Fandom The Village Hidden in the Leaves

[KageYuuki]

Umichi Kamimizu
Gou Uchiha
Umichi sat on her couch in the living room, a bowl of food in front of her, and a stack of books to her side. Shown fairly obviously beneath her kimono was an array of bandages. Then again, in her own home, she’d hardly dressed that properly, the Obi was only slightly tied.

She sighed.

“I know they keep calling me ‘lazy-sensei’, but recovering seriously sucks.”

In truth, Umichi was still debating what she was supposed to do next anyways. Kiyoshi she slightly wanted to kill, and Koutaku was a pain and a half by himself. What would her sensei do? Then again, her sensei never had her problem. The bloody nine tails as a student?

“Be a jounin… Why?”

A light series of knocks sounded at the door, the rhythm no doubt familiar. Getting any time off was a nightmare in and of itself. But there was an injured student that needed a visit.

Umichi groaned as she slowly got up. A grunt could be heard from the front door as she carefully retied her Obi. Her left side still felt like it’d been hit by a truck. It didn’t feel too far from the truth.

Swinging the door open, Umichi screamed out it.

“Look you little sh- ♪Sensei!♪”

Her emotions did a 360, and Umichi quickly changed to a polite bow, though her face contorted as she did so.

“♪Welcome, welcome!♪ Come inside, come, come. What brings you here? Did you hear about your favorite student little mess up?”

Gou lightly chuckled at her sudden change in tone. “I think the entire village heard you when Ayame was treating those injuries,” the old shinobi teased as he stepped inside.

Umichi’s cheery face drooped somewhat. She shuffled to the inside of her house and opened up the cabinets, finding a small bowl, and a sake jar. She poured into the bowl, looking at it for a minute, then chugged the jar.

“Yeah, well, I don’t screw things up by halves. Tch, and I thought of the sensei’s Mako would be the first, not me.”

She offered the small bowl, and the cheer collapsed.

“Sensei, was it ever hard with the three of us? I’m honestly at my wits end what to do. Got the ever nice title of ‘lazy-sensei’, a smart ass, one of my students died on their first real mission, and the other one, whenever I look at him, I can only remember 12 years ago. If I didn’t have the excuse of having the ever living sh-.... Being beat up, I’d go insane. Don’t even think I HAVE what it takes to be a sensei.”

Gou accepted the bowl with a slight nod before gently guiding Umichi back to the couch, setting the drink on the table. “I can’t say things were ever easy with the three of you.” He sighed, letting her vent her frustrations and fears. “What happened to Shikakazu… An attack like that wasn’t something anyone could have anticipated… Your team wasn’t the only attacked outside of the village this past week.”

He couldn’t tell her the genin’s death wasn’t her fault though. As a jounin and sensei, his life was in her care. “Kiyoshi though… No one’s been able to forget that night, not even me. My eyesight never did recover from it either.” Gou looked back at his student, “But Kiyoshi isn’t the ninetails. Looking past it might not be easy, but being a Jinchuuriki is a heavy burden in itself.”

Umichi took another swig.

“Yeah, why the one who can seal it is with him, totally different. That kid ain’t stable. I had to use it on him before it got out of hand. He hates me, threatened to go full beast just to kill me. Honestly, it terrified me to even have to use that seal. Like, what if it didn’t work? What if I’m not so much a genius? It was even more than fighting that woman.”

Umichi suddenly looked pained and combed her hair with her fingers.

“She took your gift sensei…. All the things I could mess up on, she was just plain stronger, and stole it as a prize. Sorry.”

Gou shook his head, “I prefer it being stolen over you being killed out there.”

Umichi sighed.

“Business. I know, you just got out the office, and are visiting lil ol’ me. And that’s so touching, I think I might cry. Still, who hired that psycho? Who could afford to? She basically owns a small village. I stopped the b-bea… I stopped Kiyoshi from fighting Hachi, the Drunken Stone. She went full out there, they were digging for something.”

Gou was silent for a long moment, taking a drink from the sake. “That’s just it, we don’t know. We do know that legend holds the shrine in Tsushima is the resting place of one of the tools used by the Sage of Six Paths. Something the monks refused to comment on one way or another before the village had been destroyed.”

Umichi glanced at the jar, and set it down. Bad idea to get too drunk… even if she really wanted to.

“Sending the assassin pair to investigate? Assuming they haven’t eloped yet.”

He suppressed a chuckle at the thought, “More than likely. Just need to figure out the best way to handle Nobushige’s student first.”

“Oh yeah, he’s teaching your kid. Won’t that be funny if he ends up teaching his brother in law? Heh. He heard either of us talking, we might need a new Hokage. Hehehe. Consider me a client to this mission, bump it up a rank, I’ll pay the difference. I’m a little bit mad about the whole thing. Mako’s going to be so mad when he hears he lost the first kiss.

Alright…. Well, Sensei, can I ask one last thing? I’m glad you visited, there is something else I can’t figure out. What am I supposed to do with the lot? I mean, Koutaku’s sorta like me, just a different element. Kiyoshi, though… I don’t have a clue. I mean, how’d you work with Mako? Wood Release is extremely rare. How’d you teach someone to use something you can’t use? How can I get Kiyoshi to even be a proper Jinchuuriki when I don’t know what that's supposed to be like? What if I can’t stop him in time? What if my seals not strong enough? What if he, god forbid, actually follows through and sets the fox free? Ugh. Being an adult sucks.”

Umichi swished her jar around, face planting into the counter.

“Enough, Umichi,” Gou’s tone darkened somewhat. “Letting those thoughts get the better of you isn’t going to help anyone.” He sighed, “As for your question… I didn’t teach him about Wood Release. I couldn’t. What I did teach him were the basics, control being one of them. Probably the most important. You probably don’t remember the fight he’d put up over having to meditate each day.

“You can’t teach Kiyoshi how to control the Ninetails’ chakra, but you can teach him to control his own and control himself.”

Umichi laughed at the mention of Mako.

“Yeah, I remember that fight. I’m pretty sure he used it in his last book. Only fairly sure he switched who did what in that curbstomp. I guess. Control. Hmmm. Guess I just gotta improve my seals, take out a life insurance policy, and do my best. Well, I have the day off, I think I’m going to get wasted until then. Thank you sensei…. Seriously, thank you. Every bit helps. How’d they let you out the office anyway?”

Umichi grabbed her jar, awaiting his answer beneath a waterfall.

“Being the boss does come with the advantage of sometimes just saying ‘I’m leaving’ and them not being able to do anything about it.” Gou finished the small cup of alcohol. “Being able to create shadow clones doesn’t hurt either.”

“Tch, getting pretty bold there, old man. Last time I tried skipping out on training with clones, you were ♪preeetty♪ mad. See, I wasn’t the only one learning. Well, happy paperwork.”

Umichi stumbled along before giving a courteous bow.

 

[Kimiwriter]

Sei Teshima
Yukari Hyuuga​

Steam rose up from the hot spring, clouding the air. Sei leaned back and stared up at the wisps moving above her.

Yukari sank into the hot water with a low groan before draping a warm, wet cloth over her eyes. Normally, she'd be taking advantage of her byakugan to see past that pesky bamboo divider. But right now her eyes ached too much from the mission to even try.

Sei glanced at her teammate before sinking further down into the water. She needed to apologize but a sudden surge of shyness kept her quiet. How was she supposed to bring up nearly getting her killed? Instead, she decided to just enjoy the warmth and quiet.

“Can't help but wonder what the hell kind of sensei we ended up with.” Yukari spoke finally, having grown tired of the thick silence hanging over the entire spring. “He makes it sound like demon hunting will be the norm for us.”

“I hope not. Running into two is bad enough.” Sei shook her head. “Do you think he’s really that unconcerned or could it be an act? Some way to test us and get us to do more?”

“I really don't know.” Yukari muttered, “he's worst than most of the clan elders I deal with. Though Lord Hokage seemed used to… Whatever that was this morning.”

“He’s probably just figured out how to deal with Sensei after all this time. There doesn’t seem to be much else he could do. Or any of us can do.” Sei ran a hand over her face. “Sometimes I wonder if he’s a little insane.”

A dry laugh escaped the Hyuuga, forcing her to readjust the cloth on her eyes. “I think he’s more than a little. Probably comes with this whole demon nonsense.”

“Probably.” Sei smiled. It was nice to actually have a chance to talk with Yukari without dealing with some new mission or training. “I wonder if prolonged exposure has something to do with it.”

Yukari gave up on trying to keep her eyes covered, the heat really wasn’t doing much for the ache anyway. Her milky gaze moved over to Sei, “If that’s the case, then we’re screwed…”

“As long as he doesn’t lose anything else, I don’t think we’ll run into many demons on a daily basis. And if we’re lucky enough to get normal missions like everyone else, we shouldn’t be too concerned.” She shifted in the water. “But I don’t see things working out that way anytime soon. I’m kind of surprised he hasn’t suggested going for a picnic in the demon realm.”

“I mean he did stick me with a Nekomata…” Yukari rolled her eyes, “just give him time and he probably will.”

Sei chuckled. It was definitely something their sensei would do. “Is Nekomata that bad? Kuro has been great for me so far.”

“Hikari is…” Yukari shifted in the water. “She's a bit of a stuck up bitch.”

“Who are you calling a bitch, nyah?” A fluffy white cat spoke behind them, her forked tail flicking in annoyance. “I'm far from some lousy mongrel.”

A low groan, “speak of the devil…”

Sei turned slightly in the water. She smiled. Kuro had been almost embarrassed when she told him she was going to the hot springs. He’d decided to stay home. Nekomata, on the other hand, didn’t seem to have a problem with the steam. “Are you here to join us?”

Golden eyes studied Sei for a moment, though Yukari spoke before the Yokai had a chance. “We could have used you earlier, you know.”

“You honestly expect me to traipse around in one of Jorougumo’s lairs? Please, I’d never get the webs from my fur.”

“You know about that thing?” Sei frowned, “Isn’t part of your job to make sure Yukari doesn’t get hurt? That thing would’ve killed her.” She fell silent and looked down, suddenly embarrassed to be scolding the cat even though she was really to blame for her teammate’s near death.

“What is that Yokai? Is it actually dead or should we be worried about running into it again? And what’s the best way to fight it?”

“My job?” Hikari scoffed, “I’m not here to raise some mewling kitten, nyah. Not that Koma would have let that happen.” The Nekomata stretched looking to lay down, though she was quickly deterred by the wet stone. “Jorougumo won’t be coming back if that’s what you’re worried about. At least not in your lifetime, nyah.”

Sei nodded. At least that was one worry they wouldn’t have to deal with. She faced forward again and sank into the water until her chin barely touched the surface. It was odd seeing a summons that behaved so differently than Kuro, though it was ridiculous to expect all of them to act the same.

Neither of them said anything. They let the silence hang in the air between them like the steam rising from the hot spring. It had been a long day. There would be other chances to get to know each other better; for now, trying to relax and unwind from the mission was the only thing they wanted to think about.

 

[KageYuuki]

Nobushige Toyotomi
Yuuki Uchiha: Squad 4
A man with a package walked through the Uchiha compound. He wore a standard delivery uniform and walked with purpose towards Yuuki’s door, knocking on it. The package was a small box, the size of a book.

“Package for one addressed…Yuuki/Uchiha boy?”

Yuuki raised an eyebrow, accepting the package. While he was curious what the contents could be, the genin couldn’t help but wonder why his sensei decided to mail the thing to him.

Not that he ever had that much luck figuring Nobushige’s reasoning out most times.

The moment Yuuki accepted the package, he’d find a knife to his throat.

“You really need to work on your reflexes.”

In a poof, the deliveryman changed to Nobushige himself.

“Well… aren’t you going to open it? I mean, most deliveries have something in them. You father hasn’t explicitly fired me yet, so I still have things to teach.”

Yuuki sighed when he caught sight of the blade, “Hello to you too, sensei… Put the kunai down and I just might take a look.” He half expected the package to be filled with more of the paper dolls, not that he’d been neglecting to practice with the one he had.

Nobushige shrugged, resealing the blade into his wrist.

“Hitomi and Dotou should be fine, but I don’t think they’re going to continue as ninja. Especially after that little arrogant screwup. Leaves me with just you, and I don’t really think your Dad’s too happy. Bright, happy side, means I get to figure out what to do with you more…. And I think I have my answer. That right there is my pride and joy, I’ve spent years creating it. Most ninjas neglect that form of ninjutsu. Anyways, I have a lesson for you. Meet me outside after you finish taking a glance. I told Tsubaki I’m taking her training spot today. Granted, I had to run away before I got my answer. One day she might be able to actually hit the broadside of a barn with a kunai.”

With that, Nobushige disappeared from the room in a poof of smoke.

“Gee, I wonder why he’s mad at you.” Yuuki shook his head. He wasn’t sure what frustrated him more, the stunt his teammates pulled or the fact there was nothing he could do to help them. Once the Jounin vanished from sight, he opened the package to find a worn book inside. “Hm?” Various seals lined its pages, each with notes on their uses and how to recreate them.

Still flipping through the pages, Yuuki made his way outside to where he figured Nobushige was talking about.

Nobushige stood slouched in the middle of the yard, training dummies around, he somehow looked like he fit in.

“Do you remember the first day of training? I wonder if you learned anything. Like I said, whatever time I have, it's directed at you, Yuuki.Here’s your order: strike me down.”

Yuuki blinked, not sure how to feel about being in this situation again. While it was likely he was staring at another clone, the feeling and sight of his sword nearly cutting the jounin in half never really left him from the last time.

His breath caught in his throat. Why was this so hard? Just draw your sword, dammit! Yet Yuuki couldn’t bring himself to even reach for the weapon. What are you… just some weak coward? Growling under his breath, he leapt back, weaving signs.

Fire Release: Flame Mortar.

A kunai collided with it, a tag at the end, bursting it early.

“You pass. This isn’t a clone by the way. The answer is decisiveness. You aren’t a ninja meant to kill. Not yet anyway. I hope you never become like me. Now, let’s go over your skills.

Your stealth sucks, your genjutsu is terrible, you’re afraid to use your kenjutsu, and your elemental ninjutsu is about average. I’m fairly sure you’ll be one helluva a ninja despite that. Maybe give your old man a run for his money. I expect things from you.That book I gave you is my life's work. I’m not really that well known for seals, but that’s because I keep them practical. Sure, lazy-bitch’s seals’ll work on a Jinchuuriki but they are far too flashy. Practicality I think’s an area we share. You might not have it in you to seriously hurt someone, but you have it in your to protect someone, to foil another ninja’s attempt, to exert your ninja way. Seals’ll help you do all that. So… Yuuki, what is a seal?”

Yuuki blinked, though before he had a chance to say anything about that actually being the real Nobushige, he found his lack of ability rather bluntly pointed out. The genin flinched, letting his gaze fall to the grassy ground. He shifted, “A seal… is a tool shinobi use,” he found himself more or less going by the textbook definition. “They can store techniques or tools, or block off certain areas.”

“Very good, you gave an answer an academy student could have given. You do know the chunnin exams are coming up? Alright, let’s go over this. This, this is a seal.”

Nobushige pulled up bandages on his arm, showing a pair of bracers with seals across them, Lightning Flash Blade Creation.

“‘This is a tool a shinobi uses. It can store techniques or tools, or block off certain areas.’ I don’t think that helps, so how’s this. Seals are ways I compound my chakra into complex coils that disperse much slower than normal, maintaining itself nearly indefinitely. By their creation, I can call upon the technique anytime I want, sending chakra through it to basically uncoil in specific ways. Maybe to create a gateway, maybe it blocks off chakra touching it, bouncing it back to stop it. This here is a summoning seal. Using it will instantly create a space time technique to call a kunai, or your sword, or anything I make a contract with to my hand.

Space/time techniques are so difficult, they are almost exclusively used in seals. They are initially more complicated but allow you to skillfully control a battlefield, without maiming anyone. So…. let’s start with something simple. Actually… real quick, seals require a freak ton of chakra control. Why don’t you bring me that little doll? I can show you another seal then, and detail what every.single.bit.does. Might want to bring a seat, this is going to be a long, boring lesson.”

 

[KageYuuki]

Squad 6 Plays Truth or Dare!


Splash

Mai ran straight into another hotspring. The water was boiling! It would be hell to anyone else. She mumbled upside down in the water. Whatever she said, it came up as just several bubbles. She didn’t get why the water walking with the rest of her team wasn’t working. Eh, oh well, fire was her element, a little heat wouldn’t be too bad.

Mai walked out the spring in her swimming suit, as red as a lobster. She almost seemed reluctant to leave. She still had her Fire and Wind Wheels strapped to her back, even if she never actually trained with them.

“Hey guys, should we make this more interesting? I mean, we all seem to be sucking at this. How ‘bout we take turns playing truth or dare if we fall in? I mean, I guess Hot Water is a good deterrent, but I’m getting bored of it.”

Mai fell over backward to illustrate the point.

“Guys…. I think my wheels are turning red.”

In truth, Hideki has always dreamed about going to the hotsprings with a bunch of cuties, sadly, his dream wasn’t how this was going to turn out. Naturally, dreams were dreams, and everything would go to hell if the world threw this dog a bone.

“We’ve been at this for ten minutes Mai, and you’re already bored?” The young man stated as he wobbled atop the water, the young woman's words messing with his concentration for a second.

Or was it the heat?

Likely the heat.

Looking over to their sensei, who was currently stuck face deep in some book he saw once at a kinda sketchy looking store. What was he doing at said store himself? Good question, not something that's going to be answered anytime soon.

But Mai brought up an interesting proposition, why not make it more interesting. “Alright, I’m game- Whoops!” The young man slipped under the water, feeling the slight sting of the heat before getting back atop of it again.

“Doesn’t count. Aiko? I don’t wanna be the only one making Mai do crazy stuff.”

“For once, I actually think Mai has a good idea.” Aiko said from the far end of the spring. “It'll be easy for me, I happen to be excellent with water.” Aiko stated proudly. She rose from her sitting position in the water to her feet and grinned. She was confident she could make Mai and Hideki do all sorts of entertaining things while she stood atop the water. “Which one of you are gonna go first then?”

Mai rolled her eyes from where she floated.

“Who do ya think? I’m obviously more manly than Hideki! You might have water, but I have the FIRE OF YOUTH!”

Mai swam out, slowly turning redder. Making it to the edge, she quickly climbed a few rocks to make it more exciting.

“You just gotta believe!”

She actually stood still for a minute as she felt the chakra around, flaring it in her feet. The rock under her steamed even more.

“LEEROY JENKINS!”

Mai ran straight into it, bursting her chakra as much as she could. It actually kept her out the water…. Too well. The force of the chakra leaving her feet was enough upon landing she actually flew backwards into the water. After a few seconds, she floated back up, by the source of the hot water.

“Truth or dare…?”

Hideki starred in bewilderment at the scene before them, truly, only Mai could mess up so spectacularly “Huh… W-well, I expected somebody falling would take longer, didn’t really think of anything to do yet… Uhh.. Aiko?”

A devilish smirk spread across Aiko’s face. She rose out of the springs like a demon. A demon with wet hair and burning eyeballs. “I dare you to put Hideki in a chokehold underwater for a whole minute!” One could see the demonic fire in her eyes.

Hideki could not fully remember what happened after Aiko spoke, he only felt the feeling of being dragged under the steaming waters, holding his breath for a VERY long time and feeling another body trying to crush him, while putting his head in steaming heat.

Along with faint visions of his teammate’s chest from up close.

He came to once again upon a nearby rock, spitting out what may have been half the pool of water they were standing up just a minute ago.

Hideki whipped the spittle from his mouth, stood up upon the rock and silently slinked back to standing up the water, a tad bit more wobbly than usual.

“...I… don’t fully remember what happened… But.. Okay..” the young man paused to make a very audible crack come from his neck, before continuing to concentrate.

“...Okay... So uhh…” the young man faltered, still trying to recollect himself.

“Lucky… can someone do me next? That looks fun! Can’t breathe, full minute, held tight… hehehe.”

Hideki grimaced at Mai’s words. “Seriously, you didn’t need to try and kill me back there- Fuuck!” shouted the genin, who went once again back into the drink he so hated right now. “Damn it! Fine just, come on! I can take it!” Hideki shouted, apparently the heat once again was fueling his bravado.

“How about you take this one Mai. I think I've put him through enough suffering.” Aiko said this knowing full well Mai wouldn't let him off easy. Heck, she probably had something worse in mind than what he had to go through last time.

Mai tapped her chin, thinking and thinking. She could have him splash Sensei. That’d be fun. Mai was still recoiling from the last time she stole Takara’s book. But that was TOO much fun. They could keep this up for a while. This is the most fun she’d had in a while! Best to keep it going. Just something simple to mess with him would do. Still, she hoped she got a fun dare soon. Or she could master the water walking jutsu… Nah, this was fun!

“Truth! Who’s swimsuit is sexier?”

Mai posed. She didn’t care, but she knew Hideki did!

Aiko gagged, swinging her gaze to Mai with a shocked expression. She looked at Mai’s swimsuit, and then looked down to observe her own. She was wearing a sky blue two piece with small snowflakes all over it. She hadn't come here to show off, but for she was doing well for her age. Her face turned red, and she glared at Hideki. “Stare at anything other than my face and I'll stab you.”

“Oh, stare all ya want!”

One might imagine Hideki to turn into a stammering wreck, he was stuck between a rock and a hard place(HAH) right now, if he said Aiko, he’d die, if he said Mai she would never, ever, drop it. And would likely tell just about anybody she could, not that it’d be a bad thing, hell she was the safer option at this point…

HOWEVER!!

THEY ASKED FOR THE TRUTH!!!

AND BY GOD THEY WILL GET IT!!!

Hideki took in a deep breath, closing his eyes and centering himself before he began…

“First! I must speak upon the matter at hand. Your’s Mai is a cute article, a mixture of a sundress and swim suit so that you can wear it upon the beach and in the water at the same time without bothering with the hassle of having to put on the dress afterwards, it likely is made of a Hydrophobic material to keep it flowing as it is, showing expert quality in its making and design.

The design of the swimsuit itself is clearly accentuating your assets and providing a comfortable time wearing it, or... So it seems. You have been able to move in it quite handily since you’ve… well.. Let's forget about the headlock for now. Yours is good, but I shall reserve judgment after I speak about-.”

He took a moment to keep an eye on Aiko’s hands.

“Our other contestant.” he readied to dodge from the moment he opened his mouth. “Showing a great deal of modesty in her choice but functionality as well, the one piece shows she is ready for just about any water based activity or task that comes her way. The small snowflakes and blues accentuates her well, as her hair and piercing, and might I add lovely, blue eyes bring the whole ensemble together.

That said, the one piece does leave nothing to the imagination, leaves all to bear for the sake of functionality and speed when swimming. As such, Aiko is much more prepared than Mai in terms of swimming wear.”

Hideki scratched his chin and gave a small nod. “Indeed, some magnificent choices, you two, in your own way show your personality, strengths, and weaknesses in your choice of dress. But in the end, these are but clothing, the one that ties it all together… Is the one underneath! So I’m going to have to say the winner is…”

A faint drumroll could be heard in the distance as Hideki took his life into his own hands.

“...A tie!”

“Cop-out. What’s fun in truth or dare if ya don’t actually give an answer with feeling?”

“Ah fine, fine. In terms of sexiness Mai wins, Aiko has the more appealing one though.” The true answer wrangled out.

Aiko slid down in the springs, angry eyes glaring at Hideki. It wasn't the fact that he had chosen Mai that angered her, (It totally is.) it was the fact that he had described and observed her so vividly. It was touching, actually, but she still felt a bit violated.

She was fully submerged under the water before she quickly performed the water clone Jutsu. The clone quickly slipped out of the water and made an irritated face towards Hideki. “I'm going to get a drink.” The actual Aiko remained under the water, slowly approaching Hideki. She reached out, used her Ice Trap Jutsu, and placed it right beneath his exposed feet. It wouldn't last long, but it would be cold as hell.

“Fool me once.” The young man leapt from his spot towards the area Aiko had been standing. He reached underneath the waters, grasped the girl’s shoulder and pulled her up. “Aiko, you are not invisible underwater. That said, I also have one little thing to tell you.”

He leaned a bit closer to the young woman’s ear and spoke openly, for even Mai to hear.

“Dare, I choose dare… Mai? Any ideas?”



Mai smiled wildly and began laughing. She leaned in and whispered the dive to Aiko. Today was the best day. She got ammo against Hideki, was voted sexy, got to play in a dangerously hot spring, had Aiko wanting to kill Hideki, and got to choke Hideki. If only it was her being choked. Oh well, it was still going down in her journal as a good day.

Aiko stood stiff as a board. She was going to get herself killed if she did this dare. She started shaking and quickly wiped her brow. It wasn't the heat making her sweat. She mumbled something under her breath and shot one last angry look at Mai. “S-shouldn't be too difficult,” Aiko stuttered.

Taking a deep breath, Aiko did a full 180-degree turn, and launched a wave of hot spring water onto their lounging sensei, soaking her and her book. Aiko couldn't breathe as she began to slide down into the water.

Hideki stared at the two during these few moment… Surely Mai didn’t….

No…

She couldn’t have…

Mai shot a thumbs up from the water, floating around the spring.

“Care to explain yourselves?” Takara stood on the water’s surface behind them. Her voice all too calm despite being drenched.

Aiko tried to speak, but no words came out of her mouth. “I… Mai…”

Mai’s floating hand shot out the water grabbing Aiko’s. She quickly got up balancing herself.

“Come on, this is supposed to be training! What’s the ultimate truth or dare than running from Sensei? Fall in you die! ‘Sides, think I figured it out. First one to fall in gets replaced!”

Hideki, in the mere moments of watching Aiko do the deed, and hearing his sensei, wasted no time.

There was no time to waste, for his life at this very moment was on the line.

Fishing out of his shorts pocket he slammed a smoke bomb down upon a nearby stone, quickly filling the area with a white smoke, to match the steam flying about…

And then, he ran.

Mai flew like the wind, jumping between rocks, and jumping at another spring below.

“I got this or I die!”

As soon as she touched the water, she did ‘shadow strike’, a move similar to body flicker. It wasn’t quite walking on water like the jutsu called, but the force was enough to keep her above the surface as she ran.

“See ya home Aiko!”

So much happened at once, and Aiko barely reacted in time. Each of her teammates had gone in different directions, and she did the same. She leapt out of the springs by momentarily freezing the surface below her feet. In mid-air, five water clones appeared all around Aiko, each heading in opposite directions. All in unison, they yelled, “Please forgive me sensei!”

Takara quirked an eyebrow, watching the genin scatter. If anything, they’d learned when it was best to get the hell out of dodge. That said, she couldn’t let them just get away with it. Several clones stepped out from a crystalline mirror behind her.

Seems it’s time for a lesson in evasion and laying low.

As this all went down, the city would then begin to fall victim to a large manhunt for three genin who truly, truly pulled a very bad move. Well, one of them at least, the other actually did it, and the third is merely a victim.

Said victim is a smart young man, and he knows several hiding places throughout the city that could serve him for a time. However, he knew they would all be worthless in the end, save for one.

For in the corner of the hot springs, hiding under a rock with a small straw sticking out from the ground was Hideki, making good use of the technique he was taught none too long ago. And one that he learned from a fight with Mai earlier.

Sometimes the best place to hide is in plain sight.

Or at least, under the nearest rock, hoping to whatever god is watching, that he will not be found.

 

[KageYuuki]

Yukari Hyuuga: Squad 5

Yukari stifled a yawn as she rested her chin on her hand. Being a member of the Hyuuga clan, the heiress no less, meant she had access to some of the best tutors in the Land of Fire. Of course, it also meant some really boring lessons. This lesson, in particular, might not have been taught by some hired instructor, but it certainly made it no less boring.

This tutor, however, was a woman the heiress knew quite well and knew her much more than she could ever know herself. An older woman, a Hyuuga herself, sat before Yukari, giving her a lesson on the matters beyond the village’s borders. Decorum and politics, all that mattered little to her young charge, but she had to have the lesson done all the same.

“...And that covers- Yukari, have you been listening?” she asked, her white eyes eyeing the young woman. “You do know that the Chuunin exams will take you abroad, you must remain knowledgeable about the surrounding villages and their customs.” The old woman chided, knowing full well Yukari didn’t give the slightest bit of a rat’s ass about the lesson.

In truth, she didn’t either.

Maybe that's why Yukari had become so…

Well…

Herself.

“Why does it even matter?” Yukari looked up past a few rogue strands of her raven hair. “The exams are about our skills as shinobi - you know, actual combat and stuff - not how to properly tie some headscarf in Suna.” Sure, the young genin was nervous about the exams, but she’d rather be training than stuck inside listening to another lecture.

Right now she should have been learning more of the Gentle Fist’s techniques from her father, but he seemed oddly more busy than normal. Or at least more distracted.

“A proper balance must be kept, skill means little when you cannot function as you should in the world. You are a ninja in profession, but a noblewoman in person. Do not forget that my dear.” Chiding once again, she let out a small sigh.

“...We’re it so easy though... “ the old woman gazed wistfully out a nearby window. “You would not know how many times I’ve wanted to escape it all.”

Yukari shifted, casting a sideways glance at the mark that peered out under the woman’s bangs. It was to protect the secrets of their eyes according to the clan’s elders. But no matter how Yukari tried to look at it, it seemed to be more for reminding members of the Branch House of their lower station.

If it was really for protecting the secrets of their bloodline then the entire clan would have it. “I think I have an idea,”she murmured finally.

The nanny, who had looked over the young woman for so many years, looked towards the young lady. “What is this idea? Is it one that would get you yelled at again? I won't tell, you know I don’t.” the old women smiled warmly, knowing the young woman, the answer was yes, it was an idea she’d get yelled at for.

“When am I not getting yelled at by those stuck-up old farts?” Yukari muttered, rolling her eyes. “This whole clan’s idea of traditions needs to be turned on its head. I know I'm not the only one that thinks that.” Even if those that would agree were branch members.

“Those who tend to be in the privileged part of an unfair deal, tend to view it fairly.” the old woman nodded. “Tradition blinds as much as it keeps. The question why is replaced with vague stories or simply stated ‘That's how it’s always been.’” the old woman shook her head before flashing a smile to the young woman.

“Now, let's go to a brighter topic… how has your training been going? I’ve heard you have been impressing your sensei.” She tried to bring the conversation to something a bit nicer than the doom and gloom of the family duties…

“I can’t say I've met this sensei of yours though, what's he like? Oh! Is he.. Interesting?” The old woman winked, not many knew of Yukari’s… interests.. “I will say I saw some handsome young men in the village this week, My word weren’t they some fine pieces of… “ she trailed off, to wipe the slightest bit of spit from her lip.

And to let Yukari speak.

Yukari snorted, “Interesting is definitely a good way to describe him.” Her gaze shifted around the room as she tried to think of how to explain it. “He’s definitely… out there, to say the least. Might be from dealing with demons on a frequent basis, I don’t know.”She shrugged, not really thinking about how others might react to the nature of most of Squad 5’s missions. “I don’t even think the other jounin know what to make of Koma-Sensei.”

Slightly disappointed the old woman deflated a tad. “..Ah… that's no fun at all. Would rather hear if he was a hunk but… If that's the case…” she scrunched up her face a tad, sounding slight unsure of what to think. “Oh! Yes, I had nearly forgotten, I stopped by that new shop in town, everybody is talking about it. It has these cute little nicknacks, though the receptionist certainly has an attitude… “ she frowned slightly before getting back to the topic.

“But I bought this lovely little tea pot from the store, it was on sale too!” the older woman laughed in her victory, it really was a nice teapot.

Yukari shifted slightly, “Is that so…?” After the events of her last mission, old teapots were about the last thing she wanted to think about. If anything, she kinda wanted to smash it on sight.

A light knock sounded at the door before it slid open. A small, timid looking young man peered inside. “Lady Yukari?” He spoke in a low voice, “I was asked to come get you for dinner.”

The genin glanced out the window, was it that late already? “Alright, I’ll be over in a minute.”

“Your parents wanted you without delay, they say they have great news for you. Your mother was particularly happy.”

Yukari tilted her head, but nodded and stepped outside. The small stream running through their garden and a few songbirds were the only sounds in the warm night air. Despite trying to ignore it, the question on what this news could possibly be nagged at the back of her mind.

It wasn’t long before she stepped into the dining room and offered a nod to her parents.

Her mother turned, clapping her hands together as her father watched behind her.

“Yukari, I have wonderful news. Well, your father and I. You know how you always hate being the heir, and those ugly fights of yours about it. Well… That might not be a problem. The test came back positive, I’m pregnant.”

Her father behind didn’t say a word, but rather just nodded along with his wife. The entire time he stared directly at Yukari.

“I mean, I don’t want to say anything prematurely, but I don’t think you have worry about heir problems for too much longer.”

Yukari blinked, “Y-you’re what?” She felt as if time around her had stopped as she tried to process the information that had just been dropped on her. Sure, she wasn’t exactly a fan of being the heir to the Hyuuga Clan. But suddenly having a potential replacement made her rocky relationship with the clan elders far more precarious.

“That’s- um…” She tried to force a smile, to not show any of the welling panic. “That’s great.”

