"Is it in the northern part of the compound?"

"No, sir. Every area of the compound has been searched. We even resorted to checking other people's kitchens, and their fruit are untouched," The branch member stoically tells Hiashi.

Where did Hinata's pet go if it's not eating all the fruit in its vicinity? (He was so sure it was there.) That animal had a big appetite when it comes to fruit.

The fish has a habit of breaking into branch member homes and eating any fruit within its reach. (It doesn't bother the main branch, so the elders don't care.) He doesn't exactly have evidence of it doing it, but everyone knows it's the fish. It has gotten to the point where the ninjas leave a bowl of fruit on the floor as an offering.

Booby trapping their own refrigerators to discourage it is out of the question. The effort of disabling the traps every morning is not worth the effort.

Somehow, it figured out how to open refrigerators. He doesn't know how that is possible because it doesn't have hands.

As with all things involving the fish, he just accepted it. He would go mad trying to wrap his mind around it.

"Either someone ate it, or it ran away from home," Hiashi rubs his forehead. "A fish 'ran away' from home." Only in a ninja clan things like this can happen.

Hinata will be devastated. She has a strong attachment to it. It helped her through a rough period of her life. For that, he allowed some of its antics to pass, as long as it learned what limits shouldn't be crossed.

The fish's eyes hold some intelligence. It is not unnerving, strange yes, but not unnerving. It reminds Hiashi of a dog. It acts like one too. The pet is starved for attention and will do anything the owner tells it to. Thankfully, it is easy to train.

Its antics always put a smile on Hinata's face.

Its stunts are not too outrageous that calls for it to be thrown out. It's harmless. Once the annoyance it makes passes, the clan members look back at the memory and laugh. It makes for some entertaining stories.

A thought crosses his mind. "Has a new Chunin guard been found to taken over the previous one?"

"Yes sir."

The previous chuunin guard is incompetent. He didn't notice a fish escaping his notice. A ninja who allows the tiniest things to slip by unnoticed will not guard his daughters.

He is taking no chances since the kidnapping attempt.

"Check 15 feet from the compound. The fish couldn't have gotten too far."

Two hours later…

The sensei lectures the class on theory, and Hinata dutifully writes notes. Class has been uneventful. Noami-sensei set down the basic expectations for the class and rules to follow. Hinata hasn't made any friends yet.

She has a hard time talking classmates. She would try to talk, but she would freeze, unsure how to make a conversation. One boy got unnerved from her silence and exclaimed to his friends she was weird. He looked at her like she was a freak and said to talk more.

Shocked someone her age would bluntly say that to her face, she didn't answer. The boy's friends pitied her and said to leave her alone. Hinata walked away, upset.

Smack, Smack.

Sensei, eyes narrowing, says out loud to herself, "That thing must have finally decided to show up. It better not think it can pull a prank on me."

Curious classmates stay silent. The children are anxious to see who the mysterious and rude person sensei obviously dislikes.

Noami quickly opens the door, and gets smacked in the face by an orange blur. Sensei shrieks and slaps it off.

The orange blur turns out to be Karp-Karp. He flops all over the room crying "Kaaarp." Most of the children scream. Some girls were grossed out a fish was out of the water. Some of them were laughing at the 'cool prank.' A few civilian kids were screaming for someone to put the 'poor' fish in the water before it dies.

Hinata's mind blanks during the chaos. Her face then pales. "Oh no, what is Karp-Karp doing here? I'm going to be in so much trouble."

The teacher throws two shurikens at Karp-Karp. Luckily it barely misses him, as Karp-Karp is used to angry Hyuuga children trying to scare him away from their training spot.

"When I get my hands on that prankster I'm going to punish him! Why did I have to be the teacher stuck with him this year?"

The teacher throws another shuriken, and the third one digs into Karp-Karp's scales. The metal didn't go through him. It sticks a few inches in. He shrieks.

Hinata shoves her classmates in her mad dash to protect Karp-Karp. "Please sensei, don't attack my pet again!" The heiress hugs Karp-Karp, mindful of the sharp object.

"You-," Sensei anger erupts, "I expected better of the Hyuuga heiress. Disrupting class and pranking a teacher."

"I-I don't know h-how he g-got here. He w-was supposed t-t-o stay home."

The Chunin crosses her arms. "Oh really? You want me to believe a fish came by itself all the way from the Hyuuga compound to The Academy. It is a forty-minute walk by civilian speed. Not to mention being out of water for so long would have killed him."

"…..He's special." Hinata is not sure what else she can add. Trying to explain more would be complicated and confusing.

The Hyuuga clan is still learning new things about him. Since they are a clan of ninjas, they don't have much knowledge about evolution and animals. The information is not relevant to them, except maybe the Inuzukas.

Her father investigated the origins of her pet, but it turned into a dead end. They found out that the original fisherman who sold Karp-Karp was killed by bandits. The fisherman's friends don't recall Karp-Karp, as they catch and sell so much fish they wouldn't remember a tiny koi fish. If it was a big catch, they would have remembered him.

There was one solution they refuse to do. They could have taken him to a civilian veterinarian, but her family is too proud to lower themselves to ask for help. Especially from an outsider.

The Hyuuga clan thought it would be better to simply observe the fish. It's not like there's an urgent need for the information. The fish will live or die.

