Fandom Squad Shithead: A Naruto AU

[Gilzar]

Katsuro took the map from Jun without much hesitation. He gazed over at the pack of cigarettes she had put down, recognizing the brand with ease. Those were premium cigarettes, far more expensive than what he smoked. They tasted better, burned smoother, and even smelled better. This was because they used high quality tobacco and far less other additives than the cheaper brands. It made him crave another smoke, in spite of just finishing one less than an hour ago.

Quietly, he gazed down to the map and eyed it over while thinking over the situation. Like his student Tetsuo, the news of Hanahime falling into a disturbed state didn't sit well with Katsuro either. Knowing that a child her age was this disturbed was unsettling even to Katsuro. But there was another odd feeling he couldn't shake. For some reason he felt like there was some key piece of information being left out. Specifically the idea that an entire wing of the house would be shut down because of a hole in the wall didn't sit well with him. Closing off a room or two would be understandable. But an entire section of the mansion? What were they so worried about?

Mizu froze for a moment upon hearing one particular detail of the mission. "Elephants...?" She muttered under her breath in excitement. In spite of her soured mood, the news of her favorite animal sparked an excitement within her. For a moment or so, her face was visibly happy to the point she had to curl her lips together to contain herself. Before now, this seemed like it was going to be just a boring mission. But now Mizu had a chance to see the majestic, gentle giants she had read so much about and watched on old VHS tapes her mother gifted her a few years back. Suddenly a long trek through the rainforest didn't seem all that bad to Mizu.

By the time her excitement had toned down, Jun broke the news about Hanahime's mental state. Poor girl... Mizu thought to herself, gazing back in the direction where she last saw her. Mizu had somewhat of an idea of what the girl was going through. It had been just a little over a month since Soruto's death. But Hanahime and herself clearly had two extremely different relationships with their parents. What Hanahime was going through must have been even more gut-wrenching than what she had felt since then. The feeling of loss, of emptiness, and of unfulfilled futures.

Before Mizu could reflect on her own loss any further, Katsuro finally spoke.

"I don't have any other questions." Katsuro said. "We're heading out now."

Just like that, Katsuro was motioning them to go. Without hesitation he turned his back to the group and started making his way out of the room.

"If any of you have questions, ask them now. Otherwise meet me outside as soon as you can. We have a storm to beat."

Katsuro then left the room. He followed the same route they had taken through the mansion to leave. On his way through the hallways, he made sure to pick up his shoes and put them on once he was outside. Patiently he waited for his genin while smoking a freshly lit cigarrete.

Mizu awkwardly stood in the study despite Katsuro's absence. There was one pressing question on her mind. She gazed at the floor as she forced the question out of her mouth.

"Um...You mentioned that elephants made the path we're taking." Her eyes finally looked up to Jun. "Do you think we'll see any along the way?"

Upon getting her answer, Mizu promptly bowed and exited the mansion.

 

[Pine]

Jun nodded as Katsuro announced their departure and assured his students to follow.

Tetsuo opened his mouth to speak, but before he could get a word in, Katsuro had turned his back and was walking out the room. Tetsuo closed his lips and blew an annoyed puff of air out of them, glaring at the door behind him. He'd been waiting for just the right moment to ask about the hole in the roof and make Katsuro look like a paranoid idiot in front of their employer, but now that he left, there was no point in saying anything. He should know by now that Katsuro had a habit of leaving abruptly. He did it every time they were in the Hokage's office, and now he was doing it here too. He would know better than to think Katsuro would wait around in any room from that point forward.

With no reasons of his own to stay, Tetsuo left nearly every bit as abruptly as Katsuro did.

Jun's eyes fell on the two genin that remained in the study. She pulled the cigarette holder from her lips, raised her brows, and blew smoke from the corner of her mouth, away from them, as Mizu brought up the elephants in the forest. When Mizu finally looked at her and asked if she thought they would see any, Jun's expression softened, and she smiled kindly at the younger girl. "They play an integral role in the forest's ecosystem still, and their population is thriving. I don't just think you'll see any along the way, princess" Jun said, walking up to Mizu and lowering herself to one knee in front of her. Gently, she cupped the bottom of Mizu's hand and lifted it up to be level with her, then plucked the Hanging Lady she had handed the girl earlier. "I know you will."

With every bit of dignity and grace as she always seemed to carry herself with, Jun got back up, then returned to her place resting against the desk. "If you'd like, I can help redo your makeup in the morning before you leave," she offered, still looking at Mizu.

"Um," Haruki interjected, his voice practically shaking as he tried to finally address Jun, who looked at him curiously as he spoke. "Do you need— um, do you think you need any extra help with getting the party set up? 'Cause, I mean, if you do, I'm sure Katsuro-sensei wouldn't mind if I stayed behind to help... if you told him." His heart was beating a thousand miles an hour, and when did his palms get so sweaty?

Jun narrowed her eyes and smiled in amusement at him. "I appreciate the offer, but we're taken care of here. Besides, the flowers are the most important part of all of this, and I'm trusting only the most capable shinobi to deliver them safely to me," she said, giving a playful wink.

Haruki nearly froze up at the sight of that. She was so cute. And did she really think that he was a capable shinobi? His face felt hot.

"Now, run along you two," Jun said with an almost teasing tone. "Your sensei is right. You have a storm to beat."

Haruki nodded, clumsily. "Yes, ma'am. We'll bring them back to you safely, ma'am." In spite of his vivid, overpowering infatuation, he was not entirely unaware that it was still just him and Mizu in the room, and they weren't exactly on the best terms at the moment anymore. So even though he would've liked to be the last one to leave Jun, he didn't want to be stuck walking back with Mizu and risk any more awkward moments if he could help it.

He hurried out of the room, making sure he kept several feet ahead from where Mizu was walking. In his head, he replayed the few words he exchanged directly with Jun, turning them over and over, making sure he didn't say anything that was too embarrassing.

If they looked back up to the second floor of the ballroom on their way out, they would notice the table where Hanahime and the drably-dressed woman was vacant, and the two of them were nowhere to be seen.

- - - - -

When all of Team 5 picked up their shoes by the front door, they would notice the place where they had tracked dirt and plant matter onto the floor was not spotless, and their own sandals had been meticulously picked clean of any mud that had been wedged in the grooves of their soles.

It was still misting outside. The cat had returned, if but for a moment, yowling and pawing at the east wing of the building. It froze just like before when Katsuro closed the door behind him, staring cautiously at him. When Tetsuo arrived shortly behind, the Siamese darted off, far out of sight by the time Haruki and Mizu had arrived.

The dirt path that they had followed in order to arrive at the Yoshida residence had run straight into the mansion, making it a dead end. From their vantage point, standing in front of the home, they would not be able to see the elephant's path Jun had told them about. As Jun had implied it, they would need to make their way around the mansion in order to find this path.

 

[Gilzar]

A quiet excitement brewed inside of Mizu upon hearing Jun's confirmation that there would be elephants somewhere along the journey. Not only that, but also from Jun's offer to help her with her makeup before they left after their mission. The woman was clearly knew what she was doing when it came to cosmetics, and Mizu was eager to learn what she could from her. She smiled back at Jun. "I would like that!" She stated before bowing and leaving for the exit.

Meanwhile Katsuro calmly waited while his students came out of the mansion one by one, sunglasses now comfortably back on his face. As he stood idle, he'd take long draws from his cigarette and carelessly breathe out large clouds of smoke from his nostrils. He wouldn't show it, but he was anxious to get the team moving. The last thing he wanted was for them to be stuck in the rainforest during the middle of a storm.

Once Tetsuo, Haruki, and Mizu had finally gathered around him, he dropped his cigarette to the ground and stomped over it.

"Let's go." Katsuro calmly ordered. "We have a lot of ground to cover and not a lot of time."

And just like that, Katsuro took the first steps of their long journey. He walked at a noticeably brisk pace, fully expecting his students to match his speed. Had his students been a little more conditioned and experienced, he would have taken off running. But this pace would have to do. It would be maintainable over a long distance and save them some time in the long haul.

To reach the path they were instructed to find, Katsuro lead the group around the East wing of the mansion. As they walked by the forbidden wing, he eyed the gaping hole in its exterior to try to deduce what may have caused it. He wouldn't linger on his investigation though. Katsuro was more concerned with locating the path to keep the group moving.

Abrupt as their departure may have been, Mizu had no issue maintaining the pace their sensei had set. Despite all that had happened so far, it seemed like things were starting to look up. Her mood was beginning to improve, albeit slowly. It was hard to forget the look that Hanahime gave her, or the argument she had with Haruki. But Jun's words had certainly help ease some of the stress. While she walked behind Katsuro, she too couldn't help but gaze up at the destroyed wall of the East wing.

 

[Pine]

As the team passed the mansion's injury, there were a few details they likely would've missed had they gone any other way around, some more noticeable than others. Closer now and with more attention given, they were able to get a better glance of the wing's interior. The third floor that they had previewed from the ballroom had been series of halls and shut doors. Here, what they could see was not a bedroom, but one wide, open area. The only thing breaking up their glance of what was inside was the beams made from pine wood that seemed to have been installed just to hold the roof up, since they did not match the darker wood the rest of the home was constructed of. They were walking too close to get a very good look at the floor, but as they walked past there were glimpses of machinery lining the wall, a screen here and there dimly lit up with a display too small and far away for them to make out.

Looking at the exterior, the window seemed unpatched since whatever had caused it to be broken did. It had crumbled around the window frame, leaving sharp, jagged teeth cutting up. Like the rest of the windows, it was just plain glass. The only thing dirtying what was left of the glass was a thick coating of sawdust. The other windows on the east wing had also begun to dirty, but only from a natural, thin film of dust, but it was enough to make it difficult to look inside, even if their off-white curtains hadn't been drawn. As for the wood paneling, at the right angle, they were able to see sections that bowed out near the whole in the wall. A few panels had splintered, threatening to break, made worse by wood rot that had begun to gnaw at patches of the siding unshielded by a roof.

The final things of note were what only the most perceptible of eyes would have been able to see. Aside from the wood rot, the paneling was largely unmarred. The direction of the wooden splinters, where the wall had broken to form the hole they saw, pushed outward rather than in. Lastly, easy to miss due to their short length, wide spacing, the vines growing into the home drawing attention from details, and the shading thrown on the house by the trees towering around them, was a pair of three scratches trailing up to the hole, the second and fifth notch in the wood slightly longer than the rest.