“Oh honey, don’t worry, we will still give you just as much attention as before. I know, having a sibling can be scary, but this is great for everyone.”

The husband nodded. “Don’t think you can neglect your tutoring. The clan might still need you after all, and the clan always comes first. Don’t think you can goof off like the Tales of Genji. You are still a Hyuuga, whether or not you are an heir. The elders are still… worried about the reputation of our doujutsu after your last trip to the hot springs… and locker room. Still, this is a huge relief..”

Yukari had to force herself to not clench her fists. Anything she wanted to say seemed to die in her throat. She wasn’t sure what she was more furious at; her mother’s obliviousness to what it really meant for her, or her father’s clear relief at potentially no longer having to deal with a failure for an heir.

“I’m sure it is,” She said finally.

 

[Ganryu]

Mai and Kiyoshi

Mai rushed to the training field, sprinting like her life depended on it. She’d heard this new one had been made recently, and she was going to claim it if it killed her! Afterall, someone had spread rumors of it being the best. If Mai was going to be the clan head, she had to get used to the finer things life…. Like a training field where all the dummies weren’t cut to ribbons, on fire, or punched into the lake. Not like she’d done any of those… recently. Or a field that wasn’t teeming with fields. The rumors had made this hard to find, but she’d tracked it down yesterday.

Leaping over a fence she made her way into the clearing. It was everything she could hope for.

“Yes! This is beautiful! I claim this field in the name of the Sanada! Only the strongest should have something like this! Now to start some fire so people don’t question it!”

A large fireball shot into the field, making a large blast heard around the area.

“HEY!”

It was shrill and it was loud, it was apparent someone else had heard about the new training field. That someone didn’t seem too happy either.

Kiyoshi, like normal, had been training only hours before coming to the field. What drove him to the field was the promise a new landscape, somewhere he didn’t scorch the earth yet. It was a nice little notion that Kiyoshi would be able to train somewhere that wasn’t tarnished yet. But this girl had to go and do the one thing that would undoubtedly ruin it.

“What makes you think you can claim this field? If you’re part of a clan and they’re the strongest or whatever, shouldn’t you have your own training field?!” Kiyoshi yelled over to the girl from the opposite side of the field.

He jogged into the middle of the opening where the fireball had hit. “Go get yourself somewhere else to practice!”

“Make me!”

Mai cracked her knuckles.

“It’s the right of the strong to rule, you think you can stop me from practicing here, you’ll have to throw me out yourself! It’s going to look something like this!”

Mai ran straight Kiyoshi with a simple haymaker.

“What do you call that? Cause it seemed weak!”, Kiyoshi mocked the girl as he moved out of the girl’s path.

He landed a few inches away from the girl and sized her up. His eyes began to squint skeptically.

“I almost don’t want to hit, partially because you’re a girl. And I admittedly have manners.”

That was a lie.

Kiyoshi turned his attention away from the girl once more, he deemed her not important enough for his time.

Shadow Strike

As Kiyoshi turned away, Mai almost seemed to appear right next to him in a flash, leading into her punch straight at his jaw. It was the same haymaker she’d been threatening at the start.

“How’s this for manners, screw you.”

Mai would jump away after that strike, proving her point. If he was going to call her weak, he deserved a punch to the jaw. Mai was obviously a kunoichi, what, was he never going to punch an enemy ninja? Maybe it was she was too sexy.

“So, do I get to claim the field yet?”

Kiyoshi flew onto his back, his right hand coming up to his jaw and rubbing it a bit. He sat up on his elbows and rethought his decision not to hit the girl.

When he stood up he let go of his jaw and steeled his gaze on the girl. It was like a tunnel vision. She was now his target and he wouldn’t give up on pummeling her.

“It’s going to take a lot more than a sucker punch to beat me!”

The blond closed the distance between them and began to strike in rapid succession.

“How’s it a sucker punch when I told you what I was going to do? Imma kick the crap out of you. This is my training field!”

Mai counter attacked, not bothering to defend herself, focusing entirely on a roundhouse kick to his shoulder.

Leaf Whirlwind

Kiyoshi pushed the girl to do what he had hoped. He watched her wind up the kick before he ducked the attack.

His body dipped in response to her attack and his her leg soared through the air, Kiyoshi slipped behind the girl and hooked his arms around her waist. He clasped his hands together and lifted her frame.

“ULTRA-MEGA-AWESOME KIYOSHI KILLER SMASH!” Kiyoshi yelled violently as he dropped her body in a suplex.

“Hope you’re not ready to tap out!” The boy said to her after he rolled out of the grapple.

Mai reached behind her, grabbing her wheels as she was lifted. This boy was fast! This was fun.

“Whoo!”

As he slammed in her into the ground, she held her hands firm as she dropped, sinking the wheels into the ground, and giving her and anchor as her body curled up on impact. She pushed into the wheels, and then sprung back, doing a spear kick right back at the boy following the suplex. She cried out as she kicked back at him, aiming at his back as he came back up.

“That name is awesome!”

Sure they were fighting bitterly over the field, but didn’t mean she could just ignore a good name when she saw it. This boy was fast, almost as fast as her (totally was equal speed, but Mai wouldn’t admit that).

“Mai Sanada, you?”

Kiyoshi only had a second to react when he caught the glimpse of a girl shooting herself at him. He dropped his body back to the floor and let her fly over him.

“I’m Kiyoshi Ao.”

He replied, pleasantly impressed with the girl’s reaction time. It was his first fight where someone almost matched him entirely (totally matched him but he wouldn’t admit it either).

While Mai soared over him, he reached upwards and caught the hem of her clothes in an attempt to stop her.

Mai stopped short as she was grabbed with a squeak. This guy was fun! She put her hands together as he grabbed her. Kiyoshi, that name was going to be one she remembered! Still, if someone kept up with her, she needed more training, she wasn’t training hard enough. It was a tight squeeze as her clothes constricted to the grab.

“...Harder.”

“WHAT?!”

Kiyoshi fiercely screamed and let go of her clothes and rolled away from her. When he stood his face was redder than a tomato.

“Y-You can’t be saying that when we’re fighting. That’s not… fair?”

The poor boy was at a lost for words. She was an interesting case and after witnessing what he just witnessed he slowly grew shy and reserved in her presence.

It was a surprising feat.

“What? It felt good? ‘Sides, we’re fighting, all’s fair in love and war. They’re basically the same thing.”

Mai stood up, having fallen when he let go. Her hands kept moving from eachother.

“Well, this was fun, bye Kiyoshi!”

She finished the handsigns.

Fire Release: Great Fireball Jutsu

It probably wasn’t fatal… probably.

“Bye?”

Kiyoshi’s eyes widened as his hands began weaving the six signs needed for his most powerful jutsu.

Now he knew that he wouldn’t be able to properly dodge the fireball, so he met the flames with his own.

Fire Release: Phoenix Sage Fire

The volley of smaller fireballs would be in close enough proximity to almost entirely hit the one massive fireball coming his way. Thankfully, the age old ‘fighting fire with fire’ trope worked.

Mai turned at the bursting of her fireball. This guy was fun! Just when she thought it was over, time for round two.

“Wow! Nice counter! Man, this is fun! We’re doing this again, right? What were we fighting for anyways? Eh, doesn’t matter. Let’s end this in the next punch!”

Mai cracked her knuckles again. She seemed dissatisfied as they didn’t pop as she’d already popped them earlier. She shrug and got into stance for the next blow.

“You got any special taijutsu techs? I like to call this one Shadow Strike. Its one I’ve been working on for years! It’s a nice kinda punch. What’cha got yaself?”

Mai began to slowly walk up to Kiyoshi. Her entire focus was on him. He was serious enough she had to. She loved the feeling. Time slowed down. She could feel every heartbeat in her chest. Every breath rocked her body. Every single action was accentuated. This was what it meant to feel alive!

Kiyoshi rolled the shoulder of his good arm. He looked the girl up and down once more before he readied himself.

“I don’t got any special moves, I sort of name them on the spot. I’m calling this next one the Uber Mach Speed Knockout.”

It was another one of his incredulous names that he took pride in making. But it was obvious that he was taking all of this seriously.

“You know, you aren’t half bad. I wouldn’t mind using you as a punching bag sometime soon. We should keep in touch.”

Kiyoshi lowered his body into a stance, his right leg back and his right fist ready at his side.

The two would inch closer and closer to each other, waiting for a single movement. Mai moved first. When Kiyoshi was juuuust out of reach, she flickered. For a second it looked like her body faded to shadow, then she was right infront of him, letting out a fierce battlecry as she punched, aiming for a hook straight to his stomache. Afterall, she’d hate to break anything. This was the time of the life. Despite her technique, Shadow Strike, being dizzingly fast to even her, it still seemed like time had stopped around her. Shadow Strike just took the tension built up in the legs with Leaf Rising Wind, and combined it with Body Flicker to make one hell of a hook.

It was good punch, no a great punch. Kiyoshi felt his stomach become inflamed with pain, definitely not most painful, but painful nonetheless. That didn’t stop the boy from sucking up the attack and throwing a hook of his own. It happened in an instant but it seemed like slow motion: Mai had appeared before him, her fist driving into his abdomen, but right when she appeared, Kiyoshi had already anticipated her arrival. His hand came ferociously from his side and planted itself firmly on her left side. Right where her kidney would be.

“Good sho–” Kiyoshi barely managed to squeeze the words out before his consciousness faded, sprawling out onto the grass. She packed one hell of a punch.

Mai laughed like mad as she got up from the punch. Her adrenaline was so high she wasn’t feeling anything but the thrill. Did that mean she won? Didn’t feel a th- why was everything black?

A few moments later, Mai lazily opened her eyes. She looked over to Kiyoshi.

“That was fun! We gotta fight like that again.”

“Yeah! You’re stronger than you look, but don’t think I just throw compliments around!” Kiyoshi was still laid out on the field, he was content with the battle. He was content with this new friend.

“That was the first time anyone’s really kept up with me... or at least tried to,”

Kiyoshi poked at her. He began sitting up, lightly holding his side.

“Yeah, maybe next time I won’t hold back.”

“Maybe I won’t either.”

“Good. Next time, I’m going to make a SUUUPER punch. It’ll have fire and everything! I’d like to see you keep up with that. I bet it’ll punch straight through a tree. I mean, doesn’t look like you’ve ever made a jutsu.”

“No but it looks like you’re good at stealing ideas. I had that idea ages ago! It was gonna be called the Boom Fist!”

“Pfff. Hell Impact. That’s what mine is, it’s totally different. It’ll be, ya know, cool, and that’s the real difference!.”

“Yeah right! Hell Impact? I could think of a name ten times better… How about uhhh… Napalm Punch!”

“How about, I don’t gotta change mine cause it’s already cool. Alright. You said you don’t have it working, ‘you WERE going to call it’ BoomFist. I bet you 200 Ryo I can make Hell Impact first.”

“You’re on.”

Mai laughed madly in response, before coughing blood everywhere. She would later be informed it was called ‘internal bleeding’.

 

[Ganryu]

Umichi Kamimizu

Umichi sat at the training ground #1, under a familiar elephant ear plant. The little pep talk with her sensei had helped her immensely. This had been where they had started off, and it hadn't been that bad. Maybe it was symbolic to try again. Granted, with one different teammate. Shikakazu wasn't. Still, she'd been entrusted with a new genin despite how terrible the last mission had gone. It HAD been an A-ranked mission afterall, just misranked. Those probably killed more ninja than anything else.

Umichi opened up a file and started reading.

"Itsuki Kaida... interesting. Hope this one's different than the other two. Heh, comes from Koma, looks like he's housebroken then. Koma is one strange man."

Koma was a jonin that NOBODY knew how to deal with, Umichi included. She had no idea how old he was or when he came from. She did know he was good for a religious debate. He was still wrong on a few things, but they were mostly fun discussions. Still, anyone who had been one of his genin for any amount of time would likely have some fear of... the supernatural.

Umichi fanned herself with her remaining fan.

"Well, newcomers aside, I should probably figure out the training today. I promised them no 'lazy' training today. Told them I would go until they collapsed. Hmph, what they get for calling me lazy sensei. Oh... I got it... I totally got it."

Umichi pulled out a sake jar, and pulled the water out of it, playing with it in the air, making a small dragon circle around her as she waited for her genin to show up for training. Pulling two more jars off her side, she make three dragons dance.

"Suijin totally has green hair. "

yoshua171 Spemout Retro-Grey

 

[Spemout]

Kaida- Now In Squad 3

Kaida was rereading the letter she had been given not that long ago, still fairly surprised.
"Due to some recent adminstration issues, untimely demise and/or drop outs there has been a need to exchange students between the teachers available. As such you will be transferred to another teacher, one named Umichi, she's an lovely friend of mine whom I have a long standing friendship with. She will take good care of you so long as you give her the proper respect, or at least some presents whenever possible. Once you meet her, you must pass along the secret code, this will let her know of the situation at hand.

The code is, "The water dragon's hair is yellow."

She will henceforth be your guide, your friend and your ally. I wish you luck, and good hunting.

PS: Bring a towel to training.
PPS: And to missions."

Kaida was rereading the codeover and over again, thinking one thing in particular:
'I get the distinct feeling that this code is going to piss her off for whatever reason.'

As Kaida walked, she thought about what she was taught by her, quite frankly, crazy bastard of a sensei.

After a short while, she reached training ground one, the letter held in her left hand. And she was simply watching her new sensei control three water dragons at once. After simply staring for a moment, she walked towards the woman until she was about two feet away and bowed low.

"Kamimizu-sensei, I am Itsuki Kaida. I received a letter telling me that I am to transfer to your squad and to give you a code to inform you of the situation."

She rose from her bow only to sigh.

"Yet knowing my sensei he's probably the one who made the code, and its likely a phrase that would make you angry, so please try to not get angry when I say it if that is the case."

She took a breath in, then out, then spoke.

"The water dragon's hair is yellow."

Ganryu yoshua171 Retro-Grey

 

[InsaneAsylum]

Aiko Uchiha​

"Look at your katana again. Now, picture that in your mind as you create the ice sword," Aiko's father explained, sitting in his favorite lawn chair. He held a glass of lemonade in his left hand. "Don't worry about the fine details when you use this jutsu."

Aiko nodded, taking her father's explanation to heart. She sat cross legged, with her katana on the ground in front of her. Slowly but surely, a replica of the katana was being created in her lap, starting with the handle. After about ten seconds, the katana was fully formed. Aiko grabbed the handle and stood up, giving it a few swings. "The balance could be better," Aiko commented.

"You have to focus your chakra into the blade the way you want as well. You see, this time you just tossed chakra in as you made the blade without any thought. Now that you've gotten proficient at creating the blade, you have to properly focus the chakra into the places you want to be stronger." Aiko's father explained before holding out his right hand. In an instant, an ice sword appeared in his hand. "You'll also have to be able to make them faster to actually use it in combat." The sword then disappeared into a puff of frost, blown away by the wind.

"Sounds easy enough." Aiko also let her ice sword turn into a puff of frost. She then stood in one of her kenjutsu stances, as if she was holding a blade. It only took three seconds for the katana to form this time. A drastic improvement in only one attempt. "It feels about the same as my katana this time. I think I've gotten the hang of it."

With surprise written all over his face Aiko's father couldn't believe his daughter had learned this jutsu in only two days. It had to be that Uchiha blood. "I'm glad your catching on quickly. Keep practicing so it becomes natural. Eventually you'll be able to make different kinds of weapons if you so choose." He stood up slowly, and grunted. He then reached out to grab the air, and a naginata made of ice instantly formed in his hand. "You might not know this, but I was pretty handy with this kinda weapon back in my day." He gave it a few swings, did a few flashy moves that didn't involve his legs before he let the naginata dissipate into snowflakes.

"Yea that's cool and all. You can go limp back into the house or something. You've helped me enough for today. I'll be out here." Aiko was thankful her father was a master of ice ninjutsu. As far as she knew, no one else in the Hidden Leaf used ice ninjutsu. In the hours that followed, Aiko became capable of forming an ice sword in two seconds out of the air.

"Alright, I'll leave you alone to practice. When I come back out we're going to spar. I need to make sure your Uchiha teachers are keeping your kenjutsu up to par." Aiko's father slowly headed back into their home, shutting the door behind him, leaving his daughter to continue practicing. She was really something special. Her mother would be proud. "She's got your attitude you know..." he whispered.

 

[KageYuuki]

Yuuki Uchiha: Squad 4
Aiko Uchiha: Squad 6
Hideki Ukita: Squad 6
“You all might be wondering why I gathered you all here today in front of this building.” Hideki addressed the two people he brought here not too long ago.

His good friend Yuuki, good friend and generally alright guy,

and Aiko, the ice queen.

All of them he brought together for one singular purpose.

To finally have some god damn fun!!

“Gonna be honest here guys we’ve been working hard as dogs, so, aside from visiting the hot springs to melt our sorrows away and remember the travesty of what happened last time.”He paused a brief moment before continuing. “Let's head inside and have some fun, eh? Grab dinner after, and then do what we want, sound good? Sounds good to me.”

The guy was selling it pretty hard.

Slowly nodding her head in agreement, Aiko looked to the front door of the arcade. “I've never been in a place like this before? Are they any fun?” It was true that Aiko had never been in an arcade, but the young genin rarely did anything one might consider ‘fun’. She didn't even know what an arcade was until today.

Yuuki shrugged, “Works for me.” He cast a sideways glance at Aiko, “Can be, yeah. There’s lots to do in here, heard they even got a few new games.” He couldn’t help but grin at the thought, there had been a lot of commotion over the new additions.

Now they could actually try them out.

“Alright then! Let's go on in! Don’tchyea worry Aiko, I’ll show ye all the tips and tricks, considering you're looking at the current grand champion at Air hockey.” the young man grinned, looking quite happy with himself. “I’m proud to say that I beat Yuuki every single time we play~!” he patted the guy on the back as he went inside.

“Yeah, yeah, rub it in why don’t you?”

“Come on!”

The inside of the building looked much more busy than the outside, machines lined the walls, some being flooded with people while others passed by in favor of others. There was many different things around, from Ping pong, the noted air hockey table Hideki so apparently was good at, whack-a mole, Darts for those who have a hand for such things.

And the newly added additions of Pong, Avalanche, and breakout, electronic video games everyone!

The future is here!

“Well well, how's it look Aiko? First impressions? Amazement? Shock?”

“Well, I uh… It's kind of overwhelming,” Aiko said as she walked up to one of the unoccupied machines. “Breakout? How do I play this one?” Aiko looked over her shoulder at Yuuki and Hideki. “What do the buttons do?” None of this looked easy, and all the buttons were kind of intimidating.

Hideki wandered over to her and looked at the machine. “Not.. quite sure… this is one of the new ones right? Guess we turn this thing to do something, Ah whatever I’ll check it out.” he took out a token and plopped it into the slot, then pressed the big button that said start.

The machine was simple to interact with, turn the dial to make the bar move to catch the dot, the dot would go up, break a block and ricochet around the place. “Huh, pretty simple, I guess. Kinda like pinball but less… Real.” he shrugged, still playing the game…

Almost.. Hypnotized by it…

So simple yet... It drew you in…

Focusing on nothing but the game…

Hideki shook his head, letting the dot go to the bottom as he stepped back. “..is this thing like a genjutsu box or something?”

“Erm…” Yuuki peered around the wooden cabinet, trying to look at it from as many angles as the short genin could. It was much bigger than the pachinko machines that lined the far wall, and aside from the brightly colored artwork adorning the sides, it didn’t seem like anything special. “I don’t… I don’t think so…” Not that he could really look to see if any chakra ran through it.

Aiko stepped forward. “A genjutsu box? This looks too simple to be something like that. Here, I'll destroy all the blocks and win.” With confidence and victory in mind, Aiko took her turn. As the little dot dropped down towards the bar, Aiko moved to intercept it. Unfortunately, the dot managed to fly right by the edge of the bar. She didn't even break one block.

“... I uh, didn't understand how to work the controls. I know how to now though. Just… one more chance.” Fortunately, she had another chance. The dot came at the bar again, and this time, Aiko managed to move the bar to the correct positioning. She grinned and moved the bar to deflect the ball once again. “Doesn't seem to be too difficult of a-” the bar missed the dot.

Yuuki laughed, “You were saying?”

“W-what else is there to play? This game isn't… uh… I don't like it.” Aiko let her gaze wander to the many different machines and games that were happening on the screens. There were so many, and all of the other people here seemed to be good at them…

Hideki flashed Yuuki a grin and a knowing glance. “You get used to it, how about we… Ah, there's something we- ah it’s taken. Hmm… then… Ah, darts! I actually played darts here a lot to practice throwing kunai and stuff, sure you can’t actually throw kunai, but darts are kinda like senbon.” the young man explained before he headed over that way.

“So, we each get three darts, and we toss them to certain points on the board to gain points, each go in turns, the one who has the highest wins the round. So? You wanna try? I’ve seen you sling those ice shuriken Aiko, think you can do as well with these?”

“W-well, of course I can! I've never missed a shot with my ice shuriken! You idiot.” Aiko paused for a moment, staring at the dart board. “You go first,” she said to Hideki. She didn't actually know how to throw these darts, but she knew Hideki was pretty good at throwing things. It never hurt to watch and learn. Of course, Aiko would never let him know that she didn't know how to throw the darts.

“Yuuki? Want in?”

“Yeah, sure. Green darts are mine,” Yuuki tossed Hideki a couple coins to chip in actually getting the game started. Not that there wasn’t a good reason the owner kept the actual darts locked up though.

“Alright, brown for me, blue for Aiko. Now then, watch and learn folks.” Hideki took a few paces away towards the line and rose up the dart… With careful planning, he tossed the darts in swift succession like one would throw senbon. He tsked regardless. “I got good, but still ain’t that great. Alright, who's next?”

“Guess me,” Yuuki shrugged, moving up to the line. Unlike Hideki, he threw the darts a little closer to kunai. But all three still hit the board.

Ten points behind Hideki however…

“Tch, you just got lucky is all…”

With the three darts in her hand, Aiko couldn't help but feel a little uneasy. Throwing them like shuriken wouldn't work at all, so she'd have to throw them like kunai or senbon. Unfortunately, Aiko was terrible with senbon, and never quite got the hang of kunai. She threw the first dart like a shuriken regardless, and as it flew, it spun in circles. The wrong end of the dart hit the edge of the board and fell to the ground. “...”

Yuuki snickered into his hand, the noise of the arcade easily masking it.

Aiko then threw the last two like kunai. They barely managed to stick into the edge of the board.“... Um…”

Hideki stared at the young woman before them, in truth, he did win. But he didn’t… feel like he won. Hell, how could anybody win in this situation? “...How are you able to throw ice shuriken so well if…” the young man started before clearing his throat. “W-well, regardless I’ve pulled ahead… So.. umm.. L-l-let's do something else alright?" he stammered slightly, hoping to whatever god was watching Aiko wasn’t going to start getting angry. It was a warm day outside, but not warm enough to keep the ice at bay.

“Uuhh... What else is…. Umm…” he stared at the rest of the place, unsure of where to go. And fully certain Aiko would be rather… cross… For some time.

Then again, when wasn’t she mad?

Suddenly, a shuriken made of ice struck the center of the dart board, before slowly melting away. “It's just about what you're used to using… Idiot…” Aiko quickly shuffled towards the air hockey table Hideki claimed to be so great at. “Didn't you say you were good at this Hideki? What is it?”

“You basically try to knock the puck into the other person’s goal,” Yuuki pointed to the slot. “Pretty easy, really.” He started to walk away, hands in his pockets. “I’m gonna go play pinball since this is only two players.”

Hideki flashed a glance towards Yuuki, little shit, thanks for the help buddy.

“Alright, I warn you I won't go easy on you okay?” he stated as he walked towards the air hockey table and slowly began to calculate his losses for winning and losing here.

He put the tokens into the table and walked to one of the ends, picking up the striker he rose it up. “The basic goal is, prevent the puck from going into your goal while trying to get it into your opponent's goal. This is a game of reflexes and aimed shots. Whenever you’re ready, we can start.” he pointed to the puck and striker on her side.

“To begin, hit the puck.” he readied himself to block... Or completely throw.. He wasn’t fully certain what to do at this point.

“Sounds like a game I might be good at!” Aiko was truly confident she could do well. Air hockey sounded like fun. Too bad they didn't have ice hockey. That’d be awesome.

“Hit the puck huh…” Aiko glanced up at Hideki’s goal. He had his striker in the way of it, so it wouldn't be easy to hit straight in. Perhaps she could make it ricochet off the edges of the table.

With a quick flick of the wrist, Aiko hit the puck off the right edge of the table, where it then headed towards Ukita’s goal. She prepared herself to hit the puck back if he blocked it.

Hideki thrusted the striker towards the puck blocking it and tossing it to the side, causing it to ricochet back and forth quickly towards Aiko. it was very easy to block, hell she only needed to stay still for it to block itself, not like she would score on her own goal right?

The puck was moving too fast. Aiko tried to move her striker to anticipate its movement, and block it, but she heard a clunking sound as the puck was knocked into her goal by her own striker. “... I see…” Aiko murmured, as she reached down to retrieve the puck. She placed it back on the table and prepared to hit it once more.

Hideki stared for a moment… She.. really just…. Well, it must’ve been just bad luck. Surely she couldn’t do it again. “Alright, whenever you are ready.” he motioned for her to start… Feeling slightly bad about this already.

Aiko hit the puck as hard as she could. It darted towards the right again, bouncing off the edge. It then slid right in front of Hideki’s goal. He didn't even have to hit it. The puck bounced off his side of the table, off the edge, and then back at Aiko. Aiko was ready this time. She nailed the puck again, sending it back the exact route it came. This process repeated itself about seven times before the puck finally found its way into Aiko’s goal. All without Hideki having to do anything.

Hideki, once again, simply was awestruck by how unlucky this young woman could be. Was.. this on purpose? Did she mean to show this to him? Was it a trick? COULD SHE REALLY BE THIS BAD!?

That's it, she has to score at least once.

She had to, or he’ll be kicked out of here for life by what she will do.

He knew it was coming, he could feel it in his bones.

“Err… Alright… Last one, all or nothing alright? Go ahead and strike the puck.” he motioned her to go and looked elsewhere for a bit “Huh, looks that guy is.. Uhh.. winning.” Hideki totally unpurposefully left his goal wide open as the striker was lifted up.

Surely she couldn’t mess this up, SURELY!!

Aiko’s eyes were ice cold. She wasn't upset. Not in the slightest. The striker in her hand had been coated with a thin layer of ice. She reached down to grab the puck, gripping it tightly. As she looked up at Hideki, she saw that his goal was wide open. It would be an easy goal. Surely. She set the puck down and gave it a good hit straight forward. Just as it passed the halfway point of the table, however, the puck snapped in two, and went in different directions, hitting Hideki’s side of the table on opposite sides of the goal. Aiko had frozen the puck by accident, and it broke after being hit. How unfortunate.

Aiko leaned against the table. Her hair hung over her eyes. The air that came out of the air hockey table began to feel cold. Really cold for that matter. The small holes that allowed air to flow through began to freeze over. A layer of ice began to spread across the entire hockey table.

“H-hey Aiko it’s cool, we can just... Play something else, or uhh… oh.. Boy…” Watching the air hockey table turn into an ice hockey one, the young man backed up and took a look around him as a very angry store owner came up to them.

“Look, man, I can explai-”


-Outside the arcade-


“AND STAY OUT!” shouted the angry owner as the two were thrown out onto the street. Hideki felt… Well.. horrible. A lifetime ban, from one of the only places in town to actually do most of anything. Guess he knew it was a money sink for him, figure this was one way to kick the habit…

Sighing he looked towards Aiko.

“..So… guess that's over…”

Aiko stared in defeat at the ground. “Sorry… I guess I'm not cut out for the arcade…” she was genuinely sorry and upset, but she'd be damned if she was going to cry.

Aiko took a deep breath. “Since we have some free time now, I was thinking we could go find sensei a replacement book for the one we… I ruined. I don't really know where to look through, so I wanted to ask you to help.” Aiko explained. She seemed to have put the arcade situation behind her.

Hideki flinched at the words.

Not cut out was one way of explaining it.

But what she said next surprised him, he didn’t even think about that. He guessed she did ruin the book…. But the only place he knew where that book was… was at that book store… “I… think I’ve heard of a place that sells it but…” Hideki trailed off, hiding his blush a bit.

“Only really in rumor, place is kinda... Shifty…”

“Shifty? What does that matter? We’re ninja! Some weird book store can't stop us! Let's hurry up and go before Mai finds us!” Aiko was ready to succeed in something. If it was some as simple as buying a book, Aiko didn't care. As long as she got the job done and made sensei happy.

"Right… follow me and we don’t talk about what we find there alright?” Hideki put his hands into his pocket and lead the way, he knew the path… there was little hiding that part. “Mai never learns of this, we don’t speak of it, and we bind sensei to silence on the matter.” the young man continued as they walked, it was a short walk away... But one that will be filled with a great deal of thoughts running through Hideki’s head.

Most of them telling him to run.

But now... Now he had to get Aiko her one win today. No matter what happened, he needed her to get this book. And deliver it to sensei…

It didn’t take long for them to get to the store, it looked like a regular store, lots of books lining the shelves and none looking that… out of place, as it were. Hideki stepped inside, catching the eye of the shopkeeper, who’s eyebrow rose at the sight of Aiko.

“We don’t often have customers bring their girlfriends in with them. What can I help you with?” the elderly woman asked in the blunt and straightforward way old women who’ve seen the worst a city could give walk through her storefront could say.

Aiko could barely stifle her laugh. She glanced at Hideki with her hand over her mouth as a soft chuckle escaped. “Just looking to get something for someone,” she said to the old woman. Aiko walked through the store, looking over all of the books, novels, and even graphic novels that were available. They had some… interesting titles, but Aiko was only looking for the one Takara had been reading. She didn't know what it was called, but she distinctly recalled how it looked.

As she searched, Aiko saw a novel called, An Icy Affair. It piqued her interest, of course, having to do with ice. Aiko picked up the novel and flipped to a random page in the book. Whatever she expected the book to be about, it was the exact opposite. However, her eyes never left the pages as she continued to read. Her cheeks turned red and her eyes were wide. Her mouth even hung open in shock.

Hideki had followed Aiko through the store for a bit before he was slightly side tracked by noticing another book of a series he had been reading was in stock! He would finally figure out what happened after the cliffhanger ending of the last book! Would Mimi-Chan accept the proclamation of love? Or would she marry the foreign prince? He had to get this.

“Uhh.. give me a sec I gotta go do something for a second.” Hideki quickly sequestered the book away and went to buy it while Aiko was busy looking at some book or another. He wasn’t looking really hard, but she seemed rather engrossed in the book. Maybe she found something she liked?

Aiko hastily put the book back on its rack. She took a few deep breaths to regain her composure. She could always return later. But now, it was time to get back to business. She looked at the wall behind her and saw it. The book sensei had been reading. Apparently, it was called, Adventures of the Lusty ANBU Squad, part 3. Aiko rubbed her forehead. “Sensei was reading something like this? What a weirdo…”

Aiko took the book off the shelf and headed to the counter to buy it. She set it on the counter and retrieved the proper amount of money. “J-just this … please…” Aiko murmured. To think that she'd be buying a book like this. It was for her sensei, and to right her wrongs though. The awkwardness was worth the reward.

The older woman nodded. “Hmm… yes, this is a good one… You have quite the eye for a young lady… You two play nice, and don’t get into too much trouble hmm?” a wolfish grin appeared on the old woman’s face when she did the transaction, fully able to tell just how the young lady felt. “Oh don’t worry, it’s only this hard the first time.” she cackled like a witch as she pushed the book forwards.

Hideki sheepishly stood near the door. “....let's go, Aiko, we gotta hurry.”

Aiko nodded and hurried to the door. On the way, she spotted a book called, The Valiant Senju. She scoffed and kept on moving. “Alright, now we gotta go find sensei!”

Takara quietly hummed as she looked through the numerous vegetables out on the shelves, blasted song had been stuck in her head for three days now. Wonder what those three are even up to on their day off? Well, perhaps two was a better term. Seeing as Mai had ended up in the hospital once again.

“Oi! Sensei!” Hideki called to the woman, just spotting her in the middle of the supermarket. “We’ve been looking for you.” he walked closer before looking for Aiko to start handing over the book. They went through enough trouble as is getting it, may as well get it done…

Aiko held the book out towards sensei. “Since we… I ruined your book, I thought it’d be a good idea to replace it for you,” Aiko explained. She had a smile on her face, knowing she had done a good deed.

Takara blinked, reaching out and taking the book. “Oh, well thank you, you two.” She smiled, stowing the book away for later. “This wasn’t how you guys spent your day off, was it?”

“We did have something else…” Hideki took a glance at Aiko. “But it didn’t work out. Yuuki is still probably at the Arcade to.. Hmm… Well, I guess there's nothing left but getting food.”

“Food huh? I usually eat at home, so I don't know many good places…” Aiko paused. Her eyes lit up like she remembered something. “Actually! I do know a place! It had cooked sea creatures straight from the Land of Water!” Aiko exclaimed, grinning slightly. “We should bring Yuuki too. Is he still at the arcade?”