"Don't take that attitude with me, Hyuuga. You may be the heiress, but I won't take that back talk from any of your classmates. Including you."

"But I'm not-"

"Who is your accomplice? Someone must have dropped the fish here and ran. Give me their name."

"It's not a p-prank."

"Denying it will only give you a longer dentention."

"But-"

"Do you realize what a horrible first impression you have made? And on the first day of school too. You also traumatized the class." She points at the students behind her.

Most of the civilian girls are crying, boys are laughing, some classmates look annoyed, and an Inuzuka at the back of the class is giving her a thumbs up.

The class doesn't look traumatized; however, she is not going to say so. Sensei will consider it back talk and get angrier.

"Two weeks of detention! I am going to have a talk with your father about your behavior."

This is bad. Very bad. And trouble on the first day of school. Father will be furious.

"Keep your voices down or I'll give an extra detention."

Hinata dutifully reads her textbook, intending to keep to herself. Karp-Karp, in a giant fish tank, tries to get her attention. She shakes her head and tries to signal him to keep quiet before he provokes the teacher.

The first few days of school were eventful. Father was shocked Karp-Karp somehow found the way to school. The Hyuuga search party thought he got eaten by a cat when they didn't find his body. They didn't think he could be too far from home.

Her family tried to keep Karp-Karp from escaping every morning she went to school. Karp-Karp always managed to escape. He can be pretty stubborn when he really wants to.

This caused trouble with the Academy. The Academy teachers and the Hyuuga clan had meetings to determine what to do with Karp-Karp.

Only animal-nin partners are allowed. Going long periods of time without water may be special, but he didn't qualify for the animal-nin exception. She's not training him as he is a pet.

Karp-Karp continued invasions disrupted class and tension flared from the meetings. It got to the point where the Hokage himself intervened to resolve the dilemma. He made a special exception for Karp-Karp as long as he followed some rules.

His official title at school is class pet. All classrooms now get a 'class pet' (usually a rabbit or fish), and the teachers use the pet in some practical demonstrations. For teachers with little experience in healing jutsu, they use the fish to talk about a skill young medics in training practice. The rabbits are used in trap or substitution demonstrations.

The drama settled and the Hyuugas are satisfied with the outcome. (Older Hyuugas breathe a sigh of relief the embarrassing situation is over. Ninjas were snickering behind their backs.)

"Hey, you're that Fishy Hyuuga girl."

Hinata flinches at the nickname. Ever since the first day of school incident, people have called her many names. The names she has heard so far is the fish whisperer, freaky fish girl, the-girl-who-lived-for-fish, and many more. The Fishy Hyuuga is the most popular nickname.

The boy goes on. "I'm Kiba Inuzuka and my friend Akamaru is over there." A white puppy is happily trying to climb Karp-Karp's fish tank, and he appears to be encouraging him.

"Nice t-to meet you."

Kiba grins. "I love the prank you pulled the first day of school. That was great team work between you two. One day, Akamaru and I are going to operate like that too."

"B-But it w-wasn't a prank."

"Sure it wasn't." The Inuzuka nudges her, "Akamaru likes your fish, and you can't be too bad if you two are friends. We're going to be the best of friends. Imagine all the pranks we're going to do."

"Ummm-" He sounds like a trouble maker her father would want her to avoid.

"-the greatest of friends. Best prank team ever. We might even beat out that prankster I heard about." The heiress has a feeling her school record will be a mess.

"Karp karp karp magi magikarpppppppppp~"

"Keep it down you brats!"

Hiashi inhales his sake. He needs it after dealing with the problems the fish brought. It was humiliating. The Hyuuga clan didn't want to admit a simple fish outsmarted them. It kept pulling a Tora and their ninjas had a hard time catching it in the crowds without causing a commotion.

Thus, they kept stonewalling the teachers. The teachers became enraged when they refused to give straight answers.

The Hyuuga clan had to pay for the fish tanks and the pets. The teachers were happy it didn't come out of their budget.

After much thinking, Hiashi decides he doesn't want to keep the pet anymore, even in memory of his wife. It stirred up too much trouble and it is pushing boundaries. He can't get rid of it now, because of the fuss it kicked up. People would notice it gone and the drama at the Academy would come back.

He'll wait for chattering to die down before making a move. Also, to make use of the fish tanks bought with clan money. Have to make use of it or it'll be a waste of money.

The pet ran away from home story will work just fine.

As you can tell, Karp-Karp got lost. The village was bigger than he expected. Lol.

Good news: I'll end this arc in a chapter or two. It depends how much I can fit in the 2nd chapter.

Next chapter, we meet a future team member~

A reader brought up a point about the omakes, and after some thinking, I agree. I'm going to cut out the omakes and place them in a separate fic.

Glad everyone liked the Karp-Karp teaching Hanabi twist. Karp-Karp is not the greatest teacher, so Hanabi's Pokespeech will be choppy. She'll know the very basics (Know commands, when Karp-Karp is asking for food, etc). Before anyone asks, Hanabi won't be able to find out about the Pokemon universe. It's like trying to explain what an iphone is to someone from the 18th century, and in a broken language.

Hanabi's broken Pokespeech will lead to some funny situations in the future. :)