Section 89.3- One Thousand Hands

“Hokage-sama” He said with a bow that was far better than what any child his age should be managing. Of course, shinobi training meant that natural clumsiness of childhood was beaten out of them, and beaten out early. Sometimes, even literally. It had never happened to me, but I’d heard what the trainers in the Hyuga did to children who lagged behind in learning the gentle fist. It wasn’t pretty by any means.

“Yes, little one?” I asked, looking down at him. And then realising what the height disparity was, I bent down at my knees so we could see somewhat eye to eye. Even if his eyes were more at my chest level than anything else.

“Inoken-sensei says you were classmates when he was younger” He said.

“Yes. Yes we were. We were in the same class at the academy and become genin together” I confirmed. The boy turned back to his group of fellow children, and then they began giggling among themselves. I had to wonder if they were simply that good at non-verbal communications or if they had some mental bond or whatnot going on. They didn’t look to be over six or seven each, but with shinobi children, you never knew.

“Can you tell us about him?” The boy asked when he turned back to me.

“About him?”

“What he was like when he was our age. He never talks about back then” He said.

“Alright then. You can call the rest of your friends over then” I said.

“No need, Hokage-sama. I have them all here” He said, pointing at his head. Then I looked back over to the crowd of children. Cue even more giggling. Of course Yamanaka children would be creepy as fuck. It made perfect sense. They tended to make for creepy adults as well.

“Regardless, I would be more comfortable if I was speaking to them face to face rather than through a mind link” I pressed.

“Yes, Hokage-sama” He said, and without saying anything else, the children began to stream into the room, coming through the door. There were about seven of them altogether. Each one blonde, blue-eyed, and sporting the same smile I didn’t know what to do about. I silently decided to look into the rates of incest in the Yamanaka clan. Because come to think of it, I couldn’t for the life of me, remember any of Inoken’s family members who had married into the clan, and even worse than that, was just how similar they all looked. Surely there had to be something unnatural going on here.

“Okay, so Inoken as a child was a natural prankster.” I started, watching them all fall into rapt attention. The giggling, the side looks, all of it disappeared, and then they were giving me their full attention.

“When I started at the academy, I was bored because I already knew what they were going to be teaching for the most part so I began to play pranks. I drew a fake explosion seal on my table on my very first day and almost gave our sensei a heart attack. While most of my class took that as a sign that I was somewhat bad news, Inoken was very different. He came to me the very next morning and demanded I teach him the trick. Since that day, you can say we’ve been partners in—“

“How the hell did you lot get inside again?” I heard my friend’s irate voice cut into my speech.