Hideki shrugged. “Sure… Wait, we can’t go inside… owner kinda... Doesn’t want us in there anymore.” he seemed quite unhappy about that fact. “... We can meet up with Yuuki later. Umm.. hey Sensei, wanna go with us to that sea food place?”

“Well, I can if you want me to.”

“Alright! Let's get moving then!” Aiko commanded as she turned on her heel. She was happy to show Sensei and Hideki her favorite restaurant. Hopefully, they would like it. The restaurant had some interesting food options.

The way to the restaurant wasn't very long, but it involves going down a dim and dirty back alley. The sea food restaurant was more of a seafood stand. There were five tall stools to sit on, with a cloth overhand propped up by tall wooden posts. A small sign sat atop the stand that read: “Aisu’s Exotic Fish and Seafood.” The man on the other side of the stand had on a fisherman’s hat and sported a short stubble of a beard. He had dark brown skin and piercing blue eyes. The man’s eyes lit up as he saw Aiko approach.

““AIKO! Y-you actually came to visit me? You even brought your friends too!” Tears started to flow from the man’s eyes. “Come sit down. Let your father serve you and your friends up something tasty!” He snapped his fingers, lighting a fire beneath a large metal pot that sat on the far side of the counter. A menu with all the available food choices was propped up for everyone to see.

Aiko took the middle seat and grumbled something under her breath. Her attitude took a sharp turn. “Yea yea, I'll eat something if you stop acting like an idiot.” She was hoping her father wouldn't embarrass her so much, but it was inevitable with him. He was one hell of a cook though.

Hideki looked up at the rather interesting man who introduced himself as Aiko’s dad. “Eh? Aiko’s dad? Hey! I’m Hideki, she spoke pretty highly of this place on the way.” Hideki smirked before taking up a seat. “Oh, shellfish? Been a long time since I’ve had those, can I get an order of the oysters?”

“Oysters? No problem!" He quickly began preparing the oysters, but as he did, he turned and grinned at Hideki. “Aiko never told me she was friends with such a handsome young man like yourself! I hope she isn't too aggressive!” He cackled and almost fell over. ““She always said she was gonna marry lots of boys when she was young-”

“How about you focus on preparing those oysters, alright?” Aiko interrupted. Her fists were clenched very tightly. “I'll have a razorscale fish…”

Her father chuckled.“Aw if you say so. I'll stop embarrassing you.” He turned to Takara. “Now how about you, milady? I'm glad that my daughter is having a… womanly influence in her life.” He was trying to flirt. Or something. He scooped the prepared oysters for Hideki onto a plate and scattered them evenly. He then sprinkled a spice on them for a little extra flavor. ““Here you go young man,” he said as he passed him the oysters.

He then got to work on the razor scale fish, which was a purple fish a bit longer than his hand that had razor sharp spikes jutting out from each scale.

Hideki slowly turned his head to give Aiko a rather devious looking grin. “Marry lots of boys huh? Anything else I gotta know? There has to be tons of stories to tell right?" he asked, trying to bait some out of the man just to cause Aiko all the more embarrassment.

Dinner, and a show.

Though the oysters were pretty damn good too.

Takara chuckled, “Is that so?” Violet hues glanced at the menu, “Mmm, grilled squid, if you would.”

Aiko propped her head up with her hand as she leaned on the counter. Her hand covered her face as she tried to hide from the imminent disaster that was about to occur. Hideki must have it out for her.

“Grilled Squid! That’s my specialty dish, I'll have to know,” he said as he began cutting up the razorfish. “I have a million stories to tell about Aiko! One time, just after she started at the academy, I took her fishing. I told her that we had to jump into the lake to catch the fish! She jumped right in!” He burst into laughter, putting his hand onto the fire. ““AGH!” He squealed as he shook his hand around.

“Serves you right,” Aiko commented.

“There's no need to be cruel hun, here's your razorfish.” He passed Aiko her food and got to work on the squid. He started by reaching into a barrel and pulling out a live squid. ““So, what might your name be?” He asked Takara as he pinned the squid to the counter with his left hand. “I'm sure it's something beautiful, like your eyes.” As he said this, he was killing a squid right in front of all of them. The creature had a knife stuck in it now. Right between the eyes.

The Jounin seemed unfazed by him carrying on a conversation while working. Granted, you do see a lot in her line of work. She quietly chuckled at both the story and singed hand. “I’m Takara Himura, Squad 6’s Jounin instructor.”

“Pfft.” Hideki spat, stifling his laughter at the thought of Aiko taking a head first dunk in the water. “Hey Aiko, looks like they're getting along huh?” Hideki elbowed his squad member motioning to the two adults in the room.

Aiko rolled her eyes. “He's hopeless. Every woman he meets, he always tries to flirt with them and get in their pants. He hasn't been successful in years.” She took a bite of the razorfish and let off a satisfied breath after she finished chewing. Delicious.

““So you're the crystal ninja! Aiko talks about you a lot.” While the squid was grilling, Aiko’s father sprinkled different spices and poured different liquids onto the squid. This was before he began to cut it. He sliced with quick motions, making clean and even squid strips. He then began adding the second round of spice. “You know, my daughter failed to mention how beautiful you are. What are doing later?” A cheesy smile was plastered on his face.

“I’m on call for a mission tonight, sorry,” Takara offered a polite smile. While it was unlikely she’d actually get called out with the other Jounin, she did have a book that needed finishing.

“Swing and a miss..” Hideki spoke under his breath, he began to wonder what would’ve happened if he didn't invite Takara along, would he have imagined he was on a date with Aiko. Crap, that would’ve been so damn hilarious…

...Where did his oysters go?

Did he finish them already?

Huh, guess they were pretty good then.

Aiko couldn't help but giggle as her father’s advances were rejected by Takara. It wasn't the first time it had happened to him, and it surely wouldn't be the last. She was about halfway done with her fish.

Surprisingly, Aiko’s father was shocked at the denial. He nearly put his hand on the grill, but he had been through this so many times he was able to stop himself in time. He swiped all of the squid slices on a plate and slid them to Takara. ““Oh well. Maybe some other time then…” he said with a dejected look on his face. He began to put some of his cooking supplies into a tub of water that sat hidden behind the counter.“ “It's starting to get late. You kids should be getting home soon.” His sights shifted back to Takara. “Your sensei can stay and talk with me all she wants though.”

Aiko nodded, having finished her fish. “Good idea. Bye Hideki, it was a fun day today. Bye sensei, hope you enjoy your book.” With that, Aiko started walking off towards her home, leaving her father without any parting words or thanks for the food.

Hideki watched Aiko leave and shrugged. “Alright, I’ll see you- And she’s gone… Well, I’ll see you later Sensei, I’m gonna head home. Enjoy the book.” he got up and walked to the counter, paid for his meal and left, not wanting to see Aiko’s father try anymore puppy dog eyes at Takara.

Meanwhile…

Yuuki grumbled as he paced around the arcade one last time. “Where the hell did they go?” Had they seriously bailed on him?

….

Or was that the plan all along? Use him to get a date...

“Dammit, Hideki.”

 

[Ganryu]

Mai Sanada && Takara Himura​

Mai muttered as she made her way to the training field.

“Ah, come on, all this training is getting in the way of my training. Hehe. Think I finally nailed Hell Impact though. Eat that Kiyoshi. 200 Ryo all for me! Had to read books for it though, sucked. Oh well. Oh, hi sensei!”

Mai waved as she spotted her sensei, suddenly snapping out of her own little world.

“What we practicing today? I got something I wanna finish afterwards, so if we can make this quick.”

Takara’s hand was tucked in her pocket, a book held in her other. She only briefly glanced up from the pages. “Oh? And what is it you’re working on?”

“Well, made a bet with a guy I sparred with I could make an exploding strike before he could. I call it Hell Impact. Not sure how ready it is, think I got the jutsu working. The sparring was great. I got internal bleeding! Mom wasn’t happy to heal that, but, eh, was fun.”

Mai cracked her neck, and the began stretching. She wasn’t sure why, Takara never gave her a fun spar like that. It was things like ‘focus’, or ‘teamwork’, or genjutsu training. Eh, whatever, sooner Mai could get this over with.

Takara sighed, closing her book and stowing it away. “Taijutsu isn’t the only thing you should be focusing on, Mai. Though if you feel you have this technique of your figured out, why don’t you show me?” With that the jounin dissolved into crystalline dust, “Try it on me.”

Mai’s eyes lit up. She got to try it out? And ON sensei!? Life was great! She started a series of handsigns.

“No, no it isn’t! I had to actually read ninjutsu get this one.”

Mai held out her hands infront of her, forming a square. A burst of flame shot out, before rapidly dying. It flickered back to life a few times, Mai having an unusual look of concentration on her face as she tried a few more times. Suddenly she noticed something.

“Wait a second….Where is sensei?”

The lack of concentration caused the flame infront of her to flicker into existence before suddenly exploding, throwing Mai back.

Peeling herself off a tree, Mai looked around. She brushed it off, like she’d tripped or something.

“How can I try it on you when you dissolve to dust?”

“Hm?” Takara reappeared, leaning against a nearby tree. “I never said it was going to be a free hit.” She smirked slightly, “After all, where’s the fun in that?”

“Though I can’t help but wonder,” A second Takara stepped out from among the trees.

“How much have you actually been paying attention to my lessons?” Said a third.

“If you wanna hit me,” the first spoke up again, “You’ll have to work for it.”

Mai groaned.

“I just wanna be the strongest fighter so I can become clan head….Well, guess gotta work for it. You had some lessons about something something something, dispelling genjutsu. Screw that, I have another idea!”

Mai did a series of handsigns, and five Mai’s poofed into being.

“You are only messing with my perception of you, right? Just gotta get perception of something else! And gotta get my jutsu ready for when they find you!”

Mai started her handsigns again, the small flames flickering in and out of existence, growing to a large plume, then dying down as she concentrated them.

The clones around her began to run madly around the area. They didn’t leave a shadow, being simple academy clones. They didn’t seem to have a direction in mind, they just tried covering a wide expanse, their hands outstretched.

“Oh ho, so you have been paying attention.” A clone said as it danced out of clone Mai’s reach. “Even if only slightly.”

A hand pressed against the genin’s back. “Though what happens when the real one isn’t among them to begin with?” Takara said quietly in Mai’s ear.

Genjutsu: Black Widow

The sheer hand touch was enough for Mai to lose focus. In a boom, she was sent flying backwards again, likely straight into Takara. Mai had the consolation prize that least she was probably caught in the small blast too.

Then the genjutsu set in, and all of Mai’s back scrunched up as she fell. It hurt! It wasn’t the good kind of pain Mai liked either, it felt like she pulled a muscle, her entire back muscle. Still, Mai knew a chance when she saw one, and she flailed around trying to get Takara. Considering her back out stopped 90% of her movement, she just did half flailing kick at her sensei. It wasn’t her new technique, but she felt like Takara deserved it. All her clones faded.

Takara winced slightly, stumbling back a step when Mai collided with her. “Is this new technique meant to send you flying backwards?” The Jounin tilted her head, moving to catch the half hearted kick. “You should probably focus on breaking that genjutsu first.”

Mai withdrew her kick, her back told her it was a bad idea. She struggled against the genjutsu, stepping back as she weighed her options. In a fight she’d be super dead. Probably a good 4-5 times. She hated genjutsu more and more. She didn’t even feel alive right now.

“Tch. You know the Sanada’s taijutsu style? We call it the straight fist. It’s my ninja way too. Even if I gotta do something stupid, like actual genjutsu, I’ll always take the straight route.”

Mai drew her weapon, her back not liking her reaching for them. She suddenly felt alive as she dug the weapon into her left arm. Her back stopped spazzing. Everything lit up around her, and the sharp sense slowed down time. She was suddenly sure of everything around her. She liked it, and the smile returned to her face.

“Alright, Takara-sensei! This time, this time I’m going to punch you for real! I’m even going to tell you how this is going down.I’m going to right hook you, and this time, this time this technique will make me do more than fly backwards.”

Well, it seemed Mai had paid closer attention than she thought. While she was hoping the girl would at least try to purge the foreign chakra before drawing a blade,Takara couldn’t say she was all that surprised by the move. She tilted her head, her very skin seeming to have a faint shimmer to it. “Is that so?”

Mai’s insane grin grew. It felt like her head was clearer now. She started the handsigns again, watching Takara carefully, and then she held her hands in the familiar diamond. A single flame pathetically was expelled, and Mai suddenly ended it.

“ ‘kay, let’s go.”

Mai seemed to fade to black, reappearing quickly closer to Takara, though the Jonin’s eyes likely could track her every step of the way. It was just a creative use of Body Flicker.

Shadow Strike

Mai rocketted forward propelled by her fist aiming what she considered a good punch straight at the gut.

“Fire Release: HELL IMPACT! HAHAHAHA!”

Mai’s fist connected, and Mai could feel it crack against the crystal, not that that would stop her. She hit it like she was trying to punch straight through rock. Around her fist, the pent up fire chakra released, creating a brilliant explosion. Mai was initially excited by how strong of a punch it was. It was still strong enough to slightly knock her back seeing as Takara’s armor refused to budge. She FELT powerful from delivering it. It was suddenly replaced by pain, way too much pain. Mai snapped her arm back, cradling it with the other.

“SON OF A-”

Well, the punch probably broke bone, no big surprise, but it felt like she nearly blew the damn thing off. Uncovering her hand, she saw burn marks all over it. She nervously laughed, not sure what else to do.

“Hehehe, that looks like a lot of work for Mom… Damnit, that’d better not leave scars, Hideki just voted me sexiest in the team.”

Takara’s expression was difficult to read as she studied Mai. It was a good thing she’d decided to use her crystal armor after seeing the first unsuccessful attempt, she’d still been forced back half a step to steady herself.

It was powerful, she’d give her that. But…

She let out a slow sigh, moving closer to her student. Takara gestured to the blackened skin on Mai’s hand and arm, the obviously shattered bone, “It may be strong, but you’re more likely to kill yourself than your opponent. As your jounin instructor, that’s something I can’t allow... I’m forbidding you from using Hell Impact again. It’s a kinjutsu now and not a technique worth risking your life over.”

“K-kinjutsu? B-but that was one hell of a punch!”

Mai studied her hand for a minute. She looked it up and down. Yeah… definitely going to be another scar or two. There was a reason she’d worn a one piece swimming, was she going to have to wear gloves too? But she couldn’t just give up on the technique! She’d read a book, a book! She’d picked up and read it again, and again. She’d spent day in and out trying to get the thing to work. She’d even blown up her room in one failed attempt. And look at the results. Mai looked at her hand, at Takara, then at the ground. It was getting a bit blurry. And something tickled her face. And something wet dropped on the ground. And more somethings flowed.

“Yes...sensei….”

 

[loyalwolf]

Team 7 - Squad Makorama
Makorama Senju
Kurēn Kinoko
Hotaru Hagano
Tsukiashi (Ashi) Inuzuka​

“There were more than I expected, maybe I should step in,” Mako mumbled to himself only for his clone to grab his attention by shaking its head.


“No no no, you could take these guys in your sleep, but we need those genin to prove that they’re worth our time to train,” The clone persisted.


Mako sighed heavily and leaned back against a tree, he honestly would rather be meditating or training himself. Being stuck with three kids to protect was a different adventure on its own and Mako wasn’t sure if they’d be able to even handle training with him.


Before his thoughts could delve any deeper, he began to sense the enemy’s movements as they moved about the forest. Makorama stood up and realigned his large scroll on his back and began making his way back to the caravan.


“Pardon me Mr. Ichigawa, but your caravan is going to be ambushed. No need to worry though, my genin can handle it, only about two or three bandits tops,” Mako politely said to the old man driving. Before Old Man Ichigawa could even form a response Mako disappeared in a puff of smoke.


“Was he a clone this whole time?..” Old Man Ichigawa asked meekly, his face pale after the realization that his caravan’s protection was in the hands of children.


Damn that Makorama. He is leaving us to take care of those bandits and doesn't even have the dency to warn his students. Keeping his composure Kuren yelled out to the other members of his team, just in case they didn't catch that information from the clone. “Stay alert up there! It seems Sensei just told this guy there are bandits up ahead. Plus he sent a clone over here so it is up to us to keep the cargo and this customer safe.


“Shh!” Hotaru hissed quickly, and then gestured for Kuren to join them up ahead. “I know, my moths picked them up a few seconds ago. Listen, you guys have heard the saying ‘An ambush, if discovered and surrounded will repay the intended mischief with interest’ right?” Hotaru grinned wickedly and began forming hand seals. A flurry of moths emerged from her bag and before long they had formed a second Hotaru, more or less shielded from view by the three genin. Hotaru then performed some more hand seals and suddenly the clone transformed into a reasonable likeness of Tsukiashi, it wouldn’t pass any close inspection but from a distance or to someone unfamiliar it would likely be convincing enough


“So,” said the disguised genin. “Want to repay some mischief? Ashi, think you can split off and circle around undetected?


Ashi grumbled a bit, still feisty after being spoken to by Kuren in such a way as he seemed to question her ability to lead. Still she was far too distracted by the whole calling out of an ambush really kicking her back to her senses along with Hotaru’s…. Transformation. She blinked, seeming puzzled by it. She had seen techniques like it before but she hadn’t expected such a thing all of a sudden. “Yeah yeah… I know I know how to do that… so boring but fine… but remember I’m the leader okay, I can handle leading!” She commented as she was a bit more… subdued than perhaps might be expected. As spontaneous and wild as Ashi could be, she had at least some sense of the dangers of being a shinobi. She fell onto all fours, darting off to sneak around, being quite stealthy when she actually tried to be.


Kuren quickly approached the front of the formation and a grim look on his face. Kuren wasn't really concern with the bandits or his teammate but more about how little faith the old man had in them. He was shaken by Hotaru’s words and actions. I have to admit that she is very intelligent and know how to strategize fairly well. Kuren showed a faint smile “I believe repaying their mischief is indeed in order.”


Kuren quickly weaved a few hand signs and then face the moving caravan. “Ninja art Fungal Release: Breath of scattering spores.” Kuren wanted to make sure he had a trump card incase they ran into trouble and having fungal spores placed on the caravan would be to their advantage if the bandits broke through their formation and defense. He then looked at Hotaru “you should let me take lead and stay behind.”


“My how chivalrous,” Hotaru said teasingly. But she fell back towards the caravan while her disguised clone took up Ashi’s position up front. After all Hotaru had already admitted herself that she did better with some distance between herself and her enemies. WIth that in mind Hotaru prepared herself for the upcoming conflict, she slipped some of her senbon launchers out their pocket and concealed them in her palm, at the same time she began releasing more moths from her bag and began to direct them towards the front, careful not to cluster them so densely that they became suspicious. Hotaru suspected that this fight would be over too quickly for the moths to really have an impact but it never hurt to be safe.


Ashi circled around, keeping low taking advantage of her four-legged technique to keep a low profile. She began to sniff the air, picking up the scent of the bandits, something she would have noticed a bit earlier if she had been paying more attention. She shuffled around keeping quiet as she peeked out to try and spot the men. A certain excitement filled the wolf girl as she was left so eager to spring into action.


“You two better be ready to move if I give any orders! I’m the leader after all” Called the clone, in a loose impression of Ashi’s brusque, tough girl act. Hotaru thought it a reasonable approximation but she hadn’t really intended for the clone to do it. She hoped Tsukiashi didn’t hear it and interpret is as a dig. Not because Hotaru was worried about offending her teammate but because if she did there was a reasonable chance the other girl would divert from the plan in order to prove some kind of point.


Ashi heard the voice as she was sneaking around. She blinked, looking up, a growl quickly escaping as she heard the rather mocking tone of herself. She didn’t see it as anything more than a jab at her, as well as an attempt to take away her role trying to lead. I… that… I’ll show her, pretending to be me… and playing me up to be like that… and… taking up my leading spot! She jumped out from the brush, suddenly springing out before the bandits pointing to them from behind.


“No! I am the real Ashi and you are going to hurt ‘cause I’m the leader! Now you guys are going to pay and you guys are going to listen to my orders ‘cause I’m the leader and stop copying me and attack!” She shouted out loudly, as a jab back at her perceived insult while trying to gloat to the bandits. It was likely a rather confusing scene for the bandits, although it was completely unintentional on Ashi’s part.


Three bandits were clad in dark colors, each bearing a bandana located somewhere on their head. They had been waiting for the old man round the corner to strike but before he could, a little girl came out screaming from the woods. The three weren’t partial to a screaming child, and it was obvious her yelling was making them annoyed. The scrawniest one of the three came forth and sized the genin up. He wore his bandana across his neck.


“You must think you’re something special, don’t you brat?” The scrawny man snickered after speaking. His nose was leaking slightly with mucus and not long after he spoke one of his hands came up to wipe away the dripping snot.


It was after the scrawny one’s outburst that another bandit stepped forward. This one was bigger, brawnier, and… curvier? They wore their bandana across the lower half of their face.


“You’re not out here by yourself are ya? I’d hate to see a girl half as pretty as me get beaten,” It was a woman’s voice, don’t see how but it was a woman.


Meanwhile, Mako watched on out of sight. He was keeping a close eye on Ashi to make sure she didn’t die, light maiming was the goal. Not death. But at that moment it seemed like something was off. Something seemed suspicious.


“...Dammit,” Hotaru fixed her clone with an annoyed glare as sounds of the exchange filtered back to her position through the trees.


“What?” asked the duplicate, shrugging innocently. “That’s what she sounds like.”


“Well it looks like our esteemed commander has given the signal,” Hotaru said to Kuren, trying not to sound amused. “This might be a good opportunity to try something out anyway, so maybe you should head straight there and make sure none of them have an open path to the caravan. I’m going to do something a bit sneaky.” The Hotaru pointed at her clone. “You stay with the caravan, it’ll be a problem if there’s more of them or something else happens and none of us are nearby,” Having said that Hotaru picked up her pace to a run, began weaving handseals again and then jumped, seemingly diving straight into the earth. Instead of merely hitting the ground though Hotaru sunk through it and disappeared from view.


Earth release: Subterranean voyage, a technique for travelling through the earth as if it was water. While the bandits attempted to intimidate Tsukiashi Hotaru silently swam up underneath them, readying a kunai in her hand as she approached their position. With limited breath and the risk of the bandits moving around and complicating her plan looming in her mind Hotaru simply erupted from the ground between the feet of the scrawny male bandit, her free hand grabbing the man’s ankle and her kunai lancing upwards towards the vulnerable arteries around his groin.


The scrawny bandit grinned wickedly as backed away from the easily perceived attack. He placed a well targeted kick against the girl’s stomach. He didn’t want to send her flying, but the motion carried enough force to make her stop and think about what she had done.


“You’re another Leaf brat, measly thing aren’t ya?”, The large manly woman asked, resting her elbow on the Scrawny man’s shoulder. “Don’t play Jojo, Ichigawa is gonna have our asses if we don’t follow orders.”


“A little fun’s never hurt anyone before,” The man now known as Jojo snarled. His head snapped towards the slightly taller masculine female, “Why do you gotta be such a buzzkill Nani?”


“Take that ba–”


“Enough!”, a smaller figure emerged and stepped forward from the flora. His bandana covered his forehead like a headband.


“Yessir,” Jojo and Nani curled back in slight fear from the notably smaller man as they spoke in tangent. “Ichigawa is on his way now. Until he gets here, the three of us will have to find a way to entertain ourselves.”


The small man gave a very threatening glare, but it couldn’t help but come off as ridiculous.


Kuren heard the commotion going on not far away and snickered to himself. That fact is there priority was to protect the caravan and with two members away, the caravan was an easy target. Kuren was now the main defense for the cargo and the old man. Kuren turned back to the old man and told him “i will be more ahead so if anyone attacks you can have plenty of time to cover.


Kuren felt that the tactics the bandits were using were very strange. You figured they would be more invested in the supplies then trying to pick a fight. Kuren was conflicted on what he wanted to do, on the one hand he want to make sure he stayed behind to protect but he also wanted to go help his team. He wanted to make sure that his teammates didn’t get injured. “Mako! I know you want to see what we can do! But i could actually use your wisdom right now!” Kuren stayed with the caravan and put his faith in his teammates, hoping they wouldn’t get themselves injured.


“They’re doing horribly,” Clone Mako commented from the treeline. Half of his body was absorbed into the branch he had been perched; next to him stood his creator.


“I knew something wasn’t right,” Real Mako muttered, his clone gave him a look of understanding and sunk into the wood of the tree. Mako didn’t hesitate to jump down from the tree. He avoided making noise as much as could and began hiding his chakra signature. Before long, Mako made his way around the bout entirely. The girls were in a definite quagmire, but if he was right, then so was Kuren.


“You think those girls can really handle the bandits?” The old man on driving the caravan asked. He had a look of worry on his face and his knuckles were white as he gripped the reigns. “Cause I really do hope they can’t. It’ll make THIS easier!”


A kunai flew in front of Kuren, an explosive tag tied to the back.


“Watch out!” Hotaru’s clone shouted, diving in front of the kunai. There wasn’t time to do anything fancy like catch the thing and throw it back and she was too far from Kuren to push him out of the way so there was really only one option. The kunai embedded itself in her back and the clone burst into a swarm of moths that were engulfed in flame as the tag attached to the kunai exploded violently. The bitter scent of burning insect filled the air.


Kuren immediately noticed the attack and knew he couldn’t outrun or dodge it in time. Luckily for him, the clone was there to save the day. He didn’t have time to think about anything and quickly tried to recover and get back into position. Kuren seem to get both really serious and worried at the same time. He looked towards the old man “You sold us out.” quickly you saw an intense rage start to be seen on kuren face. It was a big departure from his usual stoic nature. So much so that you could feel the rage and hatred coming off of him. “Old I'll have you know that those girls will defeat their opponents. Then once we finish with them, the leaf village interrogation unit will have a new toy, in the form of a double crossing old man.” kuren quickly made some handsigns and release the spores he scattered earlier on. “Ninja art fungal release: blooming imprisonment.”All of a sudden very wooden, heavy bracket fungi began to cover both the cart and the old man. Now that Kuren didn’t have to worry about that situation he turned his attention to the hidden enemy.


“You’re a fool to think those girls can take on those three!” The Old Man yelled, he began to grin wildly as he stood up from the caravan’s seat. “And you’re a fool to think your knock-off Wood Release could actually hold me!”


The Old Man stood up and with a simple expulsion of chakra, expelled the fungi from his body. His frail body stepped down from the caravan and stepped towards the boy searching for something that obviously wasn’t there. The Old Man chuckled.


“It’s funny how naive you are. You remind me a lot of last genin I killed,” The man cracked his neck as his body finally stopped growing. What was once a frail body was now a large mass of muscle. “Get a good look at me boy, because it’s the last time you’re gonna see anything.”


Hotaru winced, partly because she felt her clone be destroyed and knew Kuren was dealing with something serious on his own but partly just because her stomach hurt. Fortunately the kick hadn’t been strong enough to dislodge her from the ground and she was able to sink back into the earth with the same jutsu, although not without some parting words.


“Okay then, let’s have some fun…”


Underneath the Earth Hotaru was wrestling with a feeling she didn’t really experience all that often. Failure. To be clear there were plenty of things Hotaru wasn’t good at but she wasn’t interested in those things so she didn’t consider setbacks in those areas to be failures, just the result of focusing her attention elsewhere. But Hotaru was, she felt, good at planning and strategizing and she’d failed at exactly that. How many times had her Mother told her “Gather the data and then draw your conclusions based on it, don’t draw your conclusions then go looking for data to support them.”? Hotaru had totally discounted the possibility of meeting serious resistance due to her cursory examination of the caravan. She hadn’t even considered the possibility that they, not the caravan could be the target, that Ichigawa might be a plant. Worse, on the basis of that she’d split up their team, even subtly wresting the leadership role from Tsukiashi to put her plan into action.


Still Hotaru forced herself to relax and discard all of that. She could figure out how avoid those mistakes in the future after they all got through this alive. First Hotaru needed to buy some time. Hotaru’s fingers pulsed with chakra and above ground her moths starting moving. A rolling, circular wave of mottled brown manifested around the bandits as the moths began circling their designated prey. Some moths would attempt to land and bite, always on the bandits’ backs or in their blind spots, the powder coating the moths’ legs would numb the bandits’ skin so they didn’t feel the bites or even the soft tickling as the creatures landed. If the bandits were vigilant they could ward the creatures away but to do so they’d need to divert most of their attention to the task. If they tried to focus on Tsukiashi then they’d leave themself open to at least some of the moths. Hotaru hoped it was enough to keep them from overwhelming the other genin, she also hoped it would be enough to distract them from her next move.


Ashi (unbeknownst to her) pointed at the Bandits after seeing Hotaru struck as she tried to shift their attention to her. It was perhaps a mixture of selfishness wanting to draw attention to her, but also a desire to protect her teammate that fueled her desire to try and keep the Bandits focused on her. “Hey uglies, your fight is me and only me, Ashi the greatest shinobi to ever live!” She spoke, evidently the bandits’ intimidation didn’t work on the rather stubborn girl.


“You’re one of those Inuzuka girls aren’t ya?” Jojo asked, his scrawny figure stepped forward as Nani’s eyes widened.


“Jojo you got bugs on your legs!” She laughed heartily as Jojo looked down and promptly freaked out. Jojo focused his eyes on Nani before pointing at her legs.


“You got some too Nani, ha!” Nani screamed as Jojo spoke. She began swatting them off, all while the smaller man watched on in annoyance.


Ashi slipped two Kunai from her outfit, suddenly flinging them towards two of the Bandits. While the aim wasn’t perfect it was at least good enough that it was a threat they would have to step aside from in order to not get scratched. She focused on the rather hulky woman as she dropped back down to all fours, suddenly pushing off with incredible speeds getting into a spin. The small Inzuka girl went flying in the air using the Passing Fang technique, aiming herself directly towards the gut of the larger target in hopes of knocking her out in one blow.


“ENOUGH!” The smaller man threw two kunai that met the two kunai thrown by Ashi. The sound of metal clashing was bright and shrill. “I’m tired of all this, Fire Style: Flame Whirlwind,” The smaller man threw the spiraling flames in the direction of Ashi’s Passing Fang technique. The flames spun in an opposite rotation and while it would’ve been impressive for the young girl to beat the jutsu head on, it would’ve most likely killed her if she tried to.


It was at that moment that Mako stepped in for a slight second. He quickly began weaving his hands, and a thicket of larger girthy roots appeared in front of Ashi from the ground. The flames of the small man’s whirlwind were struck the wood, but did no further damage before the roots slunk back into the ground. Tsukiashi’s jutsu would be able to succeed.


“You pack a punch kid, I’ll give you that. But that mouth of yours is gonna get all of ya killed!” Nani yelled, Ashi had made contact with the lady’s abdominals and pushed that hulk of a woman back. With a big meaty hand, Nani grabbed Ashi by the head and threw her to the side.


Ashi had seen the flames coming as they were quickly dealt with. While it left her a bit confused she continued forward dismissing it only to strike the woman and feel the resistance as she was suddenly grabbed. “Why you!” She called out being tossed by her head over to the side, tumbling over as she flipped around in the air, managing to get onto all fours as she gripped on the ground regaining her footing and shaking her head out.


“Genji, where’d those roots come from?” Jojo asked the small man. It seemed like his name was Genji, fitting.


The little man shrugged his shoulders and brought his hands up in position to launch another jutsu. “Just worry about those damn kids, I’ll provide cover fire.”


Beneath the earth Hotaru started weaving handseals again and her bag was pushed open to reveal another blood moth clone. Hotaru grabbed the clone and handed it some ninja tools before the two of them pushed off from each other and began swimming in opposite directions. Hotaru surfaced first, on the other side of the road from where the bandits had been, using a nearby tree for cover. In an instant Hotaru’s inquisitive eyes took in the battlefield and the positions of her enemies and she attacked with a fan of senbon towards their general position. She was expecting the bandits to dodge however and was more interested in where they landed after they moved than actually hitting them. Because that was where her clone would surface. Armed with kunai and senbon the clone would be able to replicate Hotaru's last attack. Of course unlike last time the clone had a handful of explosive tags stuffed down its shirt, primed to explode. They wanted to be entertained right? What was more entertaining than fireworks?


“Not this time,” Jojo was the closest to the clone of Hotaru’s emergence point. He jumped a bit of ways back and gave a very small smirk.


As soon as Jojo moved out of the clones explosive radius it switched tactics and simply hurled some of its senbon at him, timing it for the moment just before he landed and would be able to dodge. The clone had Hotaru’s aptitude for throwing weapons so the senbons flew as a tightly packed group aimed squarely at the man’s centre of mass. As the deadly needles flew through the air the clone dropped back into the ground, circling for a better opportunity.


Meanwhile the real Hotaru sent a couple of shuriken at Genji, the apparent leader as well for good measure. “Hey are you guys okay?” She asked with mock concern, she had abandoned the ground to stand atop a branch of the tree she had been hiding behind. “You’re bleeding you know,”


While the two bandits had brushed off the moths attacking them at one point the insects were more persistent than that and had returned as soon as the bandits attention turned to Tsukiashi and Hotaru’s clone. Painlessly their sharp mandibles had cut into flesh and there were now small, circular wounds dotted all over the bandits’ bodies. Despite their negligible size the wounds were bleeding heavily, far too heavily for such small injuries.


