The chance meeting with the newly arrived stranger quickly faded from Ibiki's conscious mind over the following days, as training both routine and new and increased filled his days from early morning to late evening. When he wasn't going through combat training, he was studying and when neither of these were true he was meditating or resting to keep the exhaustion at bay.<br/><br/>It was a grueling experience. When he had time to think, the boy felt conflicted about it. He appreciated the training from a standpoint of being a better ninja for it and most of the time he enjoyed practicing his skills, but he also began asking himself the question why it was necessary. He would be well ahead of most students there, excepting of course that if any of the other major clans sent their children they might be competing against each other.<br/><br/>That thought was what kept Ibiki motivated. Though he didn't see the necessity of exhausting himself before going to the shinobi academy, he wanted to be at his best if he was to compete against such a rival.<br/><br/>Perhaps part of the reason for his training was to stop him from inquiring into further details and motivations for his attendance, but that thought didn't occur to him at this time. He simply trained and, in his training and exhaustion, began to project the irritation he felt towards the academy: his father was an unquestionable bastion of strength to him, someone who towered over others and was training him to be as strong as he was -- stronger, even. Though he was the source of this frustration, he simply wasn't someone Ibiki could maintain anger against outside of the brief intensity of combat training - it was all for a good purpose and for the clan, after all.<br/><br/>----<br/><br/>Kiku held up a scroll with a number of herbs, asking Ibiki to name which ones were poisonous, which beneficial, then to list their various effects.<br/><br/>A grim smile appeared on his father's face when Ibiki actually managed to deflect the follow-up on a feint he had always missed before.<br/><br/>A sparring gauntlet against the Hyuga trainees, instructing them even as he was instructed by their combat teacher on how to improve his own form.<br/><br/>Nightly headaches from excessive use of the Byakugan.<br/><br/>His mother, teaching him soft fist forms outside the Juuken, as harsh as his father while training but always followed afterwards by gentle words and sometimes awkward motherly kindness -- as much as she wanted to be a good mother to the one child that hadn't been taken from her, Ayame was still a trained shinobi and had been taught to blunt her emotions. In this, she always acted outside her own comfort zone, though she did so honestly.<br/><br/>Solo exercise and stretching, running, sparring, tutoring, vision technique training, sleep, repeat and repeat until each day had begun to blend into the next.<br/><br/>Until the last weekend, of course. The weekend before the academy opened properly. It was that weekend during which Ibiki was allowed to rest, to recover from the intense training so that he would be at his best once the classes began.<br/><br/>---<br/><br/>There had been some precursory aptitude tests for those who did not come from any sort of shinobi tradition, to make sure they would actually be able to withstand the basic training -- the sick and weakly would not be allowed to hold up training for healthier candidates, nor would those who could not show at least the beginnings of discipline that were to be built upon.<br/><br/>For the Hyuga, this procedure was not even worthy of consideration, though it also served well for another purpose. Ibiki's twin sister, Misaki was sent there to get an early look at the layout of the Academy and to assess any potential dangers so that she could better perform in her primary future mission to act as her brother's bodyguard. A mission that rankled her: she was to go to the academy to protect her 'elder' brother, not to learn. Anything she might achieve there was, apparently, regarded as incidental.<br/><br/>So it was that someone who looked pretty much identical to Ibiki still at this point, except for her haircut and choice of clothing, was present at these aptitude tests.<br/>