Cleaning chalkboards was a stupid use of a ninja's time.
I knew that, Iruka knew that, and the chalk knew that. It clung to the board like a stubborn ghost, smearing into gray clouds instead of disappearing, turning my hands white up to the wrists.
"Don't just smear it around, Sylvie," the substitute teacher snapped from the doorway. "Use some elbow grease."
He wasn't Iruka. Iruka had been called away after the exams, leaving us in the care of Chunin Backup Option #3: a narrow-faced man with a perpetual frown, a hitai-ate worn too tight, and the sort of aura you'd expect from someone who graded on a curve just to watch you suffer.
"Yes, sensei," I said, through gritted teeth.
My arms already ached from the clone test. Chakra control: good. Stamina: garbage. Now I was adding "manual labor" to the list of things my muscles were filing formal complaints about.
The classroom had mostly emptied out. The newly minted genin had scattered to go brag to their parents and siblings about their shiny new headbands. A couple of other kids were stuck cleaning desks or sweeping, all of us united in the glorious camaraderie of "congratulations, you passed, now scrub."
Outside, through the open window, the schoolyard spread out in sun and dust.
Naruto sat on the old swing, alone.
From here, he was just a small, orange shape framed by the metal chains. His head was down, shoulders hunched. The wind tugged at his bright blond hair.
His energy felt like a dull, muddy swirl. I hated it.
He should've been pacing, yelling, flailing his arms about how "next time I'll show them!" Instead he was… quiet. Like someone had turned the volume down on a song that was supposed to be loud.
My fingers tightened around the eraser.
Someone moved across the yard, cutting through the sunlight.
I recognized Mizuki by his silhouette first: tall, athletic, headband worn just so, flak vest neat, posture relaxed. Textbook "trustworthy upperclassman." The Academy moms probably loved him.
He walked over to Naruto, the lazy curve of his energy sharpening as he went.
"Hm," I muttered.
"What was that?" Backup Sensei snapped, not looking up from his paperwork.
"Nothing," I said.
It wasn't nothing.
From inside the classroom, I couldn't hear the words. I could see the angle of Mizuki's body, though—half-turned, casual, creating just enough distance to make Naruto look up to him instead of feeling crowded. I could see Naruto's flinch when Mizuki said something soft and earnest, the way his shoulders hunched more, then relaxed, then hunched again.
But more than that, I could feel the shift.
Whatever sense had followed me from my old life into this one didn't give me dialogue. It was more like… textures.
Iruka's energy was steady, warm, a little tired. Even when he was yelling, there was a solidity to him. The emotional equivalent of good bread.
Mizuki's, up close, was different. Smoother. Too smooth. Like water over oiled stone.
Right now, standing in front of Naruto, it sharpened—focus narrowing, attention honed in hard. It felt… hungry. Not the "I want lunch" kind. The "I want something out of this" kind.
Teachers didn't usually feel like that around Naruto. Annoyed? Sure. Exasperated? Constantly. But not… eager.
Naruto's energy, in contrast, was a whirlpool starting to spin faster. Hope, confusion, and desperate need all tangling together.
I wiped the same spot on the chalkboard three times, then gave up pretending.
"Sensei," I said, turning toward the doorway. "Can I—"
"No," he said automatically. "You are on cleaning duty for the monument incident and for backtalk in class. You will finish the board and the erasers before you leave."
"It'll just take a second," I said. "I think Mizuki-sensei is—"
He did look up then. His eyes were flat.
"Mizuki is another instructor," he said. "What he does with Uzumaki is none of your business."
Something sour twisted in my gut.
"It's just that his chakra feels—" I stopped myself.
Normal kids didn't talk about "how someone's chakra felt," not like that. At least not yet. I was already weird enough, with my doodles and seals and "accidentally" being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
"Feels what?" the teacher asked, voice gone even flatter. Daring me.
Like oil. Like lies. Like the first time you realize a grown-up is smiling with their mouth and not their eyes.
"Off," I said finally. "He feels… off around Naruto."
The teacher stared at me for a long, unpleasant second.
"Do you think you understand the chakra of a chunin better than your instructors?" he asked.
"That's not what I—"
"Enough," he snapped. "You are an orphan with no clan, no formal specialty, and barely enough chakra to pass Academy techniques. You are not a sensor. Don't pretend you are."
The words hit harder than I wanted them to.
