1. A day of surprises
I awoke to the searing heat of a sun high in the crisp blue sky. The grains of sand beneath me were like hot coals, burning themselves into pale skin, and small black bodies between my toes, most likely that of desert beetles, tickled my feet as they scuttled around.
"Ugh" I heard off to my right, and as I turned my head I spotted the tanned face and brown hair that was my best friend Robert.
"I guess that we're not quit in Suna yet." He murmured as he slowly sat up.
"Hey, where's all our stuff?" he exclaimed as his eyes sprung open. "I'm sure there was a tent over my head when i fell asleep last night, not to mention my bag next to me."
I sat up before sleepily replying "Maybe smithy pulled a prank on us, he's told me stories about him doing that to his former team mates before."
But as I said that there was a cry of wonder off to my left and I swung my head around to see Smith and a few of the clan's female members shooting up from the ground as they were surprised to find that their stuff was to gone.
"Who did this?" Smith yelled waking up the final sleeping clan members "What happened to my bag and my tent? Is this one of you kids playing a joke? Because if it is you will be severely punished when I find out who did this."
"It obviously wasn't one of us sensei" Robert yelled in reply "Otherwise why is our stuff gone to?"
"Good point Robert, but who would rob us? It's not like we keep anything valuable with us."
"Looks like we'll have to hurry up and get to Suna so we can buy some new stuff and see the Kazekage about finding you guys a proper teacher, I can't handle teaching all of you myself."
We got up and dusted ourselves off before continuing in the direction we had been travelling the previous day.
After about an hour of walking through the scorching desert and after rounding a ninja one of the clan's female ninjas, a small black haired girl named Paris, spotted a large gate off in the distance. It was a further hour and a half before we had reached it though and as sensei Smith talked to the gate guards about granting the clan entry into the town, we settled down for a bit of a breather.
"I heard that ninjas who live and train in a village get divided into teams when they finish their schooling." Robert Stephenson, the clan's fourth and final male, exclaimed in excitement. "If Smith sensei does convince the Kazekage to allow us to live and train with the other students we will probably get put into ninja teams too. Ooohhhh, I wonder who I'll get put with?" he continued.
"I couldn't really care less who I get put with." Was the other Robert's reply.
By now Smith had finished talking to the guards and had managed to gain everyone entry to the town. I picked myself up, dusted off and walked over to the town's large gates as they began to slowly creak open.
As I entered the town my ears pricked up as they picked up the sound of rushing water. The others had obviously picked up on it to, so soon we were racing through the town, bowling into building corners and each other as made our way towards the source of the noise. We were confronted by a large fountain, water spewing out the top of it before pooling at the bottom and then slowly draining away to make room for more. I plunged my head in, taking in as much of it as I could, and as the water hit the back of my parched throat I let out a small gasp of delight. The rest of the group quickly followed suit and soon we were all finished, slumping around the edge fountain content.
The clan was made up of eleven members, three boys, seven girls and the clan leader smithy. Smithy had taken the clan members throughout the years, we were all orphans or people who had been kicked out of their own clan at a young age. Smithy had rounded us up over the years out of kindness after being forced to leave his village in disgrace over the outcome of a mission, and had made it his job to teach us the ways of a ninja. But the clans numbers were getting out of hand, it had been easy in the early days with only a couple of students for smith to teach but the clan was now getting quite large and in an effort to make life easier for smith we had travelled to Suna in the hope of being able to enrol in the villages ninja academy and finally settle down, put an end to all this hassel some.
Smith was eventually spotted rounding a corner and after he himself had had a quick drink, we all got up and went in search of a nearby in which we could hopefully stay the night.
We drifted through the town, peering into the windows of various shops as we walked. Eventually we came to an inn and after talking to its owner we found out that they had several empty rooms, and more than enough beds to accommodate all of them. I was to share with my two best mates, Roberts and Robert.
It was funny that they both have the same name and they get on so well, sometimes you could mistake them for brothers when they were together.
As we entered our room I went over to the nearest bed and just completely flopped, it was still early and I was already tired, I blame on the heat out in that desert I though. Completely drains the life from you.
"Its nice to have a bit of a break" stepehenson said as he to sat down on a bed "you guys wanna have a bit of a snooze then go and look for some food?" he asked inquisitively.
"I'm up for it." I agreed and the other Robert just let out a sigh of agreeance.
I awoke a few hours to the sound of a toilet flushing and a nearby tap running. A few moments later Stepenson emerged from the bathroom and after seeing that I was awake he wandered over to me and proceeded to vigorously shake me.
"I'm awake, I'm awake!" i exclaimed as he slowly stopped shaking me.
