The following months blended in together. She began hating being home more and more – when her father wasn't preparing the new baby room he was insulting his daughter offhandedly. Muigu would never realize how his comments hurt his child because it was how he was raised and how his father spoke to his sister; he didn't know better.
Michi concentrated more and more on her classes – trying to be the first done on exams; it seemed to be a tie more often than not. She was becoming an expert at Kunai tossing; Tamtam had set up 4 man teams together. 3 on one side, one another. The three would throw kunais at the one person, and that person was supposed to either dodge or catch them with the board. It was a physical show of how she felt inside, a single person being attacked by all angles.
Michi discovered, thanks to her chakra class, that she had no future as a medic nin. She could only heal pathetic scrapes and was the reason for most of Jiraiya's abdominal scars. Tsunade had made him come in every single day, something about he deserves to suffer with her for something that happened in Earth Country involving a loofa, hooker, a million dollar vase, and a diplomatic crisis.
Eventually it was time for the mid-semester exams that every student dreaded. The written portion of the exam was easy to Michi – the real trouble came with the sparing portion since some council members came as witnesses. The blue haired girl hated being scrutinized, judged, and compared.
Michi was made to spar Kyo, a fiery red head boy whose greatest attribute was his lightning enhanced sword. The female fighter quickly realized how hard lightening firing from a sword would be to dodge. She had to end the fight quickly.
She had managed to paralyze the chakra in his arms– being best friends with a Hyuuga had its benefits, and he was forced to drop the sword and without metal to conduct his electricity he had no choice but to forfeit. Of course Michi had sacrificed her shoulder and forearm in the process – completely dislocating both.
When Tsunade came up to her, to heal the damage she was shocked that she was able to simply reconnect the joints with a soft tug. That was when Tsunade had realized Michi's valuable joint manipulation that would eventually make her an almost possible target to hit and an excellent taijutsu fighter but both of those would come later as the sanin kept her new discovery to herself.
Michi was declared the winner by 8 out of 9 judges….one of them being Itachi's father who clapped his hands at her performance. She wished it was her own father clapping for her, but he was busy…with the room….with the baby. Stupid baby.
The next part of the test involved random exams dictated by 3 elders.
An old lady asked for chakra control, eyeing Tsunade who stood behind Michi next to Taki and Tamtam.
"How often do you practice climbing trees and walking on water with Tsunade?"
"Erhm, we never have, but Tsunade-sensei explained the process" Michi replied honestly.
She heard the elder's murmur and the council witnesses looked from one another silently but her teacher interrupted their vocalization and thoughts of doubts, "And I bet she will be able to do the task better than all the other students."
"Very well, go on the ceiling Michi," the elder woman said waving towards the wall to the left of her.
Michi recalled Tsunade's lessons of placing chakra into various body parts and said if you wanted to run faster, to put bursts of chakra on the soils of the feet or if you wanted to walk up walls to concentrate an even amount all over the surface of the foot or sole of the foot – depending on the situation.
She concentrated an even amount all over her foot as she approached the wall slowly, and easily she was able to climb it sideways and made her way to the ceiling. Hanging upside down while the judges wrote something down, she winked towards her blonde teacher who stared triumphantly at the older women.
"Remain there, while we ask your teachers some questions," an elder Michi didn't know the name of said.
"How are Michi's test scores Taki?" the youngest council member, probably in his early thirties asked.
"She has never gotten a wrong question," he answered much to Michi's delight.
"What is her highest number of hits taken, Tamtam, with her gymnastics?"
"She got hit six times once, the rest have been four and under. She had a perfect score twice," replied stoically.
"How is she with the kunai?" One of the other women asked.
"Excellent, her partner is Itachi – they both excel exceptionally well."
"Michi," Fugaku called her name.
"Yes, sir?"
"Do you have a kunai in your pocket?"
"Yes, sir."
"You see the fly by the plants in the back?"
Michi looked around while still hanging upside down, "yes, sir – I see two."
"Hit the one that's just left the pink flower petal."
"Yes, sir," Michi said taking out her father's kunai and with one swift fluid motion, without getting into the proper stance, she shot the kunai out at the fly – nailing it perfectly.
"Good job, Michi," he complimented her as a soft whisper of praise escaped a few others.
Michi continued to remain upside down, never having realized how easy it was.
"Tsunade, what does she excel in when it comes to chakra control?" the old woman who had seemed displeased with the blonde teacher asked.
"Nothing really, she's kind of decent in everything but she does notice small distinctions in others chakra outlines easily. She sensed my partner coming into the building while she was in the basement."
