Eclipse

Is Graduating a Reward or a Punishment?

I tapped my fingers impatiently on the desk. I had disliked my classmates at first, but by now I was adept enough at deflecting and ignoring them that it was down to very low annoyment for most of them. Some of them, mainly the quiet ones, held my indifference and a very select few even held my mild acceptance. For example, I could confidently say that I liked Choji Akimichi. He was a good kid and kept to himself more often than not. He even offered me snacks from time to time. He was probably my favorite kid in the class.

Least favorite wise.... My eyes unconsciously drifted to Naruto who, for once in his life, was too nervous to speak. He was a good kid, but being good didn't stop him from being annoying. I tried not to interact with him at all, which was difficult when the kid had some sort of crush on Sakura. When he did come up to me, I still did my best to at the very least be polite. The kid had a miserable enough life without me adding to it.

This exam probably wasn't helping either. Even though he kind of bothered me, I still hoped he passed. His hopes had been crushed one too many times.

"The written portion of the exam will begin shortly," Mizuki, the class's teacher assistant, announced politely. I rolled my eyes subtly, a frown automatically crossing my face. "You have five minutes to do a final review of your notes."

He was such a creepy adult. He paid attention to kids way too closely for it to be appropriate, especially Naruto, though he seemed to hate the kid. I hope he got stung by a wasp. Retribution in small ways. Maybe karma will get him in one go. Who knows, really. I shuffled through the flash cards I made two weeks prior and went over the information silently. I was confident I'd pass this exam.

By now, most of Sakura's feelings had drained out of me. There was very little she could provide now that I was familiar with the world around me. I was just glad that her incredible ability to learn any topic she's given has stuck with me. As I ran through the information, my confidence only rose. I'd maintained the position of the top students academically all year and was the highest 'female' ranking in the physical department, number three overall. Sakura is surprisingly sturdy, so it was only a matter of working towards improvement.

I was proud of what I'd managed to do. Mizuki called time and began to pass out a three page test, ignoring or smirking at some of the student's groans. I rolled my eyes again. What a douche. He clearly had favorites and least favorites. Speaking of... I stared at him coldly while he placed the test face-down on my desk. His blank expression twitched down slightly before an annoyed light flashed through his eyes.

Score, I made him react to a child. That's twenty two to his thirteen. What a loser. I leaned on my hand and hid a smirk behind it as I watched his mood visibly sour. Who knows why he let a child get to him so deeply, but hey, it's not my problem. I waited for the idiot to finish passing out the tests and for Iruka to start the exam. I'm not going to sugar coat it, but this portion of the exam would be a major cake walk for me.

I'm only bitter that I haven't been able to catch up physically to the top two students in our sparring sessions. Kiba Inuzuku ranked number two and Sasuke ranked in at number one. It was annoying, especially because they both leaned towards sexist comments to fuck with me. It was god damn annoying.

"You have an hour and a half to complete the exam. You may begin."

I couldn't tell which one of them said it, Iruka or Mizuki, but it didn't really matter. I flipped the test over and wrote my name. The bad thing about having so much knowledge and certainty in what you know is that there's nothing stopping you from going into autopilot and thinking about other stuff. Two years in a life that isn't yours is a long time.

At the beginning, I was consumed with learning as much as I could, so I did. And then I had to face the fact that, at some point, all this knowledge would have to be put to use. I knew some gruesome shit, but this world made it seem so much more sinister. The foreknowledge of violence I had came with the understanding that I'd never do it or be subjected to it. In this world, it's an inevitability.