Chapter Text
“...And that concludes the lesson on kenjutsu for today. Any questions?” Iruka Umino turned around to look at his class and suppressed the urge to sigh. Most of them clearly weren’t engaged with the lesson. A couple were writing notes that would likely only be revisited for exams while others didn’t even care enough to do that. A few (Shikamaru) were actually asleep or at least pretending to be.
Then Iruka noticed three things. One, Uchiha Sasuke was focused very hard on the board behind Iruka, dark eyes drilling holes into words written on in chalk. Two, Haruno Sakura was furiously taking notes, eyes flickering from her notebook to the whiteboard, tongue sticking out as she was clearly focused. Third, Uzumaki Naruto was actually looking at him, blue eyes staring at him intently. That meant that he was actually paying attention and that surprised Iruka more than the other two reactions.
He was grateful that at least three of his students were interested in the topic. He felt bad that this would be the only lesson on it. The academy mostly focused on the three core Jutsu and teaching kids the basics. Hopefully, their jonin sensei would teach them if they were still interested in the subject in two years' time.
“Alright. Class dismissed. Have a good weekend.” Iruka waved his hand and the mostly quiet and still class burst into sound and movement. Most were clearly excited to get out of the classroom which made Iruka sigh harder. Sometimes, he wondered why they were even in a shinobi academy if they weren’t interested in becoming shinobi. However, it was not his place to say anything on the matter.
He blinked in surprise when he realized three students hadn’t moved. Naruto was still staring at him, eyes flickering to the board behind Iruka in clear confusion. Sakura was muttering to herself now as she continued her furious writing. Sasuke’s eyes had turned down to the textbook in front of him, the page open on famous people in history who used kenjutsu.
“Can I help you three with anything?” Iruka asked, not unkindly. If they were interested in this, he wanted to spark that interest. Both Sakura and Naruto showed minimal interest in topics relating to Shinobi's work and Sasuke’s eyes were never alight with curiosity as they were now.
“N-No sensei.” Sakura blushed, hurriedly cramming her books into her bag and leaving. Sasuke just grunted before following suit, leaving Naruto alone with Iruka.
“Naruto? You want to ask me something?” Iruka asked with a tilt of his head. Naruto blinked in surprise at being asked, but he slowly shook his head. He looked contemplative though as if he wanted to ask a question but wouldn’t for whatever reason. That’s how all three of them looked. Odd. Pushing the thought away for later, Iruka gave the boy a small smile. “In that case, want to get some ramen?”
That made the boy immediately shot up from his seat and whoop in excitement, making Iruka laugh.
‘Never change Naruto, never change.’
-
Sakura stared at her homework, which remained blank despite the fact that she usually finished her homework as soon as she got home from school. Her mind simply couldn’t focus on it. Instead, it lingered on the lesson from two days ago. It relayed in her mind, her fingers hovering over the words written in led. It had taken up three pages of her notebook, and the rest of the class barely had one page. She didn’t know why she couldn’t stop thinking about it-
Well no, she did.
She couldn’t stop thinking about it because it was the most interesting thing Sakura had heard in a while. The different blades, how they worked, the movements of the blades, the different kenjutsu styles that Iruka-sensei briefly covered. All of it was so interesting and Sakura couldn’t take her mind off it.
So, she had gone to the library and picked up a book on it after telling the librarian helping her multiple times that no this wasn’t for any of the men in her house and no, she wouldn’t like to be redirected to anything more ‘feminine’.
The book rested on her bed, already done with being read. Sakura had torn through it the first day she had it, pouring over everything and taking notes on things she would like to research further.
Upon realizing that her homework wouldn’t be completed by simply staring at it, Sakura stood up with a huff and glanced over at her clock. Already nine pm, which meant that Sakura had stared at the paper below her for two hours.
“Hopefully I’ll be able to get it done before school tomorrow.” Sakura bit the inside on her cheek before heading to sit down on her bed. The moment she did, she stood back up again. She was buzzing with unused energy and she would need to do something with it if she ever wanted to think of sleep.
Sakura huffed, blowing a stray bang out of her face.
She couldn’t help but wonder if her parents still had that old broken broom that had been snapped in half. It was about the length of a sword, wasn’t it? She crept out into the hallway, looking over to her parents' door to check that it was dark underneath. It wasn’t like she enjoyed hiding her interests from her parents. It’s just… they’ve never been the most supportive of her dream of becoming a shinobi. They only enrolled her into a ninja academy in the first place in hopes of her finding a suitable husband, preferably a clan heir so that Sakura and her family could live a comfortable life.
Sakura froze as she entered the broom closet. She couldn’t help but consider ‘did I ever even want to become a ninja in the first place?’ At one point, she had. The week after the Uchiha massacre, her parents had tried to pull her out. Sakura had gotten on her knees and begged her parents not to. She told them that she was enjoying her time at the academy and didn’t want to leave.
