[Yamanaka Tomomi]

This time of year is always tremendously busy. With the Chuunin exams having recently come to a close and all the work regarding the question of promotions through the shinobi ranks as well as the graduations of academy students, all on top of the usual workload, the paperwork is piling high. Tomomi’s desk is completely covered in stacks of papers, and they’ve just been filling out more.

Luckily, it is often a right of passage for new Genin to take on the trial of helping to overcome the clerical mountain. It teaches a certain amount of responsibility. Having access to confidential information that is technically low risk, but also still shouldn’t be rifled through. It teaches restraint and a respect for privacy. It also begins to hone informational skills. Being able to glean the contents of a paper quickly and sort it, being meticulous even when it’s boring. And, even in small ways, it helps young shinobi work on fine motor skills.

Today’s chosen victim is someone Tomomi is already familiar with, a strange child named Uchiha Umetaro. Given his excitable nature and boundless energy, they feel this duty might be a little much for him, but they’re willing to give him a shot.

When the clock strikes time for his arrival, Tomomi tries to straighten things up and gets up to greet him at the door. "Good afternoon, Umetaro. I didn’t expect to see you again so soon.”

[Uchiha Umetaro]

Umetaro stands stiff as a board in front of the mysterious ghost ninja puppeteer. "Y-yes Si- ah- Maa- you know,” He stamers. "I- I was told to come help you out with, ah, something important.”

The person who gave him the mission details emphasized how little the Hokage, Kaiwai Niko, the Blonde Menace would not accept failure as an option. Umetaro did not fear much in this illusory world, but the Hokage was one of the things that absolutely terrified him through and through.

He didn’t know many of the genin who had recently gotten to go to the Chunin Exams. The prospect didn’t interest him very much, so he had never really looked into it. Work on a team? Do missions? Potentially die? None of it seemed particularly appealing. Why did everyone seem to think they were so important?

There were important things to do in this world, things that were certainly more interesting than the Chunin Exams. Discover how to unleash the background burning, free yourself of the illusion, learn the secrets of the Uchiha, become a ghost. And not anger Kawai Niko...

"S-so, it’s uh, Chunin Exams paperwork?” He said, barely, reluctantly entering the room. "I- I can do that. Yeah. Leave it to me. Totally capable.”

[Yamanaka Tomomi]

"You seem nervous,” Tomomi notes, pretty instantly. The kid has a habit of stammering over himself anyways when he gets worked up, but there’s a particular tension in him today. He looks about ready to keel over. "I would say you seem like you’ve seen a ghost, but I’m sure that would excite you.”

Ushering him further into the room, they try to think what might be making him nervous. Maybe he’s never been on any missions before. Or maybe he’s never been to the administrative wing of the building before. Or maybe it’s simply that he’s heard of Kawai Niko’s lovely reputation. No, that last thing must be it, Tomomi realizes. Even without being present she has a way of putting a fright into people.

"Relax. Take a deep breath. It’s paperwork of all sorts,” Tomomi says. "The worst you can do is spill it on the floor, or maybe crumple a corner.” Actually, the worst he could do is swipe some papers, but they’re not looking to put any ideas into his impressionable little head.

Showing him to the mounds of papers, they grab a stack and set it before him. Then they motion to the filing cabinets lining their walls. They’ve been working on some reorganization of them of late, so they’re in decent shape. "It’s a really simple process. You look at the paper to figure out what topic it’s addressing- a promotion, a graduation, a mission debrief, so on- and then you find the proper cabinet for it.”

[Uchiha Umetaro]

Okay. Deep breaths. It wouldn’t do for a ghost or spectre to flee at the sight of paperwork, right? But he can’t fail at this task, for Kawai Niko, with her strange powers, would turn him into something worse than dead, the stories say. Supposedly she keeps a kitsune on retainer, just to spy on the village and devour those who don’t do their tasks! He wants to be a ghost, not supper for some fox creature.

"Okay, okay,” Umetaro says, more for himself than for anyone else. "I can do that. So let’s start with that, then.”

He lets Tomomi lead him around the room, taking careful note of all of the placements of everything around the room. He could remember where those were, right? Right? It couldn’t be that hard. He’d done much harder things, like deciphering old Uchiha texts in old dialects to learn techniques on his own. He could do this.