Tetsuo had barely taken a second glance at the hole in the estate. To him, the family was old, the mansion was ancient, and all buildings decayed over time. Several things in his own home had fallen behind on maintenance over the years that had become his responsibility to learn how to repair, or at least tweak in order to keep from making things any worse — plumbing, wood rot from the plumbing, and electrical, although when it came to electrical issues, anything more than tripping the breaker was beyond his toolset and knowledge, and it was during those times he did need to concede to reaching out to neighbors for help. As tumultuous as he heard the weather in rainforests were supposed to be, something like that could have easily been made by a storm or a tree that had fallen over in his head. It was stupid to build a house in a forest, and perhaps even more than that, he simply didn't care. It wasn't his job to care. He was there to get a bunch of stupidly obscure flowers, turn them into his dumb employer, get his money, then go home.

As Katsuro lead them at as brisk pace across to the back of the building, Tetsuo glared up at the Hanging Ladies that he recognized, braided into leafy, vining clusters hanging from several of the trees around them.

Haruki had been caught off guard by the quick clip that Katsuro lead them with. It was much faster than what they had walked on their way to the Yoshida residence. Jun had warned them, twice, about the storm to come, and Katsuro had also mentioned it when he had been vacating the study, but to Haruki, the degree of concern about it felt unwarranted. Storms happened all the time in his home country, and while they weren't always the most pleasant to be caught in, nothing major had ever come out of one for his family, at least that he remembered. He might have complained about this, too, but as they came around the back of the building, the dense undergrowth of the forest forced even the more athletic of the three genin to slow down a little.

Here, just after the small clearing made to give some space for the Yoshida residence to work with, the Pygmy Rainforest could truly begin to be seen in its wild majesty. The canopy was alive with the colors of exotic fauna, creatures that not all seemed immediately apparent to the boys that they were birds. Unlike at home, where songbirds might still for a moment or change their tune when the people of the village walked back, these birds seemed completely unbothered by their presence. It may have been just due to their towering height, for the trees here were much taller than the ones seen in the Land of Fire. Their branches tangled into one another, snaring every tree with no discernible pattern to them. Only small, rare patches of light broke through the tapestry the forest threw over the floor below.

The path Jun had referred to was not immediately apparent. There was a thin, winding trail to their right they could pass through one-by-one, but at Katsuro's height he would have to duck through it half of the time, and it certainly wasn't anything something as large as an elephant could pass through. Looking more to their left, about 150 meters in front of them, there looked to be what may have been something of a clearing, and possibly the beginning of the path, though it was hard to tell for sure. The trail, at least, seemed to be able to lead them most of the way to this clearing. Any straight entry point into the forest would mean wrestling with the trees and vines, possibly leading them to a blocked path for the genin or otherwise throw them off course.

Wherever Katsuro decided to lead them, both of the boys intended to follow and try to keep pace for the time being.

Haruki sucked in his lips. It was going to be a long time before they reached the mountains, if he understood everything that had been said up until that point correctly. The mountains he was familiar with in the Land of Lightning were huge and inescapable. It was almost impossible to be anywhere where you couldn't see one, yet here, where an entire range was supposed to be just ahead of them if they walk far enough, he could only see trees. That was a long time to be stuck with a team as unsocial as his own was. He had already been quiet on their way to the Yoshida residence, but if he spent anymore time not talking about the thing he really wanted to talk about, he thought he might go insane.

"So," he began cautiously, his heart drumming in his chest as he so much as thought about broaching the topic. "What did everyone think of Madam Yoshida?"

Tetsuo scoffed lightly and rolled his eyes up. Of course.

"We all know what you thought of her," he said pointedly.

Haruki looked at him, wide-eyed and a little panicked. Did he actually know? Did they actually know? It was the first time he was saying anything about her. He looked between Tetsuo, then the rest of his team to try to gauge their expressions. "What's that supposed to mean?" he asked.

 

[Gilzar]

Upon leaving the small clearing, the change of scenery was so striking that Katsuro had to stop, bringing the entire group to a sudden halt. At first the stop confused Mizu, but looking ahead she quickly understood why. Before them was the Pygmy Rainforest. Its majesty of colors and lively sounds were far more vibrant than either Mizu or Katsuro could have imagined. So far, the rainforest was beautiful, there was just no other way to describe it.

Mizu looked upon the rainforest edge in awe, looking at it as an exciting place of beauty and discovery. However, Katsuro viewed it as any leader in his position would: An obstacle that had to be overcome. There was no telling what dangers were hidden inside of this place. Without a word, Katsuro resumed his trek to find the elephant path.

Before committing to the narrow, winding trail, Katsuro decided to lead the group to what might have been the opening about 150 meters ahead. Though it would cost some time, he wanted to be sure they were going down the correct path. Under their current time frame they couldn't afford having to backtrack.

While they moved toward the potential opening, Haruki broke the silence by asking what everyone thought of Jun Yoshida. As would be expected, Tetsuo was the first to jump on Haruki, informing the boy that his feelings for Lady Yoshida were no secret. For once, neither Katsuro nor Mizu disagreed with Tetsuo. It was completely obvious the boy had a crush.

"She's pretty, kid." Katsuro admitted. "But you can't let shit like that distract you. It puts you at a disadvantage. Just think, what could she have done to you if she was an enemy shinobi?"

Katsuro paused. He debated about continuing lecture, but for the sake of saving Haruki anymore embarrassment he stopped. The kid probably got the point by now.

"But to answer your question, I don't entirely trust her." Katsuro stated.

Mizu immediately looked over at Katsuro, confused by his mistrust. Aside from some miscommunication, Jun was nothing but pleasant to them. She was welcoming, answered all of their questions, and was far more bearable to be around than Sando was when they first met him. The fact that Jun went as far to even offer to help Mizu with her makeup had won her over. Sure, Jun may have been a little excessive, but that didn't make her untrustworthy.

"Why don't you trust her Katsuro-Sensei?" She asked. "I thought she was kind..."

All that Katsuro could give Mizu was a shrug. There were lots of little things that gave him suspicion of Jun, but nothing major he could concisely point a finger at.

"It's just a hunch. I'm probably just being paranoid."

 

[Pine]

As Katsuro lead them straight through the thicket, the group naturally fell into roughly the same order as how they had walked on their way to the Yoshida residence. Katsuro, at the helm. Mizu following not far behind him, like a dog. Tetsuo also stayed relatively close to Katsuro, although took an entrance through the treeline slightly to the left of them, so as to not fall behind Mizu in the order. Finally, Haruki was in the back, not only having the most trouble walking over the unstable terrain of the rainforest floor, but also still wanting to keep as much distance as was reasonable between him and Mizu.

Haruki relaxed marginally as Katsuro seemingly ignored Tetsuo's commentary and went straight to giving an honest, non-judgmental answer to his original question. What he had to say after made him frown, though. It was hard for him to picture Jun in the way Katsuro was asking him to. As he picked his way over the roots of trees and ducked and brushed off vines and leaves that were threatening to get caught in his hair, it was beginning to feel as though, at least at their rank, shinobi were meant to toil and do dirty work. Only a truly unjust world would allow someone as pretty and class as Jun to have to go out and do something as trivial as what they were doing. Anything and everything she did must be of great importance, and she should be able to do all of it from the comfort of her own home. Even more than that, why would she ever do anything to work against them? They were the good guys. It was unthinkable that she would ever want to do something to hurt them.

"There's no point trying to get him to think, Katsuro," Tetsuo cut in. "All his blood is in the wrong head."

Haruki had been wanting to protest Katsuro's unwarranted suspicions, but Tetsuo's strange comment threw him off track. He narrowed his eyes at him, knowing he had just been insulted, but not quite being able to parse out exactly what it was that Tetsuo had been saying. He tried, longer than he felt like it should have, to understand, repeating the words in his head to see if it was like anything he had heard before...

Then it dawned on him. Haruki's eyes flew open with realization and his jaw dropped to the floor. "You're disgusting!" he said, feeling his face flush a beet red.

Tetsuo breathed a light, incredulous laugh. "Oh, I'm disgusting?" He looked over his shoulder to level Haruki with a critical eye. "I'm not the one who couldn't keep my eyes off strappy-tits for more than five seconds."

Haruki was aghast as everything Tetsuo said just kept making it worse. Suddenly, where he never would've been before, he was self-conscious about the very way he was walking. Desperately, he looked up ahead between Katsuro and Mizu for someone to do something to get him to stop.

 

[Gilzar]

Mizu's head immediately bolted back to Tetsuo, mouth agape, completely revolted by the words he was speaking. The way he was talking about Jun disgusted her. Even how he was talking down to Haruki irked her, in spite of the events of this morning. She was well aware of how vile Tetsuo could be by now, but this was a new low for him. Talking like some back-alley pervert.

"Haruki's right, you are disgusting!" Mizu shouted loudly. "Why would you ever say something like that?!"

A loud frustrated sigh erupted from Katsuro at the front of the group. He dragged his hand down his face in disbelief that the fragile peace between his students could fall apart so quickly. They were already at each other's throats, and they hadn't even been out of the mansion for 15 minutes. Tetsuo wasn't entirely wrong for criticizing Haruki for being so easily distracted by Jun's looks. Yet the way he went about it was so counterproductive that even Katsuro knew it was bad.

"For fucks sake, everyone just shut the fuck up!" Katsuro roared, abruptly stopping his march through the rainforest.

He stepped aside Mizu and walked directly up to Tetsuo. Katsuro pointed his index finger out and prodded it into Tetsuo's forehead.

"You need to learn when to shut the fuck up! That mouth of yours isn't helping anything!"

He lifted his finger off his student's forehead and relaxed his hand back down to his side. His attention then turned both Mizu and Haruki.

"And you two need to get thicker skin. If what this little shithead says offends you so much, then how the hell are you going to take it when a real enemy shit talks you? A shinobi like Matsuda would have a fucking field day with either of you." He said, knowing how familiar the two genin were with the kunoichi by now.

"Like it or not you three are comrades." Katsuro remarked, now addressing the group as a whole in a calmer tone. "Someday that will mean something to you all. I sure as fuck didn't like my teammates at first when I was a genin. But I was wrong. Once I finally started respecting them that all changed..." His voice trailed off for a short while and his attention was seemingly elsewhere for a few brief moments. A wave of nostalgic memories flooded through his mind of his genin squad. But one small memory of how his old sensei dealt with a situation like this put an idea in his head. Immediately his attention snapped back, and he spoke up.