It didn’t seem like taking these guys by surprise was going to work, so Hotaru decided to try and grind down their mental energy by forcing them to focus on multiple things. The bandits were being attacked from three angles, four if you counted Tsukiashi separately. If they focused too much on one angle than they’d leave themselves open to the others. Eventually, Hotaru hoped, they’d make a mistake. In the meantime they’d continue to bleed out, time was now on the genins’ side. The only drawback was that this method would draw out the battle, leaving Kuren to fight on his own for longer.


Ashi had recovered from her daze and perked up as she noticed Hotaru’s assault. She couldn’t be left behind. Her attacks hadn’t seemed to work but she wasn’t about to give up quite yet. She suddenly grabbed a shuriken from her leg, tossing it as she remained crouched on the ground aiming it for the woman. It wasn’t hard to tell even as knuckleheaded as Ashi could be that her Passing Fang wasn’t working on her in a straightforward attack. She would need to figure out a way of attacking her once she helped to deal with the other threats.


Ashi suddenly began to spin, moving forward towards the woman. Instead of finishing her track, the girl stuck out her foot. She kicked off the ground suddenly diverting her path, slowing down the spin though doing so knowing she would. If she couldn’t attack the woman directly… maybe going for one of the other guys would work. She flew towards the other bandit using her quick speed hoping to overwhelm him. Ashi reached out attempting to grab at the man hoping to drag him suddenly into her spin.


“What in the hell?!” Jojo screamed as his leg was grappled by a whirlwind of a girl. Nani on the other hand had her sights of Hotaru, while Genji kept a modest distance and an eye on the battlefield.


“If we keep bleeding like this, we’ll end up dying. Nani do something,” Genji yelled to the bulky lady and began a barrage of small fire balls.


“My medical ninjutsu is gonna take time to perform, cover me,” Nani ran off to the side as she began to infuse her chakra, she started treating her wounds while Genji stepped up his game and started moving about while continuing his barrage. He focused on keeping that pesky Bug Girl at bay.


By this point the fire was spreading throughout the forest.


Ashi’s focus lingered on the man as she gripped his leg. Her spinning motion continued as she used her spin to carry the man forward spinning him around in the process. She gripped onto him tightly, flying away and creating some distance. She finally let him go, ending her spin. She quickly landed on all fours, pushing off the ground. She gripped her hand in a fist hovering in the air briefly before falling forward, aiming to punch the bandit straight in the stomach hoping to take advantage of him being disoriented to deliver a strong blow to him.


Meanwhile Hotaru had her work cut out for her, leaping from tree to tree to avoid the incoming fireballs and returning fire with her senbon or shuriken. She was keeping ahead of the fireballs, but since every tree hit decreased her options it wasn’t something she could keep up indefinitely even if her stamina would allow it.


“You don’t wanna keep bleeding?” She asked, swinging from a branch and landing on a new perch before another fire ball hurled her way forced her to move again. “But red’s definitely a good color on you, so vibrant!” Hotaru’s next dodge took her behind a tree and instead of continuing on her trajectory she jammed a kunai into the tree and halted herself, using the thick trunk as cover. Hotaru estimated this would buy her about five or ten seconds while the bandit figured out what she’d done, launched another fireball and then waited for the fire to burn through the wood and force her to move.


With those precious seconds Hotaru dove into her bag, retrieving wire, two shuriken and two handfuls of wriggling, white, worm like things. Wire was tied to shuriken and then Hotaru separated two of the worms and squeezed them sharply between two fingers. The larvae, for they were the juvenile forms of the moths currently harassing the bandits, exploded violently, coating the shurikens in a sticky white substance that was actually silk. Using this as glue Hotaru affixed the remaining larvae to the shuriken, forming two white, lumpy, roughly grapefruit sized balls with wire trailing out from their centers.


It’s good I’ve been able to test so many different techniques on these guys, but I sorta hope this one finishes them off, I’m not gonna have much left if I do this properly.


With a giddy smile Hotaru gently tossed the balls, freeing up her hands to form seals again. Once more some moths fluttered out of Hotaru’s bag and another duplicate of the young genin appeared next to her.


“We can see through your tricks little girl, we have some of our own,” A voice said from the other side of the tree line. While Hotaru was busy fleeing Genji’s attacks, Nani was successful in cloning herself as well. Except, there were three clones all clad in rock armor.


“Always take in your surroundings little girl,” The three clones said in unison before closing in.


Is this what it’s like to be popular? I wasn’t missing out on much Hotaru though, her eyebrows quirking in a bemused expression. There wasn’t time to do anything fancy, not without abandoning her current strategy. On the other hand unless she took drastic action Hotaru was going to get pummeled by what looked like a whole tonne of rock. On the first hand she really wanted to see if this idea would work out. Decisions, decisions.


“You handle this,” Hotaru whispered to her clone and simply fell down into a crouch. The clone nodded and, using Hotaru’s head as a stepping stone jumped upwards, grabbing the white balls on her way up and appearing above the treeline.

Meanwhile Hotaru pulled her bag in front of her, a seemingly futile move but she was also channeling as much of her chakra as she could into its contents. Just as the clones were about to strike true the bag shuddered and suddenly exploded as the hundreds of larvae stored inside burst, covering Hotaru in a thick layer of tough, sticky silk like a human sized cocoon. The silk wasn’t thick or strong enough to completely block the blows but it would soften them enough to keep Hotaru alive. Hopefully.


At the same moment the clone appeared above the treeline and hurled the two white balls down towards Nani and Genji, when they were close enough to their targets the clone tugged violently on the wires attached to them and the larvae attached to them exploded, showering the area with sticky silk to inhibit the bandits’ movements. The instant after they exploded Hotaru’s other clone, the one still underground decided now would be a good time to go out in a blaze of glory and surfaced from beyond the ground, detonating the tags on its body and rocking the area with a massive explosion.


Genji shielded his face as he was pushed back by the explosion. The arm he used was slightly burned but he was alright. He instead turned his attention to where Nani had stood.


“Nani? Are you alright?”, Genji asked, as he turned his attention to the silk cocoon Hotaru was lying inside of.


“I’m fine, the kid almost got me though. I was so focused on healing my wounds that I almost forgot about her,” Nani replied, she appeared next to Genji and soon began healing him as well. “She’s smarter than the last bunch put together. Then again, what do you expect from hot-headed Cloud shinobi?”


Meanwhile, the clones closed in on the girl’s cocoon


“Did your Sensei really think you were capable of fighting us on your own,” The clones said in unison while stalking their way to the little girl who spun herself in silk.


“Earth Release: Rock Pillar Spears,” One of the Nani clones said, three pillars protruded from the ground and pierced three different spots. Two shot up where Hotaru’s legs should be and the last would pierce her left arm.


“Little girls should learn their place,” The clones chuckled in unison.


“Genji, you should be good now,” The real Nani sighed and backed away from the smaller man.


“Thank you Nani, now go help Jojo. I’ll keep my eyes on her,” Genji muttered, his eyes hadn’t left the girl’s cocoon since he began focusing on it. It was now that he readied his hand, just in case she had any more tricks up her sleeves.


It was at that point a spinning figure appeared from the trees seemingly on queue. Ashi had left the other man behind not really bothering to ensure he was down, quite taken back after finally noticing all the flames spewing through the forest. Her rotation was quickly approaching at full speed, aiming for the other man as he seemed to focus on attacking Hotaru who seemed as if she wasn’t in a good situation from what little Ashi could tell.


“You leave my teammate alone, even if she is a big jerk who impersonated me badly!” She shouted out, landing on all fours positioning herself between Hotaru’s cocoon and the two bandits. Her eyes fixated forward staying more defensive almost instinctively rather than acting brashly and going on a full offensive.


“I’m not down for the count yet!” A voice yelled from beyond the flames that had recently begun to grow enormously. Jojo popped out from behind the growing fires and began throwing shuriken after shuriken. He clapped his hands together in a single snake sign as he flew threw the air.


“Expand!” He yelled. The shurikens began to grow in size as they started landing near the girls, Nani’s clones having jumped out of the way.


Ashi’s eyes opened wide hearing the voice. She saw the Shurikens as they grew big. Her eyes fixated on the cocoon where her teammate was. In a last ditched effort she jumped ahead, grasping onto the cocoon as she began to spin. The Inuzuka girl flew away narrowly avoiding the weapon feeling a it cut a small portion of her long brown locks as she escaped. She skidded across the ground brushing against it as her quick spinning stopped causing her to skid across the ground holding the cocoon she assumed her teammate was in.


“Darn it… that jerk…” She spoke shaking her head off slowly letting go as she propped back onto all fours breathing a bit heavily having such a close call though remaining defiant keeping herself alert uncertain what might come next as she felt like she was trapped in a three verse one scenario, only able to hope Hotaru was safe in the rather beaten ‘thing’.


“This is where you die little girl, just like your friend in there,” Jojo yelled as he began his descent back to the ground. He landed with a thud and was quickly met by Nani who began working on his wounds. At this moment, the two girls were definitely outmatched but they had done well. The thugs lost sight of the girls for a slight second as they focused on recuperating. “Did you see where the girl ran off to?”, Jojo was out of breath and he panted haphazardly. It was apparent that the scrawny man wasn’t prepared for the likes of a Passing Fang technique.


“No, but focus on saving your energy while I heal you. There’s still the sensei, and he hasn’t been found yet,” Nani seemed worried for the man, there was a sort of emotion in the air between them and at the moment it was thickening.


Or sickening.


“Found? Or encountered?” A voice would claim. A figure would rise from behind the smoke and with a flick of his hand it would move to reveal his appearance. “Behold the magnificence that belongs to my genin! And behold the magnificence of me, their sensei!” Mako would yell in approval. His thumb was pointing back at himself as a wide grin spread across his face.


“I am the most Valiant Senju, the savior of the innocent, the protector of the weak!”


“The biggest of heads…” Genji interjected.


Mako stopped his introduction to give a look at the smaller of the three. It was a look mixed between bewilderment and annoyance. So Mako simply stopped all movement, and with the look still on his face, stared at Genji.


“What was that little boy?”


“I said you have a big head.”


Genji spoke up, unaware of what the situation was about to turn into. Mako didn’t speak another word as he crossed the distance between them, leaving the other two bandits speechless and a bit fearful of his audacity. Mako was so tall that he had to crouch to become eye level with Genji and when their eyes did meet, it was pleasant.


Mako didn’t say anything then either, he simply stood up and performed a snake seal, roots coming up and wrapping themselves around Genji, tightly.


“Hey what do you think you’re doing?!” Nani yelled.


“This dragged on too long,” Mako had a neutral look on his face as Nani charged. She began to throw attack after attack, punch after kick after elbow. But Mako dodged it all, leaving the girl out of breath and tired.


“Nani! Stop, get Genji out of there and leave,” Jojo piped up, drawing both Mako and Nani’s attention. Both were surprised to hear such brave things from him.


“B-But Jojo I–”


“No Nani, I don’t want to lose you. So I’ll do this myself.”


Just simply watching the exchange made Mako tear up slightly, and soon after, he almost quite literally started bawling. He could only choke out a few words before he had to wipe his eyes.


“So much passion,” Mako sniffled and blew his nose with a handkerchief he had stowed away in one of his flak jacket pouches.


“Uhh…” Jojo, and Nani, were at a loss for words. The man they just watched dodge all of Nani’s hits started crying. Was he… was he all right in the head?


“Those Girls are leaf village ninja and are more than capable of handling those bandits. Either way now you have my full attention something that your didn't have before.” Kuren said back at the caravan, squaring off against the old man. Internally Kuren admitted that he wasn't as focused as normal. He was too busy worrying about his team but now he had a singular objective and that meant he would accomplish his task no matter what. “I am going to capture your Old man and make you pay!” with that Kuren quickly made a few handsigns “Fungal release: giant toadstool.” All of a sudden a giant red mushroom sprouted beneath the ground of the old man’s feet, trying to get the old man off balance and change the field to Kuren’s advantage. Kuren then got in a strong and stance with his tessen fan in hand, waiting for the old man to show how strong he actually was.


“This? This pathetic thing?”, The Old Man grinned wickedly, he was clearly unaffected by the toadstool. Kuren would need to try something stronger to try and throw off The Old Man’s balance. “My name is Ichigawa and you’re my latest meal,” The Old Man revealed himself in a way very akin to Mako, flamboyant.


Kuren snickered at the old man, he was very showy and flashy. Kuren wasn't sure why he had to be so flamboyant and the first thing that popped into his head was that this man was like Mako. That was when you could see this fire and rage begin to spark in Kuren’s eyes. He wasn't pleased with his sensei or his team and he was going to take it out on this guy.


Without saying a word Kuren began to circle Ichigawa, almost like a dance. Once he he felt he had the right angle, Kuren quickly closed the distance between the both of them. Kuren used his tessen like metal baton and stuck both ears with great force, knowing full well that the ears are essential for your equilibrium. Then with an easy motion Kuren hooked his leg around the old man’s knee to try and trip him to the ground. If it worked Kuren would strike with an axe kick to the man’s solar plexus.


“You little fucker,” Ichigawa’s ears began to ring violently, but luckily the man’s mass was enough to keep him standing when Kuren tried to bring him down to his knees. Without a second thought, Ichigawa reached out and grabbed Kuren’s head with his large hand. He began to apply pressure to the boy’s skull as he began to recover.


“Too bad your Sensei isn’t around to help you outta this mess,” A voice said from behind the large man. “I heard he’s the most Valiant of Shinobi.”


Kuren ended up dropping his tessen while being attacked. The pressure was painful and he knew he had to get out of this hold now. He struck the old man's nose with his palm to temporarily blind him. Then Kuren drew his knee back and struck the man in the groin so he could free himself. With the little breath he had, Kuren addressed Mako “Help the girl’s out they are outnumbered.Fungal release: blooming imprisonment” Kuren then made Bracket fungi to rapidly grow within the mouth and esophagus of his opponent.


Ichigawa grasped at his throat for a second before expelling chakra where the fungi began growing. He violently coughed out the remains and gave Kuren a deathly glare.


His voice was raspy when he spoke, but it was still clear what he said: “You fight like a girl.”


“He has a point Kuren, it isn’t honorable to go for a man’s valuables,” Mako agreed wholeheartedly with the large old man. The jonin sensei maneuvered his way from behind Ichigawa and readied himself with a kunai.


The Old Man however wasn’t having any of it and darted forward too quick for a geezer like himself. He barreled forward, grabbing chunks of earth and throwing it forward like a crazed maniac.


Mako made it seem easy. He dodged the debris and closed the distance between them effortlessly. When the dust from projectiles settled. Ichigawa was on his knees with Mako behind him pressing a kunai to his neck. “Surrender yourself,” Mako eerily whispered. His voice was deadly serious and he began to apply pressure to Ichigawa’s throat.


Ichigawa chuckled and pushed the kunai away from his throat, he soon stood up and face Mako. The old man towered over the Jonin. “I was starting to think your kids were all pushovers, it’s nice to see that one of them isn’t afraid to kill someone without remorse,” Ichigawa said before walking past Mako and toward the caravan that was completely forgotten about, “You should teach him some manners Makorama.”


Mako turned just as he saw the caravan was thrown. He jumped out of the way, but while Mako leaped into the air, so did Ichigawa. It was a quick motion, but Ichigawa was able to land one solid enough punch and in that moment it was obvious this man was above Kuren’s skill level. However, Mako’s body disappeared from the hit, leaving the young boy to deal with the menace until the real Makorama was able to arrive.


“You’re both right about me not fighting fair, but I know that if I did fight you fair, I would've died long ago.” Kurēn’s pride didn’t get in the way of him admitting that he was outmatched in this fight. “Ninja art fungal release: giant toadstool” Kurēn use this to lift himself above the battlefield and out of view from the man's sight. “Fungal release: breath of scattering spores” he had to work quickly so the old man didn’t see him spreading his spores to cover the whole area and his own body. As soon he felt that the spores were set below, Kurēn bloomed a large number of them “Fungal release: decaying corpse bud- devil's fingers” turning the environment below into something that would disorient the strongest opponent. “I hope he actually breathed in the smell.”


Kurēn torn off pieces of his clothing to plug up his nose and then jumped from his mushroom. As he was falling to the ground, he threw a couple of kunai and shuriken towards the man. As he closed in, Kuren used the momentum of the fall and his own force to try and plant a kick right in his chest, planning to follow up by reaching for a kunai and going straight for the man’s jugular.


Ichigawa was smart enough to know that the boy was up to something, after having fungi grow inside of his throat, he was cautious enough not to breathe in the scent. Ichigawa backed away to what he was a safe vicinity before weaving his hands. Not a second too soon, right as Kuren jumped, Ichigawa let loose a mighty gust of air that should’ve dispersed the spores and would’ve pushed Kuren away from his current assault attempt.


Kuren was blown away from the man and land with a ungraceful thud. He was getting low on chakra and he was no match for hand to hand combat with this guy. Kuren quickly threw a few kunai with a paper bomb on them. Then made a bee line for the trees. He was going to try and find cover.


Ichigawa performed the same jutsu, blowing the kunai into the opposite direction. Right where Kuren was heading. “Did you think a few of your measly kunai would do anything?”, Ichigawa reprimanded. He stepped forward and began weaving his hands. He took his time on purpose as if to show the boy that he was not even close to a match for him. “Face your death like a man, or die like your friends,” Ichigawa yelled from way behind Kuren.


Kuren had to stop mid step and push himself the opposite direction to avoid his own kunai. In the process he felt his ankle buckle. He let out sigh “No matter if you face your death as a man or a coward. In the end you body is decayed and given back to the earth. Fungal release: giant toadstool.” All of a sudden a giant mushroom sprouted from Kuren’s chest thanks to the spores he had covered himself with earlier. He was pushed into the air and was going to use this momentum to escape and stay out of the range of the man's attack.


Ichigawa followed suit, unbeknownst to Kuren, the two of them were now headed to where the ambush was originally supposed to take place. Where the other three bandits were and where his teammates would be.


Kuren looked at where he was about to land and saw the silhouette of two people. Then he noticed Ichigawa right behind him. “That old man just doesn't give up.” throwing the last few shuriken he had to try and buy himself some time. He tucked himself in a balled and land on the ground with a thud right next to Ashi. He groaned in pain and was slightly dazed. “Glad to see you two aren't dead but I think I just made mistake landing here. Watch out for the old man.”


“I.. think I’m gonna be sick,” Hotaru muttered faintly from the upside down shell of her cocoon. She’d managed to avoid getting skewered between the rocks spires that had attacked her but only by wriggling between them and getting- Hotaru probed her stomach experimentally- what felt like a couple of cracked ribs and a pair of deep slashes on her legs. On top of that she was now extremely nauseous, from a combination of the violent spinning journey she’d just gone through and the fact that Tsukiashi had probably just saved her life. With some amount of effort and no little pain Hotaru rolled out of her cocoon and sat up, resting her back against a nearby tree.


“Is that… Makorama?” She asked, frowning as the a recognizable voice started babbling about valiance, magnificence and passion. “Listen I don’t have many cards left to play,” Hotaru said to her teamates, gesturing vaguely at her injuries and general state of exhaustion. “So if you two have any ideas I’m all ears.” With her foot Hotaru hooked the edge of the cocoon and dragged it to her side, fishing in the tattered remains of her bag for the precious few remaining larvae which she placed on her wounds. The larvae began squirting out silk which started to cover the cuts on Hotaru’s legs and staunch the bleeding although the process was slow, this technique was supposed to use more larvae and be accelerated with chakra Hotaru no longer had to spare. “I’ll be able to walk in a few minutes but not much more than that.”


Kuren looked at his two teammates and could tell they weren’t in any shape to take more damage. Makorama seemed to be able to take on the bandits with ease but Kuren didn't want to sit back and not help his sensei. “I’m not really in any better position to fight. Ichigawa really beat the shit out of me. Plus i used up a lot of my chakra. But I might have a plan. Can you still control some of your moths?” Kuren had a glint in his eye as he pulled out a summoning scroll and summoned two odd looking mushrooms from his scroll.


Hotaru looked doubtful. “Maybe, but I don’t know how many I have left to control. Between the clothes that were blown up, the ones lost in the fire and-” Hotaru gestured at what was left of her bag. “That. I’ve probably only got a dozen or so left, is that going to be enough for whatever you’re planning?”


“What the hell are you three doing? Why the hell is their sensei crying?” Ichigawa asked his allies. He had come out of the sky with a slam and was definitely confused as to what had happened. While he didn’t deem it important, it still took his attention.


“Nothing you need to concern yourself Ichigawa, you just put my worries to rest about my genin,” Mako wiped his eyes carefully with his fingers. He was quickly sobering up.


“Are you done drama queen?” Ichigawa asked. Mako nodded softly before taking in a breath of air, he soon let it out after.


“Thank you very much, I’ll be sure to be gratuitous about my next chapter: Star-Crossed Bandits!” The Jonin Sensei gave a hand expression that made it seem like the name was good.


“You’re an idiot,” Jojo sighed, he was clearly exhausted. He backed Nani away and put his hands up, ready to fight Mako. “I’m going to end you.”


Mako gave a gentle smirk and moved faster than the genin’s eyes could see, he reappeared behind Jojo and gave him a chop on the neck, making the scrawny man pass out and leaving his supposed lover worried.


“Jojo! Why you–”


Mako didn’t give the girl time to finish. He performed a snake seal and roots soon began grabbing at her legs. Once she was stuck in place, Mako strided over to her and gave her a pat on the back.


“Kuren knock these three out with your spores,” Mako called to the young boy. With that, the Jonin then closed the distance between himself and Ichigawa. The fight wasn’t anything marvelous, just a simple exhibition of skill. That exhibition ended fairly quickly considering the gap in stamina used. Just like that, the threat was gone and Mako was dusting his outfit.


Kuren looked at the rest of the team and looked down at his lap in defeat. “Looks like we don't have to worry about aiding him. Alright sensei, I will knock them out.” he pulled out a second summoning scroll and summoned a pair of gloves and a medical mask. Once Kuren felt safe with his equipment on, he grabbed both mushroom and made his way to the trapped bandit. With a slight limp, he ripped open the caps of the mushroom and let the spore fall upon their face. “This type of spores acts like a depressant and will knock them out and keep their bodily function at a low level. Alright, that is done, at least I’m useful for something.” Kuren said, his expression returning back to his usual stoic face.


“Aww don’t be like that Kuren,” Hotaru called from her resting place, some of her usual mischief returning to her voice already. “You can carry me the rest of the way if you want to be useful,” Although as she said it she got to her feet anyway. The larvae had finished bandaging her legs and were now forming a rough cast around her midsection to protect Hotaru’s ribs. “Still, who were these guys?” Hotaru asked, gesturing vaguely at the defeated bandits. “It sounded like this wasn’t the first time they did something like this and-” She glanced sideways at Makorama. “They seemed to know you. Sensei.”


Kuren looked at the captured people with a strong glare. “It doesn't matter who they are. It's not our place to find out, when we couldn't even capture them ourselves.” Kuren then looked at his sensei. “Makorama-sensei, I might not understand you as a person and may never fully understand you but thank you for saving us.” Kuren bowed his head, showing nothing but respect to the man in front him.


“You all talk too much… I-I mean,” Mako let out a sigh and placed his hands on his hips. He turned to face the genin and just watched them all as he spoke. “Those guys were just a few bandits that would put in missions, often getting them misranked, and killing the poor teams that got ‘em. And yes Hotaru, they knew me. But everyone does, I tell them my name for Ryujin’s sake. But the good news is that you all passed. Training of the body starts tomorrow, Hotaru, I’ll be lenient seeing as how you’re injured. Ashi and Kuren on the other hand? No chance of mercy.”


“Hmm I guess I’ve never really thought about it but you could probably make a lot of money selling things like genetic material tied to unique abilities or rare tools and weapons,” Hotaru said thoughtfully, eying the bandits and oddly Kuren, with a curious expression.


Why would being less capable be a reason not to investigate them? If anything the fact that we struggled means we have more to learn from these people then otherwise. Strange.


Hotaru tucked away this interesting side of her teammate for later consideration and changed topics “In any case I don’t want to take things too easy. I’ve identified a number of issues during that fight I want to address and some interesting possibilities I want to explore.” Hotaru thought her Sensei’s idea of a test was pretty unorthodox. Admittedly he probably had a very good idea of their capabilities now and had smartly eliminated the observer effect that would have been present in more traditional assessment. Was this a strategy all jonin used or more evidence of their Sensei’s… uniqueness?

 

[Ganryu]

Winds of Training
Mai Sanada and Koutaku ‘Nisekuru’

Ganryu and yoshua171 ​

Spoiler

Mai looked down at her hands as she made her way to the training field. It wasn’t the good one, she was avoiding Kiyoshi, he could have it. She unenthusiastically sighed.

“Gotta keep up the training, gotta see how I can move.”

As she said that, she examined her gloved hand, twitching occasionally. Taking a deep breath, she calmed herself.

“I.am.going to be clanhead.”

Walking onto the field, she greeted her opponent. Kiyoshi’s teammate. It seemed like he was trying out a new tech, and Mai needed the exercise. She wasn’t up to her regular training, so it seemed alright. Didn’t seem right though. She should be excited. She was honestly doing this so no one commented on her being lazy.

“Thanks for having me. How we doing this?”

“Well,” he said, then he paused, what had been a grin shifting down into a frown as he regarded her. He’d seen her around, if not talked to her personally before, and she’d been in the academy with him too, and at every time he’d seen her smiling, or absorbed in some kind of activity, usually joyfully engaged. Now, now there was no light in her eyes, except what naturally came from the living.

He tilted his head slightly, “I was gonna say we go all out, but are you okay?”

He didn’t want to intrude, there was a bit of hesitance in his voice, but he seemed legitimately concerned, and then he shifted tacts a bit. “Actually, you know what, don’t tell me. I’d like to hear it, but I think you need to let out some steam. Mind following me for a bit?” He half turned, gesturing for her to follow, waiting till she moved, before he started off at a decent jog, heading for the forest.

Mai quizzically watched him before following. Yeah… blowing off steam seemed nice. Koutaku was weird though. She was just going to blow off steam.

Mai clenched her left hand, trying her crazed grin for half a second before it faded. Just...let...off...steam.

Not noticing her brief slip into insanity, Koutaku led her into the forest where no one would hear him scream bother them or interrupt. After awhile they emerged into a rather large more or less circular clearing about 30 meters across. He walked twenty meters from her and then turned around, and looked at her a moment before nodding.

“Yeah, this’ll do,” he said, offering no explanation before he did some stretches before closing his eyes, while faced towards her. His breaths were deep, and somewhat audible, as he lulled himself into an almost trance-like state, it took him about 30 seconds, and then he began focusing on the flow of chakra throughout his body. After another 10 seconds he opened his eyes and smiled at her, sliding one foot back as he exhaled, and raising his right hand as he inhaled. He met her gaze, “Killing or maiming are out of bounds, but I don’t mind bruises or a bit of bleeding.”

He sounded incredibly calm, despite knowing that he was facing someone who was certainly better at taijutsu than he was. Still...he was pretty good at it, and was fairly sure he could keep up with her speed, not to mention that ninjutsu was on his side, so to speak.

“Now, bring it,” he said, beckoning her with a small movement of his fingers.

Mai took a deep breath, trying to get in the mood. She HAD to fight. It was who she was. Why wasn’t she feeling it? Last time she had a cold she’d been miserable about missing a day or two. There wasn’t anything she could think of. So why did the prospect just… just not excite her?

Mai put up an interesting stance, her left hand in a C shape infront of her as she slightly cupped it, and her other hand almost seemed relaxed as she held it at an open defensive stance. Her legs tensed as she watched Koutaku for moment. She dug into the ground with her heels as she prepared her first tech.

“Ready?”

Maintaining his deep breaths and the chakra flowing through him, he nodded, putting his muscles in a state just between tense and relaxed. It had taken him awhile to learn the proper way of doing that. Hours of practice, now, would be put to the test.

Man, he was crazy to not prepare anything before she rushed him, but to hell with it.

Mai took the silence as a yes, and moved towards him, her entire focus on the genin. To hell with it, she might as well get it over with as quickly as possible. If she did it quick, no one could accuse her of not having her heart to it. Though, fighting someone like Koutaku with no ninjutsu was going to be hard. He did have higher grades than her. Then again, she had a harder fist.

She kept her same stance as she approached quickly. Oddly enough, she didn’t just barrel at him. Mostly because with her tensed legs she couldn’t.

She began her approach, and while it was fast, it wasn’t like the bullrushes he’d heard about. He stepped towards her, and began using the prototype. A slight eddy of wind followed each of his movements, his breathing regulating his chakra as it infused into him proper. He released Kazaho from one foot, pushing himself into a short dash at her.

Mai was a bit confused. She should be feeling elation at the spar, she still wasn’t. It was as if something was missing. It was going too fast, time flowing normal. She really just wanted to go home. Oh, and he was charging. That was weird. Mai leaned back, seemingly moving to escape. She then faded to black. Mai reappeared almost right by, moving straight at him, a punch aimed for his stomach from below as she leaned into the low straight.

Shadow Strike

Mai. Close. Wind. Chakra.

A burst of wind dampened the strength of her strike, and his stomach hardened, and then softened completely, dispersing the force of the strike, but his focus was so complete that the hit still sent him sliding backwards.

Then he lost his balance, and started falling, back first. He kept an eye on her.

Mai never stopped following him, stepping into a chop with her right arm aimed at his collar bone. The snapping motion made it seem more like a club with her arm bone than it did a normal strike. Mai’s foot dug into the ground hard as the strike connected. She was close range, there was only one goal she had. His hands weren’t coming together again.

“Straight…. My ninja way. Straight. Can I still be just as straight?”

The first sign should have been that he hadn’t thrown his arms out to catch himself when he fell. His right palm turned away from his side, where it was positioned, released a stream of air, and with his legs bent, body practically horizontal, he dodged. He angled his right hand slightly downwards, and swung upwards in an arc, pushing his left foot backwards, and vanishing in a body flicker, retreating back.

As he reappeared 3 meters away and to her right, his right hand was drawn back, palm upon, fingers curled, face a mask of focus. He fully expected her, with her speed, to follow right behind him, and he was ready.

Mai was surprised as her attack missed. Time wasn’t slowing down. Oh, and he had used an air blast to escape, but time wasn’t slowing down for her. It almost made fighting boring. Mai contemplated it as her body moved on its own. Before he even made it out of the body flicker technique, he would find a faster body flicker charging at him in a shoulder ram. As the entire point of body flicker was to move faster than the eye, it would be disorienting to be IN one. An attack aimed at the middle of a body flicker was rare. Mai had just watched how his body had moved, guessed where he was moving towards, and used her own. Her leg digging in as she’d chopped had given her the explosive leg power to follow him straight after the move. Still, Mai couldn’t make sense of it. Normally during an intense fight, everything slowed down, and there was an euphoric feeling. Nothing was happening now.

His hand having already been drawn back mid-flicker. He more felt her approach than saw it, the wind around him a slight extension of his awareness. It was a crazy feeling, a new one too, hard to control properly. Normally he could afford to freak out slightly in combat, but with this technique he had to remain calm or he’d lose control of his breathing and lose grasp on the jutsu as a result.

Too much thinking.

He released the blast of air as her shoulder was 3 feet away, it struck her, focused at the shoulder, but it did hit the rest of her too. The only other movement he’d managed was one he’d begun partway through his shunshin. He’d managed to brace himself in preparation to land.

Her shoulder hit him, upper chest, another burst of wind exploding right before she hit, reducing the strike’s potency further--it was automatic. His muscles stiffened, he breathed out at the same time as the bulk of her momentum struck him.

Still, it hurt, and he winced, gritting his teeth hard, jaw locking. Still, his breath was calm, and deep, and he felt powerful. Her momentum transferred through him, sending him back faster than he had been moving before, but his awareness of his body was much greater than normal.

He was ready to land before he did so, sliding back, and feeling the movement and tension of each individual muscle, the force moving through bone and tissue, being dispersed. Even the shifting of his facial muscles felt weird. The hyperawareness made it feel like he wasn’t experiencing things at the same pace as usual, but he couldn’t put to words what exactly that meant.

Mai fell back to earth following the blast of wind, landing on her feet. She cracked her neck. She’d felt the impact, though she couldn’t keep up with her own movements. It was body flicker after all.

“I think I’m done. I don’t know, my body just doesn’t feel right. Not sure I should be sparring this hard. I dunno, maybe I got the flu or something.”

Saying that she flexed her left hand, opening it as wide as she could, and gripping with it.

That fight should have been easy. She’d punched him. Not keeping up with him was just because she was sluggish. The fact her fists were taken? A sign they weren’t hitting hard enough.

He had been smiling, but the expression shifted...and he felt it, and it was weird, and then he lost focus. Dammit, he thought, relaxing his posture as the chakra, internal and external, slipped away. He’d only been using it for less than a minute, but he felt a substantial loss of chakra.

Frowning slightly he looked at her. “You hungry?” he asked, as if out of nowhere. He didn’t comment on the condition of her hand, nor did he look at it or say anything about her flexing it like that. She seemed pensive and oddly introspective. He saw himself in her, but not the him of now...not even the him of a few years ago, he saw himself when he’d still be young. He saw the him who had wanted to impress his parents and had sometimes failed.