The first few documents he barely gives a second glance. A lot of them are mission debriefs, stamped with a distinct symbol at the top. Those all go in one pile. And he was never interested in what other people did. So far, so good, he thinks. This isn’t so hard...

[Yamanaka Tomomi]

Umetaro sets right to work without complaint. That's relieving, given how rambunctious he is. A lot of young shinobi wouldn't be so enthused about something like this and might strain against the task. Better yet, Umetaro seems utterly disinterested in the contents of the papers. No straying eyes, no prying curiosity. That's good form. But it does leave Tomomi with very little teaching opportunity, which rather misses the point of the exercise. Oh well, as long as Umetaro is getting experience, that's what is important.

"You know, I bet there are papers about you somewhere in all this," Tomomi says, as a way of a little test, but also as a means of making conversation. A lot of kids would be interested in hunting out their files and figuring out what has been written about them. Maybe creating a teachable moment is cheating, but she doesn't mind using a few underhanded tactics. She returns to sorting papers as well as she speaks. "You recently were moved to a new team, right? With Sensō no Hanabi and Uchiha Kazui." Two Uchiha on a single team. That's going to be a handful for whoever ends up being assigned to that group. An unenviable position.

[Uchiha Umetaro]

"I don't know 'em, especially not that Hanabi person," Umetaro grumbles. "I never stay on one team for long. This is my third this year..."

Umetaro was somewhat detached, personally, from being on a genin team. It was just the thing the Uchiha did since they joined Konoha all those many years ago. But he's not sure, if given the same chance, if he'd go through with it. But having his inability to do anything as a ninja brought up, it brought up a certain wounded kind of flame. 

"Kazui... Kazui... Princess of the Academy..." he muttered, eyes eventually casting over an appeal with her name and face on it. Huh. Looks like she passed her Chunin Exams and wanted to become an actual Chunin. That was a relief. Umetaro never liked being around most members of his clan. They were deluded by the Will of Fire. They didn't understand what the Fire represented. 

"Umetaro, why can't you be more like Kazui," he muttered, his voice hitching into his head voice, as he did his best squeaky impression of his mother as he filed. "She's so smart, she graduated from the Academy already, she's such a credit to Hachiko's memory. Your father would be so disappointed, if he could see you from the spirit world..."

If his eyes could roll further back into his head, they'd roll all the way back forward like some kind of gambling game.

[Yamanaka Tomomi]

"Oh my, seems I've struck a nerve," Tomomi says, putting their hand to their mouth in fake shock. Such rivalries are bound to spark every so often, but it's very interesting to see. They've never felt particularly in competition with members of their own clan, but maybe that's just a contrast between the Yamanaka and the Uchiha. The Yamanaka are so inherently team-oriented, with their various alliances and their battlefield support positions. The Uchiha are so much more willful.

And it seems like Umetaro's mother was playing the comparison game, while dangling his father's spirit over the poor kid's head...

"It is fine to have opinions about people, but you shouldn't ramble them off publicly like this. It's not a fair way to talk about your colleagues," he warns. "Even if you like to focus on yourself, you have to be at least a little team-minded to succeed." He shuffles more papers, sorting them into differing stacks efficiently as he talks.

"I will say, though, there's nothing that strains cooperation more than someone unfavorably comparing people." He's not looking to outright insult or challenge Umetaro's mission right now, because he doesn't know how sensitive Umetaro is to that sort of thing. But it is a bad perspective.

[Uchiha Umetaro]

"She's not my teammate," Umetaro grumbles, listening to Tomomi's comments. "I'm sure she'll be someone else's by the end of the year. That's how they all are, rushing to be adults so so so fast." 

He turned his eyes to the remaining paperwork. Still so much more to do. The Uchiha never played well on teams, according to the histories. Even Indra himself was more blindsided by the early Senju's proverbial olive branch, that would become Konohagakure no Sato, this strange oasis hidden among the leaves. 

"They'll leave me behind eventually, it doesn't matter," he says, and shrugs. Despite how angsty that line might have read, he says it with just neutral reality in his voice. That part doesn't bother him. "They don't know what I know." He says, voice not even a whisper, more just the passing of air from his mouth. 

