By StormyTitan
A/N: There's always time to learn new things!
"Trenraka!" Hoto barked behind him, "Stop closing your other eye! If you aim like that you can't see what's on the other side of you!"
To prove his point, the Captain smacked the side of his face where he had closed his eye.
"Ow! That's how they taught me to shoot a rifle!" Sano shot back and reached up with his lean roughened hand to rub at the side of his face the Captain had swatted at angrily, "What do you want me to do about that? You yell at me for shooting with one eye close and the other Yevon Guardsman are yelling at me to keep only one eye focused!"
"Are the Guardsman training you?" Hoto sniffed, "Pah! If that is true then what am I wasting my time with you for?" Then, almost as an afterthought, he murmured under his smoke-abraded voice, "They only tell you that so you can strain your eyes and look like an idiot for listening to them. After all this time you still don't know anything?"
"I know plenty-!" Sano started when a meek voice interrupted them with a soft, 'ah-hem?'
"What?" Both Sano and Hoto, in mirror images of each other, turned from their middles to stare down at Groto, who, rooted under the beating sun, shouldered his rifle and raise his hand with an uncertain, "Uhm, sir?"
"This isn't school, put your hand down," Hoto sneered then impatiently circled his wrist in the air, "Well, go on!"
"Uhn! Right! K-Kodai is uh, requesting to talk to you!" Groto, for some reason out of his extreme nervousness he developed, or rather had all along but had worsened, saluted and added loudly, "Sir!"
"Probably about that 'special training' Bask has been nagging about," Hoto mumbled near incoherently and rubbed the back of his neck, taking his sweet time in turning away from the range where Sano set his sights again.
The boys' ears all perked at the sound of his words, no matter how quietly mumbled.
"Sir, what do you mean by that?" Groto asked a bit more boldly then was usual of his character.
Another month had gone by of much of the same, thrice the work as any other trainee, and nothing they could see to show for it. 'Special training' sounded like the perfect thing to break up the monotony of their daily routine from the past two months that had passed and Groto, excitedly, had realized this as much as the other boys.
Uno looked up from where he crouched on the concrete, practicing loading and unloading a rifle hesitantly, before secretly making eye contact with Sano. He, in turn, spared a peek at him before firing a shot into the distant target, feigning disinterest as the rest were, but listening intently just the same.
"Forget I said anything," Hoto started to walk off before he stopped not two steps from where he set off. He took out a cigarette to light up, despite the 'No Smoking' sign he stood by, let out a puff and smirked at all the half-hidden glances his way. He chuckled before sparing them from anymore suspense, "Alright…It's nothing too fancy though. All it is, is the Alchemist wants his shots in on training you bunch soon."
"His shots?" Sano lowered the gun he was squinting past, "Whatever is that supposed to mean exactly?"
Hoto brushed at the rather humid summer air, muttering hatefully about the heat even though it would only last so long this far north, before looking down with his narrow eyes, "I mean what it sounds like. We all, in the Assassin's Corp., get a right to train you cadets at one point or another if we wish until you specialize in something. Nobody wants to do the basic training though, so Nanbu and I just get stuck with it, see?"
At the sight of their faces subtly lighting up, he chuckled again and questioned, "What? You guys didn't really think that you just push through basic training this fast for nothing, do you?"
"So Bask is going to train us now? In what?" Jac speedily asked, his head raising up from the rifle he was cleaning.
Itgu glanced up from the boots he was polishing for back mouthing Captain Nanbu, the short bits of brown hair that had grown over the last couple of months from when it was first shaven covered in his perspiration. He was the only one that remained unsmiling.
"Alchemy of course," Hoto let out a raspy snort before frowning, "What else is he good for?"
"I don't want to learn Alchemy," Sano raised his gun back up, "Isn't that Al Bhed business in the first place?"
"Yeah, so it is," Hoto muttered a little, eyes watching the boy take aim again, before tapping his ashes down the moody boy's shirt, causing a yelp to erupt from him, before the Captain just stuck the stick back in his mouth. "You can learn a lot from Al Bhed, boy, remember that. They may have an aberrant way of doing things but that doesn't change that what they do with Alchemy saves lives and heals wounds."
"Same as spells and enchantments," Sano grumbled back and shook his shirt-back until the bits of still hot ash escaped from his uniform or the sweat from his back cooled them, "White Mages are technically all the army needs, right?"