He shivered. There was no way she could feel like that though, right?

“Nah. Just tired. Think I’ll just sleep off whatever I got.”

“Well, enjoy the rest then. Maybe hit me up in a week or so? Oh...and don’t tell anyone what you saw me do here. I um...I kinda want to keep this one up my sleeve, you know?” He knew that whatever was off about her today was gonna bug him for awhile. Having an excuse to hang out again and check on her would be good.

Plus...he legitimately needed the help.

“Oh, yeah. Sure.”

What technique was he talking about? Meh, whatever. Maybe she’d be better for next week. If she said no, she’d never hear the end of it from anyone who knew her.

Nodding a bit, he let her go, frowning slightly as he watched her disappear into the forest towards the village. He say down and sighed. He wasn’t sure what was wrong, but he hoped it didn’t last too long.

He liked her good side better. Hopefully he’d get to see it soon.

 

[yoshua171]

A Clash of Earth and WindKoutaku Nisekuru, Itsuki Kaida, and Umichi Kamimizu(Barely)
Ganryu yoshua171 Spemout ​

Spoiler

Having wanted to get acquainted with what might be his new teammate--not to mention having had some new prototype techniques in mind, Koutaku had sought out both Umichi and Kaida for something of a sparring match. Granted, Umichi was hardly going to be doing anything, just keeping an eye out as it were. Finishing some stretches, he grinned over at Kaida, “So, I heard you might be joining Team 3. Apparently almost a sure thing, the way I heard it.”

He rifled in one of his pouches, withdrawing two kunai, before he looked back at her, eyes shining, he seemed a bit excited. “I thought maybe we could get acquainted some, that way it’ll be easier for us to fight as a team later, ya know?” His mind whirred, he had three things he could test, and oooh were they juicy~

“Anyways, you ready?”

Kaida took a different stance than the basic style from the Academy. “Always am. Just, fair warning. I'm going to use my family’s style instead of the Academy's standard one. I only used it because I didn't want to seriously hurt anyone who couldn't take it.”

Her stance had her turned partially away from Koutaku, about 25 degrees from directly facing him. Her left side was kept in front of her, with her left foot facing him, and her right foot exactly 90 degrees to the right of his direction. Her knees were bent slightly, and her feet were about half a foot from each-other. Her left hand was in a fist, held facing Koutaku, while her arm was at her side, her elbow bent so that her forearm was facing the same direction as her fist. Her right arm was the same way, but across her stomach and at a 45 degree angle instead of 90 degrees.

“Are you coming at me or should I bring the fight to you?”

He grinned, took in a deep breath, slid one foot back, and positioned himself similar to her, though his posture was different, back straight, left side leading. His position would have hid his right arm, except that he’d bent it at the elbow, and raised his left arm so it was horizontal in front of him, while his right was parallel with his torso.

“Either or, but for the sake of chivalry, how about ladies first?” His eyes glinted mischievously and he began to spin the kunai around his finger, as if he were fidgeting.

Kaida had her own eager grin, but she moved her hands to her hips, where her claws were waiting. Quickly putting them on, she then grabbed her own two kunai, holding one in an icepick grip, the other one the usual tip-towards-the-sky. With most hand claws, this would be impossible, but the hand grip for hers was a thin, flat strap secured tightly, so she didn't even have to grip them to use them.

She ran at him, right arm held further in front of her than the left, and she had the underhanded kunai in her right hand, the overhanded in her left.

A small “Heh,” escaped his mouth as he performed a handseal with his free left hand, and then performed two more.

Nothing happened. Kaida had been about 15 meters off at start, a fair distance in case either of them were ranged fighters. Of course, Koutaku could fight at any range so it didn’t matter too much, but he liked things to be fair just in case. The kunai still spinning rapidly on his finger, his wrist shifting faintly to cause such, he waited till she closed 5 meters of space, then pushed forwards with his right foot--which was braced behind him--pivoted his body, and then threw the kunai from his finger.

It came off straight, flung at a decent speed, of course, that wasn’t the notable part, no the important part was that--just as it had left his finger--dust and leaves had been faintly blown backwards from it, and it went from a fast kunai, to a terrifyingly fast one. “Ten no Tsunzaku(_天の劈く 'Pierce the Heavens'),” he said after the fact, the technique so fast that at 10 meters away she may as well have been at point blank range. Of course, the kunai was dull, but it’d still hurt like hell.

‘Huh. Clever bastard.’ It was strange how calm her thoughts were when she was fighting. Honestly a kunai thrown and going that far that fast from a jutsu performed with one-handed seals, which are apparently a real thing, was impressive. However, if Kaida was anything, it was quick. She responded by placing the hole below the handle of her left kunai in front of where it would hit. So instead of likely being knocked on her ass by a stupidly fast kunai, she was spun in a circle and a small ache had formed in her arm, but she still caught it...then she noticed the ring of the kunai she had used crack and break off. “Ok, my turn.”

She put the kunai away and quickly made a few handseals of her own, and while she was somewhat hindered by her claws, she was still rather quick at them.

Yet, even as she managed to catch the technique, in a fashion, before she could cast it off it exploded, or rather...the compressed air that had built up in a sheath of chakra around it did, buffering her and likely offsetting her balance, as well as blasting the kunai away from her body. He was moving, running now, directly at her, two more kunai already drawn, she hadn’t even had time to see the handsigns (nor use her own) either--being distracted by the projectile. His preemptive actions having interrupted her plans, he could see it subtly written on her face.

“Asshuku Saya(_圧縮鞘 'Compression Sheath'),” he said, eyes slightly narrowed, though admittedly he was somewhat impressed that she had pulled that off--still, his tone was as if he were scolding her for thinking him so simple. He’d have to make a note of throwing it at closer ranges, speaking of which, he was only 6 meters away now.

He threw another kunai at her, having spun it beforehand as the technique required. He wondered how quick she could recover, and if she could indeed move fast enough to block the second strike.

Kaida chuckled to herself. “Looks like you're quite the sneaky guy.”

Seeing him spin a kunai a second time, she did the wise thing and went on the defensive. Four handseals and a shout of “Earth Release: Rock Dome.” ensured her time to pull some sneaky maneuvers of her own, as it was a dome instead of a wall. She pulled out a length of wire, cut it off when two feet of it was unspooled, and with a half ram seal via her right hand, and a whisper of “Itsuki Clan Weapon Technique: Wire Barrier.” a rock formed on the end of the wire. She then began making handseals, dirt lifting from the ground and compressing into the size and shape of a cannonball around the rock on the wire as she did. She had pinpointed Koutaku’s location by the time she made the final handseal via listening for him. “EARTH RELEASE: MOUNTAIN WARRIOR CANNON!”

This ball of dirt the size of a man compressed into the size of a cannonball, and launched at speeds great enough to break an Earth Release: Earth Style Wall, was launched towards where she'd last seen Koutaku through the front of the dome of stone Kaida had created. She broke through specifically at the one point where it was weak enough to shatter like glass, and as she came into view it would be apparent that her attack was dragging her along with it via the wire she was holding onto.

Meanwhile, during the time she'd used to set up her attack, Koutaku twitched two of the fingers on his right hand and, using the kai handsign with his left--now totally out of sight of his opponent--Koutaku used the Body Flicker technique, reappearing silently on the top of the dome. At the same time, inside the dome the first kunai he’d thrown earlier--out of her visual radius and only two meters behind her, still airborne--suddenly swiveled in the air, the point of it reorienting to aim at her, before it released a powerful blast of wind backwards.

He grinned to himself, knowing what it was doing since he triggered it, and thought to himself, Jiku Tenkō(_軸転向 'Axis Conversion'). As he thought it his kai handseal activated not only on the aforementioned kunai, but also on the two kunai that she’d attempted to use Earth Dome to block. Instead, their trajectory swiveled and they shot themselves up and away from his position on top of the dome. They would fall eventually, but that was for later, in the meantime he exuded some chakra, creating a series of chakra threads, which he then draped over the front half of the dome, in relation to where he’d been.

Given her fighting style and personality as he’d seen so far--and from glimpsing her other times in the academy--he figured that she wouldn’t be retreating, no, she’d advance again. A moment later, he was proved correct as a huge cannon ball of stone shattered a part of the dome, and she followed a moment after.

Two chakra threads tagged her, one attaching to the stone, the other attaching to her back, he released the others. He used two others to snap kunai into his hand. He performed a set of handseals, taking only an additional second, spun the weapons, and then threw them again propelling them with a blast of wind.

Attached to the chakra threads, not only could he feed them more chakra and guide their trajectory, but they would use them like a trajectory line, firing directly at her from behind. By the time they fired she was only 4 meters away, meaning she had virtually no chance to dodge.

Additionally, being pulled by the stone, and the kunai coming from behind, she was totally off balance, her arms and attention pointed forwards while attacks came from behind. He would say he couldn’t plan it better, but the reality was that he had more or less planned it. His grin remained...and he waited.

She felt a sharp pain suddenly start in her back before she was launched forward by her jutsu, but she ignored it after she heard the kunai hit the ground. “Man, he's really gotten smart.”

Kaida swore under her breath as she felt the chakra thread attach to her back post-dome exit. “So that's the game he wants to play. Alright. Let's see if he can handle this.”

She let go of the wire, letting her jutsu fly and hit the ground about two or three seconds later. She instead stabbed her left hand claws into the ground to bring herself to a quick stop, pulling them out and putting her bracer-covered arm over where she had felt the thread connect. It'd hurt, but it'd be better than taking another hit like that. She took a handful of shuriken and threw them at him, then felt the dull ache from blocking the first of the two new kunai.

Seizing this opportunity, she grabbed the kunai immediately after blocking it, and threw it at the second one that had been flying at her back. She then quickly turned towards Koutaku again, and sighed, before smirking.

“You know, the one thing I never figured out is why people seem to forget that I do have range.”

She then proceeded to make the same three handseals ten times, stomping the ground and shouting. “Earth Release: Rock Section Cane!” She did this ten times as well, and each time she did, a large barrage of stone javelins launched themselves at Koutaku at blistering speeds. Not as fast as his wind-propelled kunai, but plain chakra could propel objects fairly well on its own. After doing this and using up a fair chunk of her chakra in the process, she started running forward again, though not directly under the last barrage.

The kunai, having been hurtling at where she planned to block it, suddenly expanded to three times its original size and weight, about a foot away from striking as the genin utilized his Advanced Transformation technique on it. There would be no throwing it to stop the second strike, and additionally the kunai released an explosion of air as it struck, amplifying the force even further and sending it hurtling to her side with the other kunai ready to strike.

Koutaku dashed forwards, utilizing a series of handseals in preparation for another technique, focus writ upon his features, even though a slight smirk had upturned one corner of his lips.

When she got off her technique, with him braced and already holding his breath, he dodged between some of the bits of stone, and then utilized a follow-up handseal.

Shinkū-shitsu(_真空室 'Vacuum chamber').

Having held his breath so he wouldn’t have to worry about oxygen deprivation in the brief airless vacuum of his technique, Koutaku was more than ready as the technique redirected all the air somewhere behind him and then fired it down the chamber and at him...and the barrage of projectiles, reversing their trajectory completely, with him already out of their way. Of course, he wasn’t out of the way of the blast, sending him--amongst the projectiles, largely hidden from sight-- right at his opponent as well.

Additionally he threw a kunai, with wire attached, off to the right and forwards a bit. It would strike the ground, dig in deep, and then anchor itself with chakra--essentially an alternate use of the tree climbing technique. He kept a firm hold of the wire, making sure it was wrapped around his clothed wrist before it touched his hand. He reinforced the skin somewhat, letting out slack as he flew at Kaida.

’Wait for it…’ he thought.

Kaida smiled. ‘It was either dodge, repel, or reflect. Good to see he's been consistent so far. Now it's my turn.’

She stopped and let one of the barrages hit the general area she was in and create an obscuring cloud of dust before she followed up by dropping several smoke bombs, hiding where she might actually be behind a dense cloud of smoke and dust. While one might argue that he could just blow the smoke away, a smoke bomb doesn't unleash the entirety of its payload at once. This would give her time to hide and prepare an ambush.

First, she made another Rock Dome, but she didn't make it around herself. She then broke the weak part when the second barrage hit, making it seem like it had been broken by that instead of her. She then covered herself with the broken section of the rocks inside the dome just by where the opening was, looking like just a pile of shattered stone, hiding herself under them while making a Bunshin that was hiding to the left.

She was damn well determined to make him fight on her terms. This would be done just before he landed.

Now to let him try and find her.

’There’ he exclaimed mentally, and gripped the wire. His momentum kept him moving, but rather than continue straight at her, he began swinging in a circle, having used a brief Gyaku nobori no jutsu(_{逆登りの術} 'Reverse climbing technique') to offset his trajectory. As a result he swung around the Rock Dome as it formed, layering the wire that followed in a line from a point to his left (Kaida’s right) all the way over to his location on the right (her left).

The additional barrages of her own technique struck the dome, weakening its structure significantly. He used Chakra Flow: Wind affinity, through the thread, layering a particular portion of it to blunt it once it had cut through the stone. Additionally, the kunai anchor plus his momentum allowed him to continue around the entire crumbling dome, cutting through practically everything it came into contact with and putting him well out of any possible harm’s way.

Grinning again he was quite amused when the blunt part of the string--as planned-- made contact with Kaida’s body, having sheared through all of the intervening stone, where it would wrap around her tightly, attempting to bind her arms to her sides.

His momentum bled off and his feet met the ground, with him sliding a few feet before stopping. He picked up the kunai anchor, holding it in the same hand. So it seemed that not only had she buried herself in the rubble of two Earth Domes, but that her arms would almost certainly be pinned to her sides uselessly, essentially trapping her within her own attempt at trickery.

He called out, loud enough for her to hear, with him being outside the smoke. “You should work on your tactics, Kaida, but that probably would’ve worked against someone else!” As he said it, the kunai that he’d launched into the air earlier plummeted down and slammed into the pile of rubble, releasing tremendous bursts of wind as they did so, scattering the smoke and most of the rubble away from her.

Kaida was legitimately angry now. Not that her plan had failed. She wasn't mad about that. She wasn't even mad about that jab at her tactics.

No, what she was mad about was that Koutaku thought he could hold her with wire. It was obviously enhanced with wind jutsu, but she knew the limits of chakra flow in regards to ordinary metal. It was something her father had drilled into her head constantly. While wind chakra would enhance sharpness or blunt force, it doesn't enhance durability.

And she had long since reached the point where she could snap wire.

She flexed and strained, and the wire binding her arms snapped. She climbed out of the rubble and stood on top of it, facing Koutaku with a calm face that was plainly a facade.

“Koutaku, I've got a very rhetorical question for you. Do you know what my family as a whole specializes in? Weapons. As a rule, before you're allowed to wield a certain weapon, you have to be able to ruin any part of it with nothing but your body and the ground. Wire is one of the first things I learned how to use.”

She sighed, then looked him in the eye.

“So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to hit you. I'm going to hit you until the fact that you fucked up has sunk into your head. Considering you were smart enough to make me fight on your terms, I'd say it'll only take two or three before it has sunk in.”

And suddenly she was gone, Replaced with a log. And quite close to Koutaku. Holding another log. This one had ‘Log-Chan’ carved into it in kanji. She had it wrapped in wire.

“I had to break logs before I could use them, too. Let's have fun with that.”

She swung the log at him like a flail.

Oh great, now she was rambling. Still, he managed not to roll his eyes and instead just continued grinning at her with a self assured look on his face, the most infuriating one he could muster. Playing with the emotions of his opponent was also part of the game you see. Before she finished though he drew a smoke bomb into his palm and threw it down. He heard a sound, and immediately vanished, replaced by a clone and a spray of what appeared to be leaves. The log flail struck the basic clone, it poofed into smoke, disturbing the leaves, which bustled all around her...and then exploded as they turned back into explosive tags.

He was standing amongst the rubble where she’d been earlier, on top of the log that she’d substituted out for herself. He was holding the kai symbol with one hand, still smirking.

His other hand was in front of him slightly, fingers splayed out, chakra threads connecting to all the kunai that had dropped into the field of rubble a few moments ago, and to some other spots too.

“I love it when my opponent’s get feisty. Usually means they’re out of things to do, so they talk big instead. It always makes me feel warm and fuzzy on the inside,” he said almost cockily. The scary part was that not only wasn’t he bluffing, but he had the situation well in hand. She couldn’t get him caught up in her pace, it just wouldn’t happen. Especially because he’d done his research.

She didn’t have any genjutsu. Furthermore, neither her nor the other genin knew that he was a member of the infamous Iouchiryo clan, a clan of assassins who were lofted as absolute masters of equipment and the basic techniques by those in the underworld that knew of them. He had been training almost since he could walk, and had studied harder than all of his fellow genin--even if he’d never made it apparent.

He practiced daily, and nightly, more than once, slept in shifts of four hours to make it viable, and was in the village with his parents, who were master assassins and shinobi themselves--something that not even the village knew. Still, she was pretty good, but she was no Mai though, now that girl was terrifying...even on a bad day.

A little crazy too. He admired her.

Then, from the cloud of dust created by the explosions, several logs were sent flying towards Koutaku far faster than they had any right to, and into the air went a cannonball made of compressed dirt, with Kaida on top of it holding another one that had a length of wire sticking out of it. It was the first one from earlier.

Once the logs were about three feet, the poof of smoke denoting a transformation occurred, revealing it had been another barrage of stone javelins and if he hadn't moved, he'd have been hit by them.

In the air, she waited until she had gotten to the peak of her jutsu’s upwards arc, about 50 feet, before using a large burst of chakra to make the cannonball fly forward once more, with Kaida being on top of it this time instead of being dragged with it. This time, it was launched at a downwards angle towards Koutaku. While if this hit him it might do lasting damage, she knew he would notice with enough time to dodge.

That's why a certain log was still being carried with her.

Even if she had black scorch marks littering her all over and the hood of her jacket might be smouldering. Even though she wasn't caught in the direct center of the blast due to a jump when she noticed the puff of smoke that was the explosive tags being revealed for what they really were, it still hurt like hell and she probably needed to have some decent medical ointment applied later to deal with the burns.

A boulder hurtling down at him. Hadn’t seen that anywhere before. Her riding it though, that was kinda neat. Crouching he twitched his fingers and the a kunai shot into his hand. He spun it on his finger once then threw it up at twice its normal speed--doubling the chakra he’d used for the technique. The kunai struck the boulder, with chakra threads attached to it, one directly to his finger, and the others to five separate locations in the rubble. The threads shortened in an instant and five explosive tags plastered themselves to the boulder. At the same time he’d used two handseals to activate a technique on the boulder itself: Asshuku Saya(_圧縮鞘 'Compression Sheath').

He let it remain for a moment, kicking the log he was standing on backwards as hard as he could with a Kazaho(_風歩 ’‘Wind Step’) sending it flying up, bacj, and away from him. Then he used kai and triggered the explosive tags. The compressed air that Asshuku Saya had gathered around the massive boulder as it fell was suddenly ignited in a tremendous explosion, tearing the boulder apart into tons of shrapnel and probably burning Kaida more.

He jumped backwards, using body flicker, and reappeared on the piece of wood he'd kicked, which he then used Gyaku nobori no jutsu(_{逆登りの術} 'Reverse climbing technique') on, sending him hurtling up through the air towards Kaida, a chakra thread connecting back to the log, which he tugged on, and shortened at once, sending the log flying ahead of him and upwards further.

’She must be tired by now, tired and hurting,’ he thought as he flew upwards. He needed to end this quickly, if that hadn’t already.

Kaida noticed the explosive tags and had jumped towards Koutaku about five seconds before the explosion. Her back was peppered with earthen shrapnel, but before she hit the ground she tugged herself to the log that she still had wire wrapped around, the one he had chakra threads attached to and had propelled himself into the air with.

“Yeah, I'm not letting you blow me up again. Nice try though.”

She then proceeded to leap at him, using the log as the brace she needed to do so when not on solid ground.

“GOTCHA!”

She swung the wired-log straight down at him, intending on launching him into the ground like a nail into wood.

“Kazaho(_風歩 'Wind step'),” he said, and a small pulse of wind shot him out of the wood’s trajectory in the last moment. His left hand grabbed onto the wire, chakra threads wrapping around it, and in his other hand a kunai spun, having never stopped since he'd drawn it well before her first use of Earth dome. After all, when he’d thrown his kunai before he’d drawn new ones and left one of those from the very beginning of their match on his finger, just spinning.

He grinned, used the Advanced Transformation Technique, and incrementally transformed the wire, shortening it as he pulled her to him at the same time. The kunai became a blunt object, and he threw it, using Kazaho twice more to fly to the side of her at the last moment, and then behind her, pulling her own wire and log with him, before sending a pulse of wind from it, sending it past her right side, dropping it like an anchor that--again--he’d wrapped around her arms to restrain her. Of course this time, her own hand was tangled in it already, and a blunted kunai was flying right at her abdomen, which had been launched by a technique that made kunai point blank projectiles at 10 meters, let alone 1. In fact, the whole maneuver would be so quick that she probably didn’t even know what had struck her until afterwards.

Kaida was tired, burned, and most importantly frustrated.

This genin she was to be teamed with focused on subtlety.

Among the few things that legitimately made her scared, it was things that would destroy without being immediately obvious.

So she went with something she usually didn't.

She decided to focus on her fear and tell it to shut the fuck up because he was not fighting subtly, he was fighting smart.

She then proceeded to break the wires binding her yet again, and simply tanked the dull kunai, albeit grunting loudly as the pain went through her, adding to the rest.

“Alright, full speed," before using the log to launch herself up at him, throwing shuriken and kunai at him the whole time. Five or six kunai missed him and went into the air….

She watched, and just as they went over his head, the brown objects tightly bound with wire to the handles, rather than the rings like some people, of five of the six kunai began reacting to the half-ram seal she had made with her left hand.

“Boom.”

An explosion filled the air.

Her recovery about as fast as he'd expected, Koutaku's feet made contact with the log he'd thrown past and above them a moment ago. In contact, he used the tree climbing technique, essentially crouching on it upside down, before he turned it in the air by throwing his weight forwards, or...well, downwards, which flipped him behind the wood. Then, using his transformation technique he increased the size of it.

However, before he could, one of Kaida's kunai grazed him, but the rest struck the wood, which he then, used a small burst of wind to throw downwards at her and away from him. There was a look of focus on his face, not that she could see it, and then the explosive tag on the kunai that had grazed him and flown past, went off, pushing him down and spraying his back with fire. He winced and clenched his jaw, thus ending up with him more or less standing on the opposite side of the chakratically expanded thick plank of wood.

Kaida proceeded to throw a rope around Koutaku and the log simultaneously, around where she estimated his neck to be, because while it wouldn't keep him there, and obviously it wasn't tight enough to kill him, it would buy time for her to get onto his side of the log, which she proceeded to do in an attempt to finally get to pummel him.

“Not wasting any time. Pummeling you now!” She said as she quickly lunged at him in an attempt to punch him repeatedly, claws and all. Yet, before she could the two to three seconds that the rope took to snag him proved to be her downfall. For, as the rope snagged him, placing his face against the log, he released the flow of chakra. As a result, the log returned to its normal state, leaving Kaida with nothing to grab onto except for the rope itself.

Grimacing at the feeling of his face against hard wood, Koutaku retrieved a kunai, channeled wind through it, and then cut the rope, before he threw the log straight at her, pushing off of it, downwards, and away, as he did so. He threw a kunai with an explosive tag, propelling it faster with Gyaku nobori no jutsu. The kunai struck the log, which had Kaida’s rigged kunai on it already. He gave her a look as he fell away, his hands ready to make the ram symbol, though he clearly didn’t want to.

If she didn’t take the hint, he’d have to set off his tag, which would in turn set off hers...point blank.

Kaida looked at the tags, then at him, then grinned as she simply kicked the log away. “Dammit, I'll get you next time. You're quite the tactician.”

He gave a slightly awkward air bow of sorts, then threw some kunai at the ground, setting up a soft slide for them to land on unharmed with wire, kunai, and his advanced transformation technique. He landed on it, sliding down the sheet, before he got up. If/when she did decide to land on it, he’d give her a hand up, carefully avoiding her claws.

His smile was more one of understanding than it would be infuriating. She was damned tenacious, he had to admit, and she was good.

Kaida accepted the hand up, wincing slightly. “Koutaku, you haven't changed a bit aside from having more jutsu under your belt.”

He laughed a bit, “Neither have you, tenacious as all hell, but maaaaybe a bit rough around the edges,” he teased, glancing at some of the burns.

“Sorry, may have gone a bit overboard,” he said with a sheepish smile. He glanced at Umichi, who had fallen asleep despite all the noise, that or she’d been drunk when he’d pulled her here. He debated on waking her up, then glanced over at Kaida, “Do you think we should wake her up ooor?”

Kaida sighed. “Honestly, I'd say let her sleep until whoever else is on the team gets here. It never said in the letter who I was being teamed with, so this is a pleasant surprise, anyways. I've almost forgotten what your favorite food is. What was it again?”

He nodded a bit, but frowned, “Yeah, but then don’t we have to explain your...um, injuries ourselves? Rather than making her do it?” He said it with the slightest of glints in his eyes, clearly only half joking, he liked to give Umichi trouble sometimes.

“Also, it’s Ochazuke actually, what’s yours?”

“Eh, I'm not gonna let people make assumptions due to the fact that clearly our sensei couldn’t give less of a fuck and some rumors paint ninja as violent, sexual deviants, monsters, or some combination of the three. And it's manju with a bit of dark chocolate cooked into the outside. I thought you'd remember I like sweets...that reminds me. Pocky?” She offered a stick of the treat that was sticking out of the box slightly.

“Sure, why not,” he said, accepting the offered treat, and taking a bite. “Let’s get you patched up and healed though. Maybe I can get you some Manju? Those burns look pretty bad after all,” he glanced at some of the marks sheepishly, but started walking, leaving Umichi where she was.

“Only if you let me make you some ochazuke later...or did you forget I know how to cook?” She walked with him, smiling. “It is really nice to see you again. My old sensei was pretty...ok, I'll be blunt, he was a combination of serene, odd, jackassery, and skill that somehow works, and he's apparently an expert on demons. He beheaded Jorogumo after my team beat it on our first C Rank. Still have quite a bit of Ryo left from that…”

He smirked a bit, recalling that she’d made her own lunches back in the academy, then raised an eyebrow as she mentioned her old sensei. ”Really now? Well that’s impressive. I will say, Umichi isn’t as bad as she may seem from this.”

He took another bite from his pocky, ”Though we do call her lazy-sensei, she’s smart and damn skilled where it matters. Probably not cut out to be a teacher, but she does it well. I kind of...switch between giving her a hard time and being teacher’s pet,” he finished with a grin of remembrance. Umichi would never forget to check her beverages in the future.

”Keeps her on edge, makes her try a bit harder because she never knows when I’ll give her trouble again. Plus, she knows I do a lot of my own research, so really she mostly gives me practical training more than anything, stuff like this match.” He chuckled a bit, took another bite, and chewed it, giving her time to speak by taking another bite rather than talking again.

“Eh, I feel like she can't be as bad as Koma-sensei was. Though the one skill I wish I had been able to learn from him is summoning. Being able to have an ally, maybe even a friend, on standby would have been so useful, but the icing on the cake is something my father told me: some summons have blacksmiths back at their homes that would bring any smiths from the nations to tears. While I'm comfortable with my claws, I don't think they are the best weapon for me. They lack adaptability. And honestly, I'd feel better about the whole Bijuu situation if I was strong enough to at least buy people time to handle whatever ends up happening, because I don't feel it'll be anything good.”

He nodded a bit, remembering what he’d had to do to try and help with Kiyoshi on their last mission. However, after that he was silent. A bit later the two would arrive at the medical station, he’d promise to get her some manju. Then he departed, satisfied with the effectiveness of his new techniques. He would see her around, they were teammates now after all.

Kaida left for home after getting cleaned up, her burns healed, and bandages over the bruises, hoping to have a discussion with her father about getting herself a weapon better suited to her made. She was smiling, though, because she knew she had someone she could trust to watch her back.

 

[Retro-Grey]

KIYOSHI AO
TEAM 3​

"What do you mean you have no money?!"

"I-I-I thought I did!"

The old chef gave the poor boy a gratuitous sneer before sighing heavily. He grabbed the empty bowl of food in front Kiyoshi, the one he had been expected to get paid for, and threw it away.

"Next time you come here, you're paying for this meal, and your next one!" The chef said sternly, he had turned away from the boy and began cooking up another meal for a regular customer who had just walked in.

"Thank you so much!" Kiysohi yelled in gratitude and bowed his head respectfully before heading off to his scheduled training.

Lately the boy's been training rigorously since he had met someone who could keep up with him. It gave him motivation to prove he was the better. But of course, in the back of his mind he was still haunted by that stupid mission.

Kiyoshi didn't even know if his teammate was alive or not, he hadn't seen him since then, but he also hadn't got word from anybody regarding the poor Nara's status. Maybe this is what it meant to be scared. He had never felt this concerned over someone, maybe it was because Kazu was actually one of his only friends. And after a mission like that, Kiyoshi was lucky to even have any.

That's if he still had any.

There were a select few that would take pity on the boy, and now he knew why. Then there were the few who only tolerated him. Now he knew the real reason for it, it wasn't cause they were jealous of his abilities, it was because they were frightful of what he was. It made him angry. They only saw him as a beast. So he secluded himself in his training.

Alone, Kiyoshi was noticeably more serious. He was quieter, much like his name translates to. He painstakingly forced himself to run his laps, no matter how much his legs hurt. He forced himself to train his fists, no matter how much they'd bleed. He needed to get stronger. Just so he never had to feel that loss of control again.

It's gotten to the point where most of his body has been damaged in someway. His entire left forearm down, burned from his new technique. His right cheek, just below his eye, has a cut from a rogue splinter after he smashed a log. His right knuckles were bruised and both of his legs were sore just from how hard he practiced his taijutsu. Almost his entire left arm and his right forearm were bandaged crudely, as well as his right cheek. It was obvious the boy was deteriorating. They only thing likely keeping him from entirely shutting down was the beast's chakra and his constant eating.

But today, he might have to fold. Umichi sensei had scheduled training and Kiyoshi was already running late. He was nearly sprinting, his cardio has gotten better, but his limbs felt like weights. For once, he didn't even pull the crazy parkour shenanigans he usually would on his way out of the village. He was simply running, watching as villagers spilt before him.

It felt like their eyes were on him. Were they? He could've sworn that he could feel their gazes burning into his back.

Do they know? Is it that obvious?

Those were the thoughts that were running through his head as he ran to the training grounds. It made him queasy thinking about it.

Eventually the boy made his way to the climax of a battle. Koutaku and some random chick were duking it out while Umichi had fallen asleep. The scene alone made his teeth grind and his fists clench.

It was an amazing display, but Kiyoshi would never say it out loud. Especially since it made him feel very inadequate. In a manner very unlike himself, Kiyoshi took solemn strides until he stood next to Umichi. His eyes lingered on her before he focused ahead on the other two. He sat himself down, his legs crossed and his eyes closed. His bandaged palms on his knees while he struggled to keep himself in place.


Ganryu yoshua171 Spemout

 

[KageYuuki]

Squad 5
The faint breeze floated through the grassy training grounds, showing the three people standing within with a faint shower of relief from the morning heat. The training grounds were little more than an opening in the wilderness that surrounded it, the people inside likely the only life that had been seen inside for a month and a half, ever since Sei made her first journey inside the Tori gate that stood nearby.

“So then, I thank you both for coming, after the last mission I figured you two would be up for something more lax, or at least less dangerous. While it is good to keep yourself on your toes, it is also good to remember people need help, and smaller missions are not to be ignored, even when you are a chuunin or higher. As such, today I received a job from a friend of mine, we only need to take a package to a person for her, she will explain more when we get to her home.”

Koma explained their mission as he usually did, leaving out most parts and far too carefree for his own good. The man stood before his two genin, the ever present smile on his face still lying there. “I trust you remember this place Sei, it hasn’t been so long since your first trip inside. Don’t worry, we’re entering at a much safer time of year, and I didn’t call upon any friends this time.”

Behind him the same looming gate made of trees stood, no light puncturing the deep darkness that stood between the arched trees.

Sei stared at the gate and shuddered. She was not too excited about going back into the Yokai realm. “Sensei. . . you’re sure nothing’s going to attack us while we’re in there? You weren’t exactly expecting those shadow things last time either.”

“Don’t be sso nervouss,” Kuro hissed, slithering through the grass at her feet.

Yukari quirked an eyebrow at her teammate, “Do I even want to know what we’re about to get into?” Sei’s tension was… palpable, to say the least.

“It was the first trial I put Sei through, her fellows seemed to be less…. Well… they didn’t seem to want to go through with it.” the man started, walking towards the gate. “A test of mettle, as it were. But now we have to hurry along, we don’t want to keep her waiting today. And if anything will attack us, I’ll deal with it, no need to bother your cute little heads.”

And with that, he entered the gate, disappearing into the deep blackness that lay within.

“If you hear voices along the path, don’t answer them and don’t leave the path. Just don’t.” Sei shuddered again before following her sensei.