"Sheesh man it was only a joke." he replied while chuckling at me. "Other Robert went for a walk he continued, was gonna see if he could find any good ramen shops in town, we gotta meet him out front soon so go clean yourself off and then we can go down and meet him."
"Sounds good." I said before making my way to the bathroom so that I could clean some of the dust and sand off my dirt covered body.
Five minutes later we were out front waiting for Robert to return. We had just stepped out the buildings door when we spotted him rounding a nearby corner. There was a worried look on his face as he approached.
"Found any good noodle shops?" Stephenson asked.
"No time for that." Robert replied "I was in a market place near the centre of town when I spotted Georgia wandering around. Her face was pale and when I asked her why her answer had been simple, the students at the academy get put into teams tomorrow but before we get put into teams we must fight against the other students, if you don't do well enough you won't get put in a team, simple as that."
"What?" I gasped aw struck "How do they expect us to fight the other students of the academy on our first day with no training other than what the sensei could give us?"
"They're tough in Suna." Robert replied "And we should all do well as long as we don't get put with any of the top students, Smithy did make us train pretty hard when we were travelling."
"You forget that when we were travelling was this morning." I continued
"Exactly, we trained just last night so how hard can it be?"
"Ok" Stephenson said "I say we go get our food and then train for the rest of the day before the fights tomorrow, we are gonna need all the training we can get."
The next day came fast, much faster than I'd have hoped. We had trained for the rest of the previous day, practising our taijutsus and ninjutsus. I only hoped we'd be strong enough.
We got changed, had some breakfast and then headed down to the meeting room at the front of the inn. We found the others waiting there for us. They stood around kicking the dust nervously. Smith had told the others last night at dinner and to be short, nobody had been expecting it. Now after next to no preparation they were in a state of shock, just hopeing that the little smith had taught us would be enough.
We arrived at the Ninja academy of Suna an hour or so later. It was large and a sandy shade of brown, like that of the many other buildings located in Suna.
Upon entering I was blinded by an immense whiteness, unlike the sandy browns and yellows that covered many of the buildings in Suna, the academy was light, white and modern inside. I was caught completely unaware, thus taking it a few moments before i was able to see properly. When i could finally see again i found myself to be the subject of many harsh looks and stares. The ninja of the Suna ninja academy were to say the least, unwelcoming as I entered the academy. I was at the attention of many eyes as I walked through the academy's entry hall. Not inquisitive or welcoming eyes, no, they were eyes filled with hate, with disgust. "Who were we?" they'd be thinking "Why had we decided to turn up right now, just before the exams and skip the years of preparation they'd had to go through?"
To cut it short I also felt out of place here, there were so many people here, people id never seen in my life. I knew nothing about them, about their personalities, their likes and dislikes, and most importantly how they fought as I could be facing any one of the very soon.
We continued through the building, down long white hallways, past closed doors and finally we arrived at our destination. We entered the room through a large wooden door, about 3, metres in height, and into a huge open area. The room had been split into several areas, three sparring zones, two changing rooms and a final area at which there were currently a group of three judges sitting. We were pointed to a spot in front of the judging table where the group of us lined up single file, lengthways in front of the table.
The judges stared at us, blank expressions on their faces. The judges were of varying ages and sizes. The first gudge was a man who looked to be about thirty, he had light sandy coloured hair and olive skin. The other two judges looked to be twins, light again they had olive skin but their hair was an almost white colour, the one sitting in the middle of the group was female and the one on the edge was male, they seemed to be no older than twenty.
They eyed us up and after a few moments of silence the male twin started introducing them "My name is Kana, this is my sister Ona and this is the schools headmaster, Mister Janata Lelo. We will be judging your entry/placement test today. As you may have guessed for Sunas placement exam you must fight one of the academy's other ninja, this exam will also double up as your entry test. You will be judged on skill, ferocity and stamina, and if you are up to scratch you will be allowed to join the academy and will be put into a ninja team. So any questions he finished?"
"No sir." We all replied in unison.
"Ok then, let's get you all paired up and start this exam."
An hour later the exam had started and the first fights had finished. It would soon be my turn and I was to be up against a boy by the name of Konkuro.
I got up off one of the benches that were situated along the walls of the room. I had been sitting alone for the past forty five minutes as the two Roberts had been in the initial rounds of the exam along with a girl from our group named Paris. Stephenson's fight had been very close but had ended up with him losing, while the other two fights had been aced, over within a matter of minutes compared to the half hour long time of Stephenson's.
I walked over to an end of the central sparring zone and waited for my opponent to do the same. We bowed and then took up stance and after a few moments a bell sounded and the fight begun.
Chapter by Jackson Sale
