Emi sat down on the ground across from Hiro, who was in the swing for lunch hour.

“Is this going to become a regular thing?” Hiro asked skeptically.

“Why not? I would’ve sat with you before, but you always sit on this single swing. Why don’t you sit at a table or on the grass?”

“Swing’s special. It’s my swing… Well, not really, but this swing is cool.”

Emi ignored Hiro’s quirks, she had started to get used to them. “Whatever. Kenichi and Nobu will be joining us for lunch.”

“Eh? Who?”

Emi was shocked at how aloof Hiro was. “Umm, your classmates? Don’t you know that cooperation is a part of your class grade? Nobu Aburame and Kenichi Uchiha. They are my friends.”

Hiro looked up and noticed two boys walking his way. One had onyx eyes with matching, straight hair that reached his shoulders, wearing dark clothes with the Uchiha crest on the back. The aburame had a large coat with a hood pulled over his head—two round glasses and an afro peeking out.

‘These guys couldn’t look more stereotypical. Clan pride I suppose.’ Hiro said internally as the boys sat down next to Emi and crossed their arms.

“Well? introduce yourselves!” Emi said with venom as if she had already had enough of the two, from their daily antics.

Hiro beat them to the punch. “Hi there, I'm Hiro Tanaka. Emi already told me about you guys. Nice to meet you.”

The young Aburame responded first, “Hn.”

“Yup.” said the said the Uchiha as he looked away and snarled.

Emi swiftly whacked both of them on the back of their necks, “Straighten up, you’re making a terrible first impression!”

The Aburame held Emi’s hand away from his neck and began speaking in a monotone voice, “Why am I not eager to introduce myself to him? Simple, I’ve sat next to him for the past six months and he hasn’t even acknowledged me as a peer.”

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

‘Since when has he sat next to me? Now that I think about it, I’ve been sitting next to these four all year, but I have paid so little attention in class that I didn’t even realize it until now. These three hold the top three spots in class.’

“Well, Hiro’s a bit antisocial, but the same could be said for you Nobu. What’s your excuse, Kenichi?”

“I don’t need an excuse, I just don’t want to.” He said, still refusing to look at Hiro.

*SMACK*

Emi cracked him in the back of the neck once again.

“Ugh, fine.” Kenichi stood up and turned away from the group. “I only acknowledge people who are strong.” He began walking towards the entrance of the academy, “If you can beat me during the taijutsu exam then I will acknowledge you. If we don’t face each other, then you have to beat one of us three.”

“Kenichi that’s un-”

“Deal!” Hiro smiled.

“Hiro, you don’t practice taijutsu! You can’t beat us, we have clan taijutsu, which is superior to the academy taijutsu. You can’t win!” Emi said worriedly. She was hoping to integrate Hiro into her friend group and at this rate, they would never get along.

‘I may be weaker than these three, but I will not lose to a prepubescent child.’ Hiro thought confidently. ‘Unless it’s Itachi, Shisui, or some prodigy like that.’

“I will be fine.”

--------

.

Hiro closed his apartment door behind him as he slouched down on the couch and began rubbing his own shoulders. He had a long day at the academy and Kushina had pushed his chakra to his limits with the steel cube exercise. That was okay with him though—Kushina had told him that pushing his chakra to the limits daily would increase his reserves over time.

“Making friends is a pain when you are six.” Hiro sighed.

He sat up straight on the couch and crossed his legs to begin meditating. He felt his recovered chakra swirl and directed it through his body. He moved it from his legs, arms, head, etc. He had pretty good chakra control, but it was most likely due to having such a low capacity.

He quickly got up and took off his goggles before setting them on his table littered with ink, brushes, pens, knives, and paper. Kushina had been teaching him how to create seals that could manipulate the weight of an object.

These were not like training weight seals. She had forbidden him of that when he expressed interest in it a while ago. She gave him the same talk that the headmaster had given him about stunting his growth. Training seals affected gravity instead of weight. Hiro was not sure what the difference was but he knew affecting gravity was much harder according to Kushina.

He scribbled down some ink on paper for what felt like an hour before he popped his head up. “Ah ha! This is just like she showed me.”

He got up and licked the back of the paper before slapping it on the back of his fake leather couch.

Hiro positioned his hands underneath the sofa and heaved upwards. Surprise struck his face as it was much easier than he expected. This couch was fifty pounds. This seal must’ve made it ten! While Hiro was lost in the results of his work he dropped the big awkward couch, making a loud thud.

‘The seals that I’m learning are nice and all, but how would this help me in a battle? The only thing this would help me with is Spring cleaning!’ Hiro wracked his brain for ways that this could be used in a battle. What if he made a giant rock really light and hurled it at the enemy? No, then the rock would still be light. Not only that, but the couch was his current limit. If he could only make it one-fourth of its weight after working on the seal for an hour then he would never be able to do so for a giant boulder. One-fourth of twenty thousand pounds was still way more than he could pick up any time soon. That’s assuming he could even make it one-fourth.

“This was probably a waste of time.” Hiro stopped procrastinating his daily exercise, dropped to the floor, and began doing pushups.