"All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man to lunacy." - Joker
—
"Disgusting, I can't believe we have to go to school with a bastard!"
"I heard his mother is a slut from thr Kurama Clan who prostituted herself to the patriarch of the Yamanaka clan, using her charms to seduce him."
"Ew, disgusting bastard; just him being in my vicinity makes me want to puke."
"I know, but there's nothing we can do; he's cursed."
"Cursed?"
"Yeah, I heard his his mom fell into a vegetative state after she gave birth to him."
"Ugh, seriously, they allowed a demon like him in here. Ugh, I guess it makes sense a slut like his mother would produce a demon like him."
The quiet whispers of his classmates crept into the ears of a boy with messy, unkempt ash-grey hair that covered his sea green eyes. The boy sat lazily slouched at his desk, his head down supported by his folded arms.
Inside the boy's mind in a dark void was a colored version of himself in his exact likeness. Aside from the kanji for 'Inner' on his left hand, the figure inside the boy's head held an annoyed expression. A line appeared on his forehead as his face darkened.
'I hate them. Why do we never do anything? Hikaru, there talking about our mom like she's nothing, especially today when she's everything. I hate it!' The figure said, his fist clenching as his teeth gnashed angrily.
Hikaru, hearing the figure's voice in his head, sighed as he replied back by sending his thoughts through the connection he and the figure shared.
'And what would that do, Inner?' Hikaru said, 'We can't fix their hatred. All we can do is keep our heads down, and maybe it'll all just… Just keep following what the Third Hokage advised' Hikaru said dismissively as he ended the conversation, his thoughts complicated.
Inner sensing Hikaru's unwillingness to continue discussing this topic, let it go. Hikaru was the boss; he was only there to voice what Hikaru felt deep down, but whether he chose to listen was his decision.
Inner sighing simply returned to watching the world through Hikaru's eyes.
The kids still gossiping about Hikaru were startled by a booming voice, and they looked over to see it was their sensei, Ren Suzuki, a burly man with tan olive skin and a bald head. He stood at the front of the classroom, his arms crossed as a dark scowl played on his face.
"You're too busy gossiping to hear your teacher enter the room, huh! You're lucky I'm in a pretty good mood today; otherwise, I'd have you all run 200 laps around the school now. Sit!" Suzuki said his voice low but still managed to enter the ears of every kid in the room.
The kids seeing their sensei's scary face immediately felt a shiver down their spine; the gossiping kids immediately took their seats, sitting stiffly as a bead of sweat rolled slowly down their faces.
Everyone knew Suzuki was a no-nonsense teacher with zero tolerance for disobedience; he was infamous in the academy for giving the harshest punishments for the simplest of matters.
And these punishments so brutal turned even the biggest of delinquents into well-behaved ninjas in the making. Just ask the last generation, Ino-Shika-Cho, who suffered the most due to their lazy and gluttonous attitudes.
The only person who has managed to not fall under the weight of Suzuki's punishments was Hikaru, and that is why Suzuki disliked him with a burning passion.
No matter how Suzuki punished him, whether it be copying the textbooks on The Will Of Fire 100 times or cleaning the toilets, Hikaru never ceased his lazy, listless attitude.
He even tried consulting the Hokage, but he only dismissed his concerns, saying to let the boy do what he wants and preferably make sure he keeps this listless attitude.
So since he couldn't get Hikaru to be better, and the boy seemed to have no intention of even trying, he would just stop wasting his time; just don't blame him when Hikaru ends up dead on the battlefield.
War was here; even if the kids didn't acknowledge it, it was here nonetheless. He was under a lot of pressure to get these kids ready as fast as he could. He didn't have time to focus on Hikaru; if the kid wanted to grow up to be nothing, just another number, let him.
Shaking his head slightly, Suzuki looked up at all his other students' attentive looks that held a bit of fear. Smiling slightly at the sight, he took out his clipboard with his attendance sheet and began roll call.