"Bask would disagree," Hoto looked out of the corner of his eye at Itgu, who grumbled under his breath with the same dislike on his face that was on Sano's, "And I suppose you have something to say as well?"
"Bask freaks me out, Sir," Itgu spat on the toe of a boot looking very similar to Captain Nanbu's shoe size and ran the oily cloth in his hand over it, "I'd rather not get near him or his creepy concoctions."
"Me too," Groto nodded in agreement before lowering his head against the mid-day's harsh face.
"Why don't you get in the shade before you get sun-burned, ghost-boy," Hoto flicked his wrist lazily and took a sickening long drag of his cigarette.
"Sir, yes, sir," Groto gladly ducked his freckled white face and flaming red hair, wispy and sticking out from the sides of his head, under the lean-to that served as cover for the out door range shooters, "Thank you sir."
"Pah," Hoto sniffed then looked back over the field in front of them. He sucked the last bit of fume the stick could offer before throwing it down on the ground and snuffing it out with his boot and moving on, "Kodai probably wants his turn with you maggots too."
"Black magic?" Sano looked over his shoulder, a few rounds fired into the target, punching paper off the black outline's shoulders and chest, "Is it absolutely required?"
"To learn, yes, to specialize? No." Hoto looked at the swinging target, "Trenraka, you've skills in handling firearms, I'll give you that, but try aiming for the face a bit more. Chest plates can sometimes stop a bullet, after all."
"I don't want to actually shoot anyone in the face," Sano said truthfully, twisting up his own at the thought of the gore that would be produced by the swift act. It was enough to make him want to heave, "That would be rather… gruesome, wouldn't it?"
"You're in the army, gruesome is what we do." Hoto pointed back out to the target, "Now see to it that you do that from here on out, alright? Show me now."
Uno tightened his grip on the gun he had in his hands. It was safe to say he had a real dislike to them. Let him learn Alchemy and Black Magic, anything that might actually help people, but guns only made a mess of them. And he knew it…he had seen it.
"I didn't say I wouldn't do it." Sano said in response to what Hoto had been going on about, "I haven't had the chance yet and-"
"No, I get it," Hoto held up a hand to cut him off, "You're green to this. But don't get used to holding back now. You need to build up that habit of shooting straight an' true while they're just paper. Soon, you'll really have no choice. If they have a weapon in their hands, they might just shoot back."
Another round cracked before Sano paused in firing, his voice drawling, "Sir…by any chance, as assassins, would there be moment where it's a good thing to leave them alive?" Sano pressed his lips together and blinked at the sweat in his eyes, "For questioning and what not-"
"For most soldiers that may be, given that your commander didn't order the target's demise," Hoto leaned on the railing that separated the field from the lean-to, "But you're training to be an assassin, remember? Assassin's are only used for one thing, and that's to do away with targets. A quick death, that's what you're going for, always, and the head is a pretty sure way of doing it. Well, and a few extra rounds in the chest maybe, towards the heart."
Offhandedly, Hoto rubbed his chin and added, "And anyways, when you get them in the head it helps them from being identified later, so that's a plus."
A plus? Uno shivered and re-loaded his weapon for the fiftieth time over, trying not to think about a blood spattered wood chair and a pretty blonde head in a pool of dark crimson.
"A quick death?" Sano replied to another comment from the Captain, and seemed to look a bit queasy, though he hurried to hide it with a deep frown and harshly pinched eyelids, "That seems like quite a way to go."
Hoto finally accepted the fact that all the boys were still uneasy at the thought of taking a life. So, he sighed and then pointed out to the space where the target hung, a mere picture of a body, "Don't get connected in any way to the target. It doesn't matter what shape they're in, who they are, or half the time, even why you're doing it. You'll not have the luxury of even asking sometimes. In this operation, or anywhere in service to the Yevon militia, it's best for you not think, at all. Thinking is for when you come home and can put all that aside- and forget."
The last part came from deep in his throat and he finished with a rough sigh, that made the boys' shoulders sag.
