Seven Months

"Katsu, you're up," Osamu said to the students of class 3-C.

"Yes, Osamu-sensei," Katsu responded, separating himself from the group of children.

A young girl, who'd just retrieved the shuriken she'd thrown, passed them off to Katsu and joined the rest of her classmates in watching his attempt.

"Throw," Osamu demanded.

Katsu nodded, quickly flicking the shuriken from between his bandage-wrapped knuckles.

Osamu and Katsu's classmates were unsurprised by the results: Five shuriken stuck in the dead center of the target. His results had drastically improved over the last seven months, and he quickly became the most accurate in the class. His accuracy with kunai was similarly impressive.

"You've improved a lot this final year," Osamu said with approval, "You should be proud of yourself."

"Thank you, sensei," Katsu said, walking towards the target to recover the shuriken.

After the rest of the class had thrown the shuriken, they moved onto the final sparring session during their time in the academy.

It was the final day of class, and these final exercises would determine the endmost rankings before graduation.

After the conclusions of a few matches, Osamu finally called Katsu's name. "Katsu and Takumi, step forward."

The two of them nodded and entered the circle drawn on the ground.

Takumi was a talented civilian kid. He had spiky brown hair, black eyes, and a self-satisfied smile of confidence gained from being on top of the class for the last two years.

Takumi and Katsu had yet to spar, and thus despite his improvements, Katsu was still relegated to number two. Now that final rankings were being determined, they were naturally paired together.

Signing the Seal of Reconciliation, the two readied themselves to spar with one another.

"Begin," Osamu said from the side.

Takumi immediately jumped forward and planted his left foot, kicking outward with the right.

Katsu side-stepped to the left to get behind Takumi's back before driving a fist into the right side of his ribs.

Takumi experienced a great deal of pain and keeled over for a single moment, which Katsu exploited instantaneously, kicking the side of his face with enough force to throw him out of the circle.

The rest of class 3-C watched with stars in their eyes as the previously ranked number one was defeated in a matter of seconds. Katsu's speed had far outstripped anything Takumi could react to.

"What did you do to him?" Osamu questioned, watching Takumi wince while clutching at the spot where Katsu had punched him.

"I punched him in the liver. That's how people tend to react," Katsu remarked gesturing to the squirming Takumi.

"An excellent application of knowledge of the human body. Nicely done," Osamu praised.

Katsu thanked Osamu and pulled Takumi up from the ground with the Seal of Reconciliation.

'It's times like these I'm grateful I pulled all-nighters studying textbooks on human biology back in college,' Katsu thought.

Katsu would end up as the number one ranking student in class 3-C. Something, which by the way, was not something he was exactly proud of.

After sparring with Sakumo for countless hours and Ayaka whenever he was unavailable, fighting a bunch of civilian kids felt unfair. They were predictable and slow. Prolonging the fight felt like he was beating them out of some sick satisfaction, so he would typically end the spars as quickly as he could.

In these seven months, on top of improving upon his skill with ninja tools and taijutsu, Katsu was taught various wind and fire jutsu, learned how to break out of genjutsu, and mastered both the body replacement technique and body flicker. The latter-most of which, he learned only a few weeks prior to his last day in the academy.

Katsu had eventually completed the advanced leaf exercise set upon him by Sakumo. The number of leaves only kept increasing over the weeks until he could maintain fifty at a single time. At that point, Sakumo was finally satisfied and discontinued the exercise.

When Katsu had finally decided to set his mind to learn both tree and water walking, he was dumbfounded when he found he could do both almost immediately.

"Aren't I a great teacher?" Sakumo had asked smugly at the time.

Sakumo's teachings had allowed Katsu to increase his chakra control to a degree frightening for a six, now seven-year-old to possess. His precise chakra control would both help him learn jutsu at an accelerated rate and do so at little cost to his chakra reserves.

In addition, Katsu's body had improved greatly as well. Sakumo had strongly encouraged him to begin wearing weights — light ones at first, but heavier ones as he got accustomed to the previous set. This aided in increasing his speed to a point where his classmates were physically unable to keep up.

However, out of the entirety of his training regime, the thing that had the greatest impact on his battle competency, was what Sakumo called "advanced sparring."

In short, Katsu would spar with Sakumo but with the added challenge of Ayaka throwing different projectiles at him from various angles and at random times. The kunai and shuriken were dulled, and the senbon flattened, but it hurt like hell nonetheless — more than enough incentive for Katsu to stay on his toes at all times.

Sakumo had crammed as much shinobi knowledge into Katsu as he could, at least whenever he was available. Whenever Sakumo was sent off to participate in the war effort — often for weeks at a time — he'd leave Ayaka in charge of training with and overseeing Katsu. As a former chunin herself, she had much to impart.

~~~~~

Katsu had just entered the Hatake compound by jumping over the wall and landing directly in the interior courtyard.

Almost immediately after his sandals had touched the grass, a single senbon passed across his cheek, leaving behind a sharp whistle as it crossed his ear. It bounced off the wall behind him with a light thunk.

"Must you always enter the compound in the most suspicious way possible?" Ayaka asked, exasperated with the now daily occurrence, "Why not use the main gate like any normal person?"

Katsu shrugged his shoulders and said, "I just like gaining your attention, auntie."

"Well, one day, my "attention" is going to see you ran through and bleeding when I inevitably mistake you for an intruder," she said, annoyed.

"Worth it," he replied before walking away to visit Kakashi, who he'd grown quite attached to.

Ayaka felt a blood vessel pop in her forehead before she sighed, calmed herself, and followed Katsu into the main building, abandoning the lone senbon to the elements of the outside world.

Searching the main building, Katsu found a toddler Kakashi reaching for a cup of apple juice that was left on the kitchen counter. His short stature and stubby arms made such a feat an impossible task. However, just when Katsu thought Kakashi had given up, he leaped, pulled himself onto the counter, and stole the apple juice for himself.

"Kakashi!" Ayaka chirped, "That's only for after you've completed your afternoon lessons!"

Kakashi glanced at Ayaka, and with an utterly unsympathetic face, downed the rest of the apple juice in one go. He placed the cup down and looked at her with an expression that read, "Whaddya gonna do about it now?"

"That's my baby brother!" Katsu said with a grin and a thumbs up. "You'll be raiding the cupboards by the end of the wee-"

Ayaka chopped the back of his head with enough force to shut him up. "Stop twisting Sakumo's child into a tool of destruction."

'Destruction of what?' Katsu thought, 'Apple juice?'

After Ayaka had given Kakashi an earful about the importance of patience and disciplining oneself to resist desire, she dragged him away for his afternoon lessons.

"And they'll be twice as long today!" she declared, pulling a sulking Kakashi behind her into the study room.

Kakashi looked back at Katsu and pleaded with his eyes, "Help me."

Katsu gave him another thumbs up and said, "Study hard, Kakashi!"

He then promptly left as he still had various chores that needed to be completed around the compound.