Akari Mizumo rubbed her temples, loud noises sounding from around her which was expected from a class of 9 year olds that were enthusiastic about becoming young ninja, that however didn't make it much easier on her ears at such an early time in the morning. She had only been working at Konoha's ninja academy for 2 months by that point and already it was draining her like nothing she had known before, even missions had proved easier to deal with that the bunch that sat before her. Her parents had once stated that she would do well working with kids, that she could deal with them well and could inspire them to better with their lives, but now Akari was beginning to think that they had been incredibly wrong when trying to push her in this direction.
Then again that was the main reason she had come to the academy to teach in the first place, losing her parents had caused her to have a need to fulfill the wishes they had for her life, they hadn't really wanted her to be a ninja that took on dangerous missions despite the fact that she had earned the rank of Jounin and could have probably even moved further than that. But everything changed the moment she had lost them, the fact that she had not been there to protect or save them had pushed her away from leaving Konoha, she'd declined many missions before the Hokage offered her the alternative, a way of still making money to keep her home and herself looked after while not pushing her to face her demons and go out of the village.
To Tsunade it had been a shame, especially when she saw potential in a person and something then held them back from achieving it, but at the same time she had taken pity on the girl, listened to her words and found a compromise. Really she had never considered Akari to be a person that would have taught in academy, with a quick temper and being defensive she had always thought it better for her to let it out in the field, but in the back of her mind she had hoped that over time being at the academy would eventually bring her back to taking over her previous position, realising that it wasn't quite right for her but so far the young woman had been stubborn and hadn't budged on the prospect of going back to taking missions again, the Hokage wasn't so sure why she was surprised at that point.
Akari's personality fit her bright red hair, she was like a flame that was ready to burn everything around it at a minutes notice, and that didn't change when she was dealing with rowdy children either.
"That is enough!" she yelled out, her patience finally coming to end. Her voice came out as any loud teachers would have, a sudden silence falling over the class who had turned to stare at their sensei whose brow was now twitching in annoyance, it seemed to have become the daily start to her days over the past month, at first they were fawning over her, but now they were taking liberties and she was putting her foot down.
"Are you okay Akari-sensei?" voiced a girl towards the back of the class, her voice a little smug and bratty which only proved to further annoy her at that moment. It didn't surprise her that the girls of the class were already starting to act like teenagers, their maturity levels already ahead of many of the boys she had in the class who mostly still saw girls as gross and worms as cool, but that early in a morning she wasn't prepared to be messed about.
"Outside! All of you!"
Groans could be heard from all around as they were filed outside, bitter glances given to the blonde girl all knowing what was about to come. Akari wasn't the most ruthless compared to others that had taught at the academy in the past, but she certainly didn't deal well when someone tried to be smart with her, and she proved this as orders were barked and her class groaned, all falling into a slow jog around the academy training grounds. When she was a teen practicing with her kunai against a target was her punishment, but the kids in her class would have probably preferred grabbing something sharp and flinging them around.
"I feel like I see you out here more than I see you in your classroom," came a voice from behind her. It was easy enough to recognise the voice that belonged to her mentor, Iruka.
When she first applied to the job at the academy she had been taken under his wing so to speak, shown the ropes by him, the do's and don'ts of teaching at the academy and somewhere amongst that they had formed a slight friendship which often consisted of one upping each other with stories each week of the stupidest things a student had come out with. It was however rare that he would come to her during the hours of class, usually there was a document in hand, something she needed to sign or something new she was expected to teach them, the difference in their meeting this time is that he was accompanied by another ninja, one who was not of the Konoha, but by the headband he wore, from Suna.
"Apologies for the intrusion, the Hokage asked if you would mind an assistant, or more someone to learn how we work at the academy here in the Leaf."
Already Akari was looking the stranger over, her was taller than her with a face adorned in paint, brown hair peeking through the headpiece he had on that could have been mistaken for part of his clothing with how much black he was wearing on the rest of his body, but upon his lips was a cheeky sort of grin, one that made her want to smack it off his face without a moments thought. Naturally Akari refrained from such a thing, a hand going to her hip as she looked at the pair of them before sighing and offering out a hand. She wasn't too sure of the Hokage's angle in all of this, but she was sure that there was one, if anything the man should have been following around Iruka, he'd been doing the job far longer than her and had better results that she believed the would have.
"Akari Mizumo," she stated awaiting the stranger to take her hand.
"Kankuro," replied the other, though he didn't quite take her hand, more he grabbed it and kissed the back of it with a cheeky wink that brought her blood to boiling point.
Iruka couldn't help but laugh nervously as he rubbed the back of his head, he knew Akari well enough to know that she was fuming inside, though did well enough to control it as only her free hand shook a little as a sign of her annoyance, although all too quickly she had pulled her hand from his grasp earning small giggles from behind her.
"Did someone tell you to stop running?!" she yelled out turning her head to look at the class of children who stood staring at her with somewhat startled expressions, almost immediately returning to a much speedier jog than they had previously been doing.
"Heh...wake up on the wrong side of the bed?"
Akari chose to ignore Kankuro's words at that moment, her eyes on Iruka as if he were to blame for her current predicament.
To Kankuro this was a sort of game to him, much as he had played back in the village with many of the women there, some of them were feisty like the woman before him, others would succumb to him almost immediately due to his status within Suna, but he near enough always got what he wanted. Despite the fact that he was there on official business, that didn't mean that he was going to stop trying to have a little bit of fun where he could, and currently the woman before him had become his unfortunate new conquest, at least until he got bored and found the next person he wanted to move onto.