“Eh?” Yukari tilted her head, but still followed behind them. From the outside, the other side of the gate didn’t seem unusual in any way. But once she stepped inside…

The warm late spring air had been replaced by the cool, crisp air of autumn. Even the leaves on the trees had become a myriad of reds, yellows, and oranges. “Sure, the change in season is weird, but compared to those caves it’s not too bad.”Though like the caves, a strange feeling clung to the air. Much fainter this time, but it was still there.

Sei glanced from side to side, watching the trees that lined the path. It didn’t feel as bad as when she first passed through the gate, less like something watching her and more like traveling through unfamiliar land. She was starting to get used to the strange feeling of passing between realms, a realization she was not excited about. “Sensei, how far in do we have to go?”

Koma took in a long breath of the air and let out an equally long sigh. “Not far, the path should be shorter this time of year. Follow me, try not to stray from the path.” And with that, they set off into the beautiful woods before them.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The walk was, as the jonin stated, much faster than the one Sei took initially. The mansion that she saw last time was once again there in all of its splendor. This time a sleek looking red furred fox stood in front of the door, staring at the group. “Good morning Sani, is the mistress in?’ asked the jonin who wove slightly to the fox.

Who, not surprisingly at this point, replied. “She is within, expecting you, please head inside quickly as possible.” the fox spoke in an older man’s voice as its tail swished about behind its back. Its old eyes watching the genin’s every move.

“Very well~ Come now, let's head inside.” Koma led the way inside, opening the door to reveal, once again, the stunning foyer, untouched from the last time Sei had entered. But this time, sitting atop of a rather comfy looking cushion lay a woman, roughly the same as the man that lead them there and looking more or less like royalty in her fine silken wear. What stood out the most, however, are what lay atop her head, and what were splayed out like peacock’s feathers behind her back.

Fox ears and tails respectively, fluffy as can be.

“So you have finally come, it is good to see you once again Sei. Has Koma been treating you well since the last I saw of you?”

For once, their sensei was… Quieter than normal.

“I . . .” Sei faltered, trying to wrap her head around what exactly was going on. She’d expected some other deformed monster, not this beautiful woman, fox, thing. Finally, she nodded. “Yes, I guess so.”She shifted, unsure exactly how much she was allowed to say, though she had a feeling the woman knew Koma well enough to realize his teaching method was unusual in the shinobi world.

“Hmm, that doesn’t sound very promising… Koma…” the fox woman flashed a glare at the man, who seemed to be currently very preoccupied with the wall. “..Regardless, it is good to have you back, even if for work. Now, for our newest arrival, who might you be? Young woman with the all seeing eyes?” The fox tailed woman smiled warmly towards Yukari, addressing her next.

“Roku, you should probably introduce yourself as well,” Koma spoke up for once with a raised eyebrow.

The fox woman flinched slightly “Ah yes... Forgive me I was… excited to meet you both.” she covered her face with her sleeve to hide her light blush. “My name is Rokujou Sato, guardian of the wood and spirit of fertility.” she rattled off her name as if she wanted to get it out of the way she was, in essence, a minor god. However, once she got that out of the way she immediately leaned forwards and with sparkling eyes filled with curiosity stared at Yukari.

“Now what are your names?" she was with much more interest than before, almost seeming playful in her tone.

Yukari offered a low bow, it was clear the woman was powerful even before she introduced herself. “I am Yukari Hyuuga. It is a pleasure to meet you, Lady Rokujou.” While she may have despised all the lessons on formalities, they did come in handy at times.

Though they were never taught with the possibility of meeting a literal god in mind.

Sei shifted. Of course Koma’s friend would be a god, hadn’t he mentioned that the first time she was there? She couldn’t remember. Feeling foolish, she considered asking Yukari for some lessons on dealing with nobles but told herself she had more important things to worry about. She’d just have to be careful not to offend Lady Rokujou in any way.

"Sei and Yukari, goodness you are both so very adorable!” Rokujou exclaimed, more than happy to meet them both. “You both can call me Roku. You’re free to visit any time of course~! Oh I am so very happy to have new friends!” the kitsune before them gushed, looking beyond happy to finally meet new people. “It is beyond boring being here alone. I’ve already exhausted just about all routes of conversation with my servants, even my little sister has finally left to start her own realm, it’s gotten very lonely here…”

The god seemed to wilt, her fluffy tails flopping to the floor in her sadness, only to shoot back up again when she remembered why she asked them to come!

“Ah yes! Speaking of my little sister.” she snapped her fingers and another fox woman came out, carrying a wrapped up bundle. “This is why I have called for you all, alongside a nice chat of course~! I want you all to deliver this to my darling little sister, she's all alone out there, so I imagine a bit of home will do her some good! Plus, it being her birthday… I can’t help but spoil her~!” the goddess was full of cheer once more before motioning the other woman to give them the bundle.

“Do you have any questions? Anything at all! I can tell you so much! Maybe a fortune telling? I.. Can’t do that as a god… I doubt you’d need my powers for anything for awhile I’d imagine… Or.. So I hope. You both are far too young. But I love performing divinations anyways!” like a giddy school girl the goddess bombarded them with words.

Koma glanced to his genin. “...Your call.” he chuckled slightly.

“You can really see the future?” Sei considered it. There wasn’t much she wanted to know, then again, she had been wondering if she’d made the right choice. A small divination couldn’t hurt. She scooted forward. “Could you look at my future? Not very far. I just . . . I was just wondering if my grandmother is right about being a shinobi instead of a doctor.”

As soon as she said it, she wished she could take it back. If her grandmother heard her, she’d be scolding her for days for worrying about something she couldn’t control.

“Oookay! Time for a divination!” the goddess showed enthusiasm one wouldn’t expect from a heavenly being. And plucked out of her sleeve a set of small bones wrapped in a cloth, she read recently you could read the future of somebody by burning chicken bones and reading the cracks!

Or.. did… Did she have to toss them and see how they land?

Freezing up for a moment as she tried to remember what the book said she bit her lip. “...Hmm… Umm… Perhaps, it would be best if we left it up to you. Fate is indeterminable in the end, fortune telling can tell you of one path, but many more can open up by doing something else. Walk your own path, live your own life, and you will always prosper. Do not give up your dreams my little dear friend.”

Naturally, she was trying to cover up her forgetting everything the book said by some godly wisdom. She only hoped her little sister didn’t get the stage fright she felt when put on the spot like this!

(news flash, she did.)

She silently sat, staring forwards with a warm smile across her face, hoping that she passed this off well enough.

Sei shifted. She wanted to believe Roku’s fortune was true and her advice sound, but she couldn’t shake the feeling it was something she could have found in some magazine horoscope. Smiling, she bowed slightly. “Thank you. I really appreciate it.” Mentally she wondered if telling her grandmother a god told her being a shinobi was the right path would somehow cool the family tensions over dinner.

She glanced at her teammate.

Yukari was silent, offering a slight shrug to her teammate. She didn’t know anything about telling one’s future. That said, she was about ninety percent sure Roku had pulled the reply out of her ass.

Though who knows when it comes to gods?

Roku stared at the two with her happy beaming smile for a good few… Awkward seconds.

“...Ehmn, now then. I do believe it is time for you all to conduct your delivery. My darling little sister’s shrine is a little down the town’s east road, you will see a small shrine on the right side of the road, I do so ever hope she is well on her own… She hardly even has transformation spells mastered... “ Roku looked a tad worried before continuing.

“Once finished, your payment will be delivered to you by my servants, though if you want to return I would be so ever so happy to host you~! You are free to come by anytime at all! Oh, and if… You bring some of those delicious packages of deep fried tofu I would be more than happy to give you my blessing~ not that I wouldn’t because we’re friends it’s… Well.. how being a god works.” she explained, looking a tad sad she couldn’t give the cute young ladies her blessing out the gate.

Koma made a small nod. “Well then, it is time to start moving along. This delivery mustn’t be kept waiting.” the man stated as he motioned for the kids to move along to the door.

“Koma… I do hope you know she is still looking for you.”

“That's nice to know, perhaps we should talk about that another time.” the man brushed off the vague words before trotting towards the door already.

“Do remember to come back! You can visit anytime!!!” the goddess yelled to the group, telling them for what might be the fifth time they were welcome again.

It made one wonder how many visitors she really gets.

Yukari offered a slight bow, “We’ll certainly try to come for another visit, Lady Roku.” She straightened, “Though it is rather tricky to get here, I’ll admit.” At least, it seemed that way from how Koma spoke and Sei acted.

Sei followed her lead and bowed as well. “It was nice to officially meet you.” She gave the god a small smile before hurrying after Koma. Something felt off but she couldn’t put her finger on it. Was this actually going to be a simple mission? Sure it was for a spirit but it didn’t seem as difficult as she’d expected. For once, Koma didn’t seem to have something hidden up his sleeve. She wasn’t sure if she could trust it.

Once outside the jounin rubbed the back of his head with his free hand. “Always so incessant to have people visit her. Does she think that saying it fifty times will make them come back sooner?’ the man sighed slightly before turning to his students. “Well? A rather simple mission, just as I said. I wasn’t worried that you wouldn’t make friends with Roku, I would tell you to be careful, even if she is good natured, shes still fond of playing tricks now and again. And if you ask nicely she might let you touch those fluffy tails of hers-” the interruption of a fox clearing its throat nearby made the man stop.

“Hmm… Well alright then, I suppose it’s time. It’s a short walk to the shrine, I suggest you get used to this if you follow my lead with this yokai business. Beings like Roku can’t exactly leave her realm so easily. As such, they send servants, but even they have only so far they can reach.” the man’s explanation continued as they walked back out of the realm.

Returning to the brisk heat that they left not so long ago.

“Now then, we’ll be stopping by a few shops on the way. Need to pick up some gifts of our own, don’t worry I’ll pay.” the man waved off as if it wasn’t a big deal. “Choose something you think a little fox would love, I’m sure she will love anything you give her, but we need to hit the tofu stand before we leave town, that's for certain.” the jonin rattled off their first destinations, obviously having done this before.

“Any questions while we’re walking? You two did meet one of the area’s great spirits.”

“It’s definitely a bit to take in still,” Yukari had her hands behind her head as she walked. Meeting a literal deity - no matter how minor - was more than a bit to take in. “Walking between realms and all that.” She sighed, “Could have sworn I read somewhere that foxes also like udon…”

“Good idea actually. I keep forgetting about that.” the jonin tapped his chin in thought. “Indeed, she's one of the area’s protectors, dare say why the forest is so verdant and lively. Older than the city, though she doesn’t get too many visitors at her shrine these days, she still is quite powerful.”

He paused and took a look to Sei, wondering if she had any words.

Sei walked in silence, frowning slightly. She was still waiting for the catch. Shaking her head, she told herself she was being ridiculous. “So, you specifically deal with the yokai in the area for the village? Or did you just decide to do this type of thing for fun?”

As they neared the village, she looked at the different shops and merchant stalls along the road. What would be an appropriate gift to give to a minor god?

Koma had to actually think on that question actually, it had been so very long he…. Hadn’t thought about it for a very long time. “I suppose you could say the work chose me. When one is taken by such strange circumstances like that, you have no choice but to adapt. Before I was just a simple ninja, believe it or not, knew nothing of these realms and their denizens.”

Wistfully the man continued as he, one could assume, looked into a shop for a possible gift. It was hard to tell with those odd eyes of his.

“That said, I have met friends, enemies, even the love of my life.” he picked up a small ball, tossed it up and down a few times and then went to buy it. “Time flew by, before I knew it, my friends grew old and I’m teaching two promising young ladies how to be ninja. I would have given you the simple day to day lessons, but that wouldn't have helped you, in the end, simply knowing about what is beyond that which is normally seen gives you advantages over others. And it helps you avoid things others would find impossible to avoid.

I am sorry I didn’t quite ask first, but. I will say this skill I have given you will be handy as any tool in your arsenal.” In a strange moment of seriousness, the man full on apologized for the foolishness the young ladies had to deal with.

“That said~ I suggest you pay close attention to our lessons, even more so than you already do. Because I found you fitting enough to recommend for the chuunin exams.” the man dropped the bomb on them as he stared at a stall selling tofu across the way.

Sei’s head shot up from the display of hair pins. “The chuunin exams?” She’d heard about those tests; her shinobi friends were excited to show off their skills while her mother and father always groaned and gripped about children being put in dangerous situations just to demonstrate the power of the villages. The news of being recommended was both a blessing and a curse.

“You think we’re ready for that?” She wasn’t so confident she’d actually succeed in a fight using her ninjutsu, even if Kuro had been helping her work on it. And her genjutsu was good but she wasn’t great at it during combat. Out of the two of them, Sei figured Yukari was the only one even remotely close to ready for this new challenge.

She quickly chose a hairpin- one with a simple design where the resin and delicate beads were shaped to look like a ground cherry pod. Simple, yet elegant. She hoped it would be an acceptable gift.

Yukari’s gaze snapped up from the package of udon noodles in her hand. Sure, it wouldn’t have been anywhere near as good as when Harumi made them from scratch, but perhaps it would do for now?

Of course, Koma had to go and snap her out of her thoughts, “Wait, you did what now?” She turned to face him, “isn’t it a little early to be going for the Exams?”

“Believe me, if I weren’t pushed a tad I would be keeping you for a full year and a half before I'd let you all go. But it seems having a big family name here makes said family want to see their investment grow faster... “ Koma frowned slightly, before taking the mask they had found in the last mission off of his staff.

He then handed the mask to Sei. “Keep hold of this, it will help you in the time to come. Just don’t put it on.” the mask definitely had the strange feeling upon it, but it felt less problematic than it did in the caves. Much like the feeling within Roku’s realm. It also had a strange feeling of heat radiating off of it.

“When you are surrounded or require something to be destroyed, I suggest you make use of it. Just… point the mouth away from your friends.” the jonin warned before walking off to buy some Tofu and quickly coming back. “It will help with those worries of yours, you may be teamed up with a Hyuuga, but that doesn’t mean you are any weaker than her…. Or did I read your aura wrong?” he tapped his chin once more, staring at the young woman for a bit.

“Yukari, that hair brush would be a nice gift, if you're looking for a suggestion.”

“You think?” The Hyuuga mused, picking up the black lacquered brush. Given the noise of the market, she hadn’t really heard what Koma had said to her teammate. “Well, sure, let’s go with that then.”

Sei blushed and stared down at the mask. Was her lack of self-confidence really that obvious? She’d have to work on that if she wanted to survive the chuunin exam. Or could it be used to her advantage? She wasn’t sure. But having something--granted, completely unknown at the moment-- that might give her some kind of advantage would be nice.

Paying for what the group chose, Koma and the group set off towards the east gate. It wouldn’t take long for them to get to their destination, Koma just hopped the little thing was doing well, being a guardian spirit was a big job, and she just a young little fox…

The walk to the shrine was uneventful, the sun shined and spread its warmth throughout the day, and before they knew it they were closing in on a small fork in the road with a clearing nearby, which housed the shrine of which was mentioned. “No trouble at all, I’m surprised, usually something would’ve gone wrong by now.” the jonin joked(?) as he walked towards the small empty looking place.

Well taken care of, the shrine had a stone work fence surrounding it to keep the wildlife out with a small opening to allow passersby within the grounds. Leading from the opening was a path of flag stones laid neatly up towards the shrine proper, a small place for offerings to be placed upon a small plate before a small statuette of a fox deity.
The scene was calm and peaceful, but some odd sounds behind the shrine broke the scene. The sound of somebody humming happily, while making a tone of voice one only tends to give their pet when their alone.

“Who's a cute little bunny wabbit! You are! You are! So fluffy and fat, hehehe!” the cheerful voice sounded like that of a little girl.

Koma looked to the girls. “Seems she hasn’t noticed us yet, I suppose that's a blessing as-” it appears his voice caught the attention of the small being, who peeked out from behind the shrine.

With a small gasp the little being leapt up top of her shrine and leapt towards Koma’s face, colliding with the Jonin with a shrill laughter and the words shouted at the top of her lungs.

“UNCLE KOKO!!!!”

The little fox spirit clung happily to the man’s face in the tightest hug the little thing could muster.

Sei covered her mouth to keep from chuckling. She leaned in closer to Yukari. “Uncle Koko? So is sensei the cool uncle or the weird one that people aren’t sure what to do with?”

“Is that really a question at this point?” Yukari murmured.

Their voices caught the little girl’s attention. Her ears flicked forward as she stared at them, trying to place their faces. A canine grin spread across her face. “New friends!”

“Yes yes it’s uncle Koko. Happy birthday Nona.” Uncle koko mentioned her name, largely for the sake of the other two.

“Did you come to visit!?” Nona asked, sitting atop of the laid out Koma’s chest.

“Yes, but also we’ve brought a little something from your sister, and a few things from us.” he mentioned he motioned to the bags. “Some offerings, to the newly made Guardian spirit.” his smile grew larger, as the little fox seemed to glow with delight with being called her title.

And totally not because of the presents.

Totally not.

Still chuckling, Sei gave the little fox a small bow. “It’s nice to meet you Lady Nona. It’s nice to meet you. I’m Sei.”

“I’m Nona! I’m the guardian spirit of this- O-oh, you already know that huh? Umm..” the little fox tried thinking of something to say to new people. “Umm.. I.. recently left my sisters and started my own shrine! Isn’t that great?! Oh… Sis woulda told you that to huh…?’ she tried to search for something interesting to say.

“Umm.. umm.. I… like your hair…” she looked at Sei’s hair, before looking to yukari to gasping slightly “ooh! You have pretty eyes!”

Yukari chuckled slightly, offered a small bow, “Thank you, Lady Nona. I am Yukari Hyuuga.” Reaching into a pouch, she withdrew the dark brush. The image of mountains had been inlaid on the back in mother of pearl. “A small gift for the new guardian.”

Ears perked up, eyes wide as they can be, the little fox reach towards the brush with the brightest smile one could muster. Moved beyond words the little fox hugged the brush in her tiny arms.“T-t-thank you!” she stammered, her many tails swinging about like a little happy dog.

It was hard not to grin at the little fox’s excitement. Sei pulled out the hair pin she’d selected, carefully wrapped in tissue paper. “Happy birthday, Lady Nona.” She offered it to the young fox.

The sudden appearance of a SECOND gift only made the tails swing wildly! Occasionally buffeting the face of the jonin she currently stood upon. “I-I Th-th-thank you!” she began to shiver and, ultimately, begin bawling her eyes out. “Thaaaaank youuu!!!” the little fox could only cry in her happiness.

But her ears perked once again as she suddenly remembered!!

“Oh! I gotta- one second” she scampered off the man’s chest and placed the two objects in the bowl before the fox statue. “Okay! Umm, now I gotta do something for you! I’m gonna give you a blessing! Th-though I'm not too good at it right now, so umm… W-well it’ll go well! I promise! Now, wish for something really, really hard!”

Sei hesitated. She wasn’t sure what she could wish for that a new guardian could grant. Then again, this was a spirit she was dealing with. “Well . . .” She ran through a list of things in her mind before settling on something simple. “Could you bless my training? I can use all the help I can get.” She figured it was easy enough for the young spirit to do.

Yukari shifted slightly, while she would have loved for things to actually work out with her clan, it was likely far beyond the young fox’s reach. Not that she’d want anyone else finding out about the issues floating around at home. “I’ll… I’ll trust you to decide,” she said finally with a slight bow. Besides, Nona knew her own limits better than either of them would.

Hopefully.

“You… trust me!? O-okay! I’ll do my best… Hmmm… Ummm….. How does it go… Good luck in! Bad luck out!” the little fox drew out two blossoming sticks before she began to wave them in the air before her. “Okay.. First…. I have to.. Umm..” she froze for a second, suddenly becoming very sensitive to the fact people were watching, becoming rather embarrassed.

Trying her best she turned to one side, seemingly waving the sticks about, then flipping to the other side as flailing them in that direction.

And then finally, with a triumphant shout she rose both sticks in the air shouting. “Nona blessing!!”

And then the world grew very silent… Before a large puff of smoke appeared around the two!

“AH!? It worked!? This has never happened before!” the small deity burst out, excited as can be. “I finally did it! I did a blessing!”

Once the smoke cleared, and the two were finally free of the cloud made by the little one’s magic, the results became strikingly clear of what the little one had done.

Atop both of their heads, their beautiful hair, had turned into a rather off-putting pink color.

Coughing, Yukari waved remnants of smoke away from her face. Well, that was certainly something. She wasn’t really sure what to make of it other than not feeling all that different. At least… not until she got a look at Sei beside her and Koma who was still on the ground.

Oh…

Oh no…

She was afraid to look at her own hair. Already on thin ice with the family, coming home like this… This could be bad. The Hyuuga remained silent as she examined the once ink black strands of hair. There really wasn’t anything she could say that wouldn’t upset the little spirit.

Sei held her breath, hoping the color would change back. It didn’t. She tried rationalizing what had happened. Maybe the young fox had just played a little trick on them or maybe it was some little quirk that came along with the blessing. Or maybe Nona had used the wrong spell and now their hair was a lovely powder-puff pink that everyone would spot, question, and laugh at. Slowly, she let out her breath. They couldn’t risk offending the little creature. If this is what happened when she tried to do something good, she didn’t want to see what would happen if Nona tried cursing them.

Forcing her sweetest smile, like the one her mother used on especially rude or difficult patients, Sei bowed. “Thank you so much, Lady Nona.” In the back of her mind, she wondered if they could get Koma to cough up some money for hair dye when all of this was over.

Sei’s words were not enough it seems, for the little fox stared at what had happened, began to shiver and then burst immediately into tears. “I’m sooorrrrrryy!!!” she wailed, the sorrow over her mistake was simply too much for her little form.

It was at that point that Koma stood up, running a hand through his bushy pink locks. “Well, I didn’t expect that to happen. But I suppose it’s better than the fire that happened last time.” he admitted, looking at his two genins now bubble-gum colored hair.

“It should only last a day or two. Hopefully. I’ll see if I can make a charm to suppress it when we get back. At Least for you two, i think i quite like this pink color.” he walked over to the fox and lifted her up in his arms, she was currently whipping her eyes of the remaining tears as he did so.

“One final gift little one, a gift from your sister.” And with that, he pulled out the bundle. The little fox, despite her earlier sadness tore at the wrapping like a child on Christmas, revealing the gift to be.

A Hand mirror!

Yet another smile filled with unending joy appeared across the little one’s face. The mirror was a wonderful thing, made of pure gold and sparkling in the sunlight, she gazed upon the mirror in wonderment and awe. “Sis….”

Another wave of tears were incoming, but not before a faint glow came from within the shiney mirror. “Nooona! Over here!” a voice called from within, a voice unmistakable of that of her big sister!

“Sissy!!” Nona yelled in surprise, getting put down by Koma before he lost grip on her in her excitement.

The two began talking at a feverish pace as the jonin walked towards the two. “So, despite the… Surprise hair dyeing, What do you think?

In truth, I had a mind to do this on my own, I figured you two would be more interested in… Well… More ninja related things. It's not as if I’m grooming you to do this type of thing forever, I’m not leaving this job for quite awhile I’ll admit. But you two can do as you please, a whole world in front of you.”

Taking another slow breath, Yukari sighed. “Well it's… Certainly a lot to take in still.” She watched the small fox talk nearly faster than she could follow. “Our work as shinobi may be important and all… But there's literally an entire other world mixed with ours.” She glanced at their now pink haired sensei, “Can we only see it now because of you?”

“You could see it because I introduced it to you, or… So I think. In truth it is very complicated, but since the very moment you stepped into a yokai realm with me, all doors became unlocked to you. If a yokai realm is around you, you will feel it in your very core. If a being is corrupted, you will feel as you did in the spider cave. From what i understand, that is your aura telling you something is wrong, or… so i think. Perhaps it is simply instinct?

If a normal person walked past us now, they would see us talking to a statue that's not moving, suddenly have our hair turn pink after a bunch of smoke, and us talking about weird stuff they couldn’t comprehend… So.. keep that in mind when you're in public places. Within realms like the caves, they aren’t technically there, so once the master dies, they come crashing down.”

The man continued on a little lesson. “Much like Roku… heavens forbid, if the worst was to happen… Poof. Back into the forest you would be. And the forest would be worse off, that I tell you.”

“I see…”Yukari murmured. Part of her wanted to ask if these spirits died of old age. But with Nona right there, it didn't seem to be the best time for such questions.

She paused. “Wait, does that mean no one can see Hikari when she's around other than us?”

“Since she is a yokai based on a creature from our world, people would only see a cat.” Koma stated. “Say a yokai, like a umbrella based one, were to come alive and manifest, they could be seen as their true forms. Hikari, as a regular old cat, is but a pretty little kitty, when manifested, she's much bigger. Kind of like showing their true forms… To imagine it kinda like an anime really."

Yukari nodded, idly wondering what Hikari’s actual form looked like since she was always such a tiny thing when hanging around, harassing her.

Sei wondered if Kuro would be willing to show her his true form. He was such a small snake but if he could grow bigger, he could help her in combat. Then again, she had a feeling he’d refuse and make her do it herself. He’d been a bit of a stickler when it came to her training lately.

“Are all summons yokai?”

“Now that is indeed a good question. The best way to describe it is. Not all summons are Yokai, and not all yokai are summons, but all yokai can be bound, as such they can act somewhat like summons but yet to bind yokai you don’t need to be forced to align with one family. But they do not always have the same strength as summoned jutsu.

That said, while yokai can be bound, they are not forced to obey, and may wiggle and thrash about like devils to be released from their bond and wreck hell upon the holder of said bond. Some gain a hate love relationship, like our resident nekomata and Yukari here.

Your little noodle named Kuro is not a yokai for instance, but that doesn’t mean nothing considering the potential inside that cute little snake.” it appears Koma liked snakes, not surprising really.

Nodding, Sei smiled at the thought of Kuro hissing in distaste at being called a ‘little noodle.’ It explained why they worked so well together and Yukari wasn’t seeming to have as much luck with her summons.

“Well I suppose that was a job well done. Let's get you two home… Ah, first let's drop by my home, I’ll get something to stop this… hair.. Problem.. For you two at least, I want to show my daughter this.” the man chuckled before calling out to the chattering fox. “Nona! We’re heading off! There's some food in here!” he placed the last bag down in the bowl before giving a small wave to the fox.

“Bye!! Come back soon! I’ll get the blessing right next time! I prooomise!!!” she yelled to the group, before scampering behind the shrine once more, and disappearing from sight.

“A real charmer that one. Known her for twenty years now, never gets old seeing that one smile.” he chuckled a bit waiting on the two to get ready to go. “So? Want to get this hair thing sorted?”

Yukari sighed, “Yes, that would be nice.”

 

[Ganryu]

A Dark Dawn (Hint, these are the villains of the RP)​

In a deep underground lab, paper fluttered in like a flock of birds, swirling around the lab a few times, before tightening their flight, gathering in one place. The papers began to become more solid, forming a man. He was dressed rather fancily, a set of robes full of tassels. Several pieces bits of paper gathered, forming a book in his hand. In his other hand, the last part to form, they created an insanely large cleaver, a hole near the head. From the way he struggled to grip it, it was easy to see it was not a weapon he was familiar with. He closed the book shut and greeted the only other person in the room, holding up the sword.

“Daisuke, how go operations on your end? I do believe this will get the swordsmens’ attention, even if it fails to get the Mizukage. Somehow, I think you have that taken care of though.”

The man leaned the sword against a bookcase. He raised an eyebrow as he noticed black splotch against the bookcase. It was a horrifying lab, but necessary. He did smile with pride as he noticed an identical copy of the book he carried in the shelves.

“I take it one of the subjects was being unruly. Is there any particular blood you’ll be looking for when the Hidden Leaf job starts? I do know you are always looking for more Senju and Uchiha blood. The raid is promising. Ko’s going to have a field day, I do know that. It’s a rather good thing, her little small village costs about as much as a small village to hire.”

The apparent owner of the lab looked up from several ancient looking scrolls spread across the table. They looked like the slightest breeze would scatter them to the winds. “For what used to be known as the Village of Bloody Mist, they’ve certainly grown soft…” A faint smirk played at his lips, “Though they’re certainly calling for war. Even the Daimyo... “ He chuckled, “Though the sight he awoke to likely provided the motivation.”

The man sighed as he straightened, dark crimson locks spilling over his shoulders. “Senju and Uchiha are a given, yes. But the scrolls you acquired had an interesting bit of information,” His dark gaze returned to the weathered parchment. “Tenjin wrote that before the Sage was awakened to his calling, his eyes were once pure white. Nothing could hide from his sight. Sound familiar to you, Kurou?”

“The text or the eyes? Either way, yes. Well, that is a little harder of a request. The Hyuuga are so protective of their eyes. If I am anything though, I would say a thief is a good title. Just a humble thief. Although, I am taking quite a liking to the title of Sage of Six Paths. My little tailed friends are such a great help. Well, we have a very angry Hidden Mist, and a very culpable Hidden Leaf. Chuunin exams are coming up, and the Leaf is completely unaware. Geez, I wonder what could possibly happen? I probably should have Akai Kyoudai lie low for a while.”

Eying the table, Kurou read a bit.

“Also interesting is the line ‘in the sacred pine of Mori, the sage received his symbol to rule’. An interesting fact was in the warring feudal times before the Uchiha clan took over the territory, the place used to be called Mori. I think there might be a shrine there with his staff. I have to say, I’m a bit giddy about this whole thing. War is never good, it wasn’t for our Hidden Whirlpool, but this will be our first chance to ‘gather’ material from the Hidden Leaf without too much interference. Just slap on a few Mist headbands, get Ko to be a tiny bit stealthy, heaven for bid, and there we go. What did you do to the Daimyo’s kid anyways?”

“You’ve never been one for grisly details, but butchering lazy nobles is child’s play. Now stringing up the Mizukage’s only child in the center of town? That was a little more of a challenge at least.”

Kurou leaned backwards against on of the tables.

“Trust me, you haven’t seen grisly til you’ve seen Matatabi play with her food. It's a tailed beast AND a cat. Those poor Cloud ninja. I mean, you have the knowledge of doctor, but Matatabi… ”

He shook his head.

“Anyways, yeah. Stealing this thing was easier than I anticipated. I just had to steal the main summoning scroll of the swordsman, and change one little symbol. Summon Kubikiribōchō becomes Summon Lit Explosive tag. Stole it while he was in the hospital. Alright. Well, it looks like the war is ripe to happen. I think I’ll see if I can’t fan the flames anymore in the Mist. Leaving little hints that the Leaf is responsible seems to be giving them a rather large bloodlust.”

Kurou noticed his arm glowing.

“It looks like Chōmei is summoning me. This contract I have with them is killing me. I know they are tailed beasts, but the villages never leave them alone, I have to bail them out every fifteen seconds. I think Chōmei just likes to see if I actually show up. I have a few moments before the seal activates. Hyuga’s Byakugan, Sage’s staff, letting Ko steal whatever pays her. Anything else on the shopping list?”

“There are rumors of a Jounin there with quite the collection of artifacts, you may want to take a gander should time allow… Next time you come by I’ll have something for you. Put those… failures to better use than fodder in the arena.”

“Oh great, more things I’m linked to summon. Gone great so-”

In a poof Kurou was gone mid sentence, leaving the mad scientist back to his work, with the Kubikiribōchō well hidden in the lab.

 

[Ganryu]

Nobushige slouched against a training dummy, waiting for his students. He’d gotten there fairly early. He hated the morning sun. Why couldn’t they just do training at a reasonable time, like a few hours before midnight. Wait, could he change that? Questions for another time.

“Heh. Looks like I get to keep the Squad. Weird, figured old man Gou would be angrier than that. Oh well, guess I didn’t mess up as bad as his drunk brat, they’re still breathing. I still don’t get why I’m a jonin sensei, but I ain’t failing this job again. Let’s see, two new genin. This should be fun.”

Nobushige produced two paper dolls in his hands.

“Hope these reactions are just as good. Also hope the goodie two shoes doesn’t ruin the surprise. Then again, that’s what I like about’im I guess. We can’t all be killers. I’d prefer them not to be honestly. Still, better that than dumb warriors.”

Stifling a yawn, Yuuki landed nearby. He’d been up late copying seals, mostly trying to finish binding tools to Star Crossed Degree’s summoning. He was close to being able to write that particular seal with his chakra alone, but for now he was still stuck channeling it through a tag.

“Morning, sensei,” he murmured.

“Morning. Now, where are the other two? And Yuuki, stay quiet at the little test, hmm?”

The genin shrugged, “yeah, sure.” He studied Nobushige for a moment, “I'm not doing it again, am I? Kinda defeats it if I move first.”

“Meh. No fun, are you? Yes, just wait five seconds.”

“Fine, I won't move until one of them do, better?”

The sound of fast footsteps and heavy breathing rapidly approached as Katsumi entered the training field. She had overslept, having forgotten she was supposed to meet her new squad today. She didn't know why she was transferred in the first place, but she hadn't seen her other two squadmates for weeks. It made her worry, but she assumed they were busy.

She stopped about seven feet away from Nobushige and Yuuki. She bent over and breathing heavily. Her fuma shuriken was collapsed on her back. She looked up at her sensei, and a boy who looked appeared to be one of her teammates. “I-I'm sorry if I'm late sensei!” Katsumi apologized. She took a quick look around, but didn't see her third teammate yet. Maybe she wasn't late. Maybe she just embarrassed herself on her first day meeting her new squad.

