Isabella-Black

Hotaru looked up from her book - she'd buried her face in it again as soon as the class had started to file out - and blinked for a moment before responding, her voice monotone, "Forget it. It's fine." She turned back to the book, reviewing the notes on controlling genjutsu. She might have continued on her way, quite content to read and train for the rest of the afternoon before the exams began, had another figure not emerged into her periferal vision. She sidestepped the foot in her path, intending to trip her, and tried to continue on her way ignoring the group of three girls who stood, gawking indigently behind her. "Hey, Hotaru, don't you walk away from me!" She looked up from the pages, her expression bored as she stared at Hikaru and her two friends. They were standing shoulder to shoulder, arms folded across their chests with identical glares on their faces. Hikaru narrowed her blue eyes to a deadly slant and flipped her brown hair over her shoulder. "You don't spy on my conversations and get away with it, freak." Hotaru sighed and closed her book. Matsuda was still standing slightly off to the side, not having moved since he'd stepped from her path. The girl arched an eyebrow. "I was not spying on you, Hikaru." She said simply and calmly, but stood her ground; this was not the end of it, not by a long shot. "Yea, right." Hikaru snorted, and pointed an offending finger at Hotaru's chest. "You think just because the teachers think you're such a [I]good[/I] student, you can just walk all over everybody? You're not even at the top of the class!" The girls on either side of her nodded fierecly. Hotaru shrugged. That was true, Akoma had beaten her to the top spot, but she was still by far one of the top students. "And what were you again, Hikaru? 8th from the bottom, wasn't it?" "Th-that has nothing to do with it!" Hikaru sputtered, clearly offended. "You're just a civilian trying to pass herself off as a shinobi!" Hotaru glared and Hikaru smirked triumphantly at having hit a nerve. "You don't have any REAL talent, Hotaru! You're just this years charity case! It's laughable how you think you could ever compare to a kunoichi from an actual ninja clan, like me." "Oh, really? If I recall correctly I beat you into the ground the last ten times you sparred with me. Quite easily." Hotaru deadpanned. The trio gasped, horrified and Hikaru looked as though she was ready to either crawl into a hole or try and attack her. Hotaru gave a small giggle and turned her back to them with a dismissive air. She barely felt the air shift before Hikaru launched herself at her backl and tried to slam her to the ground.

Hotaru finally tore herself away from her book once again as the lesson was about to start. The classroom was crowded, the students still talking amongst themselves as Raiga-sensei prepared to begin. Everyone seemed to be discussing the upcoming exam that day in their particular groups, some sounding confident, and others completely disparing. Even the groups of boys on either side of her were chatting animatedly about how they hoped they'd get tested on taijutsu skills rather than genjutsu. Raiga-sensei cleared his throat to gain the class's attention. And when that didn't work he roared at them to be quiet. At the resounding silence, he picked up the chalk and began to review their lesson from yesterday regarding chakra control. Hotaru groaned and sank in her seat. She'd learned this YESTERDAY. Couldn't they just get on with the exams already. She allowed her eyes to wander over the student body, carefully tuning out Raiga-sensei's lecture. Her eyes fell on the dark haired boy a few rows down, who looked nearly as bored as she did. No wait, on second inspection, he looked more depressed than bored. What was his name again? Matsuda, right. Yotoro Matsuda. His brother was getting ready to take the jonin exams soon if she had overheard correctly. Not surprising seeing as his family was a ninja clan. The only special exam anyone from Hotaru's little clan ever had to take was a matchmaker's exam, where she would be paraded about like a china doll so that some old bat could conclude whether or not she'd make a suitable wife for some rich bastard's lazy son. Her mother had been hinting about that goddamn ceremony for some time now. Hotaru shuddered to think of it. It must be nice to come from a ninja clan, she mused, eyes still staring absently at Matsuda's back. No one would be telling HIM who he had to marry, or what he could or could not do with his life. He had that freedom over her at least. "SHIJERU HOTARU!" Raiga-sensei's bellow cut her from her thoughts and Hotaru snapped up to attention. She was suddenly aware of the majority of the class was staring at her, a few of the girls surrounding the popular boy (Akira? Akoma?) were even snickering. She stood at attention. "Yes, sensei." "I've been calling on you for nearly five minutes now." Raiga continued, shaking his head. "If you're quite finished ogling your classmate, perhaps you can tell us why the Hyuuga's gentle fist technique is so effective." Hotaru flushed. She had NOT be ogling Matsuda! Now he was just trying to make a fool of her for not paying attention. Raiga-sensei tapped his foot impatiently, "Hotaru I-" "The Gentle Fist technique is employed exclusively by the Hyuuga clan because of their unique ability to pin point the chakra points in the human body which are vital for this technique to be successfully employed. The user pushed his or her own chakra into the body of the opponent blocking the chakra pathways and eventually incapacitating the chakra system. This technique is even more dangerous because of the interconnection between the charka pathways and the internal organs, thus damaging the internal organs in addition to the chakra pathways." Hotaru remained standing for a moment before returning to her seat and looked bored again. Ragia-sensei looked almost annoyed at her near textbook definition, but turned around and continued his lecture. Hotaru pretened not to notice the glares of the other girls in the room, and she was sure that more than one of them was discussing with Akoma that she was 'such a snobby show off' and all of that nonsense. Really, Hotaru couldn't understand the instentanious and widespread attraction towards Akoma that had infected the majority of the female students. He was talented yes, and attractive, but Hotaru couldn't see much past that, and her inability to fall head over heels in love with the boy she barely knew had caused some suspicious gossip amongst the other wanna-be kunoichi. Hotaru let her eyes wander again, and found herself staring at Matsuda's back again. Talent wasn't everything after all.