Temari had often scolded him for his treatment of women, stating that they weren't play things to be messed around with as he would one of his puppets, but she had so far failed to get though to him and his ways hadn't changed yet, if anything, since the war had ended he had gotten worse, the boredom of official business getting to him more as he was expected to sit in on missions and deal with paperwork, not exactly what he signed up for when he became a ninja.
"The Hokage insisted I take over for today, she wanted you to show Kankuro the academy and plans for lessons," Iruka muttered from behind Kankuro, he was almost afraid that she was going to lash out at him again for passing on a simple message that she would have to spend more time with the notorious flirtatious ninja but she only sighed and rubbed her temples again.
"Fine...but you realise this is a punishment, don't go all soft and let them off or they'll try and walk all over me like last time," Akari replied before turning back to her class. "Everyone, Iruka will be taking over your class for today, I expect you all to behave and if I hear even a little about you misbehaving for him you'll be running laps until you get the chance to graduate, you hear?"
A chorus of 'Yes Akari-sensei' followed her words, though from the beams on their faces she could tell that they were more than happy for Iruka to take over, that wasn't to say that her mentor was soft, just that he had a soft spot for the kids, especially the ones he didn't actually have to teach on a daily basis, but as Iruka stepped past her she knew it was time for her to have to deal with the other problem on her hands. The fully grown man that was stood oggling her very obviously.
"Kankuro, are you going to follow me or just stand there staring?"
A grin was her only response to which she shook her head and lead the way back inside the academy to give him to grand tour of the building. She started off with the various classrooms, adding which teachers dealt with the other age groups within the building.
"Generally one staff member will remain with their class from joining the academy to leaving, we believe it helps build a bond of trust with their sensei and helps to prepare them for working as part of a team in the future."
Next up was the various rooms they used for training, the examination room where ninja would graduate, or fail depending on the test they were given. Akari didn't particularly care that Kankuro was taking little notice of everything she was showing him, in reality she wanted this to be over quickly and as painlessly as possible.
"Finally, this is my class, generally this is where you'll find me outside of academy hours and during lunch perio-"
"Without a lock on the door we're not exactly going to get very busy in here," stated Kankuro.
Once again Akari forced back the words that wanted to leave her lips and instead went to pull a spare chair up to her desk, laying out some of the files from her drawer before bring her eyes to look at him, willing for him to just sit down, but it seemed that Kankuro of course had other ideas at that moment as he stood before her desk with a grin still plastered on his face.
Her eyebrow began to twitch as they remained staring at one another for a minute or two before she snapped.
"I think you have come here with the wrong intentions, I have absolutely no desire to crack on with you Kankuro so please just sit down so we can get this over with okay?"
"You've only just met me, you could just give me a chance?"
"Rumors of you travel beyond your own village Kankuro, i've heard your name before and the many stories and I am not going to buy into it. You can keep trying all you want, but it is never, ever going to happen. For one I can't understand how anyone falls for the crap that comes out your mouth, let alone your actions, so keep your mind on business and not anything else. Clear?"
"Crystal."
"Good, now sit down."
With a sigh and roll of his eyes Kankuro took his seat to Akari's right, eyes staring boredly at the papers as she explained the topics she was currently going over and the plans for the following months. Kankuro wasn't even sure why Gaara needed this information in the first place, perhaps it was just to get him out of the village for a while since he had been complaining enough about being cooped up there, but this wasn't exactly what he had in mind.
"Now, I believe that's everything that I needed to share with you for the day, unless there's anything else I think we're done," she stated closing up the file.
"You don't exactly seem a natural at this you know?"
"Just what exactly do you mean by that?" Akari snapped back.
"The whole teaching a new generation of Ninja's thing, I mean, i've known you all of an hour or two and I can see that."
"Technically i'm still learning, i'm new to teaching but I will pick it up."
She was sure of herself for one thing, that much Kankuro couldn't deny, but it did also seem that she was pushing herself to be good at something that perhaps she was never going to be good at, he wasn't too sure why he felt the need to voice his opinion on the topic but he could tell that she hasn't taken kindly to his words as she rose up.
"I'm sure you can find your own way back to where you're staying, or you can find someone else to hold your hand and take you there."
With a huff Akari was grabbing her bag and leaving, normally there would be a large number of hours left of the day but it did feel nice to know that the rest of the day was her own and she was tempted to head to the hot springs to give herself some relaxation after the morning she'd had already. As she left the room Kankuro's eyes followed her before shaking his head, he did love a good challenge that was for sure, but he didn't know how dedicated he could be to the cause, she seemed like she'd take a long time to warm up to him and she wasn't exactly a model, he could probably find a woman more curvy and attractive at the local bar that would hand herself over to him without a second thought, but maybe he wanted to try and take on the little red headed fireball, even if it did take him a little longer than usual.
A/N: It's been some time since motivation has hit me to do some writing again, especially something that doesn't follow the Naruto canon, but heres my first post-war fic. I know some people love a bit of constructive criticism, but honestly i'd rather you didn't, I just write for a little bit of fun and I feel like even the constructive stuff knocks my inspiration a little. I hope you enjoyed anyway and I look forward to writing the next chapter!