Why though? Was it just because of Sasuke? Sure, he had a pretty face, but Sakura wondered if he was really worth becoming a shinobi for. Shinobis die all the time right? Sakura remembered their next-door neighbor, Hajime, had been one. One day, he left for a mission. Then he never came back and soon his house was being sold off. When she’d asked her dad about it, he just smiled at her sadly.
Was dying worth a boy? Why had Sakura begged her parents to stay in the academy? Why did she want to be a shinobi?
All these questions ran through her head as she picked up the broken broom. It had snapped when she hit it too hard in order to get a spider web down. Sakura smiled at the memory. She used to pretend that she was fighting monsters, big and scary. She used to pretend that her parents were in danger of being eaten by giant spiders and she was the only person in the world who could protect them.
She’d stopped those games after she’d broken the broom. After she had to explain to her mother that she’d gotten too carried away with the game. After her mother had scolded her for it.
“Being a protector is the boys' job, Sakura! Once you find a big, strong man, you won’t even need to worry! So I wouldn’t waste your time with such games.”
Was that all to Sakura’s life? Would she eventually find a suitable shinobi husband, settle down, become a housewife, and pop out babies?
Sakura’s face screwed up into a frown before shaking her head at the displeasure that the thought brought her.
It was something to think about tomorrow.
Today, she needed to figure out to hold this thing like it was an actual sword.
-
Sasuke spent his weekend trying not to cry as he searched for scrolls on the Uchiha kenjutsu techniques. It was like being slapped in the face repeatedly, then being set on fire before being extinguished with an ice bucket. He felt terrible as he ventured through the clan compound. It was too empty, too quiet, too dusty. It was completely unlived in which wasn’t right.
The Uchiha had always been a fairly large clan, with multiple houses in their compound. He had countless cousins, aunts, and uncles. The halls of the Uchiha compound was always quiet but it was never silent. It was so, so wrong.
Sasuke nearly burst out sobbing when he found a book, open, a bookmark exactly where the reader had stopped. It chilled him to know that the original reader would never get the chance to continue and that the book would never be finished.
Finally, after what had to be one of the worst weekends of his life, Sasuke found what he was looking for. They were in his grandaunt's house, tucked away neatly beneath her bed. A lock was the only thing that stopped him, but Sasuke quickly took care of it. Now, he sat in his apartment, the box full of kenjutsu scroll sitting on the couch next to him with one currently open on his lap.
His eyes watered as he stared at it, and for a second he thinks it was dust.
It takes Sasuke longer than he cared to admit to realize that he was crying.
He furiously wiped at the tears, but no matter how hard he tried, they kept falling.
Eventually, Sasuke just gave up, curling up into a ball and crying his heart out. He wished he had his dad here to explain the scrolls to him, he wished Shisui was here to cheer him on and encourage him like he always used to do, he wished his mom was here to pat his head, he wished Itachi-
Sasuke froze and furiously shook his head. ‘Don’t refer to that man by his name’ he told himself.
After a few hours, Sasuke was feeling slightly better. Turned out crying was a great destresser- not that he’d ever do it again. He’d have to get stronger. He had to close himself off from all emotions if he were to achieve his dream.
Right?
-
Swords were so cool.
Kenjutsu was even cooler.
Naruto thought about the lesson excitedly. For the first few minutes, Naruto’s mind wandered, only picking up on the background noise of Iruka’s lecture. Then that background noise had come to the forefront and Naruto found himself unable to stop paying attention. It was weird. Normally his mind would buzz and drift off to other things no matter how hard he tried to focus on what his teachers were talking about.
Normally Iruka-sensei’s words came out as nothing more than static to him, not at all helped by the fact that the words on the board were borderline gibberish to him. This time, however, his mind held onto every word that came out of Iruka’s mouth. He could focus and his head was clear. It wasn’t foggy, it wasn’t drifting- he could listen and he could understand.
It was such a nice feeling that Naruto rarely ever felt. So he clung onto it.
The lecture replayed in his mind over and over again and questions kept bubbling up in Naruto. He wondered if anyone could do kenjutsu. He had piss-poor chakra control as his entire class felt the need to remind him constantly. He couldn’t even stick a leaf to his forehead for crying out loud! However, if kenjutsu was just swords then Naruto wouldn’t need chakra, would he?
He told Jiji about the interesting lecture when the Hokage came by to drop off his weekly allowance. The old man had laughed and told Naruto that he was right, you didn’t need chakra control to do kenjutsu. Jiji had even told him how he was fairly advanced in kenjutsu and how the first Hokage was a master of it.
Kenjutsu somehow became even cooler.
However, when Naruto told the old man that he wanted to learn kenjutsu, he’d just sighed and shook his head. “Kenjutsu is is very technical and takes a lot of time and effort to master, Naruto. I don’t think that it’s quite your style.”
Was…was the old man saying that he didn’t think Naruto had the patients or the skill to do kenjutsu?!
That hurt even more than when people dismissed his dream of becoming Hokage.
It made Naruto angry. It made him frustrated. It made him determined because he would prove Jiji wrong! He’d become a master of kenjutsu, no matter what anyone said!
Now all he had to do was… figure out how to actually learn kenjutsu.
Oh no.