring at him with wide eyes, "Ah… well I guess I'm a ninja- just one that can't wear the headband yet! I'm actually in the academy" he responded with a proud smile.

"-My sister is actually already a genin!" he continued, boasting like most children like to do.

"Ahh! Really!? That's amazing, I want to be a ninja as well" Kiyoshi spurred out.

The boy puffed his chest out, "Well you're just going to have to wait- I need to go back to studying now."

The boy said as he made his way back to the opened book.

Kiyoshi slowly walked towards where he was now seated staring at the book- it was one of the many books Kano had given him to read.

It was a book about the history of Kumogakure, was the boy really struggling with this?

"Do you have a test?" Kiyoshi asked, the boy looked up and nodded, with a glum face.

Kiyoshi sat in front of the boy in boredom.

"Yeah, this is my last chance this year to finally become a genin."

'Finally? It sounded like he tried doing the test before, with the look on his face…'

"Well, then you're studying for the written part of your test, the history side- I can test you if you want" Kiyoshi said as he took the opened book from the boy and closed it.

"Wait-" the boy called out but was cut off.

"Who was the Shodai Raikage" Kiyoshi thought it was best to start off with a very simple question to ease the boy.

He had expected an answer within the first second, but the boy seemed to be concentrating very hard on the question… shouldn't this have been someone he should know since he was younger not just from learning at school.

"…Um- ah I know- wait a second." The boy went into thinking.

"…" Kiyoshi stared at the boy in front of him, he didn't know what to say.

"Why are you looking at me like that!"

"Nothing… Well anyway… it's 'A' he was the Shodai Raikage, which was also the name of the Nidaime." Kiyoshi answered.

The boy scoffed with a frown, "You're like 2! How would you know, I'm the one that goes to the academy!"

He didn't see a reason to argue with the boy, he already corrected him, if he wanted to be wrong that's on him, all he needed to do was check if he was correct- hopefully, he does if he actually wants to pass the test, all in all, he doubts that type of question would be in the test.

"…Okay, I guess I'll let you get back to studying- do you mind if I look at those books, I'll be careful," Kiyoshi asked gesturing to the books at the boy's side, he too looked at them, then he looked back to Kiyoshi and shrugged.

'Finally.'

"Just don't rip anything, they're my sisters."

From looking through the books, he was able to find something on concealing chakra, he wasn't sure if just that text would help him achieve it, but it was all he had so far, and what he needed, it seemed simple as could be. It's a wonder why the boy would have taken the book from his sister but then again, he seems excited about being a ninja one day.

He looked up from the book, the boy was no longer sitting against a tree but on his feet throwing a few kunai at a specific tree… well at least trying, he wasn't sure if the kid had actually the bark of the tree he was aiming at yet, but to be fair if he counted the time, he had startled the child, he did hit the tree even if it was an accident.

Now that he thinks about it, he had never actually handled a kunai before, makes him wonder what Kano has been waiting for just giving him taijutsu and books to concentrate on, but it's likely it would be something he would have him do soon.

Although he wasn't going to wait on that, "Can I have one of them?" he questioned the boy, making him stop in motion, he had another kunai in his grip ready to throw it, it was just about to pass his head before he would release it but stopped at the voice.

The boy turned with furrowed brows, "The kunai?"

Kiyoshi nodded as he lifted himself from the ground, "Yeah, just one, I can give it back when I'm done with it."

"No- you know what if you can hit this tree, I'll give you two." The boy said with a smirk.

"Ah… then can you show me how to hold it?" Kiyoshi asked, hoping the boy at least knew the correct way of handling a kunai, seeing as he could barely even hit the tree himself.

"No." The boy responded as he handed one kunai over to Kiyoshi.

He started at the kunai that was now in his hand, looking down the blade to the end of the object which had a hole at the end.

Adjusting the kunai in his small grip, he allowed his thumb to make its way to the crease of the blade, as his palm wrapped around what he could hold onto.

Lifting his elbow up towards him, within another second he dropped his elbow down gaining speed and released the object not expecting much.

As he did this, the other boy snorted, thinking he had failed already, but his smile dropped as he watched the blade spin before sticking into the very tree, he had been trying to hit for the past 20 minutes- he felt slightly humiliated, while Kiyoshi looked more so shocked.

"So th-" Kiyoshi tried speaking before being cut off, "Just take them all, I'm getting new ones anyway." The boy spoke in a slightly depressed tone of voice as he dropped the blades to the ground.

He watched the boy leave.

"Figure out what the seal is yet?" he didn't jump nor react to the voice. He was starting to get used to it.

"Yūrei-san, I see you're making an appearance today," Kiyoshi responded, as he turned to the voice.

"Come with me."

"Come with you? Where?" Kiyoshi responded, in a questioning tone, his eyes narrowing at the figure.

"Somewhere that isn't Kumo. You don't want to stay here, we both know that, so why not just come with me?" Yūrei asked.

"…This is somewhat sudden- did something happen? Why are you asking me this now? and if I do go with you, then what?"

Yūrei shrugged, "I suppose you can say something did happen, perhaps I'll tell you when you're older and as for the 'then what'… I'll train you, teach you everything you want to know, what I think you should learn. I'll become your mentor, and perhaps one day, you'll get all the answers you wish to have."

Kiyoshi was silent for a moment, before giving the man an answer. An obvious one.

Since answering he had yet to step foot in Kumo ever again after the many years he spent with Yūrei.