You'd think that the road becoming a ninja would be simple.
Be born in a ninja city, go to whatever facilities they have for training, develop chakra control (a feat which is hard enough, and is often the decider for even getting past the first one or two years of an academy), become a genin, get a teacher, learn.
However, the first step is the most important one.
Imagine someone who lived in a country without a hidden village (Village? Those things attract merchants like flies to honey, and soon they're bloody massive.) He (or she) would grow up without the option.
The only way they're going to find a way to even start being a shinobi is to find someone who knows his (or, once again, her, (These little habits get ingrained into you after growing up with a twin sister.)) ninjaing and is willing to teach you something of it.
Or you could bother a travelling hermit until he (I think I'll stick with 'he', and risk a sister's wrath) teaches you everything he knows.
I think I'll go with option two.
You'd think growing up in the most docile village in Suna wouldn't start any hopes of being a ninja, but it hadn't stopped me, and let me tell you, our village was beyond docile, it was so far past docile it had skipped over sleepy and was wandering around somewhere in the vast plains of comatose.
Sure, we had the odd rain patrol walking the streets of Nemui, a result of a shaky alliance between Suna and Rain, but nothing that would get our kids out on the streets. Not that there were many kids.
In the aftermath of what my Gran called the 'Big War' between Konoha and Oto, in which Rain had joined Oto and we, Suna, fought alongside Konoha, (Our Kages had been quite chummy, apparently. I just said chummy. Kill me now.) Rain had launched a particularly vicious attack on the border towns of Suna.
Using their favoured tactic of 'gas 'em, and kick 'em when they're down', they planted a few of their latest devious concoctions in spots around Nemui. Evidently not realizing that their leaders would be utterly trashed by the combined might of Fire country and Wind country (go us!), they added in a particularly nasty gas that caused most of our villagers to be unable to have kids.
Fortunately for my twin (yes, she does have a name, I just haven't gotten round to telling you yet) and I, our parents (not ninjas, merchants) were off supplying Suna's finest with substandard weapons (hey, we had to live somehow, our food wasn't going to buy itself!).
Mei and me were born eight months later, very early, and things would have gone badly if not for Haruno Sakura, who was going back to Konoha after the war finished.
She saved me and Mei, and probably our mum. Mei wants to be a medic-nin, like her.
So anyway, that's why there aren't many kids in our town. Dad says that when (not if, when) the newer generation leaves Nemui, this town will die. Kinda makes me sad. I like this town. It's given me, if nothing else, some great memories.
Nemui being Nemui, Mei and I have grown up with a relative amount of freedom. No one can be bothered to stop us pissing about, even if we do burn a barn down (that was Mei's fault, honestly). We just have to rebuild it. Fix what you break. My dad's favourite saying, since he has so many opportunities to say it.
Thus, I've grown up fixing pretty much everything, from glasses, (duct tape!) to chairs, (more duct tape!) to buildings (wood! And lots of duct tape!).
My gran was a Suna ninja, apparently a good one. She must have been to still be alive today. She's told me a lot, and taught me nothing. I know what it is ninjas do, but how to do none of it. But if there's anything she gave me, it is ambition.
I want to fight, I want to use chakra, and I want to prove to Mei that I'm not weak. It all sums up to: I want to learn to be a ninja!
And in order to achieve this goal, I have a plan.
Nemui is, essentially, out of the way. No one comes here apart from the cotton traders. It's the only place in Sand that can grow cotton, because it's so close to Rain. We don't have a desert, but a grassy plain.
So apart from traders, no one wants to come here. Also the Rain patrols I mentioned earlier.
Anyway, apart from them, no one comes to Nemui, thus making it a perfect target for the people who want to travel. Hermits.
Hermits are pretty common, a disillusioned ninja, tired of all the killing, takes to the road, looking for a student to pass all his knowledge and skills onto. Or maybe a scholar who's trying to stop his knowledge used for evil. Whatever it is, they tell great stories.
Obviously Mei and I aren't the students they're looking for, because the only thing they'll do for us is tell us stories. Not that we complain.
The moment we see a stranger, we head round to the bar and ask Shennu the Barkeep what they're doing wandering around. If they are, as we hoped, a wandering hermit, then we'll offer our barn (technically it's the towns for stabling horses and the like, but we're the only ones that use it) for him or her to use to sleep in for the night.
Our payment? Stories, but only after they've rejected my request for training.
Someday there's going to be a ninja hermit who isn't just looking for a student with a bloodline to train. They'll be looking for someone who can learn, and adapt. Someone with intelligence.
They'll train me.