Fandom 𝑦𝑜𝑢'𝑑 𝑜𝑛𝑙𝑦 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑒𝑦𝑒𝑠 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑏𝑙𝑢𝑒, 𝑏𝑙𝑢𝑒 𝑠𝑘𝑦

[frog]

ishikawa atsuo. ☾
Soft rays of mid-morning sunlight shone down upon the Leaf Village, setting a hopeful precedent for the first B-Rank mission of Atsuo's career. It would be a downright lie to suggest the young ninja wasn't anticipating it. He'd been so consumed by the thought of it, in fact, that he'd even forgotten to light up his morning cigarette. Almost. He was within view of the village gates when, out of habit, he dropped a hand down into his pants pocket and felt for his lighter.

He stopped short as it donned on him what he had forgotten. Aw, man.

He popped a thumb knuckle, a deeply frustrated scowl chiseling itself into his narrow face. A few smooth drags off a cigarette would have been just what he needed to remove that edge, but it seemed one of his comrades had already beaten him to the towering entrance to the village. He didn't much care if his teammates caught him smoking, but he'd have rather kept Teruhiko Sensei- who, in this instance, happened to be their mission captain- in the dark about his nasty habit.

Ah, well. As much as it sucked, he would just have to make do until he could find a few minutes to step away from the rest of the squad.

Raking his fingers back through his mess of mahogany hair, Atsuo trudged on towards where one of fellow genin stood in wait of everybody's arrival.

sankoda teruhiko. ➶
Ishikawa Atsuo. Shirota Harumi. Tenchochu Cho. Inuzaka Shikoku.

Teruhiko was already well acquainted with two of his four man squad; Atsuo and Harumi made up two of his three usual pupils on Team Thirteen. He couldn't claim stakes to Cho or Shikoku- not that he would want to. Three whole brats was more than enough to a team, if you wanted to know his opinion. He often found it hard enough to keep the attention of even one. But, for the sake of their mission, Cho and Shikoku were his to command.

He scratched his stubble, watching from his vantage point upon a nearby building as, one by one, his squad begin to roll in.

What a pain this mission was about to be. He cracked his neck.

Let's hope these genin can hold their weight. Those missing girls' lives may very well have depended on their expertise. There was a high probability the girls, Moriki Kanae, and Ōmichi Shizuko, hadn't just gone off and gotten lost on a whim. They were good kids from well off families.

Kanae was a fifteen year old, recently dubbed genin, and Shizuko helped her parents run an animal rehabilitation center at the edge of the village. The girls had been best friends since they were children, so when they came up missing the same morning, there was no doubt in anyone's head that, whatever had happened to them, they had been together for it.

Teruhiko knew their lack of overall knowledge about the girls' disappearance meant that this mission could go any number of ways. The only credible witness was Kanae’s younger brother Kusuo. The hokage informed them during yesterday's briefing that Kusuo heard his sister leave their family home before sunrise two mornings ago. When he awoke and followed her outside to see where she could have been going, she was already disappearing, alone, into the forest. According to him, she had left behind her Leaf Village forehead protector, which she would never do.

Both girls' families as well as the hokage suspected foul play. After pondering over the information he'd been given, Teruhiko was beginning to lean the same way.

He reached into his satchel, from which he pulled out a navy blue forehead protector. Kanae's forehead protector. The hokage had gotten it from Kusuo and handed it over to Teruhiko so that Shikoku kid's ninja hound could take a whiff of it. With a lot of luck, hopefully the group would be on the girls' trail by some time that afternoon.

harumi shirota.
Waking up early for a mission was a foreign concept to Harumi. She was part of the nocturnal Team Thirteen, after all, and Teruhiko Sensei was a night owl. All of their missions and training sessions up until that point had taken place at night, so, naturally, Harumi had adapted to a schedule that simply did not adhere to that morning's mission.

That's why, ten minutes before she was supposed to be at the gates of the Leaf Village, the young genin was shoving herself into her clothes and throwing any ninja supplies she could find into her bag. How could she have been so careless as to have overslept for her first B-Rank mission? If she really booked it, there was a slim chance that maybe she could get there on time.

With her clothes on and ninja tools secured in her bag, Harumi half-ran and half-stumbled from the front door of her house and out into the streets.

Five minutes, Harumi. You can't be late. Think of what Teruhiko Sensei would say!

Think of what Atsuo would say.

Now that got her fired up. Atsuo was such a jerk, he would never pass up the opportunity to make a snarky comment about her truancy, and she knew it.

The thought of his smug face and biting words were more than enough fuel to hightail Harumi into action. She leapt up onto the rooftop of her home and, from there, began leaping her way to the village gates.

 

[bambino]

cho tenchochu.

Cho was used to waiting.

It had been her job, in her previous life--that was the way she referred to it, because it certainly felt entirely different to this life--to wait for others. Wait for her future suitor to find her, and then wait upon him; wait for her father's eventual passing, so that she could receive his inheritance; wait for her sister to be wed, so that she could finally find an opportunity to escape.

