I smiled bemusedly with a mixture of fascination and mild amusement as I read through the historical records of the Hyuuga Clan library.

The term 'historical' was to be used rather loosely here, as some of these stories and records of the Hyuuga Clan members of the past were utterly ridiculous and bizarre.

Of course, there were some interesting things to be learned there. For example, the Gentle Fist taijutsu style of targetting enemy tenketsu actually hadn't been developed substantially until the fourth Hyuuga head, Hyuuga Akane, saw the potential to be had. Akane's Gentle Fist had eventually been refined into the modern-day style.

And then there was the weird, stupid stuff.

Lots and lots of it.

Hyuuga Eiji, who used the Hyuuga's unique ability to expel chakra from all of their tenketsu as well as his impressive mastery over the Water Release to project needles of water from all three hundred sixty-one of his tenketsu, becoming a veritable porcupine in combat. He often fought and walked around with only a thong to preserve his modesty, as his signature jutsu tended to destroy his clothes.

Hyuuga Akari, who used the Byakugan's impressive ability to see chakra to leave insulting chakra graffiti upon walls for enemies to discover long after she had departed. She was particularly fond of drawing male genitals, sometimes even using her Byakugan to replicate the genitals of her enemies.

And my personal favourite, the legendary Hyuuga Hisako, who was apparently so adept with reading people's chakra with the Byakugan that she could read into the yin chakra circulating their brain and read their thoughts.

That one was actually really cool. Although Hisako supposedly lived a long time ago, in the middle of the Warring States period, and no Hyuuga had been able to replicate her supposed skill since.

But if there was any grain of truth to Hisako's techniques, well...

I'm not ashamed to admit that I had given it a try on Kenta, who had only looked on confusedly as I glared at him with my Byakugan active, straining harder with my eyes than I ever had before.

Suffice it to say that it hadn't worked.

Not that I wouldn't stop trying, though.

But time, alarmingly, was slipping by faster than ever before. Days and weeks folded on top of each other, flowing by in a stream of passing time as I worked harder than ever to make the cutoffs to graduate the Academy faster.

"Hey, Haruka," Kenta said to me as I slid into a seat beside him in the school courtyard before classes began.

"Good morning."

Kenta eyed me for a moment.

"Your hair's wet," Kenta pointed at my hair, which was positively leaking with water.

"I noticed," I replied, setting my bag down next to me.

"Any reason for it?" Kenta tilted his head and smiled, noting my particular grumpiness that morning.

I closed my eyes for a moment and hummed.

That morning had started somewhat normally. I had awoken during that grey time of day that could tentatively be called dawn, that morning twilight. The sun had yet to really rise over the horizon and the sky was just beginning to be painted with pastel shades of pink and orange.

This was about the time that I normally woke up now, before even the sunrise.

Tutoring from Hanada was supposed to have been somewhat reduced upon my entry into the Academy, with the expectation that school would eat up much of my time. The amount of time that I was to spend under Hanada was perhaps an hour or two in the afternoons rather than nearly the whole of the daytime. However, upon my heavy insistence (I needed to getter stronger faster), she had allotted a time slot in the very early morning for extra training.

Some mornings were spent purely on taijutsu, refining my technique with the Gentle Fist. Others were spent on physical conditioning, getting my muscles faster and stronger. Others would be spent on chakra control.

That morning had been a chakra control day.

"Chakra control is the crux of your training as a Hyuuga," Hanada lectured me, "The Gentle Fist, and indeed nearly all of the later techniques you will learn will require superb mastery and control of your chakra."

That was fine. I understood exactly how and why chakra control was important.

What wasn't fine was that I was sopping wet, freezing, and miserable. And it wasn't even five in the morning yet.

"The Water Walking exercise is far more difficult than the Tree Walking exercise," Hanada continued as though I hadn't fallen into the lake for the umpteenth time, "Because the surface of the water is always changing, the chakra being emitted from your feet must also be appropriately adjusted."

I had spent about three hours trying to complete that blasted exercise. In the end, I could, at best, stand on water for about twenty seconds before losing control and falling in, a feat that I was told was rather impressive.

That fact had not at all made me feel less miserable. Nor did it make me any less wet.

With the Byakugan, I could see Hanada's facial muscles pull back slightly. There wasn't much of an actual visual signal of her amusement, but I could see the very slight muscle strain.

She was laughing at me, in that quiet Hyuuga amusement.

"No, no reason," I replied to Kenta, snapping back to the present. "I was simply feeling... adventurous."

"I see," Kenta said, using a tone that clearly suggested that he didn't.

We sat in silence for a few seconds, sitting under the shadows and shade of the of the grand trees of Konoha. I chose the moment to figure out something to say. I had never been much of a conversationalist, and the quiet Hyuuga environment had only reinforced the silence on this life. Being taciturn and talking only when addressed or when necessary only seemed like a good trait until you wanted to make friends.

Luckily, Kenta, a more socially adept child, was there to help me fill the silence, bringing up the first conversation topic that came to his mind.

"Is it true that they're moving you up another grade?"

By another year, Kenta meant the decision to move me up to the third year of the Academy. The instructors, a month or two prior, had deemed the current class far beneath me. And with some heavy nudging from Father, they had moved me up a year to the next class.

And now, much to Father's approval, there was talk of me being moved up to the year after that.

Kenta, the cute little child that he was, didn't want me to leave. It wasn't just with the Byakugan that I was observant. I saw the quivering lip and the tensing of the body. Even if my ability to act on normal social clues perhaps needed a bit work, rusty after years spent relatively secluded in a previous life and then a childhood with the Hyuuga, my ability to detect them had only grown greater with Hanada's lessons on reading people and their body language.

"It's not like I'll be leaving. I'll still be here."

Outside of my immediate family, Kenta was the one person that I could tentatively call... well, if not a friend, then a rather good acquaintance. With the other children in the Academy, I had been... strangely unable to connect. Perhaps it was that friend groups had already been made without me. Perhaps it was anxiety and the fear of rejection showing up even all these years later, even as a grown soul and mind.

Even though I'd only known him for a few months, even with strangely stilted conversations, Kenta and I were just two lonely boys longing for contact. With my lessons, I was observant enough to get that out. He was lonely as I was.

It was absolutely bizarre how quickly and with how little real connection that friends could be made. It was difficult to describe, with how fast and very nearly inexplicable childhood friendships were.

"Good," Kenta said, leaning back and stretching his arms upwards, "Good."