The rain poured heavily, soaking the few who dared venture outside within minutes and pounding on the rooftops. Hotaru sighed and looked out the window beside her seat. From inside the Academy Classroom, she could watch the hapless few civilians struggle to reach their destinations, and follow the lines of rain as they pelted against the pained glass. It was useless to study now; the rain drowned out her thoughts, and part of her childishly wished it would begin thundering making it difficult to concentrate on the hand signs needed for a proper summoning justu. It didn't matter anyway. The Academy teachers would never test them on such an advanced technique and she had already memorized this jutsu months ago. She sighed again, bored in the silence of the room. It was so much quieter, and deceptively vacant looking at this time in the morning. Hotaru had arrived two hours before, too excited to sleep, and had been pouring over her textbooks ever since. She rested her face against her fist, pausing to brush a lock of brown hair out of her face - even cut short it still gave her trouble - and away from her sharp green eyes, and took another bite of her muffin. Crumbs fell and landed in her lap. She brushed them off the navy sport shorts and the edges of her cream T-shit with an impatient hand, biting into the muffin again. A last minute breakfast as she had dashed out the door, though her appetite was suffering today; her stomach felt like it was housing a million butterflies. It was hard to believe that in a few short hours she would be a genin! Assuming she passed the test of course, but Hotaru was confident enough in her abilities to warrent a little daydreaming in her opinion. Aiko-sensei, their genjutsu instructer, had shared her feelings wholeheartedly, but Hotaru suspected that she was more enthusiastic about seeing how her prized student's genjutsu skills compared to the other students. In that area, at least, Hotaru felt completely prepared. The door swung open and Hotaru looked up to see two other girls venture into the room chattering animatedly. The other students would soon file in, and her refuge of peace and quiet would be totally lost. The two girls were squealing girlishly and blushing like crazy, laughing and whispering as though they had a great conspiracy to discuss. Hotaru couldn't help but wonder what they were talking about. The girls felt her eyes on them and stopped chatting simultaneously and glared heatedly at her. Automatically, Hotaru snapped her head back to her text, skimming over the section on manipulating chakra into physical strength. "Don't eavesdrop, Shijeru!" One of the girls yelled from their seat on the opposite side of the room. Hotaru snorted, keeping her eyes on the text. "If you had been paying attention, you would have noticed me here sooner. And I don't eavesdrop," she turned a page, "you were speaking so loudly I don't doubt the rest of Konoha heard you." The girl looked as though she was ready to attack at any moment, Hotaru noted out of the corner of her eye. A poor control over her emotions; she'd never get anywhere as a kunoichi. "Calm down, Hikaru." The second girl comforted, placing an arm on her friend's arm to hold her back. "Don't waste your time on brats like Shijeru." The enraged girl calmed somewhat, continuing to glare daggers at Hotaru. "Yeah." She said slowly and turned around in her seat. "Stupid stuck up brat. Thinks she's so good. Her family's just a bunch ofcivilians. She doesn't even have a bloodline limit." Neither did she, Hotaru noted (she couldn't recall the girl's last name or the name of her friend, but she knew that much) but decided not to provoke the situation any further. She could hear their sensei's footsteps as he approached. Stealing one last glance out the window, Hotaru saw the Yotoro and his friend approaching before she buried her face behind the book.