Uno sniffed in and wiped at the sweat on his head. His face was scrunched up into a severe one at the talk of 'quick deaths'. Uno really hated guns now at that moment more than anything, perhaps except maybe the day he saw what they could do, but he worked on the one in his hands like he was ordered to. His fingers were stiff with repressed anger though and he accidentally hit the trigger with his taunt finger and a round went off. It exploded in a bang of orange and cracked the stone walkway with the small metal slug.
"Lady Luck!" Hoto stood up straight from where he instinctively crouched and look over at Uno with a livid expression. Around him, the other boys were glaring much in the same way. Uno gulped and sheepishly bowed his head into his shoulders. The solemn quiet that had laid over them was forgotten with the blast, though that wasn't necessarily desirable to Uno at the moment.
"What the Hell do you think you're doing?" Hoto snarled at his reddened face.
"Uhm," Uno had dropped the gun when the round went off but picked it up hurriedly, minding the trigger as he did so, "Im's awfully sorry, sir!"
"Hoto!" Kodai, in his heavy purple robe despite the heat, rounded the corner with a graceful twist in his torso, "What happened?"
"Nothing Kodai," Hoto put his boot over the discarded cigarette butt, not at all feeling like a lecture from the straight-by-the-book Black Mage who, despite himself being ranks above him, would without a doubt point out the posted sign and give him a sound lecture. Hoto shrugged dismissively, "Just a little accident."
"You better teach them safety first," Kodai frowned, his gold-yellow eyes shining with distaste for conventional army weapons, as apposed to magic, "Before these 'little accidents' lead to injuries."
"Nothing Pino can't fix," Nanbu ducked his bulking head under the leaning roof, winking at Uno when he said the resigned White Mage's name, as he appeared around the corner, having a habit of just showing up when ever it suited him if Hoto was to be in charge for the day, "Sorry I'm late, Hoto."
"Five hours can barely be called late but more negligent," Hoto turned his weight on his foot, but didn't lift up his heel from where he hid the cigarette butt, "Where were you?"
"I had to pay a visit to a certain orphanage as always. I got caught up in playing 'rocket' with little one's though...they just can't get enough of it!" Nanbu smiled a toothy grin before plopping his heavy set hand on Uno's head, "So, was that you?"
"Yeah," Uno mumbled shamefully, slowly drawing out the word for a bit, and looked up from under the palm, "You saw Vimo? How is he?"
"Old and senile as ever," Nanbu nodded and didn't notice the glares he got from Jac's direction, and of course oblivious that his attention to Uno would be seen as favoritism. When he gave his head one last bob of a nod, he swiveled his neck to look at Hoto, "Oh, by the way, Bask is shouting his head off in front of the mess hall. Wanna help me stuff him in a culvert?"
"How old do you think we are, fifteen?" Hoto smirked at the thought of the long rib-cagey body curled up in a sewer pipe before frowning and rubbing at his lower back, "You may not feel your age Nanbu, and Bask too, come to think of it, but I sure as hell do."
"I was joking in the first place," Nanbu shrugged and lifted his hand from Uno's black hair that had grown back. "Now, Bask is wanting to know about training the kiddos over at the Moonflow assassin's base. Of course, he needs your permission for that one."
At hearing the location, where his home was surely situated near by, Sano perked up again, of course forgetting the fact that his least favorite assassin was taking them.
"Absolutely not," Hoto's voice was stern and cut away all hope in Sano's head, "If that crazy bastard is taking them anywhere it's going to be the Kilika base by the Temple, as agreed. I've already prepared everything for that."
"That's farther than the Moonflow, you know? He was just thinking-" Nanbu scratched under his muscled chin, trailing off, before focusing again on his equal, "Mind explaining your reasoning Captain?"
As Captains, only Head Captain Uguro having any authority over them and the training of the cadets, they ultimately decided anything to do with the training and what underlings like Kodai and Bask ended up doing with them. However, Nanbu was more passive than Hoto was about it, despite his laziness, and the sharp-shooter more often than not made the decisions. Though at rare times, it went up for a brief discussion like now.
"More materials in Kilika," Hoto's bottom eyelids crinkled, "And you know he's just trying to start up trouble with Trenraka."
"Ah," Nanbu smiled knowingly, "I see how it is, Hoto."
"Pah," Hoto looked over at Kodai, "Where are you planning on taking them after Bask is done with them? You will pick up after a month's training from Bask and get whatever he didn't blow up."