"I'm going to make a change to how I'm running things, because what I've been doing isn't working. So from now on, when one of you needs to be punished: All of you get punished."

Katsuro slung his backpack to his front, and started digging through it.

"I told you all I wasn't going to put up with anymore arguments. I also said whoever disobeys my orders gets to carry my shit the rest of the trip. So, thanks to Tetsuo, you're all carrying my shit."

He dug out a chunk of his gear and forced it into Tetsuo's arms. Then he dug out another portion and thrusted it over to Haruki. To finish it off, he chucked his backpack and whatever gear remained in it to Mizu. During this process he made sure the weight everyone had to carry was at least somewhat equal.

Mizu caught Katsuro's backpack and stared down at it in disbelief. This wasn't fair! She had been on her best behavior since she left the train and now she was getting punished for Tetsuo being an idiot. Her eyes looked up at Katsuro, then back down at the backpack, then back up to her sensei one last time.

"Why am I being punished for something that stupid Tetsuo did?!" Mizu stammered out. "I've done everything you've ever told me to do! I'm the only one here that actually listens to you!"

"Because the only time you three ever work together is when your necks are on the line. I saw it twice in the Land of Birds" Katsuro retorted. "Otherwise you're all way too damn happy to let each other fuck up."

Mizu gritted her teeth together in anger while she squatted down in front of Katsuro's bag and began to tediously take out its contents. Carrying her staff and two backpacks would be far too much clutter to walk with. Instead she stuffed what was in Katsuro's bag inside of her backpack, then rolled up his backpack the best she could and tied it to the back of her own bag. She cursed beneath her breath as she slid her now stuffed backpack behind her shoulders and slinged staff. The weight extra weight wasn't an issue for her thanks to the training she did with Ginji. It was just uncomfortable to have so much in her backpack. Katsuro's items were constantly jabbing into her backside.

"Now we're going to march through this fucking rainforest at my pace. And if any one of you falls too far behind the group, I'll find more shit for you to carry tomorrow!"

Feeling satisfied with how he dealt with the situation, Katsuro resumed their trek through the forest at the same pace he was going before he had to stop.

 

[Pine]

At the sound of Mizu's shrill voice shouting at him, Tetsuo's brow furrowed and he turned to look at her, half in confusion and half in irritation. What the hell was her problem? The conversation had nothing to do with her, and yet she was yelling at him with every bit of vitriol as what had gotten her in trouble at the train station just that morning. It made no sense to him. Why was he being called disgusting when Haruki had just spent the last half hour having some uninterrupted wet daydream?

He was about to tell her to butt out of it, but before he could, Katsuro had evidently reached his limit with the conversation.

Tetsuo glared up at Katsuro marched up to him, fully expecting some in-his-face altercation. Instead, the jounin-sensei just prodded his forehead. For Katsuro, even in the midst of him yelling in his face, it felt like a weirdly non-aggressive gesture. Normally, there would be some sort of threat attached for something like this, where he'd stopped the entire group to get onto him. Instead, Katsuro just let his finger drop and turned to give the rest of his squad a criticism Tetsuo didn't expect. Somewhat perplexed, Tetsuo frowned and rubbed the spot he'd been poked, and followed Katsuro's gaze to Haruki and Mizu.

Haruki looked back at his sensei in disbelief. He had wanted help getting out of Tetsuo harassing him, but all Katsuro had done was tell him to shut up, and now he was telling him that he needed to do a better job tolerating being bullied. He was a victim here! Why should he be getting lectured when Tetsuo was the only one acting like a jerk? The only small solace he got from this was that Mizu seemed like she was on his side again, just in time too for Haruki to decide that he needed to get back in her good graces, because substituting her company with Tetsuo's was not an option when this was the response he got from the other boy for just asking one simple question. Haruki turned a small scowl of his own Tetsuo's way, just to make sure he knew he was the only one who should be in trouble.

The menacing stare bounced right off of Tetsuo. He knew exactly how Haruki felt about him, and he didn't care.

Tetsuo gave his attention while Katsuro, once again, lectured them about their group dynamic. It didn't surprise him to hear Katsuro didn't like his squad as a fresh genin. In a roundabout way, Katsuro had called Matsuda his friend when she and Ginji had came to assist them with their training, yet the first time he had seen the two of them interact, by all appearances Katsuro had looked like he had blown her off. Even as an adult and a supposedly accomplished shinobi, Katsuro didn't seem to spare niceties for very many people.

The last time this got brought up, Tetsuo remembered Katsuro trying to get them to treat each other better. This time, Katsuro seemed sure of himself that this would come naturally with time and maturity. This was a common theme with adults, the insistence that they would agree with everything they said once they were their age. When Tetsuo thought of Haruki though, he could never picture himself giving the other boy his respect. Haruki had done nothing to earn his respect. The kid seemed to have no interest in actually being a shinobi. All he wanted to do was talk and goof around. He never took anything seriously. Thinking about it just made his blood boil.

Before he lingered on it too long, Katsuro did something else that surprised and confused him. Punish all of them? Tetsuo's gaze roamed back to Haruki and Mizu, who both seemed just as shocked as he was. What good would that do? When the blame for group conflict was usually getting squared on his shoulders, just like it was now, why did Katsuro think he would care that the other two got in trouble? It was Katsuro's choice, not his, if he was going to dole out arbitrary punishments in some petty attempt to make him feel bad. He wasn't going to change how he thought or acted just because of something like that.

Tetsuo huffed a little from the force with which Katsuro shoved the gear into his arms, leaving no choice but for him to hold it if he wasn't going to just straight up drop it.

His head snapped to Mizu as she blurted out her self-righteous protest. There was a way that she could've gone about that that would have only minorly irked him. This was not it though. It seemed as though the kunoichi was finally letting her true feelings out, that she felt she was better than not only him, but Haruki too for her dogmatic obedience to any adult with authority, such that she was willing to drag either of them down if it kept her in her teacher's favor. Not only that, but she had called him stupid too in the process. Him. Stupid.

If his arms weren't full from whatever shit Katsuro had forced him to hold, Tetsuo would've flipped her off right then and there. Instead, he was left only with the option to bare his teeth at her in an angry sneer.

He should've known this about her. The very first day they had met, she had threatened to rat him out. Somehow, impossibly, he had seemingly forgotten about this. Those two weeks of being around her mom must have fucked with him more than he thought. He had softened on her, going as far as to take pity and be nice to her this morning. He wouldn't have cared as much if Haruki had said something like this, because Haruki was an idiot and nothing he said actually meant anything, and it wasn't as if he had ever gone out of his way to do something nice for Haruki. Tetsuo had no idea what he had expected from Mizu in return for his consideration, but what he had gotten was her taking his kindness and spitting it out on the ground. He felt his heart beat hard in his chest as his breath quickened with his temper.

If she wanted to think of him as some disgusting, horrible monster, then fine. He would show her just how nasty he could be.

He kept his face scrunched up in an angry scowl as he squatted down, dropped Katsuro's gear on the ground, then one by one shoved each thing into his bag. There was not really any need for him to be as rough with the gear as he was being. Tetsuo had packed lightly, just as he had known he should do, and it was organized in such a way that it was easy to move things around and make room for more. It was just the closest he could get to the feeling of shoving someone's face in the dirt at the moment.

Tetsuo knew now there was no talking his way out of this bullshit punishment with Katsuro this time. He might have argued that he had barely even done any arguing, that it was them that had decided to start yelling at him, but it didn't matter whether Katsuro felt he had started the argument or not. If it was either Haruki or Mizu, he would just say they all, including him, needed to be punished anyway. The point of this wasn't even to teach them a lesson about a specific kind of individual behavior either — it was about keeping them from cheering on each other's misery. Mizu had complained that she was being punished for him shooting off his mouth, but in Tetsuo's eyes, he was now reprimanded for something the other two were much more guilty of. Any time it had been his ass in the hot seat with Katsuro, he only had to look over to see the glee in Haruki's eyes at the chance of seeing him be degraded, while Mizu clearly seemed to think he had deserved the punishment every single time. Somehow, Katsuro had figured out exactly what he needed to do to proverbially tie his hands. There was nothing he could do to get out of this.

"Fucking bullshit," he grumbled under his breath, closing his bag then following behind Katsuro again.

Tetsuo would have rather just been the only one to ever get in trouble so he could do whatever they insisted he do and get it over with. Whenever Tetsuo broke a rule, it was deliberate, because he thought the rule was stupid and not worth following. It was almost a daily ritual for him wherever teachers were concerned. He was used to it. His teammates, however, didn't seem capable of handling it, and with Katsuro's rule that one of them falling behind would mean punishment for all, then that meant even more bullshit for Tetsuo to be saddled with. Mizu was apparently the model student who never did anything wrong, and so never expected to be in trouble. Haruki, on the other hand, acted like a complete princess. If Haruki ever broke one, it was because he was too incompetent or otherwise didn't have the skillset to actually meet his instructor's expectations. Such was the case right then, when Tetsuo checked over his shoulder to see how far behind the other boy was.

Haruki, unlike his teammates, had not been quite as bag-ready to accommodate the new supplies from Katsuro he would have to make room for. It occurred to him, as he knelt down and rifled through his bag, that better organizing his bag was what he had intended to do back at the train station, but never actually was able to get very far at all. The plastic wrapping that his dad had found for him was bundled at the top in such a way that nearly the entire rest of the bag was inaccessible. Carrying the gear in his arms for the rest of the day sounded tedious, especially given how many times he had already needed to reach out and stabilize himself on a tree trunk. So, in hurried but sloppy movements, Haruki tried to find the best way to wrap what he already had in the bag like he'd wanted to do before, all while trying to ignore the sting of Mizu lumping him in with Tetsuo when she said she was the only one who listened to orders.

Tetsuo pursed his lips and stopped himself. Katsuro was giving no time at all for someone like Haruki to get his shit together. Frustration roiled in his gut as Tetsuo fell back just far enough to grab Haruki by the shoulder of his shirt and not-so-gently lift him up. "Come on," he said testily. "You don't have the time or space to be doing this right here." The place where Haruki had stopped himself was wedged between two fig trees, giving him very little elbow room to work with. "Wait until we're in the clearing."