Yuuki looked over at her, quirking an eyebrow. “If you were late, you'd know.” More than likely by having something sharp thrown at her, but he wasn't going to add that.

“I guess I’m not late either then,” said a quiet voice from behind Katsumi. ‘Unless you were right on the edge,” Nagisa stepped out to make herself visible to Yuuki and Nobushige, revealing a practically dressed, smaller than average frame, a quiet expression and most prominently; two arms covered in bandage like wrappings. Unlike the other new arrival Nagisa hadn’t slept in, though she had taken a little longer to double check her gear. Inspecting her shuriken and kunai for sharpness, taking apart her arm and checking the mechanisms for any wear and tear or foreign material. After that she had carefully assembled everything, stowed her ninja tools within easy reach and re-wrapped her arms, the whole process was intensely familiar to Nagisa now and rather relaxing

If her last sensei was anything to go by then jonin seemed to enjoy ambushing their new students with weird tests or rituals, it was worth being prepared for something like that. Well, it was always worth being prepared obviously.

“I’m Nagisa,” she said. Though I’m sure you know that already she added silently, studying the other three shinobi with a carefully neutral expression. Nagisa had the vague feeling she was supposed to add something like ‘I’m looking forward to working with you!’ or ‘I hope we can all get along!’ But she doubted it would sound very sincere coming from her if she did so she didn’t bother. As long as we can work together none of that stuff really matters anyway…

“To be honest, I don’t particularly care. I’m not a morning person. Be late in the afternoon, yeah you’ll get a kunai or two. I believe heavily in medic nin. Alright…” Nobushige yawned loudly. “First morning assignment for the newbies. Kill me. You got 5 seconds, go.”

He lazily looked over his genin as he gave an order. Interesting how Nagisa’s arm moved. And the other one seemed almost like a glow of sunshine. They probably were poor assassins, but that was Nobushige’s job, now wasn’t it? It didn’t matter what sort of clay they sent him, he’d make it a sculpture.

"...Huh?"

Nagisa's arm twitched towards a kunai on her belt but didn't grab it and she frowned. After forcing herself to think about it for more than an instant none of this made any sense. In the first place how was she going to go about killing a jonin with way more experience then her? Nagisa felt like maybe if she had time to plan something and get the drop on him it wasn't entirely impossible. But right now? In five seconds? Not happening. So there was some kind of trick going on here.

But she wasn't going to figure out the trick in five seconds, there were too many possibilities. Nobushige was looking only for the most bloodthirsty and blindly obedient genin, Nobushige had some kind of trap waiting to spring to teach them that fighting and killing someone was hard. Hell maybe he just wanted an excuse to beat up genin and was planning on telling the police "But they tried to kill me?"

"That's dumb. I'm not gonna do that," She said, breaking what had been a silence of a couple of seconds with an air of certainty. "What kind of idiot kills someone on the basis of that little information?"

Nagisa's gut was telling her that there were too many ways for this to go wrong if she just blindly tried to kill her new sensei. Besides wouldn't she do the same in a real mission? If someone in her squad just randomly told her to kill them she wouldn't just blindly do it in five seconds, not without some kind of explanation at least.

Maybe it was that word that had set off her instincts. Kill. Nagisa shifted her arm, her puppet one slightly. The wooden arm didn't have any nerves and she couldn't feel anything just through the chakra threads used to control it. But sometimes, when she thought about that day for the first time in while or was reminded of it suddenly she swore she could feel a twinge of real pain in the prosthetic. Killing and dying weren't things to be so casual about.

Tears began to fall from Katsumi’s face. Her first task was to kill her own sensei, and as soon as he said those words, she knew that she'd already failed. Katsumi had never killed anything before… on purpose. “I-I-I-I….” Katsumi was at a loss for words, stuttering beneath the waterfall of tears that began to flow from her face. Was this a cruel joke, or was Katsumi really supposed to learn something from this? Her legs shook, and she brought her hands up to cover her eyes. Five seconds had to have passed by now.

Yuuki watched the pair of kunoichi as the same test he had been given was presented to them. Nagisa’s reaction made sense in a way, but if there wasn't enough info why wasn't she trying to get more? Katsumi… Well…

He looked over at Nobushige with a quirked eyebrow.

Nobushige sighed.

“Well, if you weren’t already genin, I’d have my reserves… Katsumi. Nice answer, Nagisa. There’s something much more important than following orders. No, its not teamwork or some fluffy crap like that. Its thinking for yourself. If you can’t do something, speak up. Also, curious how you react to the macabre, and I dooo have this clone lying out here. Seems like a waste just to use all this chakra for it to rot.”

Suddenly his body twitched weird following a thud, then another, than another. From atop a building someone was having a field day raining kunai down upon their hapless teacher. Several dozen later, the man on the roof jumped down, who was still their sensei. He kept talking despite the corpse laying the ground. The only real attention he gave to it was as he talked he started to loot it for the paper dolls.

“Alright. I’ve received good reports about both of you from your last sensei’s. And I suppose Uchiha boy ain’t half bad. I’m going to let you know one little promise I gave the squad. If they could hold these dolls before the chunnin exams, I would let them participate.”

He held two of them to the two new students. The dolls contained a seal that would shock the chakra system proportional to the amount travelling through them during the time of contact.

“Alright. Introduction time. I have your files, so think of this as more for each other than for me. These are the people you’ll be forced to work with and hate for the next few years of your life. Let’s make this interesting. Only words you are allowed are your first names. The rest, let your jutsu do the talking. Feel free to hit a training dummy with them, or I can make another clone if you want a live target. I suppose I’ll go first. Nobushige.”

He did one handsign, causing half a dozen water clones to form around the field, the easiest clones to make, and considering he hardly gave them chakra, he could easily show off. They scattered running away. Nobushige held a handsign, letting them get farther and father away. Finally he moved, wiping his wrists, and summoning twice as many kunai. He threw half into the air, lazily curving in the air, then a second later, threw the rest, hitting them and deflecting them straight down. 6 splashes were heard.

He motioned to whoever was next.

Yuuki rolled his eyes as the first clone was pelted with kunai. Honestly, Nobushige seemed to be having too much fun with it. Even if he did act bored.

After the second clone and kunai display, the genin looked at his new teammates expectantly. “Anyone? Seriously? Fine, guess I'll go next. Clones might be easier to see though. Yuuki.”

He watched the four scattering water clones for a second, his hand slipping a few tags from a small pouch on his belt. The Uchiha were known for their speed, their entire sword style revolved around their sheer agility. And that was without using body flicker. With that…

Yuuki seemed to vanish from sight, appearing above a clone as he bounded from its shoulder. The tag he stuck to it summoned a kunai through its shoulder, dispelling it with a splash. Sliding under the kick of the second, he stuck another tag to its leg, again driving another blade into it. The genin wove a series of hand signs, watching the third clone work to put distance between them.

Fire Release: Flame Mortar

The clone erupted into a cloud of steam from the jutsu. In a flash, Yuuki stood were the fourth clone had, a puddle of water on the ground. It was hard to see what he'd done, but chains around his sword were gone.

He's Fast... Nagisa thought, her eyes flicking from side to side as she watched Yuuki flashed from clone to clone. Even now she wasn't entirely certain if she'd actually seen the last move or if her brain had simply extrapolated it based on his starting and finishing positions. Keeping up with someone like that is going to be a pain. Nagisa mused, although her expression remained unperturbed.

"I already told you my name, you can go ahead and summon some clones though,"

Another four clones appeared and began scattering as their predecessors had. Like their predecessors though they didn't get far. If Yuuki had seemed to vanish then it was fair to say Nagisa's right arm seemed to teleport, one instant it was by down by her side the next it was up, near her shoulder and a shuriken was whizzing through the air.

The shuriken sliced neatly through the throat of one of the clones and then its trajectory changed, it veered to the left, cutting in front of one of the clones and curving back around to take out the clone by its side. With the change in position something thin and long caught the sunlight and flashed, revealing itself as a razor thin, glowing thread of chakra tracing a path back to Nagisa's finger. Meanwhile the shuriken completed a loop around the middle clone and the thin, blue line drew taut around its neck. Nagisa tensed slightly and then body flickered forwards, appearing above and behind the clone to drive her knee into its back and catch the shuriken as it completed its second loop. Nagisa leaned backwards and pulled back with both hands. The loop around the clone's neck tightened and sliced neatly through it, the heady and body dissolving into separate puddles of water. Before she and the water even hit the ground Nagisa threw the shuriken she had caught, catching the remaining clone in the back and it too dissolved as the genin landed in a crouch, splashing water from the third clone all around her.

Katsumi fell to her knees and watched in shock and horror as her new teammates displayed their abilities, ignoring the fact that Nobushige was just killed by… himself in a bloody mess. Did they not care? Were they used to things like this already? Katsumi sure wasn't. Both of her teammates were fast, and were leagues above her. She couldn't even tell what Yuuki had done to the last water Clone. Katsumi realized their eyes were on her now, waiting for her to display her abilities. What would she do? She didn't have any cool or sneaky looking moves like they did. The only thing to do was to show what she had.

“I-I'm Katsumi…” Katsumi rose to her feet, and walked up to one of the training dummies. She got into a simple fighting stance, with her fists up in front of her face. Her left fist then began to flare with chakra, before she hit the training dummy with a hesitant punch. The training dummy was blown out of the ground, flying away, and a cloud of dirt and dust was kicked up around her. When the dust settled, Katsumi had her eyes closed and had her head turned away. She slowly opened one eye, and let out a sigh of relief. She then held up her left fist, which had a small scratch on it from the punch. She brought her right hand up and a small glowing ball of light formed in its palm. She gently moved it in a circular motion around the scratch, healing the skin in a few seconds. Her hands then went behind her back as she looked away, her shyness kicking back in.

Yuuki blinked as the dust settled. Looking from the remnants of the dummy to Katsumi and back. “I- you…” Already she was back to looking like she was going to disappear. “What the hell!?”

Nagisa looked on as well, having turned around at the sudden burst of sound. Although she didn’t say anything her face wore an odd expression and her neck was tilted slightly to the side, as if a better angle might make more sense of the situation.

Mental note: Don’t make her mad Nagisa mused silently

Nobushige had been tossing his kunai in his hand. As Katsumi hit it, he dropped it. He picked it up and went back to tossing it like nothing had happened.

“Well, there you have it. This is the team you’ll be with for a few years, and everything you should know about them. Also, my one rule, and I really only have one. No fighting. Not with each other, don’t give a damn about that. Hate eachother all you want. I mean, if I see a scratch on you, you messed up. We’re ninjas, not actors looking cool, not warriors fighting for our pride. Well, must say, after that display, I think I’ll enter you in the chunin exams. I mean, I don’t care for rank, I’ll take you on whatever mission I so chose, but don’t see the harm in it.

We’re ninjas, not spectacles, so for today, I think today’s lesson is how to be underhanded in an exam like that. More of a discussion. What are some ways you can prepare the fight in your favor before it begins? For example, I can hide shadow clones in the arena before hand to regroup on chakra before the exams begin. Or I could lay several explosive tags across the field.”

Yuuki hesitated, tilting his head slightly. “Don’t… the exams have a bunch of formal rules or something? Missions don’t typically have panels of judges. Thank god.”

“Rather than trying to smuggle weapons or jutsu past what are likely to be pretty stringent security measures, the easiest resource to prepare ahead of time would be information” said Nagisa, sounding thoughtful. “What are the genin from other villages like? What are their strengths and weaknesses? On top of that knowing stuff like what the actual makeup of the exam is, what criteria the judges are looking for, who the judges are and what could you slip past their blindspots or use to appeal to their personal sensibilities would be valuable. How could you mix up your usual loadout or round out your skillset to better deal with specific threats? If I was gonna cheat that’s what I’d do. The more information you had the better equipped you’d be to take more direct measures anyway. If you know where food’s going to be stored you can poison it, if you know how security will be sweeping for outside interference you can slip explosive tags or anything else through the holes.”

Nagisa wondered, while she spoke, what Nobushige would think if they actually did try and cheat. She didn’t really have a complete grip on his personality yet but she sort of suspected he would approve as long they didn’t get caught. That kind of logic had a certain appeal, if you could outfox a bunch of veteran shinobi and cheat on their fancy exam weren’t you worthy of calling yourself at least a chunin?

Nervously, Katsumi looked back and forth between her sensei and Nagisa. Sensei not only wanted them to cheat on the exams, but was trying to help them come up with ideas? If you won by breaking the rules was that really winning at all? Katsumi knew the answer was yes, but it still felt wrong. She started biting her hand subconsciously, her anxiety starting to skyrocket. If sensei wanted them to cheat, and they got caught, would they simply fail the exams? Perhaps the punishment would be worse. Maybe they wouldn't even get to be genin either! Katsumi didn't think she'd have a chance whether she cheated or not. But, she could try and go with the least rule breaking approach to gaining the upper hand she could bring herself to do. “M-maybe we could spread f-false information… or… something…” Katsumi’s voice trailed off.

Nobushige nodded as he listened to his genin answer. Well, soon to be chunnin answer as he heard it. He nodded with approval.

“Well, those two are certainly ideas. Let’s do it. And important lesson for the field. If you are attacked and have no info on the enemy, gather some, or run. There’s no reason dying because you didn’t know about the jonin in the enemy ranks.

Alright, seeing I’ll let people do their ideas. Nagisa, your job is to find out who is participating in the exams, and to do an extended profile on them. Whatever means you feel like, feel free. I recommend checking out recent passports. They are hard to get, its easy to say any 10-18 year old showing up to the village who isn’t a noble probably is a candidate.

Katsumi, your job is to start rumors. Find some foreign nin, pretend to be from a different village, and give them some real facts about Leaf teams, and some fake facts about this squad. Underplay the squad’s abilities. Trade information with them.

Yuuki, your job is to follow to find out whose proctoring and what the security is behind the exams.

We’ll meet up here this evening to report. Squad 4 out.”

 

[InsaneAsylum]

First Encounter: Aiko and Kuren​

Outside of the Hidden Leaf Village, hidden in a tight bundle of tree, a beautiful pond was hidden. In this pond, were many beautiful and delicious fish. Aiko would oftentimes come to this pond and catch fish for her father to cook. Today was one of those times.

She sat on a large round rock, and had a bucket of water next to her. So far, no fish had been caught yet. Her fishing rod was held between her thighs, leaving her hands free to read her book. It was a peaceful scene.

Kuren was walking around the forest area outside the village in search of some wild seeds or fungi for his garden. He had both a scroll and a book with him just in case he found a nice spot to sit and relax.

Kuren then came upon a nice spot by a beautiful pond. Kuren continued walking along the pond humming to himself. “That's strange? I didn't expect to see anyone else out here.” He noticed a girl who seemed to be fishing nearby.

Aiko raised an eyebrow. Normally, people wouldn't find this pond without knowing it was here first. She quickly closed her book and hid it away in her bag. “What’s someone like you doing all the way out here?” Aiko asked, recognizing the fella from somewhere. He looked to be a genin like her.

Kuren looked at the girl with indifferent eyes. “I could ask the same of you. Personally, i’m simple. I am simply looking for plants to add to my garden and was planning on finding a spot to read quietly.” kuren knew the girl was a genin and that she was part of squad six but more importantly she was an Uchiha. “Aren't you an Uchiha and apart of squad 6?”

Aiko didn't answer for a moment. People don't usually ask if she's a Uchiha. They either know or they don't. “I guess I'm a Uchiha, yea… I'm apart of squad 6 though. What about you. What squad are you from?” Aiko asked as she stared into the water, looking at all the fish avoiding her.

Keeping a straight face and using a monotone voice, “I am apart of squad 7. My name is kuren, it's a pleasure to meet you. You know if you want catch the fish, you could just use a kunai.” Walking over to the rock where the girl sat. “I hope you don't mind me sitting and keeping you company.”

“Idiot. I don't want any holes in the fish.” It was true she didn't want the fish to have any holes in them, but she knew she wouldn't be able to actually hit the fish with a shuriken. Hitting moving targets has always been a struggle. Whatever the case, she could simply freeze the fish if she wanted to. Fishing wasn't simply about catching fish though. It was about having a nice and peaceful quiet time. “Go ahead. Just don't scare off the fish…” Aiko said, agreeing to let him sit.

Kuren didn't looked fazed at all by the girl’s comments. “Just so you know, it's a little rude to call someone an idiot. Also it doesn't seem like you have any luck catching fish so I shouldn't cause you any issues.” Kuren opened up his scroll and read through some of the history of his clan. Other than the girl, kuren had to admit to liking the spot he found.

“Fishing is all about patience. Idiot.” Aiko commented. Normally, it takes about an hour for a fish to bite. Aiko had only been at the pond for a half an hour. She yawned, and stared at the pond. Her eyelids began to droop. The young genin hadn't gotten the proper amount of sleep last night. Thirty seconds later, Aiko fell asleep, softly snoring.

Another few minutes later, something began to pull on the fishing line. The entire fishing rod began to slid out of its spot between her calves. Aiko however, was fast asleep, totally unaware.

Glance up kuren saw the fishing pole splitting out of the girl's grip. Kuren’s reflexes kicked in and quickly reached over and grabbed the pole. Although the position was a bit awkward and anyone who was passing by would think something strange was going on. Quickly kuren noticed the position he was in, he had a stoic face on but it was begin to turn red. “Hey uchiha, I think you have a bite on your line.”

Yet the girl still remained asleep. Was she a heavy sleeper?

The fish was pulling hard now. It was planning to get away soon if someone didn't take the pole and catch it.

Kuren normal calm demeanor began to crack a little and he was showing signs of frustration. “What kind of fishermen, falls asleep fishing.” Kuren readjusted his grip and pulled the fishing pole to his chest. He then bumped the girl from her spot and used some force to pull the fish as he tried to stand up. So far it was a deadlock, that's when kuren used more force and pulled the fish out of the water.

He landed backwards off the rock and the fish somewhere in the grass next to him. He gave an actual light hearted chuckle and went to go pick up the fish. When he saw the fishing pole, he notice it was slightly bent. He let out a sigh. “Great, now I have to offer to fix or buy a new fishing pole.” He then unhooked the fish and put it in the bucket of water.

When Kuren had bumped her from her
comfortable position on the rock, she fell on her back on the dirt, waking up from the shock. “H-hey! What're y-” Aiko stopped speaking and watched as Kuren struggled to catch the fish. She laughed silently as he fell off the rock, the fish landing on the ground near him.

“Yea, you'd better get me a new one!” Aiko scolded. She wasn't happy that her fishing pole was bent, but any anger was negated by the fact that he had managed to catch her a fish. “When you do, stop by my dad’s seafood stand. He’ll cook you something good.” Aiko paused for a moment. “J-just tell him you're my friend…”

Kuren looked a bit surprised by her comment and then gave her a big smile, a drastic change than anything he had shown up until this point. “Dont worry i make sure to get you a good fishing pole. I think i know of some men in the clan that are trade craftsmen that specialize at making them. I can have them teach me and then make you one that is worlds class.” kuren seems to be speaking to himself more than to Aiko. he then looked at her and gave her a bow, returning back to his usual polite, monotone. “Don't worry i'll make sure to repay you for the damage i caused to your belongings and i'll make sure to visit your dad’s shop and have everyone in the clan eat there at some point. Anyway i got to go, i have training with my team soon, ill see you around uchiha.” he neatly placed the bent pole next to her bucket and wave goodbye as he jogged off.

"E-everyone in your clan?" Aiko asked as he jogged away. "Jeez, that guy was weird... At least he wasn't a pervert. I'd better be careful about falling asleep like that." Aiko talked to herself as she gathered up her things. She looked down at the single fishing swimming in her bucket. With a sigh, she picked up the bucket, her bag, and her bent fishing pole before she began the trek home.

 

[KageYuuki]

Squad 6
Takara sat inside the small tea shop, enjoying a hot cup of genmaicha tea. A few pieces of dango sat on a small dish beside her cup. She quietly listened to the few early morning patrons talk among themselves. Most of them were getting ready for work aside from the one young man off in the corner. He may have been a genin from his clothing, though it was clear he was recovering from injuries.

With a sigh, she took another sip of tea before glancing outside. It was only a matter of time before her students would be arriving to meet with her. They'd each received a message with a meeting location and time.

Granted the question still remained whether or not all of them would actually show up…

As typical for the young man, Hideki did his best to get there early. Something that had been ingrained into his mind rang in his ears. “If you’re not early, you’re late.” Perhaps one of the few actual fatherly advice his dad actually has given him.

But now, given the fact he was standing outside the place he imagined to be the meeting place, he stepped inside the tea shop.

It didn’t take long to spot their jounin, given the fact she was the only one with full blown Cyan hair for miles, no offense to sensei, it was just easy to spot. The young man made his way over. “Umm, hey sensei. I got the message.” he scratched his head, feeling a tad bit awkward to be alone with his sensei, something that hadn't quite happened yet.

“Good morning, Hideki,” Takara offered a warm smile, motioning for him to sit. “Order whatever you’d like. How have you been?”

The shop door opened once more, and Aiko entered. Her eyes scanned the people there, quickly spotting her sensei and teammate. She calmly walked over. “Morning sensei. Morning Hideki,” she said without emotion. Aiko looked a little tired, having small bags under her eyes. She had a late night last night, practicing her Ice Sword jutsu longer than she should have.

"Good enough how are- Hey Aiko~!” the young man perked up as his teammate entered, thankful to be out of the awkwardness of being stuck alone with sensei. Now all they had to do is wait for the door to burst off its hinges.

“Oh, I’ll get… I guess green tea. I don’t often drink it.” he put in his order and looked to the others, expecting something to be said.

Aiko yawned. “Could I have some coffee?” She didn’t specify what kind, but she didn't care. Aiko didn't even like coffee. She just needed to wake up. “Why are we meeting here so early sensei?” Aiko asked as she yawned again. Her hair was slightly messy.

Mai finally shuffled in, looking a little disheveled.

“Just woke up… Water please.”

She sat down and waited for further orders, stirring her glass of water with her glove.

“So… what’s the mission?”

Hideki stared at Mai, she… definitely looked like she was a tad worse for wear. “Hey Mai, good to see you’ve decided to join us. Uhh, what's... With the gloves?"

“Oh, just fashion,” she lied.

Takara studied Mai as she reached into a pouch and withdrew a scroll, but said nothing. “The mission we have is fairly simple, all things considered.” Opening the scroll, she quickly glanced through its contents before looking back at her team. "Our client, Torazo Fujita, is a noble living in Kiyomaki. While out traveling, complications arose that forced him to leave his pet, Fuku, behind in the nearby village of Matsushiri. Our mission is a simple one: pick up Fuku at Matsushiri and deliver him to the client's home in the wealthy district of Kiyomaki."

She looked from each of her Genin, searching for their reactions. "Not a glamorous mission by any means, but it’s still a mission. Now, the client hasn't disclosed what kind of animal we'll be looking for aside from . . . erm, his 'precious kitty.' Though Fuku can be identified by the blue leather collar around his neck."

Takara left the scroll laid out on the table for any of the three to take a peek at, should they desire to do so. "Once we leave, we likely aren't going to return to the village until tomorrow afternoon. So you will need to pack your gear."

Aiko’s eyes lit up. She was excited for a chance to use her ninja skills, but perhaps a more combat oriented mission would've helped her use what she's been learning recently. Aiko had been gulping down her coffee as sensei explained the mission. “Doesn't sound too difficult. Catching a cat should be easy.” Aiko set her empty coffee mug onto the table. “Where should we meet after we pack?” Aiko rose to her feet, eager to get moving. She didn't think to look at the scroll put the table.

Hideki shrugged. “Hey, should be an easy mission. Just picking up and a cat and giving it a five-star escort. Should be fun, as long as the cat isn’t… Well.. One of those types.” Hideki shrugged, still wondering about Mai’s gloves… And why she didn’t look very Mai at all.

“Well, I’ll get my things, after I finish this tea.”

“We’ll be meeting at the village gate in an hour.” Takara took another drink of her tea, “So be sure you’re ready by then.”

Mai nodded finishing her glass. Nice easy mission? Sounded boring. Maybe she should skip? It took five seconds for her to figure she’d never hear the end of it. Well, just had to pack. She still had a backpack that was mostly packed, after all, who knew when the mission for the next clan head was. She just had to buy some food and water provisions…. And make sure everything was still good in it. It… probably was? Eh, who cared.

“See ya’ll in an hour.”

Well… that was a really quick meeting.

Hideki finished his tea and got up to leave. Not much to do but prepare for a long march, as such, he quietly took his leave to prepare and do… Whatever it was the young man did. Did even he know? Perhaps not.

What matters was, he would show up at the gates.

That hour has felt like an entire year. Aiko had walked home, packed food, a pair of clothes, a very specific book she had bought a few days ago, and her new camera. The only reason she brought her camera was that she thought this mission would be a walk in the park. There would be plenty of time for a photo.

When Aiko arrived at the gate, she didn't see any of her teammates. She was twenty minutes early, so she leaned against a wall. In her idle boredom, she decided to pull out her camera and start looking for the place with the best lighting.

Mai shuffled up next, holding the backpack by a single strap, half zipped.

“Just me, or does it seem like most of these jobs could be done without us?”

She looked at the camera of Aiko’s with a bit of interest. She didn’t know Aiko even owned one. It was kinda interesting to Mai. She’d been wandering lately, what would she do if she couldn’t fight? Photography was an interesting option.

“Wazzat? How’s it work?”

Aiko pulled the camera away from her face. “Oh hey Mai. It's a camera! My dad got it for me a few days ago.” Aiko raised the camera up to her face and pointed it at Mai. The camera ‘clicked’, and a square piece of paper slid out of it. Aiko grabbed the paper and handed it to Mai. “See, it takes pictures. Cool, ain't it?”

Mai took the picture, looking at it closely. She stared at the gloves in the picture, did they fit in the with the rest of her clothes? She’d have to ask someone about fashion later. Who did she know that knew anything about it. Meh, might as well ask Aiko while Hideki was coming. She offered a smile.

“Looking good. Still sexy in picture. Hey, Aiko, I got a question. I mean, if you're good with pictures... These gloves look good to you? I gotta be honest, kinda hurt my hand. Little bit of a training accident. I don’t want Hideki to see it. After all, my body is a temple.”

“Eh?” Aiko gave Mai a confused look. “The gloves look fine. Were you punching stuff you shouldn't have been or something?” Aiko gazed at the gloves, and then back to Mai’s face. “If you don't want Hideki to see it, show me then. I'm sure your hand doesn't look bad.” Aiko smiled. Mai must have really done something odd for her to be acting like this. It was weird, but Aiko had to do her best to make her teammates feel better. Even if that teammate might accidentally kill her one day.

“Oh, it was one hell of a punch. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to do a punch like that again.” Mai almost was salivating remembering the explosion. Never mind the pain after. Or the surgery. Her mom had made her see Ayame, the village head nurse over it. Mai cautiously looked around at Aiko’s request. She didn’t really want to, but… felt better just to tell someone about it than not. ‘Sides, better Aiko than Sensei, or especially Hideki.

“Alright. Just, just make sure you put the glove back on. Takes me forever.”

Mai held her right hand in front of her chest and roughly removed the glove. Underneath much of the skin was still darkened from burns, and cuts and scars covered it. It really did look unseemly.

“One hell of a punch.”

“One hell of a punch indeed…”

Aiko was actually shocked to see her hand in such a sorry condition. It made sense that she'd cover it up. “I don't see why you're hiding this. If you're worried about what someone might think, then you're an idiot, because only an idiot would think any less of you because of this.” Aiko wasn't great with the wise and motivational words, but it's the effort that counts right? “I don't think it makes you any less s-s-sexy. You've got plenty of other features that prove it too… So don't feel too ashamed of it ok? You're still the cutest one on the team…” Aiko finished as she put the glove back onto Mai’s hand.

It was, at that moment, Hideki showed up.

“Yo you two, what's shakin’?” the young man asked as he started walking towards them, seeming to be carrying two extra plastic bags.

Before he could get in eye shot of anything they were doing, the young man’s hand slipped, causing him to drop one of the bags. “Ah shoot, give me a sec.” he scrambled to pick up some of the small tin cans he had bought not too long ago.

Mai gave a small smile as Aiko re-gloved her. She nearly jumped out her skin as Hideki showed up though.

“Heya Hideki”

She body flickered through the cans, holding three in her left hand at a bad angle. Juggling them in that hand, she looked closely at the… cat food?

“Hideki, if you were that strapped for cash, should have let me know. I got tons of jerky. And milkshakes. And fish. And peanut butter. All I eat. Just had to say the word.”

“It might be wise to start adding vegetables to that… diet of yours,” Takara spoke up as she appeared by the trio, quickly looking the three over. “Seems you’re ready so we should head out, Matsushiri’s a bit of a trek from here.”

Aiko out her camera back into her bag, and groaned. “I never really liked hiking… How rich is the guy we’re getting this cat for?” Aiko wondered if the man might give them each a lump of cash for getting their cat. Rich people were generous, right?

Takara shrugged, “Rich enough to nearly have a caravan’s worth of things to bring back from his latest trip. Seems to be how his pet got separated.”

“Hh-hey Mai, that's for the kitty!” Hideki tried recapturing his cat related products. “Well regardless, if he has enough money to toss at us for getting his cat back, it’s fine by me,” he stated, putting back some strange smelling balls into his bag.

“Actually, I think I’ll take you up on that offer when we get back Mai, veggies have been cheap this month so I've been eating a lot of em… meat is just so expensive..” the young man began worrying about shit only adults tend to worry about, and even then it was really rather mundane for a ninja to be thinking about.

“But after this? We’ll be set for whatever, I might be able to get my hands on a sword I’ve been looking at…” Hideki smirked, thinking about the things he could buy with the extra cash.

“Let's actually find the cat before we start making plans guys,” Aiko said, shooting Mai and Hideki a look. “How the heck does one find a cat when it could be anywhere anyway?” It sounded like an easy mission, but how do you locate something so small in a land so large?

“Yeah… sensei, you got a picture of it? Or what we’re looking for? Or even what the collar looks like? Or where he lost it?”

Takara sighed, “were you not paying attention to the briefing? He should be located near Matsushiri Village, Fuku can be identified by his blue collar.”

“The locals might know something, likely was left with somebody to watch him.” Hideki added, figuring it was a logical enough conclusion.

“So just a village and the surrounding area? That makes it easier.” Aiko paused for a moment. “Can we get moving? The cat could get eaten by some wild animal if we take too long.” Aiko didn't know much about cats, but she knew there were a bunch of animals bigger than them.

The Jounin nodded, turning away. “Then let’s get a move on.”

Mai blinked at the angry response. No, she paid no attention to the briefing, why she was asking about it. Takara really made no sense. Oh well, at least something’s were normal. Boring mission. Mai shrugged and just ran with it, leaving with the rest of the squad.

The sun was beginning its journey to slumber for the night as Matsushiri village came into view. Now, assuming their client Fujita had left Fuku in someone's care when he left, picking up the pet should be simple enough. But of course, when did things ever go smoothly? Having caught sight of the group of shinobi, an older man rushed over to them. "Please, you have to help us." He called, skidding to a stop in front of them. "I know it's not a formal mission, but we'll still pay!"

Takara raised her hands slightly, "Whoa, whoa, slow down a moment. What's going on?"

"There's a beast stalking outside the village. It's already killed some of the precious few livestock we have."

“On it!”

“A beast? Sensei! We have to take care of this before we find the cat.” Aiko face displayed her concern, and she looked like she was ready for action. “Too bad we couldn't sleep first…” she yawned. Her battle ready tone of voice dissipating.

“Uh… well, maybe best to split up. I mean, you guys want the beast, I can find a stupid cat easy enough.”

“...Hey… just a thought. Just a little thought… maybe, just maybe.

The guy who has the treats and stuff that could lure out the cat.

Should look for the cat.”

Hideki pointed out this logical conclusion, instead of scampering off looking for who knows what in the middle of nowheresville.

Takara's violet eyes flicked between her three students for a moment. It seemed all three of them were eager to help. The tricky matter was that taking on an unofficial mission like this would technically be isn't exactly smiled upon by the village higher ups. On the flip side, Takara didn't exactly care for the idea of just brushing the issue off. After all it was likely a half starved coyote going around and causing trouble. Not like they're being asked to clear out another den of thieves . . . Regardless, the Jounin needed information. "Before any of you take off, what can you tell me about this 'beast'? When did it first appear?"

The man shifted, uncomfortable under her questioning gaze. Did all shinobi give off such an intimidating air? No . . . no, the three following her didn't give off anything close to the kind of presence the woman in front of him did. "It's only just started a few days ago. Not long after a caravan came through."

A caravan? Is that just coincidence? "I see, now has anyone actually seen the animal responsible?"

"No, but from what it's left behind its got some nasty claws." The man motioned behind him, "There are some track just over here. We've never seen anything like it." He led them over to a spot just a few meters away. "Right here."

A frown tugged at the corners of Takara's mouth. Whatever had left these tracks was big, no doubt about that. It didn't resemble anything native to the area around Konoha. Barring perhaps the Forest of Death.

