Blood of the Broken, Scars of the Spiral (there are whirlpools in our veins)

Chapter Eleven

'I have become lost to the world

In which I otherwise wasted so much time

It means nothing to me

Whether the world believes me dead

I can hardly say anything to refute it

For truly, I am no longer a part of the world.'

-Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life

//

The academy was surprisingly large. It was three stories tall with whitewashed walls and brightly coloured tiles in red and yellow. While it definitely wasn't new, it wasn't old either. Naruto focused on the building, ignoring the whispers behind him.

His instructor sucked ass.

(He doesn't know what that means, just that people say it about horrible stuff)

"Introduce yourself." The man snarled, eyes flashing.

Naruto pressed his lips together and said nothing, shifting uneasily.

He had put up a fuss on the way there, he knew there was no way he was backing away without a fight, even though he couldn't ever dream of overpowering ANBU.

Hey, at least he made it difficult.

When the ANBU carried him into the classroom full of staring six and seven year old children and sat him down at one of the desks, Naruto held his head high, ignoring the whispers around him, like the hissing of a nest of snakes. Instead, he stared straight ahead at the wall, ignoring their commentary.

"I know about that boy, I see him on the streets sometimes..."

"Don't look at him, he'll eat you..."

"My Mom says he's bad news...."

"My Obaasan said he's a monster...."

Their words pierce through his skin like glass and he wants nothing more than to claw out his ears.

"I said," the man who was to be his instructor repeated, and Naruto could feel an unsettling presence in the air, something laced with malice that had him shivering, "introduce yourself!"  

"I– I'm Uzumaki Naruto," he stammered, shrinking into himself slightly. This man smelled angry, things rarely ended well when people smelled angry.

His chakra—yeah, apparently the buzzing was called chakra— felt wrong, and tasted sour. Disgusting.

"And can you not speak properly?" the instructor demanded, and Naruto flinched.

"I-i'm not going to b-be a ninja," Naruto stammered. "I'm going to be a tailor, dattebayo!"  

For a moment he feels proud of himself for his resolve, but that quickly dies when in his peripheral vision, he could see the dark look that crossed the instructor's face.

"You will be a shinobi or you will die," he said coldly and Naruto flinched again, tears filling his eyes. Images of his sister lying there, lifeless, fill his thoughts. He doesn't wanna die!

When the ridicule is over he slinks to the back of the room.

"Look at his whiskers, he's not even human....!"

Well fuck you too. Naruto's very human, thank you very much.

The Sour-Man, as Naruto dubbed his teacher, took them outside and was droning on about some sort of "Will of fire," or something like that when his brain shuts off. He taps his finger against the ground, picking at the grass, bored.