It did not take the group too long before they reached the clearing. The winding trail they saw earlier did seem as though it connected to the corner of the clearing, but there was no way of knowing if it would have been a completely unobstructed path without actually going through it. Now that they were there, it was very apparent that the clearing was, indeed, the beginning of the elephant trail that they had been looking for, and why exactly the trail began there. The undergrowth around them had been tamped down, only a few bits of foliage stubbornly sticking up still out of the ground. A little further up to their left, the trail had a moderate-sized mound in the earth, and off its miniature cliff-face was a mineral lick for animals to graze on. Just before they had arrived, there was a flurry of movement, and golden fur racing up the trees around them. There was one laggard, which was still hunched over as all of its kin retreated. As Katsuro took the first step into the clearing, the small monkey turned the exposed, white skin of its face to stare at him with wide, black eyes. Before Katsuro got too close, it pushed itself off of the wall and ran up the nearest tree to regroup.

Tetsuo stopped Haruki when they crossed into the clearing and forcibly took his bag from him to look at. After opening it and shuffling things around a bit, he wrinkled his nose. "This thing is a fucking mess. You're not going to be able to get anything out of here when you actually need it."

Haruki just stood in silence, pursing his own lips. He didn't owe Tetsuo an explanation of all that he had been through that morning just to get it together as much as it was. He felt an itch of impatience, looking over to where Katsuro was still walking, and determined that if Tetsuo spent too much time just looking through and criticizing all of his things, he would just have to snatch his bag back, like Tetsuo had taken it from him.

Tetsuo squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. This was going to be a pain, but he already felt like he was babysitting with as much as he'd done already just to herd Haruki along anyway. He saw no choice though, at least until they actually stopped to rest, because there was no way he would be able to fix Haruki's bag situation without falling seriously behind. He sighed loudly, irritably, not bothering to hide his irritation at all, before he thrust the bag back at Haruki and yanked the portion of Katsuro's gear that Haruki had still been holding in his arms. "Forget it. I'll just fucking carry it myself," Tetsuo said.

He waited neither for Haruki's nor Katsuro's clearance that this was okay for him to do before he started walking the path, his portion of Katsuro's gear in his bag and uncomfortably prodding his side much like Mizu's own, and the extra gear that Haruki otherwise would've had to carry in resting now in his own arms.

 

[Gilzar]

Katsuro couldn't help but eye the monkey as he marched to the elephant path. It was a strange little creature. He didn't particularly care for wildlife, but it was pleasant seeing something like this in its natural habitat. Long ago when he was a kid, Katsuro saw a monkey like this at the Konoha zoo. But it just didn't feel the same. You can't beat the real thing, simple as that. The lush, undisturbed jungle, a guided path and a simple objective. These were his favorite types of missions. He was almost tempted to lower his guard and relax a bit, but the veteran shinobi knew better. No telling what was in this rainforest. Predators, bandits, or even worse...Akatsuki. Plus, his students made any relaxing impossible.

He eyed his students behind him. Right now, the tension in the group was so thick he could cut it with a knife. Katsuro could hear every word Tetsuo and Mizu pouted beneath their breath and could feel the weight of their unhappy glares. Haruki obviously wasn't happy either, but he was too busy struggling to make a louder fuss about it. To the Jonin, it seemed that group relations were at an all-time low. Everybody had an issue with each other and was making no attempt to hide it anymore. Now he needed to focus on rebuilding their trust in each other.

With Haruki in the corner of his eye, Katsuro slowed himself down to an eventual stop. Haruki needed more time to get the extra gear prepped, whether he liked it or not. In order to make the best of the stop, Katsuro would take this time to light up yet another cigarette. That way he at least would have something to take the edge off of these brats not getting along. He keenly watched Tetsuo and Haruki during this entire time.

"Be careful with my stuff. I'd hate to have to use your gear if any of mine breaks." Katsuro sarcastically muttered out of the side of his mouth free of his cigarette.

The moment that they were squared away, Katsuro once again resumed his march down the elephant path. He carelessly blew a plume of smoke in the air as he walked. Mizu meanwhile continued to eye their sensei as they trudged through the rainforest. It was irritating that Katsuro could be so lackadaisical while being such a hard ass at the same time. This wasn't fair, being punished for someone else's insubordination. Why was it her fault that Tetsuo wasn't following the rules? It's not like she ever pressured him to go against Katsuro's word.

For now, all Mizu could do was obey Katsuro's orders like any good shinobi would and march forward. She eyed her two teammates behind her as the group moved through the rainforest. The chunin exams would be coming up this year. Whether or not they competed would be entirely up to Katsuro, and right now she doubted he'd let them. Upon realizing this, her eyes narrowed. They weren't going to hold her back; she had worked far too hard. If that meant having to pressure Tetsuo to follow the rules, and teaching Haruki the skills he didn't know then so be it. Mizu refused to be stuck as a genin for the next two years.

Mizu would continue to keep discreetly keep a watchful eye on Haruki and Tetsuo for the time being.

 

[Pine]

Not long after they had just gotten going again, Katsuro came to a stop. Tetsuo turned his annoyed, narrowed gaze to the jounin-sensei, who had seemingly stopped just to light yet another cigarette. This seemed unnecessary to him. A veteran chain-smoker like Katsuro could probably use a lighter sprinting. Since they had stopped though, he took the opportunity to sling his backpack over his shoulder and reorganize what he had left as best as he could.

"I am," he said testily, even though he barely was. It wasn't as if Katsuro had handed him his collection of teacups. His movements were jerky as he pushed aside the contents of his bag to shove the smallest parts of Katsuro's leftover gear into the small corners his backpack had left to spare, but it wouldn't be enough to break anything.

It never once occurred to him that he could have taken that time to pass the gear he had collected back to Haruki. He had already committed to carrying it until Katsuro officiated a break of some sort, and so that was all he thought about doing.

Haruki, similarly, had not picked up on the hint. He simply slid his backpack on again and stood there, confused as to why after Katsuro had made such a big deal about giving them more things to do if one of them fell behind. He wanted to ask the purpose for them stopping, but given that they had just been yelled at, he wasn't eager to be the first one to break the silence, even if Katsuro seemed calmer now.

Once Tetsuo crammed his arm back through the now-tight shoulder straps of his backpack and tucked what was left under his arm, they were off again.

Frustrated as he was, Tetsuo tried to look only to the path ahead, or Katsuro's back if his gaze happened to wander there. Looking at either Mizu or Haruki would just further incense him, because then he would be stuck thinking about how worthless Haruki was, or how snobbish Mizu's holier-than-thou attitude was.

As discreet as she tried to be though, and as much as he tried to glare away, it didn't take too long for him to catch her eyeing him. Tetsuo had been on the receiving end of glances like this many times. Stares by people who wanted to see, but didn't want to be seen seeing. It was a safety net for those that disapproved of his actions, a way for them to deliver judgment while keeping a case for deniability if he ever chose to retaliate. He had been at the receiving end of this many times after being disciplined at the academy, he had seen it directed at Mizu following her outburst at the train station, and now, she thought she could get away with looking at him like that.

Tetsuo glowered at her back, unwavering, until it was certain she had seen him, and knew he'd caught her. He had glared in her direction many times during the relatively short duration of their assignment on a squad together. They were distrustful glances usually, vague warnings to tell her that he didn't want her company and to keep a distance from him, that he would rather they each pretended that the other did not exist. This time was different though. There was a hardness in his eyes. It was personal, vitriol, and laced with malice. Logically, it seemed likely to him that she would not care, but he wanted her to know she had crossed a line with him, and in spite of Katsuro's newfound strategy to try to instill cooperation within the team, he would not easily forgive her.

Only once he felt she had seen this look in him long enough, long enough to know there was no room for miscommunication, did he finally look away, keeping her out of his field of vision as best as he could. In silence, he would stew over his resentments. If there had been any chance of him moving on and refocusing on the serenity of the forest around him, it had been dashed by the jabbing in his back from his overstuffed bag that came with every step he took.

The path ahead was mostly straight with very little turns and deviations. Everywhere there were signs of life, but the largest to be seen were the birds and monkeys that hung above them in the understory and canopy layers. On the forest floor, the occasional mouse could be seen darting across the path. Most of what they had to watch for was scat left behind, and the occasional buttress root the snaked through the clearing. If they paid attention, snails could be seen scaling the trunks of the trees around them, or alongside the company of colorful fungi that had overtaken the leaf litter.

Overall, though the individual species within each animal varied, Haruki found himself disappointed by how few types of animals there actually seemed to be within the forest. Jun had claimed that there were elephants that made this path. It wasn't that he didn't believe her, but the largest animal he had been able to make out thus far was perhaps a bonnet macaque, which he found to be very ugly and disinteresting to look at. He had hoped that he would have seen something more exciting, like a leopard, or maybe even something he had never heard of. Instead, it felt like more of the same stuff, and a lot of what he kept seeing over and over was not even close enough for him to really get a good glance at it.

Haruki breathed a long sigh through his nose. The forest could only do so much to filter the noxious fumes of Katsuro's smoke blowing back to them, and he could only hope for so long that they would find some cute furry animal mortally wounded in their path. His boring team would continue to walk past it, saying that they needed to focus on the mission ahead, and that they had no time to help it. He, alone, would intervene and nurse it back to health. In doing so, they would form an unbreakable bond of trust. The animal would no longer want to stay with its family, but instead enjoy a life of travel with him. He could take it back with him to Jun, who would be impressed by his compassion for the wildlife around him. When they had to leave for home, he would get to sample different types of food with it, find out which was its favorite. Then, perhaps, one day, when he had reached the lowest point in his life, or he was caught in the crossfire of his most epic battle, it, too, would come to his rescue.

There was a quiet crunch under his shoe, distinct from the way the leaf litter had been crunching beneath him before. Haruki stopped and lifted his shoe to inspect what it may have been. Small, white shards were scattered, and a strip of slime spattered the sole of his shoe. He had stepped on a snail.

Haruki wrinkled his nose in distaste. "Ew," he said, quietly, before drifting to the side of the path where he could scrape the snail carcass from off of his shoe. After he figured it was as good as it going to get, Haruki half-jogged to catch up to the rest of the group.

Around fifteen minutes passed, the group walking in near complete silence. To Haruki, it felt like hours had dragged on. If he stayed quiet for one more second, he thought he would combust right on the spot from his sheer boredom.

Without thought, he blurted. "Sensei, are we allowed to talk?"