"You say she doesn't excel with anything…but so far she has remained the longest on the ceiling out of all the tested students and her legs are not trembling," one of the middle aged men commented.
"Then you will surely be impressed with my other students," Tsunade countered smugly.
Michi wasn't hurt or insulted by Tsunade's words, one thing that you could count on by the blonde teacher was complete and utter honestly. The girl had failed at nearly every single healing technique the sanin taught them and was only slightly above average in personal chakra distribution. When healing a centimeter deep wound on Jiraiya she made a scar that looked like a ten inch stab wound – she was sure she had no place in the medic field but she was not going to discard Tsunade's teachings. Plus, she thought her teacher was pretty bad ass for talking back to the counsel.
Suddenly Michi felt something come at her back and she quickly placed a burst of chakra at the balls of her feet and propelled herself to the west wall and when she landed she bent her legs and flipped over and around back to the same spot on the ceiling – where a kunai had landed.
Tamtam had thrown it.
"Excellent job, Michi – your father will be pleased," Fugaku said as he dismissed her.
She flipped down to the ground and bowed at the council members. On the way out she flashed a peace sign to her teachers. Tamtam's lips edged into a slight smile in return and Taki had given her thumbs up while Tsunade stuck her index finger under her eye and tugged it down – sticking out her tongue at her student at the same time. Only Tsunade….
.
…
.
Although her father claimed to be proud of her mid-semester and her final-semester exam results, his pride began to weigh heavily on her lack of Sharingan ability – most of the kids in the Uchiha family by her age had either died from rejection or activated it. Michi was fine not being in either category.
After a grueling six hour meditation session with her father, she snuck out her window with a kunai and a stack of sherikin in her pajama bottoms and went to the park inside the compound.
She had to get away.
Had to.
Her mother was due anytime now, and school break was only a few days away since the final exams were coming to a close. She had hoped that she would have school to hid away from her new brother but now it looked like that wouldn't happen.
With a sigh, she sat on the bench in the park area that separated the north and south compounds. She looked up at the stars – enjoying just being and existing and the feeling of alone without the loneliness. The chilling winter air brought goose bumps to her body and the fog she created with her warm breath looked like magic to her. An hour of bliss passed and before she lost control and dozed off. She only woke up to the feeling of someone approaching her, her hand with the sheriken shot out to the intruder before her eyes opened to see who it was.
When she did blink the sleepiness out of her eyes, she saw Itachi standing five meters away from her with his hand by his throat holding a sheriken that was aimed at his jugular. Michi gasped as she sat up quickly, noticing the blood stream down his palm.
She was shocked, she had just injured someone who wasn't an enemy – she wasn't awake or mentally functioning enough to remind herself that it was Itachi or else she would have otherwise brushed it off. But at that moment it didn't matter that it was Itachi…the act of messing up…again. Not being good enough. Again. Doing something wrong. Again. Her fragile seven year old mind could barely handle that.
She got up and rushed towards him, he was still slightly startled by her but refused to react when she grabbed his hand into hers, "I can fix this, I can fix this…I can do it…I can do it," she muttered over and over as she pulled out the sheriekin, dropped it to the ground and made her hands glow with medical chakra as she tried to heal his wound. But instead she distorted the skin in an attempt to close it – the wound was not deep, he had stopped the momentum of the shurikin with his fingers but they were not long enough to keep two of the blades from going into his palm. The down side with practicing with the board was that you got used to it being there. The next semester they were going to learn to stop weapons without it.
"I'm sorry….I'm sorry," Michi began to cry, not really knowing why she was repeating the apologies she made to her father when he asked why she couldn't activate the Sharingan, "I'm doing my best – I swear," she sobbed as her green medic chakra faltered and disappeared, "I can't do it," she looked up into Itachi's onyx colored eyes and felt a familiar condescending look and her body moved on its own, running as far away as possible from him.
Itachi watched her retreat away from the park and in the direction of her home; he had come out for a stroll and heard her crying out in a dream. But when his foot snapped a fallen branch, she had woken and with ninja-honed reflexes attacked him. He didn't blame her…well partially he did, it was her fault for being in such a deep sleep out in the open. But her reaction and the fear and shame in her eyes were unexplainable to him. She seemed in a daze, as if she was speaking to someone else – half there, half gone.
He looked down at his bloody palm and wiped it off on his pants to examine what the end result was. She had closed the wound and created a small swirl of skin around the two puncture wounds – her healing had done more damage to his skin than if she had let it heal on its own. He didn't bother taking it to a real medic – he decided he was okay with the new scar.
Before he left the area he picked up the sheriekin she had thrown at him before, off the ground and into his pocket. A memento of some sort.
A/N: Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed and please review. Cheers :)