"I just—"
"And you are not," he added, under his breath but not quite quiet enough, "even a real Konoha ninja. So stop acting like one."
The words landed harder than a slap ever would have. Not a real ninja. Not a real anything. Just an orphan the village could warehouse and ignore.
That was how it happened, wasn't it? First you're "not real," then nobody listens when you say something's wrong, then some kid bleeds out in a forest because the adults decided their pride was more important than his life.
Heat flushed up my neck. I stared at him, mouth half open.
Not a real Konoha ninja.
I got it. I did. I wasn't born here, not to this village, not to its clans or its bloodlines. As far as the paperwork was concerned, I had been scooped off the forest floor from nowhere. A stray.
Fine, I thought, a sudden, cold clarity settling over me. If I'm not a 'real' Konoha ninja, then my loyalty will be to the kids bleeding for this village, not its pride.
But I'd still bled here. I'd still learned here. I'd taken the same stupid tests, thrown the same kunai, scrubbed the same chalkboards.
Something ugly curled in my chest.
"Yes, sensei," I said, because arguing would get me nowhere.
I turned back to the board and started erasing harder than strictly necessary.
Outside, Mizuki leaned closer to Naruto, voice low and persuasive. Naruto's chakra flared, pain and anger and hope tangled together.
My throat felt tight.
Here, my hands were full of chalk dust. The only pause button was the chunin behind me who'd already decided my input didn't matter.
I tried again, one last time.
"What if he's—" I said.
The teacher dropped his papers on the desk with a slap.
"Sylvie," he said. "I don't know what kind of tricks you think you're playing, but accusing a fellow instructor of… whatever it is you're hinting at? That is not something a student does. Do you understand me?"
I swallowed.
"Yes," I said. "I understand."
He watched me a moment longer, then picked up his grading again.
"That boy is trouble," he muttered, almost to himself. "If Mizuki can knock some sense into him, let him. Konoha has been too soft already."
My fingers dug into the eraser until my nails hurt.
Trouble.
They meant Naruto.
They hadn't said it explicitly, but they didn't have to. I heard it in the way adults sighed when he walked by. In the way shopkeepers "forgot" his orders. In the way other kids' parents yanked them closer whenever the blond boy got too near.
They were all blind to the fact that their "trouble" was holding something heavy in his gut and still managed to laugh like the world wasn't stacked against him.
Out in the yard, Mizuki stepped back, his smile soft and encouraging. Naruto looked up at him, eyes wide, expression torn between suspicion and desperate belief.
I didn't know what Mizuki was saying. I couldn't hear the promise. But I felt the hook sink in.
Naruto nodded.
Mizuki straightened, patted his shoulder, and walked away, satisfaction smoothing his energy out until it was bland again. Like nothing had happened.
My stomach dropped.
The swing creaked as Naruto stood up.
He didn't look back at the building. He didn't look up at the monument or down at the village streets. He just shoved his hands into his pockets and stalked off with a set to his shoulders I recognized: the "I've made a decision and nothing you say will change my mind" walk.
I'd seen it when he decided to paint the mountain. I'd see it again a hundred times in bigger, worse situations.
Now, it scared me more than the masks had the day I woke up here.
The eraser squeaked across the board.
I could've tried to run after him. Could've thrown the eraser down, sprinted past the teacher, and yelled something—anything—out the window.
But the chunin was watching me like a hawk. And Naruto was already gone. And I was just a kid with ink on her fingers and no authority.
So I swallowed my protest. I erased the rest of the chalk.
Didn't mean I had to like it.
By the time the sky started to darken, the board was clean, the erasers were beaten senseless, and the teacher finally dismissed me with a curt nod.
"Go home," he said. "And stay out of trouble."
"Sure," I said. "That's realistic."
I stepped out into the cool evening air and felt the whole village humming. Lights in windows. Voices drifting from open doors.
Somewhere far off, a spike of chakra flared stronger and brighter than anything an Academy student should've had access to.
I winced, adjusting the strap of my bag on my shoulder.
"Okay," I muttered to myself. "So Naruto is up to something stupid, Mizuki feels like a used car salesman, and the adults are useless. Fantastic."
I started walking.
If they wouldn't listen to me as a ninja, fine. I'd become the kind of ninja they couldn't afford to ignore—someone whose whole job was making sure this place stopped eating its children.
Naruto might be the one who would change things. But someone had to be there with bandages and a bad attitude when the dust settled.