"Sarutobi Asuma"
"Here" An olive-toned hand extended into the air as a laid-back voice sounded through the quietness of the classroom.
Hearing the voice, Suzuki performed a check mark motion, marking the paper.
"Yuhi Kurenai"
"Here, teacher!" A cheery feminine voice sounded from the same area as Asuma as a slender, fair-skinned hand shot up into the air. Suzuki, seeing this, marked another name.
"Hatake Kakashi" Suzuki called only to be met with pure silence.
"Still out, huh?" Suzuki muttered, his voice heavy as he recalled the recent death of one of Konoha's greatest shinobi.
…
Soon Suzuki reached the last name on the registry and looked at it with a look of pure annoyance; he had reached his most dreaded student.
"Hikaru," Suzuki called out, only to be met with silence.
After a few moments a pale slender hand was lazily raised up into the air; the bearer of that hand lay lazily on his desk, not bothering to give a verbal response.
Suzuki, seeing this, simply sighed, trying to not let Hikaru ruin his day as he simply marked him and launched into his lesson, completely ignoring Hikaru's presence.
Hikaru, on the other hand, completely ignored Suzuki's lesson on Battlefield Survival 101 and focused his consciousness inward.
He was met with the darkness of his mindscape and a levitating Inner who was napping lazily.
"Wake up, give me an update on your progress," Hikaru said, walking over to Inner's body and shaking him awake.
Inner, rubbing his droopy eyes, said groggily, "I was just beginning to drift off." Inner, yawning as he stretched.
"Yeah, yeah, you don't even really need sleep." Hikaru said, rolling his eyes at Inner's blatant laziness.
"Says the guy who has his head down during class, and I do need to sleep, just not as regularly as you," Inner said, slightly annoyed.
"Yeah, whatever, just give me the update on the Memory Palace." Hikaru said dismissively.
Memory Palace was a technique, if it could be called that, that was created by Hikaru. It worked by shaping your mindscape into a place where you felt safe, somewhere that you could call home, and anchoring thoughts and memories to items or locations in that mindscape.
The thing that made this difficult, at least for Hikaru, was creating such a place he deemed 'safe,' though after a few months he and Inner overcame this difficulty at least a bit; now they were focused on building it up.
Second was organizing memories and thoughts because in order to do so you had to be able to control them, and in order to do that you needed to be unaffected by them.
When it came to simple thoughts or memories, like a person's likes or what he did yesterday, those were easy, but when it came to the thoughts and memories—the ones that you lock away, ignore, or try to forget, or the ones that shaped who you are—those were the ones hardest to control.
And no matter how much Hikaru didn't want to admit it, he couldn't conquer his own mind. He would know he already tried once…
But he also knew he had to get past these hurdles quickly because he was only getting older; already going through 6 years of memories without getting consumed was one thing.
But as he gained more memories and would be forced into bloody and murderous battles that came with being a ninja, it'd only get harder, so he'd need a starting point.
Inner hearing Hikaru could only sigh as he snapped his fingers; the once black void called Hikaru's mindscape was replaced with a 22x24-sized room.
Aisles of linked bookcases lined the room, creating slender passageways that came together to form a central path. A white table and two chairs were the only furnishings in the open clearing in the center of the room. The pale bookcases and table stood in stark contrast to the immaculate, lightless black walls. There was no ceiling above, just a huge, whirling galaxy with slowly rotating stars that gave the impression that the room itself was part of the universe.
In the cases, where a couple dozen books each housed a thought or memory, were ones Hikaru could store. The rest are a reminder of Hikaru's lack of progress.
"We've only managed to store information on each classmate's likes, dislikes, dreams, and basic personality types. I also categorized the students' fighting styles and habits; however, people like Kakashi and Asuma, along with a few others, rarely give information unless up against each other. Other than that, just information on Jutsu or important things taught that you're too lazy to bother listening to," Inner said, explaining the information with detail and a little smirk that radiated, 'Praise me.'