 

[Gilzar]

Mizu was quick to notice Tetsuo's disdainful glares. He had always been foul to her, but she couldn't remember a time where he had glared at her with such disdain. It had little effect on Mizu, however. She couldn't care less what her crab of a comrade thought of her. As far as she was concerned, they were finally on the same page with each other. There was little she respected about him since their time at the Land of Birds. She thought highly of his abilities as shinobi, but not much else.

As for Haruki her feelings were completely mixed. After the Land of Birds she had thought they were friends of a sort. She did her best to catch him up with his chakra control, and they even fought side by side. Time and time again however, Haruki showed they weren't friends. Constantly changing how he behaved around her, not having her back when she was clearly being insulted. It was frustrating trying to be his friend. But she'd have to make sure he didn't fall behind, for this task and likely many others.

As they continued to move through the rainforest, Mizu slowly began to relax the best she could. Tetsuo was in a mood, but it didn't seem like he'd do anything rash at the moment. Meanwhile Haruki was maintaining pace with the group. She'd occasionally look back to make sure he was keeping up, but otherwise Mizu was finally able to keep her eyes forward to the objective.

Katsuro meanwhile was just enjoying the peace and quiet. This group was at each other's throats so much that he'd come to appreciate the few moments of quiet they were gifted. He would unfortunately find out that this peaceful silence wouldn't last long: 15 minutes to be exact.

Haruki would be the one to break the stillness in the air, asking if they were allowed to talk.

"Yeah. Just as long as you three idiots don't start arguing again."

 

[Pine]

A tiny, slight smile crossed Haruki's face as Katsuro assented. Arguing shouldn't be a problem for him. He was planning on staying as far from Tetsuo as he possibly could, and aside from the incident in the train station that morning, it was always his fault that something got stirred up in the group.

Haruki scampered forward from the back of their group to walk nearly-adjacent to Mizu's side.

"Hey, Mizu," he said, keeping his voice quiet, but his eyes bright with interest. "You got to ride that bear when we were on our last mission, right? How was that?"

It was something that at the time he hadn't processed very well. He had just finished getting blown off by the axe murderer, and when the Katsuro, Mizu and Toshio regrouped with him, they'd all been glaring at him. At some point during their break, he had remembered though that Mizu had arrived to the scene riding astride the polar bear and he had gotten very, very jealous.

 

[Gilzar]

Mizu was taken back a bit by the sheer randomness of Haruki's question. She had figured the conversation would have revolved more around the current mission than the last one. It was hard to believe that a month had already passed. Had Haruki not mentioned it, Mizu had almost forgotten about the unpleasant ride on Toshio's back she was forced to endure.

She looked over at Haruki. His bright-eyed expression made it obvious he was genuinely interested and not just making jaded small-talk like he sometime did. Mizu carefully thought over her words. Her answer was going to disappoint him, but a small part of her was glad they were at least on speaking terms again. This mission would be long without anyone to talk to.

"It was rough." She remarked. "He moved really fast...and there wasn't really anything to hold on to. I spent most of the ride just trying not to fall off."

"I'm not surprised to hear that. Bears don't make that good of a ride." Katsuro interjected from the front of the group. "I'm just surprised Toshio actually let you on his back...Bears don't normally like giving rides to people unless it's absolutely necessary. Too much pride."

Katsuro glared back to Haruki. "You know, there's better summonings if transportation is your goal." Katsuro casually added. For the first time today the tone of his voice wasn't annoyed.

 

[Pine]

Haruki tucked his lips into his teeth. As with before on the train ride here, Katsuro seemed to believe he had a more noble conviction in mind. Haruki had the opportunity to play it off as though he was, indeed, thinking of building some sort of strategic repertoire for his skills as a shinobi, and he may have done so except there was key information he was trying to glean from this conversation.

"Well," he began, stretching a small pause out as he considered how exactly he was going to go about putting Katsuro gently. "To be honest, I was more just wondering if his fur was as soft as it looked. Toshio had promised he'd let me feel his fur if we found Rei, but he never did," he said, sounding disappointed.

"That's not what he said," Tetsuo muttered, but stopped himself from saying anything more than that. He couldn't remember exactly what Toshio had said when Haruki had made his stupid request in the middle of the mission, because it wasn't a memory he needed to hold onto a month later, but he remembered it being something along the lines of some non-committal response just to get Haruki back on track.

Haruki frowned a little deeper, but otherwise ignored Tetsuo, making sure he didn't look away from either Mizu or Katsuro, the people he was actually talking to. He distinctly remembered Toshio making that promise to him, and of course Tetsuo was going to try to rebuke that because he had to be a killjoy contrarian every opportunity he had. It wasn't worth giving him any acknowledgement, so he ignored the comment altogether.

Not wanting to blow Katsuro off completely when this was the first time he'd heard him using nothing more than a conversational tone, Haruki asked, "What summonings were you thinking of, though, sensei?"

 

[Gilzar]

"I'm sure Mizu can attest, but there's nothing soft about bear fur. It's pretty coarse, doesn't feel special to the touch." Katsuro assured Haruki, answering his initial question. Mizu also chimed in to this statement, quietly nodding in agreement with their sensei.

"As for what summoning would make a better ride..." Katsuro rubbed his fingers through his goatee as he pondered the question. By no means was he an expert on the technique, but he had seen plenty of creatures summoned by shinobi throughout the years. He was just happy that the team was finally having a somewhat productive conversation for once. Conversations like these had been far too few for the group.

"Wolves, deer, birds...hell, I've even seen some sound shinobi ride snakes. There's lots of options out there."

"Does the summoning jutsu interest any of you?" Katsuro asked the group.

 

[Pine]

Haruki's shoulders fell a little. Maybe it had been a trick of the eye given his fur had been white and so thick, but Toshio's pelt had looked very soft, or at least pleasant to dig his fingers into. Now, he was imagining something more like grabbing a handful of straw. Between Katsuro and Mizu both confirming this, it was a bit of a let down, but at least it lessened the sting from Toshio's betrayal.

When Katsuro asked if the jutsu was of any interest to them, Haruki's face lit back up. His hand shot in the air and he said, "I am!"

It had barely been more than a mention within a bigger lesson, but it was one of the few things during the academy his attention had latched onto, even going out of his way to try to ask their instructor for more information about it. One of the friends he'd made in that class was from the Inuzuka clan, and he had always been very, very jealous that they were able to just keep and work with a bonded dog companion at all times. He figured that being able to summon a contracted animal was about the closest thing he would ever be able to get to that, especially with the mention of wolves being an option. Even better now that he knew at least some summoned animals could talk. There was absolutely no doubt in his mind that if he took the time and kept summoning the same animal consistently, he would be able to befriend it.

He hoped, desperately, that the next thing Katsuro was going to say was an offer to teach him how to summon.

Tetsuo, for his part, had not considered summonings as an avenue for himself in a long time. His father had never contracted with any animal, as far as he was aware. On the one hand, he knew different animals had their different unique abilities, and that could prove invaluable under different circumstances, like Toshio being able to track Rei's scent as far as he'd been able. On the other hand, the two times he had met a summoned animal, they each seemed to have rather strong personalities. Even within a small unit of three genin and one jounin, he had already failed twice to form any meaningful work relationships with any of his squadmates. Signing a contract to work with any number of animals just seemed to be begging for more complications. The truth of it was, there was a time he may have been interested in learning the summoning jutsu, but now he was unsure. Soto, he knew, would love to learn it though.

But he felt the conversation was outside of him anyway. Thinking a response from him was not wanted, he simply didn't, and instead just kept walking, eyes ahead on the forest floor to make sure he didn't trip over anything.

 

[Gilzar]

"Well, if we have time after this mission we can start taking steps to learn the technique." Katsuro said before taking a whiff of his cigarette, nearly burned to the filter.

He exhaled one last cloud of smoke from his nostrils, then tossed what little remained of his cig on and stomped it out.

"But you should know that it's not an easy technique to learn. Most don't tackle the summoning jutsu until chunin rank."

Mizu peaked forward toward her sensei, curious by just what he meant. "Why is that sensei?"

"It's just a hard technique. You need precise amounts of chakra control. Then you have to sign the summoning agreement. To top it all off, you have to get whatever the hell you end up summoning to work with you. Depending on what you summon, that can be the hardest part."

Katsuro let out a casual shrug. "Honestly, it'd be hard to the technique to get down for any of you before the chunin exams..."

"But I don't even know if I'd let you guys go to the chunin exams yet."

 

[Pine]

Tetsuo furrowed his brow at the mention of the chuunin exams. He knew without Katsuro even saying why he was reluctant to sign them up. His previous instructor had held him and his old squad back many times, passing up any C-rank mission that might risk them going into combat in favor of the mennial yardwork of a D-rank mission. The chuunin exams were well-known for their dangers and not every genin making it to the end, in more regards than one, so Takashi had a laundry list of excuses not to sign them up for the exams. Among those reasons, though, was the same thing Katsuro had just freshly gotten out of lecturing them on: teamwork.

Tetsuo squeezed his eyes shut in frustration. Even more than combat abilities, proctors of the exams looked for those who are able to demonstrate effective leadership. Tetsuo knew he was capable of leading a team, and he felt he had proven that by the end of their last mission in spite of all the animosities, but he knew teachers never saw it that way. For reasons he couldn't quite understand, they wanted to see that type of cooperation at all times, even when it didn't directly relate to a mission. This, he had tried and failed at, repeatedly. He had tried with teaching Haruki to work on his chakra control, for which he only got snapped at for giving his advice. He had tried with Mizu, sitting with her on the bus, getting people to stop staring at them and even attempting to say some not-unkind things in her direction. For that, she insulted him, talked down on him and called him disgusting. He still felt the sting from that in the pit of his stomach.

He wanted, even needed to become a chuunin. Until that point, he'd be stuck doing inconsequential missions that didn't pay enough, like picking flowers for some rich brat's birthday. Their last mission had only been a stroke of luck that they had combatted overpowered someone in an anbu's bingo book and saved a girl's life. It would be a long time in their careers as genin that they would have a mission as meaningful as that again, if they ever did. The trouble was that there was something inherently wrong with him, where nothing he did ever mattered. He felt cursed to be hated forever.

He puffed a sigh through his nose, and when he opened his eyes again, he glared at the forest floor ahead, face as sour as ever.

Haruki was not put off by Katsuro's reluctance to sign them up for the exams. Nothing about being a chuunin particularly interested him, and he'd been told over and over that the exams were no laughing matter. Haruki had a long history of not liking tests of any kind. If Katsuro didn't want to sign them up to take the exams, that was more than okay with him.