Mai blinked for a minute as she looked at the claw marks. She bent down and felt them with her left hand. Was it a lion? Or a Tiger? Or a bear? Oh my.

“That is really weird. Is there so little going on in the village that you base everything off of when the caravan passed through? Like, do you think the animal’s FROM the caravan, or is this place just boring? Like, why would you mention that? Seems so random. I mean, ya said its killing live stock, but no one’s seen it? No one watch them after the first few? This place is weird.”

She looked at her teammates though. She guessed if she had to fight it with Aiko, that’d be fine, she did already know. And it would be faster so Mai could get home faster…. She guessed it was the best hope. She also guessed the villagers weren’t much help.

“Maybe the villagers didn't want to get eaten by the beast Mai! If it can steal livestock I'm betting it can steal people too.” If that was the case, then it'd be best if everyone was on high alert. Predators were no laughing matter. “If we don't catch this beast that poor little kitty we’re looking for might be eaten!” Aiko decided they had enough information to work with. Hideki would look for the kitty while she, Mai, and maybe Takara looked for the beast. “I'm gonna follow these tracks,” Aiko stated, as she started walking in the direction the footprints went.

Hideki shouldered the bag he had been carrying for a while and set off to hunt for the cat, he would circle around town, and then the woods if he needed… hopefully not many of the stray cats come following him .

Takara let out a sigh, had Mai not been out of arm’s reach she probably would have swatted the genin on the back of the head. She watched her students split off to already begin the search. It was a little strange seeing Aiko so concerned for a change. “We’ll at least search the area and see if we find anything,” she said finally to the villager. They may as well at this point.

Hideki had wandered around the town for long enough, gathering a long trail of cats of varying sizes, colors and temperament as he did so, in truth, most people were surprised at home many strays were actually in the town… But they all came out of the woodwork as Hideki walked.

Prying one off his leg, the young man made a brisk jog into the woods to avoid the cats, gaining no ground it seems as the cats were quite fur-ious in their chase, not letting up as the young man continue to run away with his prize.

The young man, knowing he could not negotiate out of being cuddled to death by little furry demons kept up the chase, further, and further, until…

Something came bursting out of the nearby trees! With all his focus on his pursuers, he didn’t notice the thing that was on the prowl!

As Hideki saw it, the young man could do nothing as the beast leapt into him and pinning him behind the bushes nearby…

His cries of help could be heard even in the village.

“AH! AH! Get off! Get off! No Stop!!”

The villagers mourned for the loss of yet another….

Mai had split up to search for the beast, and did so the only way she knew how.

“To catch a predator…. You have to think like a predator!”

So basically she was wandering around aimlessly calling it instincts. The only guiding light she had was her nose.

“Let’s see… it likes livestock, so not gunna bother with small game. If its hungry, its gotta go after something big, easy, and pathetic. Where am I gunna find one of those?”

It was about that time she heard Hideki’s scream, and went running. Coming upon the giant beast her friend, Mai stopped in her tracks as she saw it. Large, imposing, orange, and striped….

“KITTY!”

Mai delivered a running tackle/hug at mach 4 at the beast. It was a little unclear whether she was trying to get it off Hideki, or just cuddle with it herself.

Aiko had been following the beasts tracks, and they led her to a fenced off area for livestock on the edge of the village. She leaned against the fence, noticing the fence wasn't broken anywhere. The beast must've been able to leap over it. The livestock were all on the far side of the fenced off area, closest to village. However, no villager stood by to guard the helpless beasts. If the beast were to appear again soon, it would be here again, right?

A scream from the forest. It sounded familiar. Aiko dashed towards it. Was the beast eating some idiot who decided to wander out of the village?

Yup. Aiko skidded to a halt to find a giant orange… cat? It had some idiot pinned to the ground like it was going to maul them, but before Aiko could act, Mai came barreling into the cat. The genin stood with a confused expression as Mai wrestled with the beast. “Damnit Mai…” Aiko muttered. She turned and ran up a nearby tree, crouching on the branches. Better not get caught up in that mess.

Hideki scrambled to his feet as the tiger seemed to return mai’s… Rough… Affections. The young man stared at the creature, which was currently licking the hell out of Mai’s face. “...EH!?” the young man spotted something upon it, around it’s neck la a blue collar, similar to what they were looking for. It can’t be… the thing they were looking for… Was a tiger!?

AND IT WAS CURRENTLY CUDDLING WITH MAI!?

“..Whelp… This is how it’s going to go then…” the young man sighed, simply just letting the strangeness of the situation float on by. Between the cuddles, he managed to sneak around the two to get a look at the big cat’s collar.

“..Fuku…” he repeated the name upon it, getting a twitch from the tiger’s ears.

Just seconds after Hideki had called out, Takara appeared, ready to rain sharp spears of crystal down on the attacker. She would have too, had she not caught a glimpse of a blue collar. Not to mention Mai tackling the beast.

The jounin rubbed the bridge of her nose, “For fuck’s sake…” So this was Fuku… Would it have killed their client to mention it was a bloody tiger!? He was going to cover the damages his little pet caused to the village, she would make sure of that.

Hideki kept kneeling next to the two and began to pat the tiger… Then used his other hand to pat Mai’s head. “Guess we found a new friend huh? Don’t need to worry about it running away if you two bond like this.”

Mai continued rubbing its tummy with her left hand looking like she was having the time of her life. It was so large, and fluffy! She stopped for a second, and looked at Hideki seriously.

“Hideki… I want one.”

Hideki stared at Mai for but a moment. “...Well…” he started, fully unsure of… What to saw as the tiger chuffed happily upon the ground before them. “...Maybe… We’ll ask your parents after? I think it’s hard to have tigers as pets, and.. Expensive…” he scrunched up his face and rose an eyebrow.

...Did he just say “We’ll ask her parents?”

Ah shit, did he wrap himself into something?

He's never seen her parents, just who could even create a person such as Mai?

Aiko hopped down from her perch on the tree. Apparently Hideki was the one the tiger had jumped first. “You alright Hideki? It didn't bite you did it?” Aiko’s voice didn't display and concern whatsoever. “So are we going to take it to that rich man now? How are we gonna manage that?”

Mai clapped her hands.

“Alright Fuku, let’s go get you some snacks! Something better than these nasty ol’ goats. That’s why there’s such a mess isn’t it? Most of a goat isn’t edible… Poor thing, must be starving. Hmm… If I’m a rich man, what words would I use to get a tiger to come to me…”

Mai near whistled as she called out.

“Coooookie”

The tiger snapped to attention, jumping on its feet, nearly crushing Mai. She laughed.

“Let’s go guys!”

“...Cookie… Lovely…” Hideki sighed, honestly, he expected a tiger as a pet to be something cool and intimidating… This thing was a glorified teddy bear in the shape of a tiger.

Whatever.

Takara could only watch on in dumbstruck silence before finally shaking her head and turning away. “I’m going to talk to the villagers and let them know the problem’s been dealt with. You three… start back for the road, just… just don’t walk through the village.” With that, she vanished.

Mai laughed again.

“Hehehe, Mai, six, Takara-sensei, thirty-five. I’m catching up in logic wins.”

“...Mai…” Hideki sighed once again, for likely the thousandth time since he's met her.

“Come on guys, let's get moving. Come on Fuku, let's go,” he called to the cat, who didn’t budge quite yet. “...hey Mai, here.” he handed her the, now slightly ripped, bag of stuff he brought to draw out the cat.

“You gotta learn how to take care of it first alright? If not you can’t get yourself a tiger.”

Aiko sighed. “This mission turned out to be a lot more than we expected…” she turned around, back to her squad and the tiger. “Which way is the road?” Aiko had gotten a bit turned around in the ‘confusion’.

 

[Ganryu]

Umichi Kamimizu - Squad 3​

Boiling herself some tea, Umichi sat down at the table, a pen and paper out. Three letters looked rather similar to eachother. Though, at her state, they more looked like three blurry white boxes. They'd work well enough. Her little brats were doing well enough, though she was a little upset they asked her to referee, then didn't even stay for a review. Well, they were going to get one.

Dear brats,

I bring good news! All of you seem to be skillful enough to enter the chunin exam. Looking around at the other Jonin's kids, you seem to be up there. So, I'm going to enter all three of you. They begin the first week of summer. The main competitors you have to worry about are the other Leaf nin, and a few Kiri nin. They probably should be a problem, just remember the lessons I've taught you. And whatever it is you do. Anyways, now onto each of you.

--------
At this point, it cut off into three sections, depending on who she was sending it to.

To Koutaku,

That was an impressive spar you had with Kaida. I have to recommend against the use of explosive tags in trainings. You already had that won. Infact, the problem you had in the spar was you were showing off too much. Meh, I don't have too much against that, but if you are going to show off, you have to show off overwhelming force as to try and lower their morale. But a bit much for a genin. Just try to end things quickly in the exams.

------

To Kaida,

Welcome to the squad. I'm still pretty impressed with your fight with Koutaku on the first day. Main advice I have to you is work on the basics. He was showing off too much, one substitution jutsu, and all his plans would have gone up in smoke. Academy jutsu is pretty useful. You have overwhelming strength, but that can be a weakness, know when to dial back, when to be swift and weak. I think you're ready for the exams. Just, try practicing substitution jutsu over the next few days. Also, tell your old sensei the Sea Dragon's hair is Green, not yellow. The idiot.

-------

To Kiyoshi,

See me tomorrow at Training field one. Miss this one, and I WILL hunt you down.

Umichi licked each envelope, sealing the letter for each genin. She laughed a bit to herself. What were the other jonin going to say when hers stomped them? Now if only they'd quit calling her lazy sensei! Just cause she was relaxing while they sparred did NOT mean she was asleep!

 

[Retro-Grey]

The Training Session.
Featuring Umichi Kamimizu and Kiyoshi Ao.​

Umichi sat beneath the familiar elephant ear plant in Training Field One. She had an appointment with Kiyoshi today. She really hoped he showed, hunting him down would be such a drag, though she was ready to do so. Pulling up her remaining fan, she looked at it, and her bare hand.


“Wonder what he’s ready for today? Either way, guess I gotta get rid of my little title eventually. Brats.”


Kiyoshi looked even worse than he had before. His eyes were sunken from a lack of sleep and his bandage covered almost his entire right arm.


Today, he was gonna be the most lazy out of the both of them. And truthfully, Kiyoshi didn’t even want train today, but he rather not have been hunted by a psychopathic water witch.


“Hey, brat, I don’t think you’re doing the whole training thing right. What’s a busted arm going to do? Lucky for you, I decided I’m the one training you today.”


Umichi rose from her seat in an extremely elegant and flamboyant way.


She held out two fists. One had her tessen, one didn’t.

“Alright, I didn’t write you any mushy crap, because I want to see your answer. In the chunnin exam, what am I training? What do you want? Do you want Kiyoshi the Leaf nin, or Kiyoshi, the Leaf Jinchuuriki. Your choice, and you get to make it today. Either way, you get a fabulous training lesson from Umichi Kamimizu, the blood dancer.”


“Why does it matter? You'll still treat me like I am the beast.”


The boy’s eyes were still, they didn’t carry the same anger they had weeks before. That isn’t to say he wasn’t a bit adverse to Umichi after what had happened.


Kiyoshi didn’t speak on the subject further and ended up bringing up a remark that his sensei had made only moments before. His left hand found his right arm and undid the wrappings, exposing the burns that spiraled up his skin.


“It isn’t broken, so either way, I’ll still be able to pummel your face into the ground.”


Umichi rolled her eyes.


“Grow up. You’re going to have to work with people you don’t like anyways. You want to be a ninja right? If you don’t, well, I can be a career counsellor too. Lets see. ♪I think you look like a baker when you grow up.♪”


She sheathed her fan.


“Buuut… Could you really hit the broadside of a barn? I saw your little spar with that girl, you know. Flying around town does have its advantages. I don’t think you could even touch my pretty face. Come on, show me what you got. If you can touch me, how about I owe you 500 Ryo? If you can’t, well, then you have to shut up and listen. Come on, hit me.”


Kiyoshi was still on a different subject.


“You got Shikakazu killed. Did you like working with him?”


It was an irrelevant point, but it was something Kiyoshi felt obligated to bring up. He backed away from the older lady and wiped his eyes with the palms of his hands.


But he didn’t let them fall to his sides. Kiyoshi brought up his fists in a very lazy manner, his gaze focused groggily on Umichi.


“I don’t even want your money, I just want you to own up to what you are.”


“Trust me kid, I’ve seen alot more than you think, and gone through a lot more. Honestly, your ‘poor me’ mentality is probably going to get you killed too. Or at least your ass kicked. Let me be the first on the latter.”


“You’re a really bad listener.”


Kiyoshi lowered his body a bit, he was very hesitant to attack, so he began moving parallel to his sensei.


“I’ve been training everyday since we got back from that damn mission, meanwhile, you’ve been drowning yourself in your own sorrows. Just face it, you let Kazu die, and you’re too busy trying to distract yourself from it that you don’t realize how much people really care about you… at least you didn’t notice how much I did.”


Umichi rolled her eyes.


“Let? No. I messed up, took too high a mission, didn’t have my guard up, couldn’t stop a bomb headed his direction, and let my idiot genin keep running ahead, then fought an opponent stronger than me, lost an heirloom from MY sensei, and my fan broken. See, admitting mistakes is easier when surround yourself with friends. What about you? I might have a slight hangover, you look like you haven’t slept in weeks. Who have you talked to?”


She moved in, casually walking towards him.


“I talk to myself mostly.”


It was the only answer Kiyoshi could give, he didn't think anyone would want to listen to him so he never sought help. Kiyoshi could’ve compared his problems with hers, and they probably would’ve been worse, but he was never one to do that. He didn’t like people knowing of his personal life, it was one of the main reasons he didn’t socialize too often.


Umichi noticed his lack of movement to her question, and simply front kicked at him, to knock an off balance opponent over.


“And how’s that worked?”


Kiyoshi couldn’t say he expected Umichi to kick him, but he didn’t put it above her character. For a moment though, Kiyoshi thought about retaliating. He could’ve grabbed hold of her foot if he was able to move quick enough. But then again, his arms weighed tons and his body was drained. So he let his body flop to the floor.


“It doesn’t. All I ever hear is a quiet mutter in the back of my head.”


The boy did his best to get up, and managed to do it just barely. He was waking up noticeably from the kick, but he still didn’t look interested in a fight.


Umichi sighed. Before he could get up, she put her foot on his chest.


“Alright, this doesn’t seem to be going forward. Brat I know would have dodged that in a second. The hell are you training for? Do you even want to be a ninja? Quit wallowing. What do you want to do?”


Kiyoshi’s eyes fired up a bit after hearing Umichi’s words.


“Would you think I would look the way I do because I don’t want to be a ninja? I already told you, I’ve been training every day just so I could get strong enough to take you down. That’s what I wanna do.”


He grabbed her foot with his left hand and pushed it off of his chest.


“And that 500 Ryo can go towards your hospital bill.”


Umichi sighed, with a long exhale. Almost seemed like the world stopped around her. Her eyes snapped open, and she did a handful of handsigns. Her right hand seeped heavily with water chakra; it was visible trailing off of it like a thick mist. A terrible killing intent filled the area, the aura so full from Umichi that birds left the area.


“Lie to me again, and I’m going to send you to the ICU, right now, without your headband. I’ll tell the hokage you aren’t worthy of your position of genin, let alone entered in the chunin exam. I’m going to ask one more time. What are you training for? If it was to beat me, you would be actually getting better.”


Kiyoshi quickly got to his feet, he could easily sense her malice and it seemed to fuel a bit of his own. But the boy didn’t let it consume him, at least he was trying not to.


“I’m training to get stronger.”


It was the only answer Kiyoshi seemed able to give as he began watching Umichi intently. He wasn’t nearly as scared of the jutsu as he was of her. Of course, he had learned a while ago to swallow that fear.


“Earn your headback when and if you decide on being Kiyoshi the ninja.”


“I AM A NINJA!”


Kiyoshi was rude to interrupt his sensei, but he grew fed up.


“I don’t wanna be a beast. I wanna protect others from them. I want to be a ninja... I’m going to be a ninja.”


His gaze was heavier on Umichi, he felt that he knew the woman too well to know that she wouldn’t take his word.


“Then earn it back. I’ll keep it with me.”


Her hand fell on him.


Kiyoshi woke up hours later. He didn’t know how long it had been since he had blacked out, but he could feel the linen beneath him. He was in the hospital.


He almost forgot why he was in there in the first place, that is until he remembered what had happened.


Umichi-Sensei had hit him. He could still hear her voice clearly in his head.


Earn it back.


That’s when he noticed the prickling of air against the bare skin of his forehead, his headband was gone. For a while Kiyoshi questioned why he needed to earn it back. He’d been working non-stop since the academy, just so he could keep up with the other genin. Just so he could even be a genin. It seemed like a cruel hand that fate had given him. It just didn’t seem fair.


Then it hit him what she meant. Was he as transparent as she made him out to be? The thought alone made him think of why even became a ninja in the first place.


I wanted to be a show off...


Kiyoshi sighed and sat up in the bed, even though it pained him to do so. He began to think of the ways that he had changed since he entered the academy. He grew up since then. He hoped so at least.


“No use really moping about it, but Umichi was wrong. I never earned it in the first place.”

Ganryu yoshua171 Spemout

 

[InsaneAsylum]

Katsumi Nonoba
Squad 4​

It was a simple mission. Locate the target, and give them false information. Sensei had given her and her new squadmates each different mission to 'cheat' on the chuunin exams. Katsumi hated the idea, so her job was simply to spread false information to the genin coming from other villages.

"They're sensei's orders, so that means it's ok. The police force would understand, right? Disobeying your sensei isn't a good thing..." Katsumi talked to herself as she walked throughout the Hidden Leaf, trying to convince herself that she wasn't a scumbag.

Finally, after turning a corner onto a main street, she spotted a young ninja with clothing different from any of the other ninja she'd seen. He had his hands behind his head, and walked without a care in the world.

He'd be her first target.

Katsumi followed him at a distance, slowly closing in on him. It didn't seem like he'd noticed her yet, but Katsumi was close enough to catch sight of his headband. The genin was from Kirigakure. This only scared Katsumi. She had heard lots of stories about how brutal and evil the Hidden Mist Village was in the past. It wasn't too late to quit...

The Kirigakure ninja finished talking to the owner of some seafood shop guy, and continued on his way, turning left down an alley. Katsumi followed after him, and peeked down the alley he had gone through. He was gone. "W-when did he?" Katsumi hurried into the alley, trying to find traces of him being there.

"So... why were you following me?"

The voice was right behind Katsumi. She quickly turned around, finding herself face to face with the genin from the hidden mist. Katsumi squealed, and fell on her butt. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Im sorry! I'm sorry!" She immediately began to apologize. She failed her mission, and now this genin was going to beat her up. Then she'd tried to explain why she was beat up, but everyone would say it was her felt for following the guy. There was no way she could come out on top here. Unless... she became a scumbag.

"I... I uh... I just haven't met a n-n-ninja from another village b-before. I wanted to know If y-y-y-you had any special techniques from your village," Katsumi lied.

The Hidden Mist genin thought for a moment. "Well I'm not just going to tell you my abilities for free now am I. How about you do something for me and then I'll tell you?" He had a creepy smile, and was making weird motions with his hands.

Katsumi quickly scooted backwards a few feet. "I-if you t-try anything w-weird, I'll have my friend use his sharingan on you!" Katsumi didn't know if Yuuki had unlocked his sharingan, but this guy didn't know either.

Then genin was unfazed. "Yea yea, so what. What the heck can a weird looking eye do anyway?" He began to move closer to Katsumi, wriggling his hands in a perverted way.

Still on the ground, Katsumi continued to scoot backwards until her back hit the wall. The alley was a dead end. "W-w-well you know what lava style is don't you! One of my f-f-friends has it!" Katsumi's word simply flew out of her mouth. It was time to abort this mission and get outta here. Things might get a little... bloody.

The creepy mist genin guy hesitated for a moment upon hearing lava style. "For real? Lava Style? Whatever, I'll deal with all that when I'm done having my fun w-" he felt some liquid running down his chin. He quickly wiped it away. "-with you. Now..." the liquid continued running down his chin. He wiped it with the back of his hand, it was... blood? He stumbled backwards, as blood started flowing out of his mouth. He could feel it leaking from behind as well. "W-what the hell?" The genin began to panic as he tried to wipe the blood from his face. It was beginning to pool up below him. "I-its coming from everywhere!" He yelled.

Katsumi took this chance to run around the poor guy, who simply looked like he was having a panic attack. Her genjutsu was working well. "S-sorry!" Katsumi apologized as she ran out of the alley.

She didn't stop running until she was back onto a main street. She let out a heavy sigh of relief, spotting another genin from the Hidden Mist buying some ramen. "I guess I can try again..."

Katsumi spent the next few hours awkwardly making conversation with the visiting genin, and either undermining or up-talking the abilities of the genin she knew. Katsumi didn't think all of them believed her, but at least they'd have the wrong ideas about their opponents.

"I'm the worst scumbag there is..."

 

[Ganryu]

Tender Wounds and Tender Mothers

Mai Sanada​

Mai stood amidst the Sanada complex training grounds, her eyes closed. She didn't know what else to do other than train. She didn't really feel her heart was in it, but... what else was she suppose to do? Kiyoshi had the awesome training post that just got built, she really didn't want to 'happen' upon Takara-sensei at another one. That left her clan grounds. Which was always full. And always noisy. EVERYone always had to train. They were always boasting, and always fighting each other. It was loud.

"WILL YOU ALL SHUT UP! IMMA BE THE NEXT CLAN HEAD, SO SHUT UP SO I CAN TRAIN!"

Well, that seemed to be the wrong button. Suddenly it went from bragging to a field full of raging demons all claiming THEY were going to be the next clan head. Lots of challenges to fight them. The challenges were random, they probably didn't even know it was her that had screamed. Mai almost took them up on the challenges before just sighing, and walking back to the porch to her home. Slowly sitting down, she put her head in her left hand, watching the chaos unfold. At least six duels had started over honor. Maybe Mai should have picked one? Little girl or not, they were the competition. She'd have to prove she was strongest some day. But, she just didn't feel like it. She held out her right hand, looking it over, or rather her glove over.

"Just wanted some quiet...."

A hand pressed against her shoulder, "Still can't move it?"

Mai nearly leapt out of her skin. She knew by the voice it was her mom, but she still wasn't expecting it.

"What? No, I'm fine."

Her mother took a seat by her, holding her hand out for Mai to give her the injured hand.

"I WAS the one who looked at it first. I'm not sure why you're hiding it so stubbornly."

Giving it over, Mai didn't want to look as her mother removed her glove to inspect. She didn't really say a word as she watched the field, and watched one particular noticeable Sanada doing remarkably well out there. He was taking on multiple opponents, and fending them off with just taijutsu. He was fending off ninjutsu, seals, weapons, and all manner of kunai like it was a warm-up.

"I-is that Dad?"

"Who do you think you get it from? You've never really seen him go all out, have you? He takes it easy when training with you. Oh dear.

Yukishide! Tone down those blows! I'm talking with our daughter! I'm not going to be happy if I have to go out there.

Dear, would you mind flexing your hand?"

Mai watched her mother yell at her dad with a little bit of fear. To her amazement, he seemed to slow down, going much slower against all his opponents, yet still dodging all their blows. Her hand didn't move.

"Mai. Move your hand."

Mai looked down at the ground.

"I can't..."

"Mai. Move your hand."

Mai looked up at her mother for the first time. Her mom had a stern but patient look at her hand. Mai halfheartedly tried, but nothing happened.

"Mai. What's wrong, dear?"

"I can't move it. You know what Ayame said..."

"Mai, I know its not easy, but you should be able to move it. Its just going to hurt, and take alot of effort. Honey, what's wrong? When it comes to pure willpower, I don't know anyone with as much as you. Most people with a hand that badly hurt would take time off being a ninja, but you keep on trudging through. But lately, just seem.... not all there."

Mai sat there for a moment, she didn't like the question. Her mother expected an answer though. Mai curled up harder. Her mother still waited. Mai's vision became blurry as her kneecaps became wet.

"I-I... I don't know. I just feel embarrassed. Stupid. Like, I hurt myself, so I'm a failure. Takara-sensei hasn't even commented on it... Not like an enemy did this, or someone else. I hurt my hand. And it looks so ugly. Hideki said I was sexy before, look at my hand. It's black and gross. A-and, what if I can't be clan head now? I can't make handsigns...."

At that moment, Mai heard a crushing impact and someone yelling at her dad to give up. She didn't know what her mom said next, but she felt her arms around her for a good moment.

"Mai, it'll be alright... Your father's hurt himself plenty of times."

"Yeah, but he never blew his hand up with a new technique."

Mai's mother only looked skyward for a moment, uttering under her breath a small prayer. She pulled Mai closer. She could then hear a hearty impact, and her father's laughter.

"No, he didn't, because he's never made a new technique like that before. Mai, that injury would stop alot of people from even being ninja. From what I hear, you aren't even slowing your team down with it. That's some incredible willpower. If it's not stopping that, why would it be in the way of your other dreams. As far as being sexy, a little young to worry about that, but I think you look pretty just the way you are. Your teammates seem to think so too. I think you'd be prettier without the gloves though. That hand says you made mistakes, and you learned from it. If you're strong enough to want to be the clan head, and your own mistakes can't stop you, why would anyone else? And as for hand signs..."

Her mother nudged her hair back, lifting her head. Just as she said that, she saw her father facing another Sanada shinobi, who began a series of handsigns. Rather than counter with his own, he simply punched through the handsigns, decking him in the face. The man yelled as he flailed his now broken pinky.

"Son of a bitch! Honey, I'll be right back. But don't worry, everything's going to be alright."

Mai nodded as her mother marched off. Half the field was almost immediately paralyzed as her mother did several handsigns, stopping them all in their tracks, and growing increasingly angry. Thinking about it, her mother, Nohime, was probably the most feared woman in the clan, and she didn't even want the position of clan head. Mai looked at her revealed hand as her mother marched off. Wasn't learning from her mistakes the same as admitting she wasn't perfect? Mai couldn't be imperfect, she wanted other people to look up to her. Her mom never worried about strength, she always tried to help other people. But... everyone looked up to her mom. Even Mai had to admit, her mom was pretty incredible. She was pretty selfless too, and never really seemed to think about it. The respect, it just came natural. Her dad was her biggest obstacle for becoming clan head. But Mai had broken his jaw with a hit before, he wasn't perfect either! People looked up to him. But... wouldn't it be better to just already be perfect?

Taking a deep breath, Mai took advantage of the silence. She remembered a lesson her father had taught her. How to meditate. He always said before a big fight, it was especially important. He said it made him stronger.

"First lesson. Feel your body. Feel everything. Feel the air flow in. Feel it flow out. Teach your muscles to relax. First in the center, and then outward."

Tracing out from her body to her hand, Mai concentrated on it with everything she had. Gritting her teeth, she managed to squeeze it for a moment. It was weird. In a different way, time seemed to stop around her. It wasn't the rush she normally enjoyed, but... it wasn't bad either. She just had one goal. Move her fingers. Move her fingers. She just had to move her fingers.

"Sorry about that, honey. I see you can move it a little though. Everything's going to be fine. So, Mai, what's this I hear about chunnin exams? Are you going to enter? Even with your hand like that?"

Mai nodded.

"Think your up to it?"

"I gotta. If I don't, Imma make the clan look weak."

"Mai, we both know that's not it."

Mai looked down again.

"Fine... Even if my hand hurts, I don't wanna mess up. If I stop, no matter how sad I feel, or how much I don't feel like it, I can't be the clan head, can I? And, and... and I kinda wanna be like you. Maybe help out my team for a change."

Mai felt a warm hug around her again.

"As a doctor, I should probably advise against it. But.... go for it honey. I know you can do it. Just be yourself. We're behind you every step of th... OH DAMNIT YUKISHIDE! WE WERE HAVING A MOMENT!"

 

[Spemout]

Hiden: Itsuki Clan Chakra Moulding

Risk and Reward​

Kaida - Squad Three

Kaida had rushed back to her house upon receiving a certain letter from her sensei. Unlike some clans, the Itsuki Clan didn't have one giant house that they all lived in. It was essentially a small neighborhood consisting entirely of family, whether connected by blood, word, or documentation. There were two places every member of the clan visited at least once a day. A monument, and a dojo.


Unlike one certain monument, this one was not made to list ninjas who made the ultimate sacrifice, but instead held the names of anyone who had done some great good for the clan, to inspire them to further themselves by example.


The dojo was a much more humble place. The thing about the Itsuki Clan that separated them from the majority was that every single member, even if they weren't planning on living the life of a shinobi, was taught how to fight.


When Kaida asked her father why, she was given a very direct answer.


"Most would say I'm just carrying on a tradition, but I'll be honest, kiddo. There's always going to be someone who'll try to start something with us, and in the past they would target the civilians. Thus, we give the helpless a way to not be helpless if they ever need to fight. Of course, we don't teach them the Elemental Fist, but Judo is something most civilians can pull off with the right mental discipline."


Mental Discipline.


It was something everyone in the clan, especially the retired ninjas, practiced, preached, and learned. They always remained calm except for the most trying of circumstances, and even then they weren't nearly as bad as some people. Of course, they didn't reign in all emotion. Rather, they focused on always having some grip on their emotional state so that if it reaches the point where what they were doing would be hindered by lack of focus, they could bring themselves back.


It was something Kaida had often struggled with. One thing about Kaida was that it easier to train her in a specific subject the more she understood why she was being trained in it. The reason Kaida has trouble with her clan's way of mental discipline? Because nobody ever explained why when she asked. The civilian members of the clan didn't care enough to know, and the shinobi either didn't know, or did know but would say some variation of 'Your father will explain it before your first trip to the Chunnin Exams.' The shinobi that didn't know were all genin that hadn't been in the Chunnin Exams.


'But finally, I can learn why. I can understand why.'


She reached her house and tapped the top of the wooden image of a bird carved into the door, and the door opened. She took off her sandals and walked in, shutting the door behind her.

"Pops, you here? I have big news!"

From another room, the kitchen specifically, she could hear her father call. "Just a moment, kiddo!"

A few moment later, Itsuki Tadashi walked into view holding a bag of chips. Unlike many jonin, Tadashi didnt wear the standard uniform, aside from his Hitai-ate and his flak jacket. Being a Clan Head tended to help when he was meeting important civilians in non-standard clothing because so far he had convinced every non-ninja VIP he'd ever met aside from the Daimyo that his casual clothes were modernized versions of very tradiational garments symbolizing whatever bullshit he fed them to make them leave it alone.

He apparently only ever wore his nice clothes to funerals, weddings, legitimately important meetings, and places where lots of fighting was going to happen.

As of the moment, Kaida's father had his forehead protector on where it belonged, as well as his flak jacket. Everything else spoke of it being a casual day for him: black sweatpants, white t shirt, and his ever-present katana, in its scabbard on his back.

The two exchanged hugs, and then went to sit down. "So kiddo, what brings you home so early? Your sensei give you the day off?...no, wait, you said you had big news. I know your not one to exaggerate much, so it must be important."

He had gone from completely relaxed to paying very close attention in about half a second.

Kaida nodded. "Yes. My new sensei, Kamimizu Umichi-San, has entered my team into the Chunnin Exams."

Tadashi's eyes widened for a moment, before taking on an expression of nostalgia.

"It seems like only yesterday I first heard you call me Papa...and now, here you are, a young kunoichi...but now, it's time you learned the secret to the Elemental Fist.

He stood up, deadly serious as he began walking for the door. Kaida followed, neither of them bothering to put on shoes.

They soon reached the dojo, and many shinobi there knew just by looking at Kaida and her father that it was time another learned the truth.

Far into the dojo they walked, until they reached the room where the civilian members trained. None of them were there at the moment. Tadashi walked to the symbol of a lotus flower in the dead center of the room, and then channeled a large amount of chakra into it, causing it to separate into five different parts that moved from the center to reveal a staircase.

The two wordlessly walked down it and down the long hallway until they reached a single door at the far end. Opening it revealed a pair of mats that they proceeded to sit on.

"Kaida, I'm sure you've heard many shinobi of the clan claim how easy it is to use the Itsuki Chakra Moulding Technique, and let me tell this to you now: they only refer to when they are using the basics or aren't in a combat situation. In truth, nobody in the history of the clan has ever been able to use all of the techniques without some level of risk when it is in the heat of battle. But before I explain why that is, I want to see if you can figure it out. After all, you were smart enough to discover what happened to my leg. Before you try to figure it out, you get to ask me one question, and I will answer it honestly."

Kaida was stumped. For a solid twenty minutes she tried to figure out what to ask him. She thought on his words, what he had said, and suddenly, she felt a pit in her stomach as she figured it out.

"I think I know the answer, but before I tell you what I think, I'll ask my question...what happened? "

Tadashi had a bitter smile on his face as he spoke. "I lost control of my emotions during a furious battle, and in doing so lost control of the Special Moulding Technique. It destroyed the tenketsu in every part of my leg below the knee."

Kaida closed her eyes. "I see."

She opened them, and spoke.

"I'm ready to learn, Father."

Ganryu Retro-Grey yoshua171