There's a retirement form for some woman Umetaro doesn't know and doesn't care about. Issei also has a Chunin appeal. That's interesting information, but he's a little older than Umetaro, and he doesn't know him very well. For an Uchiha, Umetaro felt that he must be very bland. A good Uchiha burns a mark wherever they stand, and people sit up and take notice. 

Umetaro understood that that was much more important than mere governmental promotion.

[Yamanaka Tomomi]

It's odd how plainly he puts that. He's in no rush to go anywhere. He doesn't value what the other kids value. He has his own things going on, his own goals. And he doesn't seem to mind the idea of being left behind. It's a somewhat concerning mindset.

People are allowed to develop at their own pace, and pushing people to try to aim for chuunin when they're not ready for it is never the goal. It would only end in disaster if he wasn't prepared for the trials. But still, such an alienation is a difficult thing to remedy. Tomomi isn't Umetaro's instructor, so it's not their explicit job to manage this sort of thing, but they can't help but be worried.

Vague platitudes probably won't help him much. Trying to assure him of a connection he doesn't yet know. If he's been passed from team to team recently, he must feel even more disconnected than usual. Maybe this new team will provide some stability and camaraderie, but until then relying on comforts with vague promises does nothing.

So maybe it's best to stray from this topic all together. They'll pick up on something else.

"What do you know that they don't?" Tomomi asks as they open a cabinet and begin tucking papers away.

[Uchiha Umetaro]

Umetaro has their back to turned to Tomomi when she asks that question. He's frowning over some sort of file that's he's having trouble classifying. He puts it with the general appeals and shrugs. Kawai Niko will have to worry about that herself, when she gets to it. He's not the Hokage, he's just helping out. 

"Oh you wouldn't understand," Umetaro says, voice blasé. He goes back to the next stack of papers. God, how did the Hokage deal with this much paper? Even with all of these people to file them, it was certainly a fire hazard. "You'd need the red eyes to see it." 

He's used to people not understanding what he knows. He saw all of that happen as a child, and it forced open his eyes permanently. The world was always, much all this paper, just two steps away from falling away in a blaze. The universe was constantly burning, everyone just pretended it wasn't. 

When he was smaller, concerned adults always tried poking into his life, and then backed away when they realized that he wasn't going to magically "get better" or "be a man" or whatever else in the nine hells they wanted him to be. Somebody else, out there, must understand, but most people didn't.

[Yamanaka Tomomi]

Now that's an interesting assertion. Tomomi hums thoughtfully at that, and allows it to sit for a moment instead of reacting instinctively. There must be a reason Umetaro is making that statement. Other people haven't understood, perhaps, or it has a very specific cultural explanation. Maybe it's fair to say that Tomomi wouldn't understand it, really.

"I might not be able to fully understand, but I could get the impression," he offers. "I'm guessing it has something to do with your clan history?" Red eyes makes that a safe bet to make, but showing he's following the line of thinking might encourage Umetaro to share a little more. "I wouldn't ask you to share anything secret. I know how important it is to guard clan secrets. But I think you have a very interesting perspective. I would like to at least hear you try to explain it."

Maybe she's just being nosy, though. If he refuses, she won't push on it. To give him an alternative, or at least a way to keep his hands busy while he talks, she says, "And while you're at it, you should start putting those in the cabinets. Best to stop once you get through a section instead of just creating more giant piles."

[Uchiha Umetaro]

"Yep yep," Umetaro says, and starts moving his work to the cabinets. He's careful not to get any papercuts- he wouldn't want Kawai Niko to be able to trace him with her kitsune spies by the smell of his blood. Or worse, perform arcane rituals using his blood as a catalyst. That'd let him be proxy for all sorts of occult effects! No thank you, scary lady, no thank you. 

"The Eye of Insight, The Eye of Hypnotism, the Eye of Illusion, these are the gifts that Indra was given from the fire above," Umetaro says, voice flat and listless. "From the burning world came the Uchiha's greatest gift, and they saw what others refused to see."

He shrugs. "Believe it or not, most Uchihas are illiterate," he said. "Indra was able to see the world for what it really was, and still is. It's why he resisted the founding of the village. The histories make this fact very clear. He took the fire into himself and diffused it amongst the people who would become his clan."