The last bit had the five cadets frowning, and gulping, with imaginations flaring up about the maniacal pale faced Alchemist, whose explosions could be heard across the base in the middle of the day.
"In Kilika," Kodai narrowed his yellow eyes a bit, "I'll train them a couple of weeks in Kilika after the Alchemist is done with them. The element of fire is best taught in Kilika I've come to find, what with the Aeon that's associated with it. Then Djose temple for lightning associated spells, I suppose, after I'm done with them in Kilika, then Mt. Gagazet for Black Magic training in the element of ice… I should probably teach them water spells in the Moon flow before heading to the mountains. Of course, if you disagree-"
Hoto scratched the side of his neck and sighed heavily, his inverted dark eyes locked with the bright unmoving ones, "I suppose it's fine as long as Bask doesn't follow you…to the Moonflow at the very least..."
"You have my word Captain," Kodai dipped his head a little and then looked back up, his yellow gold eyes focused on his face still.
"I take it you two have a mission soon," Kodai lowered his voice, though the boys could still hear them but pretended not to as Sano slowly 'examined' the ammo, Uno unloaded his firearm, Groto studied the field, Jac wiped harder at the barrel of his weapon, and Itgu took interest in picking the right gun from the back rack after setting aside the boot polish.
"That's right, Nanbu and I do," Hoto looked at the boys then shrugged, "It will take a while I suspect, so they're all yours to do what you like."
Nanbu crossed his arms over his broad chest and added, "But for no more than three months. If not earlier." He was more accurate with the time having paid more attention then Hoto at the briefing, "Then, they're right back here in this base so Hoto and I can start advance training."
"I also presume that Bask and I can have an apprentice from this group?" Kodai raised his voice, letting out a more annoyed tone than intended, as if he had been waiting for an apprentice for some time now at the mercy of the two Captains.
Nanbu looked down at Uno and Hoto snuck a quick glance at Sano, unnoticed by most except Jac, who growled under his breath.
"If any of them show a skill in magic, then they're yours," Hoto nodded and Kodai seemed satisfied if not please with it.
"Oh~!" An all too familiar voice also chimed in, "Did you say I get an little apprentice all to myself?"
"You can't have one and you know why," Hoto seemed actually angry at what came from his own lips, despite his dislike towards the Alchemist. The boys' interest picked up, especially when Bask flicked up his dark shades with his bony fore-finger and, rather serious face, answered.
"Oh, yes, yes," Bask then broke into a thin grin, "But oh~ how I would love it. You know? I can teach them all about Alchemy, yes, and the power of all the interesting little bombs one can create…"
He trailed off, mumbling crazily about all the things one can do with Alchemy, before Hoto coughed into his fist and brought him back from whatever world he managed to slip into.
"I'll see if it can be put up for discussion again…"
"Oh goody~!" Bask replied, sending chills down the boys' arms and spines. If he was allowed an apprentice, which unlucky one of them would fill that probably dangerous role? they wondered with dread.
"Hmm," Kodai simply murmured, and having no other business there, quickly asked for his leave with a polite bow in his head.
"Yeah," Hoto half-heartedly answered, apparently not to happy with the continued presence of the overly joyous Alchemist, "You can go."
Bask shrugged off a stony sneer from Kodai before smiling wider, "Oh, another thing, Hoto, sir-?"
"Yes?" the Captain lifted a corner of his mouth in a snarl, actually repressing his urges to hit the annoying man from the start, "Bask, what?"
"I want to start tomorrow, since you and Nanbu are getting booted away in two days anyways," Bask received a curt nod and he clasped his hands with a smile, "Excellent!"
The boys groaned at the though of, for as much as three whole months, being stuck with the two worse instructors ever.
"Now that's not nice!" Bask, despite his hurt tone, continued grinning, "We'll have so much fun, you know. I'll teach you the basics of Potions distilling and creating items and a whole gaggle of useful things! Not only that, I'll teach you to mix powders for unique grenades-"
Sano smiled a bit. Even if he didn't like the man teaching such things, that skill sounded extremely…dare he even think it…fun.
"There now," Apparently the other boys seemed to have similar reactions with the news, and Bask clapped his hands in joy, "That's better!"
"Break off now," Hoto lifted his boot finally and kicked the butt into the dirt, "Go pack your bags ladies."