Hikaru, still straight-faced, simply rolled his eyes at Inner's blatant wanting for approval.
"Good job," Hikaru said simply before grabbing one of his memory books and taking a seat.
Inner seeing this and the book's title was quite surprised he'd never seen Hikaru take the initiative to practice … well, anything.
"Whatcha doin?" Inner asked, walking over and taking a seat across from Hikaru.
Hikaru, not looking up from his book as he lazily turned the page, simply asked in return, "Can't you read my thoughts?"
"Yeah, but that is invasive and takes the fun out of conversation," Inner said, frowning.
Hikaru simply sighed. "The early graduation test is in a few months, and I plan on graduating early, but in order to do that, I'll need basic genin capabilities that include the Three Body Techniques." Hikaru said, simply motioning to the book in his hands, which contained the memory of the lessons on the Three Body Techniques and how to perform them.
"Why do you want to graduate early?" Inner was quite surprised at the fact that Hikaru was taking the initiative.
"I want to hire a caretaker for Mom, bring her home from that hospital, and take care of her, but in order to do that, our monthly stipend isn't enough. Maybe it's about time we do something, even if it's not beating kids up," Hikaru said, giving a meaningful glance at Inner before returning to his book.
Inner Hearing smiled slightly; it seemed Hikaru was finally doing something to improve their mother's situation, and that… made him happy even if it wasn't beating those obnoxious kids up.
"Okay! We have about 500 ryo left, just enough to get her some flowers and celebrate her birthday and her last year in that stupid hospital." Inner said excitedly, already planning on doing whatever he could to help Hikaru achieve this goal.
Inner extending his fist toward Hikaru smiled, saying mischievously, "You know you want to."
Hikaru, still reading his memory book, simply smiled, taking one hand off his book and pushing it against Inners.
"Pound it."
"Pound it."
Both said simultaneously, a small laugh escaping both their mouths.
In the classroom, on the other hand, the classroom door just burst open as a boy with black eyes and short, spiky, black hair barged in as his heirs gasped for air, sweat pouring down his face.
He wore a long-sleeved blue uniform and a blue jacket with an orange collar and trimmings. The jacket had the Uchiha clan crest at the back. And his face was adorned with a pair of goggles with orange lenses.
Suzuki looking over yelled angrily. "You're late, Obito Uchiha. Keep this up and you'll be running laps all week." Suzuki said menacingly.
Obito, flinching slightly at this statement, rushed to explain, "Sensei, I wanted to be on time, I really did, but I ran into a granny and had to walk her home. Then help a lost cat, then—" but he was cut off halfway.
"You idiot, if you're going to lie, at least make the excuse good." Suzuki said, throwing a piece of chalk directly at Obito's head, hitting him square in the forehead, leaving a reddish mark as he fell to his butt.
"Ouch!" Obito slid, rubbing his bruised butt as the students burst out laughing.
"Go sit down!" Suzuki yelled, veins threatening to burst from his head.
Obito, seeing this, quickly ran to his seat, sitting next to a girl with near shoulder-length straight brown hair, which was cut in a chin-length bob that framed her face, and brown eyes. She also had a rectangular purple marking on either side of her cheeks.
She looked at the now seated Obito, who rubbed his head sheepishly with a kind smile that radiated sunshine.
"Obito, how could you be over 40 minutes late to class?" The girl said, pouting and feigning being upset.
Obito, however, completely absorbed in her charm, didn't realize and rushed to explain himself. "Rin, I didn't mean to, but you know how it is; I can't help but help a person in need." Obito explained.
Rin, seeing this, chuckled cutely. "I know, Obito; this is why I like you," she said, cackling.
Obito hearing this turned completely red. "You what—" But before he could finish, another piece of chalk came flying at Obito's head, landing straight in the middle of his forehead, making him fall out of his chair.
"I thought I told you to shut up." Suzuki yelled as Obito thought he saw birds circling his head.