"I'll work hard on it if you're willing to teach me, sensei. I promise," he said with all the conviction he felt in that moment. "The jutsu I learned from Matsuda-sensei wasn't easy either." And that was a jutsu he'd had a much more shallow motivation for learning. As much work as he'd put into learning Crushing Wave, he had mostly done it to impress and spend time with Matsuda, and even then she had needed to keep motivating him. That was a jutsu he barely saw himself ever using though. It needed the prerequisites of a body of water until he learned to produce his own, and it was of very little use if the opponent wasn't far, far away from him. The Summoning Technique, though, was one he could use all the time. He vividly imagined getting to summon a wolf pup and showing it around his house, letting it sleep in his bed. Whatever he summoned would probably be grateful for the chance to just hang out instead of being thrown into battle every time. They deserved some sort of reward for all their hard work, after all.

While Haruki had cited the hard work he put into learning the ninjutsu Matsuda had worked with him on, he did conveniently leave out the part where he hadn't exactly gotten it to the point of being battle-ready as it was intended. Katsuro didn't need to know that though.

 

[Gilzar]

The moment Katusro mentioned the chunin exams, Mizu's head bolted up in alarm. It was as if their sensei had read her mind, stating the exact words she didn't want to hear. Katsuro may have been acting like he hadn't made his mind up about it yet, but Mizu doubted that. Everything with their sensei seemed intentional. He wouldn't make an offhanded comment like that for no reason. This was his way of hinting that they wouldn't be participating in the exams unless something changed.

It was the worst-case scenario in Mizu's eyes. Not going to the chunin exams would mean another year stuck as a genin. Trapped doing low ranked missions with poor payout and little impact on the world around them. Bound to the bottom of the totem pole, she wouldn't get the respect she desired as a genin. All because Katsuro saw them as incapable of being a team.

Her teeth scraped against the bottom of her lip as Mizu focused on not letting her temper get the best of her. This wasn't even close to being fair. Unlike some members of her squad, being a shinobi was her life. It was all she thought about. Every hour of the day was spent thinking about her goals, her training, and even her tactics in battle. That's what made Katsuro's decision so infuriating to her. She was completely committed to this, but he seemed quietly set on holding them back.

While they walked, she thought over everything Katsuro had said that day. Mizu carefully dissected every conversation in her mind, from the start of the day at the village all the way to Jun's mansion. It seemed the theme of today was that they all needed to make a better effort to get along, in spite of everything that had happened. Even her own Uncle emphasized she needed to start cooperating more with them. Although she was always combative to the idea, Mizu thought she was trying. Clearly though, it wasn't enough. Now with the chunin exams on the line it was obvious that something needed to change.

Mizu let out a small sigh, as she mustered up the courage to speak up.

"Sensei...respectfully I don't agree with you not letting us go to the chunin exams." Mizu said as calmly and respectfully as she could.

Katsuro peered back at Mizu, surprised to see her once again protesting his words. Usually, Mizu was the last one to protest his decisions. Today seemed to be an exception.

"Is that so?" He asked in a skeptical manner that could have been seen as condescending.

"Yes." Mizu stated. She awkwardly paused, gazing around at her teammates. The girl knew what needed to be done, but it was hard to muster out the words. What she was about to do would go against the sense of pride she so stubbornly had been holding on to. But in her mind, this was the first step she needed to take to work better with these two boys.

"Tetsuo is one of the most skilled genin in the village. I've seen it firsthand." Mizu said, admitting what she had known for a while for the first time out loud.

"Haruki's been working hard to improve his skills with Matsuda, just like you want him to. He's not a liability, he's actually the one who brought down the chunin we fought last mission."

"And I've been training for years with the goal of beating these exams. I'm confident in my abilities."

"That's why you can't hold us back this year!" She blurted out, partly losing her composure. "When it came down to it the three of us operated as a unit in the Land of Birds! We would do the same in the chunin exams."

 

[Pine]

The moment that Mizu spoke up, speaking slowly and thoughtfully, Tetsuo rolled his eyes. Katsuro had damn near just insulted all of them saying he didn't think they would be able to handle the exams. Now wasn't the time for respect, but of course the squad's resident kissass would roll her belly over in submission just to try to get what she wanted.

He glared back at her when she looked over, fully expecting more of the same woe-is-me attitude she'd had displayed just minutes before. He could practically see the gears turning in her head, trying to figure out another way to say how she had earned this and how unfair it was to hold her back when everyone else was the problem, but in a way that kept her from getting lectured by Katsuro this time. He had cooled down a significantly from earlier, but there was still spite, and it showed in the way he glared back at her, waiting for her to throw them under the bus again.

What she actually ended up saying was so far from what he had expected, he had to replay the words in his head just to make sure he had heard them correctly. One of the most skilled genin, where just a little while ago she had insulted his abilities. It was such a stark contrast is practically gave him emotional whiplash. His expression softened with his uncertainty. Did she really mean that, or was she just saying that because she thought she would get what she wanted by giving him flattery?

He didn't trust her, and he had his own reservations about Haruki that churned bitterly in him at the mention of that fight. He had seen Haruki appear to stand up from some sort of grapple on the girl they'd fought, but he hadn't actually seen him do anything. He doubted the truth in what Mizu had said that he had delivered the finishing blow, and when he turned to look at Haruki, only to see that same damn nervous look on his face, this only seemed to reinforce what Tetsuo already felt he knew. Haruki was not cut out for this. Even more than that, when they had emerged from the tunnel only to find an enemy shinobi staring them in the face, he had explicitly told him to stay out of the fight and to watch over Rei and Sando instead. Yet at some point, Haruki seemed to have felt those orders weren't worth listening to, and chose to put Rei's safety at risk. This was the thing he kept being reminded of, and this was the thing brewed a dark anger in him every time he looked at him.

But however much he felt Mizu was full of shit, he knew it wouldn't be helpful to him to reprimand Haruki for his carelessness in that moment, and he felt even more uncertain about how disingenuous her words were as she seemingly lost part of her composure. However much Mizu continued to confuse his feelings towards her, it was plain to him now they did have a common goal. If what she was trying to pull actually had a chance of winning Katsuro over, he would be a fool to do anything that would hurt those odds. As resentful and distrustful as he felt, he wouldn't be able to take turns giving compliments to each of his teammates as she had, but he could at least make it clear he was with her on this particular point.

"I'm serious about this too," he said, turning his glare back at Katsuro. "You should know this by now."

Tetsuo had said as much, or at least had tried to, when they had finished their first day of solo training together. If that didn't alone mean anything to Katsuro, then he should have seen the conviction he had followed through with in every other training session following after that over the past three weeks. Katsuro should know better than anyone else that he wasn't willing to stagnate.

Haruki looked between Mizu and Tetsuo as the two seemed to put up some sort of united front, panicked. The one time his teammates seemed to agree on something, and it was this. Were they trying to get him killed? It was maybe true that he had made some effort to push through as a unit to the end when they were in the Land of Birds, but he didn't have a choice at the time. Their mission had gone far beyond the scope of what it should've, and he had no idea what might've happened to him if he had tried deserting in the middle of the mission. For all he knew, he was the target of some big bad criminal organization now. Staying with and working together with everyone was the only thing close to having some sort of protection he could have gotten at the time.

The chuunin exams were optional though, and seemed like something most people would wait to take, not while he was still fresh out of the academy. It was suicide to throw them into something like that so soon. He couldn't outright say that though, so he tried something else to dissuade anyone from trying to make them hop in the grave with them.

"Um... do we have to take those exams all together?" Or could he just stay at home while those two rushed towards their certain doom? Quieter, in a nervous tone he added, "Aren't those exams dangerous?"

 

[Gilzar]

Katsuro slowly eased his pace to an eventual halt, completely turning his body to face his team. He quietly stared in a surprised disbelief at Tetsuo and Mizu standing together in unison. It was the first time he'd seen them openly cooperating with. Not only that, but for Mizu to openly compliment Tetsuo's abilities in spite of how much she disliked him. The two had thrown a curveball at Katsuro, the likes of which he didn't see coming. For once, Katsuro was left speechless, just standing there staring while the lively chatter of the rainforest creatures echoed around them.

Had all three of them taken a unified stand Katsuro just may have retracted his statement. But unfortunately, Haruki only showed the type of hesitation Katsuro didn't like. Although Katsuro didn't like to see the boy back down from the exams, he couldn't entirely blame him. Even under today's standards the chunin exams were dangerous, and the boy had just committed himself to the shinobi lifestyle. Death was always a possibility in the chunin exams, just like it was in every mission a ninja accepted. Hopefully Haruki could eventually come to terms with that, but he wouldn't commit them to it until he saw an improvement in the team spirit and everyone wanted to commit. Not just Tetsuo and Mizu. After taking time to settle these thoughts in his head, Katsuro finally spoke.

"Yes, the chunin exams are dangerous Haruki, and you all have to do it together." Katsuro said. "And in the first two rounds if one of you fails, all of you fail. That's why I'm not signing any of you up for the exam until I see an improvement in how you all cooperate with each other."

He sighed, noticing the mixed looks of frustration and disappointment on Mizu and most likely Tetsuo's face as well.

"Look. I know you've all been working hard. You two especially, Tetsuo and Mizu. But it's my job to keep you alive. And if you three are always at each other's throats like today there's no way in hell you'll make it through the chunin exams. With the way things are going you'll either flunk the first round, or one of you gets killed out there."

"You three have to be working together at all times. That means openly communicating, watching each others back, and above all else not fucking arguing every time one of you opens your mouth!"

"If you three can prove to me that you can do this over these next few missions I'll reconsider and sign you up last-minute for the exams."

Behind his glasses he glanced over at Haruki. "And all three of you have to tell me you actually want to participate."

Mizu glared down at the ground, predictably unhappy with her sensei's statement. Her suspicions had been proven correct: Katsuro was set on holding them back a year unless things improved. The news that his mind could be changed if they improved their teamwork didn't do anything to ease her frustrations either. Doing so didn't just mean Tetsuo and herself openly cooperating. It also meant Tetsuo not constantly putting Haruki down with every little thing he did. It was a tall order, to say the least.