He finishes with this pile and moves on to the next. What was this again? Oh, yeah, the Chunin appeals. Kazui and Issei's applications are right at the top, but Umetaro tries not to look at them too long, not for fear of getting caught, but so he doesn't burn them to cinders with his gaze. 

"You wouldn't get it," he says, repeating himself in that flat, listless tone, like he's said this spiel a million times. "Indra was so close to getting it. But his clan betrayed him, let the Senju's false water root him in place. The Uchiha were meant to see, not to politick and do..." he gestures to the walls around him. "All of this."

[Yamanaka Tomomi]

"I see," Tomomi says, fascinated with the whole spiel, though she can say she's sure she doesn't understand all the deeper ramifications of it. Though he's done his history lessons and knows all about the founding of this village, there are some things only a clan can know about their clan history.

She watches him work for a moment, makes sure he doesn't misplace anything as she turns the words over in her head for a minute. Umetaro's obsession with all things spooky seem to tie back to this, then. A desire to be unrooted, ethereal, part of the world of illusion and magic and things less stable. Those Uchiha do have a penchant for fire and genjutsu.

"You think all this bureaucracy gets in the way of true understanding," Tomomi concludes. It's not an uncommon line of thought, though Umetaro expresses it uniquely. Most people don't like restriction. Tomomi has, luckily, never minded it much. "I think that's fair. It is limiting and many ways. These structures exist for a reason, though. Things wouldn't be able to sustain themselves nearly as well if everyone was running wild." Though Umetaro probably thinks Uchiha should be exempt, because of that greater proximity to knowledge.

"It must be frustrating, to feel so contained... But in a way, isn't it fun? To have the knowledge hidden like a puzzle instead of having it handed to you. It's a mystery to solve. A goal to work towards. You have to peek through cracks in the foundation we've built, demonstrate a careful curiosity... When you have to earn understanding, doesn't that make it more complete than when it's delivered?"

[Uchiha Umetaro]

"It's not just the paperwork it's... all of it," Umetaro says. "The buildings and the streets and the people and.... arggh." He shakes his head and goes to grab his last stack of papers. He'll be done with this task very soon, which should be exciting, but honestly this task didn't bother him too much. It was a comforting sort of dull. 

"None of it actually matters," he explains, tapping the stack of papers on the desk to even them all out. "They traded it all, in the ancient past, for killing each other for scraps of paper, for prestige and 'honor'. It doesn't make sense."

He brings the last stack of papers to their proper files, and shuts the drawer with his hip. Finally, blissfully done. Did this really count as a mission? Weren't missions supposed to be... dangerous? Well, at least somebody would consider this useful. And that someone is Kawai Niko. 

"It's not just about knowledge it's about," he shakes his head and scoffs again. "Knowing isn't even half the battle. Knowing is almost a prison. Knowing limits you as much as it frees you. Just because you can see the cage doesn't make it easier to escape, in this case."

[Yamanaka Tomomi]

"Quite the dilemma, then," Tomomi says, tapping his chin. He wants to engage in this more helpfully, but that same sense of restriction does not loom over him. Woefully, perhaps, for Umetaro, who seems in need of a kindred spirit, but Tomomi himself is a bit relieved to realize he escaped that particular brand of existentialism. His plate is quite full enough dealing with worldly matters of paper and prestige.

Maybe dealing with a little more philosophy might be a good idea, though. Broadening perspectives can only ever be a good thing.

"I wish I could say I had a solution for you," she begins, "but as you've already gleaned, adults sometimes don't know the solution to every problem." He crosses his arms and leans on his desk, still trying to think through the words he chooses carefully.

"Sometimes it takes going out and gaining your own experiences to find the answers. I will disagree with one thing, though. I think knowledge can only ever be helpful. Knowing the shape of the cage might not make it easier to escape, but it makes escape more... viable. There is a difference between flailing blindly and actually understanding the shape of what you're dealing with." Time for filing is over, so Tomomi pushes off the desk to show him to the door. "To change things, you have to fully conceptualize your problem with the way things are, and to do that you have to invest time in understanding the world as it is, too. Maybe even this little mission gave you some insight into that."