Chapter 2.2- One thousand hands

XXXXX- NARA SHIKAHIME

“How troublesome” She whispered to herself as she entered the classroom to find the Senju boy sitting tight next to the only empty seat in the classroom. The fact that none of the civilians had claimed it made it clear that it was being reserved for someone else. The fact that she was the only one yet to take a seat made it clear that she was the one the seat was being reserved for. She almost turned back to head home. She could already tell that this would end up being a lot more trouble than it was worth. The Senju boy was much too popular for her to spend a day next to and have any hope of a quiet one.

“Take a seat, Nara-san” Uraraka-sensei said as he walked in from behind her. There was no way the man would let her just decide to turn around and go home. She, with great reluctance, took step after step, counting them to be seven just as her mother taught her until she was at her seat and had managed to ignore all the eyes on her. She sat down and waited for the man to begin.

“It’s been a month since the first class. Just like I promised you then, today we will have the placement tests to divide you into your specific classes” The man said, and suddenly a piece of paper revealed itself on her table. Genjutsu, she surmised. Looking across the class showed the only one to have been unsurprised by the genjutsu to be the angry Uchiha princess. Indeed, instead of focusing on the test on her table, she was looking their way and muttering in irritation. Whatever the Senju had done to set her off today, Shikahime knew she wanted no part of.

She stared at the test sheet in front of her. Most of the questions were relatively easy to answer for someone like her who had grown up with Shinobi all her life and been trained to be one from before she could watch. In fact, the only ones having any true difficulty with the test were the civilians. Among the clan children, she could see only the Inuzuka having any real trouble with his answers and even then he still had half his sheet filled in the first ten minutes. As for her, she couldn’t deny the temptation to fail the test.

Mother would be disappointed, but Father would understand. Being in the same class with so many hotshots was bound to be nothing but trouble. Two Uchiha, One Hyuga, the Senju Prince, and members from basically every clan that made up the village. If there was one class that would have all the attention and thus trouble thrust at it from the get-go, it would be that one. Father would do the same in her place. But Mother would look at her with those eyes. She was sent here to get close to her cousin. “To preserve family relations”, mother had said. Code for make sure that the Senju don’t forget who exactly her mother was and that the Nara were now tied to them by blood.

She chanced a look at the little prince from the corner of her eyes to find him with an easy smile on his face, doodling in the corner of his paper. Whenever a civilian tossed a look at him, he would grant them an encouraging smile. Almost saying to them, ‘you can do it’. One would never have guessed at his Hyuga heritage with just how much emotion he managed to show with those brown eyes of him. Said eyes met hers, and she instinctively broke the look and returned to her paper. Mother being cross at her would be even more troublesome. The woman was just the sort to show up at the academy and demand they let Shikahime retake the test. No, troublesome classmates were much preferable at the end of the day. She wouldn’t be sleeping in the same building as them.

She knocked the questions down one after another, only writing enough to show that she understood what she was being asked. She’d leave overachievement for the Uchiha Princess who seemed keen on answering every question with as much detail as possible. Instead, she followed her cousin’s approach. She wrote down the answers quickly, and after drying the ink with a quick flex of her chakra, she flipped it around and tried to zone out into her thoughts like she’d always been able to.

From memory, she began to recite the tale of the First Shadow to herself, her many times ancestor, Nara Shikamaru.

XXXX

“Alright, that’s time up” from Uraraka-sensei jolted her from her thoughts. She allowed him collect her test sheet even as she noted several civilian children begin to rush to fill in undoubtedly wrong answers on the empty spots on their sheet. The man was unflinching as he grabbed each and every sheet in order as he walked through the class. Whatever tears, or begging he received went ignored in his flat expression. Dull black eyes simply staring down those who dared resist. When he got to her, he tossed her a smile as he turned her sheet over before giving her Cousin a long flat look as he caught a glimpse of the back of his test sheet.

Shikahime looked over to see what the Chunin was looking at and almost tripped on her chair as she suddenly stood up. The rest of the classroom turned to her, before their eyes turned to the Senju boy.

“Is this supposed to be funny?” Uraraka-sensei demanded and her cousin just shrugged with a smile.

She almost cursed herself as she got a better look at the sheet as her sensei thrust it at her cousin. He hadn’t been doodling on the back of his sheet like she’d thought. No, the troublesome piece of work had drown a full blown explosive seal on the back of his test sheet. She’d seen enough of such seals in the clan armouries to be able to tell them apart from any other. The Uchiha Princess looked similarly astounded as she got a look at the seal while the rest of the class were left to wallow in confusion.

“Detention. Trust me, your guardians will be hearing of this” He said, making her cousin’s smile die out a little bit.

“Nara-san, return to your seat. The seal is inactive. It’s a dud” Her sensei said to her, turning to pin her with a reassuring look. Not a look that she’d have expected after the anger that had been on his face nary a second ago, but she took the assurance for what it was and returned to her seat. If she moved it along the floor a little bit to gain some distance from her clearly insane relative, then no one could judge her.

“We’ll be heading outside for the physical tests now.” Uraraka-sensei said, prompting a whoop from the Inuzuka boy in front. Inukuro, she remembered from the introductions.

The Academy’s training grounds were a wide open field most of the time. Today was different. Someone had gone to the trouble of setting up a complex obstacle course. She could already make out a climbing wall, swinging logs that had to be avoided, a tightrope that had to be run across and some swinging rings that one had to jump across, along with a dozen other tasks on the course. Troublesome. She silently judged it to be. If the first test had been easy, then this one would be anything but. “So how would you get past that tightrope?” She heard one of the civilian boys, Takehada Toshiro, ask their resident Senju prince as they stared at the course.

“The safest way is to turn around and climb across it with one’s hands and knees. It would be faster to just run across it, however” her cousin said, unknowingly echoing her inner thoughts on the matter. She’d probably be able to run across it with ease. It went without saying that each of the clan children had begun training to become shinobi long before being enrolled at the academy. In fact, she was willing to bet that the reason most of them were here was the boy behind her. The grandson of Hashirama, the first Hokage, and the grandnephew of Tobirama the second. In line to take over as clan head after his Granduncle.

“So who wants to go first?” Their sensei asked, only for no one to step forward after a second. In the next second, both the Senju and Uchiha children had stepped forwards.

“Senju Shorirama. You will go first” he said, making the angry Uchiha Princess stare daggers into the man. If the rumours were to be believed, then their Sensei would have fallen dead a dozen times over. Shikahime figured that if the Uchiha could indeed kill by staring with those eyes of theirs then this one hadn’t learned that technique yet.

A/N; How’s the POV looking? Yes, MC is a bit of a troll.