Chapter 4
Tegowai moaned loudly (and rather rudely). Sarutobi looked at him over his papers, arching an eyebrow.
"Is something wrong, Tegowai-san?"
"Yeah, I'm bored of these stupid low rank missions. When do we get to do some real stuff?" he complained.
"Yeah!" Rei added. Souta was silent, but his eyes agreed. Sarutobi sighed.
"Your still new genin, and will be given only D rank missions, until I think you are ready for higher level ' real stuff' as you put it."
Kyoushu knew how annoyed he was. Almost every team had, at one point in time, complained about the D ranks. He stuffed his hands in his pockets, and hoped his students would just shut up. "Your next mission is babysitting Yumi-chan's seventeen children. This should be challenging enough to meet your hopes. Now go!"
Kyoushu hurriedly ushered his students out of the elderly ninja's office.
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They knocked on the door and a little girl opened it. She was wearing a purple dress with a huge pink bow in her hair. Rei squatted down to her level, pushing away half of the bow that had fallen onto the girl's face, and smiled.
"Hey little girl! Is your mommy around?"
"Are you our babysitters?" the girl peered out at all of them.
"Um, yeah little girl. Where's your mom?" Tegowai said.
"I'm not allowed to talk to strangers." The little girl tried to slam the door in their face, but her bow got trapped in the door. It opened a bit again, and the corner of the ribbon disappeared inside. Rei knocked again, and this time a boy a few years younger than them opened the door.
"Hey, kid! Can we talk to your mother?" Kyoushu took a turn smiling his most charming you-can-trust-me smile.
"Maybe." The kid closed the door. By know, the team was getting very annoyed. Souta stepped forward, and knocked loudly. A lady holding two howling kids opened the door. Souta bowed.
"Hello Yumi-san. We are supposed to watch the children." Yumi looked frazzled.
"Oh yes, thank you" she said as she handed the babies to Tegowai. "I'll be back in two hours, don't feed Rakki any thing with nuts, and at noon all children under six must take a nap." She shot out the door leaving the four ninja staring, mouths wide. Rei took charge of the chaotic room.
"Okay kids! Who wants to play a game with us?" she smiled. The children started chanting.
"Maypole, maypole, maypole, maypole!"
"Oh, I don't know how to play that. Why don't you teach me!" Rei was happy to be in control.
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A few minutes later, Kyoushu was trying to change the screaming twins, Souta was feeding a toddler some oatmeal, getting more on himself than in the kid, Tegowai was cowering in the corner, and Rei was tied up in the middle of the room threatening to impale the kids if they didn't release her this instant. The afternoon progressed in a similar fashion, until half of the kids were duct taped to their beds, and Kyoushu had found the magic kid controller, AKA the television. The shinobi were slumped on the floor, breathing heavily. Tegowai's clothes were torn and he was trying to fit his weapons back in his holster, since some of the kids had gotten to them. Rei had clumps of food in her hair, and Souta was still on the floor, having been trampled by a stampede of kids just moments earlier.
"I take back what I said earlier. D ranks are torture." Tegowai was helping Souta get up. Yumi walked in, and the team was out the door before she could even thank them.
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Kyoushu turned to face his students.
"Congratulations on another successful mission! Lets go for ramen to celebrate!"
Rei shook her head, some oats and crust dislodging from her hair.
"No way. I can't be seen out here like this. I need to take a shower before anyone spots-"
"Hey slut, what's in your hair? Is that oatmeal?" Rei winced at the sound of Aruka's voice, and turned to face her.
"Hey Abazure, I wouldn't be talking about messed up hair if I were you, ugly." Aruka fumed. She was accompanied by Yoshi and Ichiyo. Tegowai walked up to his twin.
"Hey Bro! I have just seen the true meaning of hell. I officially hate kids. I mean, look what they did to me!" Ichiyo inspected his brother.
"Whoa, what happened bro? You look terrible! And Rei-chan, what is in your hair? I mean, you still look gorgeous and all, but is that baby food?" Rei gave them all death glares. She ran a hand through her hair, and most of the oats fell out.
"Fine. Lets go for ramen, but only if its Sensei's treat." Kyoushu nodded. Rei found herself sitting next to Aruka, possible her least favorite person on earth, in a packed to the brim ramen stand. All the teams had finished missions today, and they had run into Gai's team on the way to the ramen stand, and invited them along. Gai was talking to the other senseis, Yamanaka Nami and Kyoushu. They looked incredibly bored by the one-sided conversation. Lee was talking to Ichiyo and Tegowai, and Aruka was trying to strike up a conversation with Neji, who was pointedly ignoring her. Yoshi was reading a book of scientific mishkabable. Ichiyo had tried flirting with Rei, but she had (very rudely) told him to stuff it and try talking to someone that cared. She was in a rotten mood. Then of course, two more people entered the already pretty much full stand, Iruka and a blonde kid with a stupid face. They sat down on the other side of Rei.
"Hey Iruka-sensei!" Rei greeted her former teacher, glad to have someone else to talk to.
"Oh, hello Rei-chan! So you passed the final exam hm? That's great!"
"Yeah, but we have such stupid missions. Babysitting, dog-walking, we even recovered the same lost cat five times! I wish we could get something cool to do." Rei pouted and Iruka chuckled.
"Probably that's not going to happen for a few months, or if you get a higher rank. Your still a new genin, you'll probably have these kinds of missions for a while."
The blond kid interrupted their conversation.
"Hey, hey, Iruka-sensei, who's she?" he pointed rudely towards her.
"Oh, this is a former student, a recent graduate of mine. Her name is Rei-chan. Rei-chan, this is Naruto."
"Oh, nice to meet you Rei-san. Sensei, where's my ramen?" Iruka sighed, and ordered two bowls. He turned back to Rei.
"Well Naruto-kun is definitely a trouble maker. I thought I would get a break when you graduated!" He teased. Rei pouted playfully.
"I thought you missed me Sensei! I'm insulted." She crossed her arms and turned so her back was facing him. Iruka just laughed.
"Hey Rei-chan! How was that mission today, huh? It was hilarious when you tried to feed little Bussho-chan and he scooped the oatmeal onto your hair, but not as funny as when the kids tied you up and you were threatening to kill them all if they didn't let you go! Ha, classic Rei moment!" Tegowai shouted to her. Rei grinned at him evilly.
"Well, at least I was trying to do something, unlike someone who just spent the day cowering from six year olds in a corner!" Tegowai laughed.
"Well, they were fricken scary! Remember what happened to Sensei when he was trying to change the baby, and when the monsters stole my weapons? It was so friken funny! Well… maybe not so much the stealing of the poisoned weapons, but still!" Kyoushu looked annoyed.
"I never changed babies before! I'm inexperienced with childcare!"
"Obviously, so is Rei-chan!" the stand was filled with laughs as Tegowai and Rei recounted their teams adventure. They stayed there, all the teams telling stories of their final exams and missions, until the stand owner kicked them out at midnight. They said goodbye and headed home.
And just so you know:
Nami is Ino's cousin.