Cho thought that she was done with waiting, but every once in a while, when moments like this one came, she was lulled into old feelings. She was early, of course, and she stood at the gates with a serene expression on her face, chin tilted slightly downward to look at the ground in front of her and hands clasped together. Her head was clouded with nervous thoughts of the mission to come, but on the outside she was as still as stone. She had gotten good at hiding her thoughts, she supposed; Perhaps it was a skill that wasn't entirely wasted on a ninja.

She was drawn from her thoughts, head slowly rising to look forward, as she heard footsteps approaching. A polite smile crossed her face as she looked at the new and unfamiliar teammate. "Hello," she said, "I'm Cho." She bowed her head again in greeting, which she realized too late was a bit strange for an encounter like this one. She let that thought slide, away, though, as she looked back up at the other. "It's nice to meet you. I hope we can work well together."

coded by weldherwings.

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shikoku inuzuka.

Those who knew Shikoku would think it typical of him to sleep in most days, without a care in the world. Of course, those who knew Shikoku well would find that idea completely outrageous.

Because, yes, despite his carefree nature, he was still a ninja. A damn good one, too--by his own standards, at least--which meant that he would balk at the idea at running late to a mission, especially one as important as this one. Besides, Shikoku spent most mornings training with Maron, getting up as early as he could to get the hours in.

He was finishing one of these training sessions up, wiping the sweat off his brow and scratching Maron between the ears for a job well done, when he realized it was probably time to get going. He didn't want to seem too eager to be there early, despite the excitement for this mission that he felt coursing through him. He was going to kick this mission's ass, that was for sure.

As he arrived at the front gates, he was confronted with an idea that he was less sure of--meeting his new teammates. Shikoku was scowling just at the thought as he arrived, and he didn't make any effort to make his expression more palatable. He simply grunted to Cho, before looking to the boy who reeked of smoke. "Hey," he said, making no effort to make further conversation than that.

coded by weldherwings.

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[frog]

atsuo ishikawa.
Atsuo had seen Cho in passing. Their two social circles had never really overlapped back at the academy, and what little he knew of her came only from the whispered gossip of his fellow school children.

Tenchochu was no ninja name, after all; this girl came from a world far different than that of him and his peers. Would she really have the strength, the know-how, to be of any real help on this mission? He eyeballed her dubiously as she bowed her head in greeting.

"I hope we can work well together."

The Ishikawa boy raised a presumptuous eyebrow. Cho was short, shorter even than Harumi, and he could not help but feel as though he was peering down at somebody much younger- and with far less experience than himself- when he looked at her.

"Uh-huh. Me too." There was an undeniable disdain to his voice as, hand on his hip, he cast his now uninterested gaze off into the forest. It was around the same time that a new squad member made his appearance. Shikoku and his ninken Maron. Atsuo knew he was a teammate of Cho, but he, too, ran in a different social circle than Atsuo, and he was more than okay to keep it that way.

"Hey, yourself," he responded and looked back towards the village. "You wouldn't happen to have seen Harumi or Teruhiko Sensei on your way here?" He wanted to get this mission on track as fast as possible. There were already two whole days standing between them and the missing girls; if any more time passed, they may as well have kissed their chances goodbye.

Then again... Maybe not. His gaze found Maron, Shikoku's ninja hound, and he frowned thoughtfully. Ninken and the Inuzuka clan in general were infamous for their keen sense of smell and impressive tracking abilities. Maybe having them along would help speed the whole process up.

teruhiko sankoda.
With three of his four squad members present and at the ready, Teruhiko had to wonder with exasperation where on Earth his own student was. Harumi. Had he taught that girl nothing of the importance of timeliness? She and Atsuo were going to be the death of him, of that much he was becoming certain. They were an argumentative duo whose only purpose sometimes seemed to be to make his life more difficult.

He scanned the barren Leaf Village streets below for any sign of his pupil. When he found none, he consequentially saw no reason to wait on her. It was up to her how seriously she would take this mission; it was up to Teruhiko, however, how seriously he would take her.

He descended from the rooftop and landed without a sound on the hard packed earth below.

harumi shirota.
Almost there...

With the village entrance a corner away, Harumi had eyes for little more. She had dropped from the rooftops and was zipping along the dirt roads of the village. She knew Teruhiko and Atsuo would be the first to accuse her of not taking this mission seriously enough were she to show up late. So, with two minutes to go and nothing to lose, she pushed on.

So focused was she on her destination that she failed to notice a very particular obstacle plummeting from an overhead building and landing a few feet in front of her. By the time it came to her attention there was a person in her path- and that it was Teruhiko- it was too late.

"T-Teruhiko Sensei!" Unable to stop herself, she barreled forward, closed her eyes, and prepared herself for the moment of collision.

Only, it never came.

Suddenly, there were rough hands on her shoulders, halting her in her tracks and holding her still. She stared, wide-eyed, into the ever-displeased eyes of her sensei.

"Hm. Would you look at that. You barely made it in time, Harumi,"[/i] came his blunt, if somewhat irritated, greeting.

"I-" Teruhiko cut her off before she could speak any further.

"Our teammates are waiting on us." Her released one her shoulders to pointed with his thumb over his shoulders, at the village gates. There, she could make out three figures standing about in wait. She really was the last one to arrive. "Let's go join them."