Dire as things were there was a spark of hope. Mizu's eyes traveled from the ground over to Tetsuo. She had taken a leap, speaking honestly about the only real thing she knew she respected about Tetsuo. It was her first attempt at smoothing things over with Tetsuo, in spite of everything that had happened between them. Ever since the Land of Birds, when the unfortunate topic of the Kyubi came up, she hated the idea of having anything to do with him. Likewise, she knew he felt the same way. It wasn't hard to miss the nasty looks he had been giving her since the her outburst shortly ago. But it was now clear that working with Tetsuo was the key to making chunin. And if that was what it took to achieve her goal of joining the ranks of Konoha's special ANBU forces, then so be it.

Mizu looked back forward and prepared herself to march forward, anticipating Katsuro to start moving anytime soon. But their sensei wasn't done speaking just quite yet...

"That being said though, I don't like you hesitating just because something is dangerous Haruki." Katsuro said, not about to let Haruki's concerns off the hook just yet.

"Death is a part of this lifestyle. Get used to it. You might die protecting the leaf village..." Katsuro remarked coldly.

"Or you'll have to end someone for the same reason."

 

[Pine]

Tetsuo shut his eyes and breathed a sigh through his nose. Whatever small bit of hopeful determination he may have had was dashed from him. It was much less about Haruki's cowardice barring them from Katsuro signing them up for the exams — Haruki was weak-willed, and if one or both of them pushed him enough to act like he wanted to be a part of the exams, he would bend — and moreso that if one of them failed during the first two phases of the exam, they would all fail. It paralleled Katsuro's new punitive style in dealing with them, and it had the same glaring problem in it. Haruki did not have the skillset to deal with hardships. He was holding them back every bit as much as Katsuro was. Tetsuo did not believe for a second that Haruki would be able to make it through even the first round if there was any amount of individual examination involved, and this was only reinforced in his mind when Katsuro omitted his name from his list of those who had been the hardest at work.

The comment drew his eyes over to Mizu. It hadn't been something he had consciously processed before, but as he thought about it then, he thought she may have looked different when he saw her on the train this morning. Her form was obscured now by the poncho she wore, but he recalled a vague sense of feeling she looked more athletic than she had before. She had been working training in taijutsu as well, he knew this, so the revelation only came with some small surprise. He had no idea what Ginji could have done with her that could have pushed her to tone her body more than living with an ANBU uncle would have. Any change in his own body had been much more subtle. He had already been lean, maybe a little too lean, and the only change he thought he may have noticed was a slight uptick in his muscle mass whenever he had curiously flexed in a mirror.

He may have imagined it because the train ride there was the first time they had actually sat next to each other, but he thought maybe she had gotten taller too.

Her own gaze lifted from the ground to meet where he had already been staring. Whatever small bit of curiosity he had been looking at her with was displaced by a somber expression. If he was reading her right, that she was looking towards him with some measure of hope for reconciliation, and hope in Katsuro's promise to reconsider if they performed well enough on the next few missions, he did not agree. Tetsuo did not trust entirely that the small gesture she had made towards him was in good faith, nor did he share in any wishful thinking that she may have had about entering or succeeding in the upcoming exams. Wordlessly, he shook his head at her and looked away.

Every word out of Katsuro's mouth created a greater and greater sinking feeling in Haruki. He confirmed to him that not only were the exams dangerous, but that his participation, and success, was required for his teammates to make it through. Without either of them looking at him, he knew they were angry at him for his comments, Tetsuo especially. He normally wouldn't care about what Tetsuo thought, but having both him and Mizu upset with him, as well as Katsuro's disappointment, all hitting him simultaneously felt almost too much to bear. In that moment, everyone hated him, and he felt a physical pain from their collective disapproval tightening in his stomach. His parents, too, would not be happy to hear that he had a chance to enter these exams, but not only was it his fault that they weren't able to, it was due to his own reluctance. Katsuro's comment recognizing Mizu and Tetsuo's hard work above his own stung too, even if he knew there was truth in it.

He didn't know what to do, and it made him nervous that he didn't know what to do. He could feel as much by how his heart beat in his throat. Why did he have to be the one to become a shinobi? His sister did not have the same fanaticism as their parents did about it, but she had the gumption for it, and had expressed many times when he'd seen her around her envy over a kunoichi's ability to fight. It was only because he was the younger one that he happened to be the one left behind with their parents during and after the war, and so he was the one where all of the pressure had fallen onto. At the academy, he could ignore this because he had been with the friends he'd worked to make and keep, and it was an interest in learning something they could all practice together rather than actually applying it. At the academy, he didn't have to think. He could just do or not do, just as long as he did enough for the instructors there to overlook.

Here, though, out in the middle of the woods, no promise of a warm homecooked meal or even a true privacy for when he would eventually need to use the bathroom in sight, he was more with the worst bunch of colleagues than he was among any actual friends. His friends would know and understand that he had been signed up for this lifestyle without his willing consent, and they would do something to cheer him up and try to make the matter for him more fun. They would've perhaps sung songs, just because they were in the middle of nowhere and they wanted to see how far their voices could carry, or they would have taken advantage of the isolated environment to share tales of horror and try to get a good-natured scare out of each other. But here, there was no good humor or camaraderie. He got sneered at for not doing well enough, or like what Katsuro was doing right now, having his nose rubbed in the severity of his preordained purpose, and that this thing he was being forced to do could very well be what brings about an early end for him. Haruki had tried telling them on their last mission his circumstances, but he felt that even Mizu was going to start putting the pressure on him. The whole affair made his head swim. He did not like fighting, and he didn't want to put his life on the line, not for some silly promotion that meant nothing to him. He didn't care about the village either, at least not enough to risk his life, and certainly not to kill someone else. He had been living in Konoha for about five years, but he still hadn't quite gotten used to calling the new village his home. There were moments where he still felt like he didn't and could never belong. Moments like these.

"I know," he said, sullenly. He felt a kneejerk compulsion to correct himself, act like he wanted to take the exams, lie saying that he had just asked his questions from a point of curiosity, not hesitation, just so that no one would be mad at him anymore. Under the weight of the gravity of this topic, though, he couldn't even bring himself to smile. There was an uncharacteristic gloominess to his face, a normally energetic brightness in his eyes tempered by dark thoughts he was being made to confront.

Without another word, glance or waiting for Katsuro's signal, he began walking. He would stop if the jounin-sensei made him, but otherwise he just wanted to move on, both in the sense of letting the conversation die and physically moving their squadron ahead.

- - - - -

The path they continued out remained just as easy to navigate throughout the day as it had been from the very beginning. There were a few exceptions, where the growth of the trees had crowded such that it made the path narrow, and they either had to pass single file or suddenly stand uncomfortably close to each other, but however much it narrowed, there was always enough room for an elephant of moderate size to push its way through, end there was evidence that this had been done in some places. The path itself was not entirely a straight shot. There were winds and twists to it, where a fruiting tree may have been visited and stripped bare of their nutrition from time to time, or another salt lick was to be found. There were a few opportunities where it may have cut them time to keep walking straight ahead, rather than follow the detours of the path, but regardless of whether the path turned from the east or to the west, there was always an intuitive sense that they were still going forward.

Haruki stayed quiet for a long time. Long, even by standards that were not his own. A cloud of pessimism hung over his head as they continued into the forest, and there continued to be very little that seemed like there was changing about the rainforest to draw his attention away. The birds continued to hang somewhere higher than he could see most of them. The monkeys continued to be ugly, or scampered away too quickly, and bugs were never something to have been of great interest to him. It was only by the grace of one bird, which happened to stand out of place from the rest of them on a lower branch, with a comically large beak for the rest of its proportions, that he finally made his first comment in a long time, pointing out just how silly it looked. From there, he began to trickle in more and more small bits of conversation, carefully picking innocuous topics for Mizu and Katsuro to choose from that had minimal risk of turning into anything bleak and serious again.

Tetsuo, predictably, abstained from these conversations. He remained pensive, the general monotony of the forest making it easy for him to get lost and remain in his thoughts. Depending on the direction his internal monologue took him, he felt flashes of resentment and frustration, or spikes of anxiety with seldom quietude in between. When they had taken their first break, he had completely forgotten that some of the extra gear he was carrying was actually meant to be Haruki's. Then by the time of their second break, he was reminded by the impossible-to-ignore stabbing that he been needling his back throughout the beginning of their voyage, and he finally made Haruki take his share of the gear to carry, though he may have forgotten a small item or two.

In spite of the markings in the forest of elephant life—the path, ovular footprints overlapping each other in muddier areas—the day would pass without any of them seeing a single one.

The misting of rain had stopped about one or two hours into the forest, and aside from the tree coverage cooling the ground and blocking the sun, the day had passed relatively warm, and relatively bright. The sun had slipped from its high point above them down over the horizon, where depending on the angle they were facing, it would wink at them between cracks of trees with blinding rays. It would be gone soon, and its slow departure was marked by a gradual cooling in the atmosphere. Steadily, as evening came upon them, the terrain had begun to shift, a slight changing in elevation making the flat plane they had been walking on up until that point a subtle uphill climb.

It was at this point, where the first scatters of raindrops they had seen for hours began to patter onto the ground, that Haruki let out a loud sigh, slumped his shoulders and stopped walking. "Can we take a break?" he asked, his tone whiny.

At first, Haruki's requests had been reasonably spaced apart, at least an hour or two between them. This had shortened a little once Tetsuo had passed the segment of Katsuro's gear onto him, and when in spite of the rearrangement of the contents in his bag, he then shared in the uncomfortable prodding in his back the extra luggage gave. Once afternoon had become evening, his requests had become more and more frequent. The last break they had taken was no more than ten minutes ago. It was getting so ridiculous to Tetsuo, he began to wonder if the other boy was just asking for breaks at this point just out of sheer boredom, and he didn't do much to try to hide this in the annoyed way he eyed him.

 

[Gilzar]

The path had been relatively easy to follow; A blessing considering how difficult this type of terrain would be to navigate otherwise. There was little navigation Katsuro had to do at the moment. Just keep walking forward with the elephant path. Following his discussion about the chunin exams his students became ominously quiet. Other than some occasional small talk it was relatively peaceful. Just walking through the rainforest, a pleasant change in Katsuro's mind.

Throughout the journey Mizu remained keen on catching even the smallest glimpse of whatever elephants may have been nearby. All around them were hits of their presence. Footprints in the mud, trees robbed of whatever leaves they once had, and freshly stomped vegetation. True to what Jun said, this path was clearly being used by the megafauna. They just always seemed to be frustratingly behind them.

When she wasn't focusing on seeing an elephant, Mizu's attention would shift back to her teammates for short periods of time. Katsuro may have been completely oblivious to Haruki's troubling silence, but Mizu wasn't. She knew Haruki well enough to know by now that if he wasn't talking then something was wrong. Ever since Katsuro told him to get used to the idea of dying for the village her normally talkative teammate had become eerily quiet. Every now and then she could get some small talk going with him, but it never went far.

Haruki's behavior reminded her of the conversations they had in the Land of Birds. With all of the drama between them she had nearly forgotten about Haruki openly admitting he didn't volunteer for this lifestyle. But if she recalled correctly, Katsuro gave him the chance to quit when they got back to the village. So why was Katsuro's pressures getting him down so much? Had he truly not wanted to do this, wouldn't he have just quit? Why go through all of that training with Matsuda if he didn't want to be here?

Tetsuo meanwhile remained as silent as always. Knowing him, he likely welcomed Haruki's silence. The two of them didn't argue once for the rest of the day, a new record. But things were so quiet in the group there really wasn't much to argue about. There was one moment just after the Chunin exams argument where Mizu and Tetsuo's eyes met, but Tetuso's face didn't give her the response she'd hoped for. Mizu wished for some nod of respect or at least a look of understanding, but it never happened. Just his usual gloomy, moody expression.

Mizu quietly let out a sigh. Katsuro was right. They still had a long way to go as a team.

With the sun now shifting under the canopy-decorated horizon, darkness was fast approaching. Haruki was starting to get more fussy than usual about taking a break. He complained more and more until finally coming to a stop. Mizu rolled her eyes. Suck it up Haruki. Katsuro seemed set on covering as much ground as possible, and Mizu feared if Haruki fell too far behind the group they'd all be punished once again. But before she could worry too long about Haruki, Katsuro suddenly came to a stop.

Normally Katsuro would have just barked at Haruki to get a move on and to quit whining. But as he felt the first pellet of rain hit against his skin through the darkness, he knew they couldn't go any further. Marching through the night was one thing, but doing so in unknown territory under intense rainfall was too much for a team as inexperienced as this. Katsuro looked back to his team.

"It's getting late and the weather looks like it's going to turn. I think it's time we find a suitable camp site." Katsuro announced to the group. "Let's walk a little further to see if we can't find somewhere out of the rain."

Fortunately the group didn't have to far. Just near the path was a small rock formation with just enough of an overhanging cliff to shelter them from any possible rain. Katsuro hastily led his team to take shelter beneath the protruding rock. The space was just large enough for them all to fit underneath for the night.

"Set your stuff down under here." Katsuro said

He moved over to the nearby trees, scouring for any dry wood he could get his hands on. Specifically he looked in places off the ground, right at the base of the tree. Anything off of the wet forest floor would hopefully work well with the bits of kindling he'd packed for the trip.

While their sensei was busy poking around in the nearby foliage, Mizu plopped her bag on the ground and began readying herself for the night. Even though they were done traveling for the day, there was still work to do. She began unpacking Katsuro's things and carefully piled them about five feet to her right side. Once all of the extra baggage was out, Mizu could finally start prepping her spot. To begin, she unfastened her rolled up sleeping mat slipped it out of its plastic sheet. Mizu promptly laid it flat on the ground, careful not to put it too close to where the fire would be. Then she slipped both her shoes and rain poncho off, neatly setting them next to her bedding. To finish things off, she pulled a few bags out of her pack, then set her backpack at the end of her sleeping roll to be used as a make-shift pillow.

By the time all of his students had finished unpacking their things, Katsuro returned an armful of sticks. He carelessly tossed them in a pile at the center of the campsite. Katsuro then went over to his pile of gear and pulled out various bits of kindling that would help start the fire. Returning back to the pile of somewhat dry sticks, he knelt down on one knee and methodically stuffed the pile with kindling before pulling out his lighter. With just the flick of his thumb, the kindling ignited and the camp now had a fire.

 

[Pine]

Haruki perked up when Katsuro agreed not to a break, but for them to stop for the night and set up camp. Other than the moment he returned to Jun with armfuls of the flowers that she wanted, this was the thing he'd been looking forward to the most on this mission. Immediately, a spring returned to his step, a renewed energy greater than any he'd felt since departing on their journey that morning. He all but skipped after Katsuro as they crossed the short distance it took to find a campsite they could use.

When Katsuro found a spot, Tetsuo frowned to himself. They would be in much closer quarters than he would have preferred. Never in his life had he wanted to sleep somewhere that close to Haruki, and Katsuro was going to stink the whole place up the entire night. He knew, though, that it was merely a stroke of luck that they found this rock formation as close to where they had been, and it should have been a blessing on its own that they found one big enough for them to all fit under there. They hadn't exactly seen a surplus of giant overhanging boulders on their trek through the forest thus far, so there was no guarantee the next one they found would even be a larger one.

With a sigh of resignation, he slid the straps of his bag off his shoulders and dropped it on the ground. Without a word of where he was going or what he was doing, Katsuro walked away from them. Tetsuo eyed him curiously, just to find that the jounin was gathering wood. The longer he watched, the more he saw Katsuro pass up different strips of bark. He wasn't just finding any wood haphazardly, Tetsuo realized, but he was looking for drier wood, and he was looking for it methodically without even thinking.

Just as Katsuro had, Tetsuo walked out from under their to-be shelter in through the treeline. On the way, he picked up a stick no longer than his forearm and gave it a squeeze. The stick was fat with saturation, and if he pressed hard enough on the bark of it, he would feel the cool water begin to squeeze through its cracks and onto his palm. It would be more useful for putting out a fire than starting one. He watched for a moment the exact places where Katsuro was looking—the base of the trees, where there would be some reprieve from the rain and roots that wove in and out of the soil were large enough collect whatever the branches above shed. When he groped similarly for wood in these spots, he found them closer to what he thought would be appropriate for a fire, or at least the closest they seemed to be able to get out here. He tested this just to make sure several more times, grabbing both tree-base wood and any-where wood alike. He found similar results, and ultimately thought to himself, that this would be useful for him to know in the future.

Tetsuo ultimately gathered a modest collection of sticks, separating them from the ones that were too moist, and returned to the campsite. He tossed what he'd gathered in a pile as a small tribute to the larger collection he was sure Katsuro would return with shortly after. He then set to unpacking his bag.

Haruki, as soon as they had picked a spot to hunker down for the night, had dropped his bag unceremoniously on the ground. He raised his arms over his head in a long, wide stretch, then flopped himself onto the ground with a loud, exaggerated, yet contented sigh. His feet were aching from all the walking they'd done today, so he was elated to be off his feet once and for all, even though he felt even more aware of the throbbing in his ankles now that he'd stopped. He laid like there for a while, spreading his arms out, not caring much at all about how the forest floor might dirty the exposed skin of his hands and legs. He shut his eyes, enjoying the moment.

Just as Tetsuo returned with his stick bundle, Haruki had begun to stir. He sat up, shaking the stray leaf litter from his hair half-heartedly, before he started to unpack his bag. Instead of the neat, systematic way that Mizu unloaded and arranged her belongings, Haruki opted to just dump the contents of his bag, including Katsuro's gear, onto his imaginary ordained territory beneath the rock. He kicked off his shoes and stepped into his sleeping bag. He pulled it up as he stood and tucked the sides of it under his armpits to hold it up on his body.

As Tetsuo sifted through the contents of his bag, Haruki waddled up near the other boy whose back was turned to him and peered down. He heard a strange, yet familiar sort of rustling sound in Tetsuo's bag, then saw what exactly he had used to shield his belongings from the rain. "You put your stuff in trash bags?" Haruki blurted.

Tetsuo's jaw tightened. If he had been trying to hide the fact that this was what he'd used for plastic wrappings, it was only to keep any others from making obnoxious comments like that. "They weren't used, dumbass," he said, then turned his head to glare at him over his shoulder.

Haruki shrugged, not affected by the light jab of an insult. After learning that this was how Tetsuo packed, he couldn't take him seriously even if he wanted to.

He let it be, and waddled back closer to Mizu, purposefully keeping a wide stance as he walked so as to ensure his legs brushed against the fabric of the sleeping bag to make a swishing sound as much as he could. It was a pleasant noise to him, but more than that, the excitement over camping gave him the compulsion to act impetuous and silly.

Haruki crouched down next to Mizu, ensuring he shimmied his body in the swishiest way possible, then said, "Hey, Mizu. Do you wanna' tell ghost stories with each other?"

The mood of the campsite was nearing perfect for it. The rain was steadily picking up from the scattered droplets, becoming a more steady downpour. The sun was winking its final goodbyes as it slunk further below the horizon, and now that Katsuro had returned to the campsite, it seemed that he would be able to get and keep a fire going.

 

[Gilzar]

Katsuro gave Tetsuo a small nod, his quiet way of letting the kid know that he appreciated the contribution to the firewood. He wasn't expecting any of them to assist with getting the fire going, so it was a pleasant surprise to say the least. With the small size of the fire, the amount of wood they had would probably last a while. Long enough for the group to fall asleep, at the very least.

Now that the fire was burning steady and his students were situation, Katsuro would finally have his chance to relax for the first time all day. He gathered up the pile of his belongings and methodically stuffed them back into his backpack. Once everything was properly secured Katsuro kicked his bag back to the only open spot left around the fire. Then he lowered himself to the ground and laid on his back, using his pack as a makeshift head rest much like Mizu was. Once settled, he finally took off his sunglasses and unzipped his flak jacket. As Haruki made his way over to Mizu he calmly lit a cigarette and let it gently hang out of his mouth as he folded his hands together behind his head for extra support while crossing his legs.

Mizu meanwhile couldn't help but awkwardly sit as Haruki waddled his way over to her in his sleeping bag. He sat down next to her, then proceeded to ask if they wanted to tell ghost stories to each other. Given how they started the day at each other's throats, his friendliness was a surprise to her. But it was a welcome turn of events in Mizu's eyes. A small smile grew across her face, welcoming Haruki by her side.

"Sure!" She said, before her eyes trailed off to the glow of the nearby fire. "But...I don't really know any ghost stories if I'm being honest."

"I got a ghost story for yah, kid." Katsuro calmly said over the crackling of the fire, taking out his cigarette with one hand to speak more clearly.

"But this one ain't like the stories. It really happened." He boasted to his students.

"Any of you ever heard of the Phantom of Matsumoto Ridge?"