That next day, Takara arrived in the Tea District, groggy and half dead, at four in the morning to find Kichiro already there, sipping hot green tea. An hour later, Isao came, with no loss of expression in that he HATED being up so early.
When ten o'clock was rolling around, the team was beginning to think their sensei wasn't coming.
Then, stumbling as she walked, a reddish brown haired woman with cerulean eyes came towards them.
"Hey kids," she drawled in a sleepy manor. "You my students, eh?" She put her hood over her head, that being attached to a black hoodie, restrained by a green Jounin vest. She dropped down with the seat of her tan cargo pants on the dirt ground. "Cool..." She fell into slumber.
Kichiro gave her a strange look and returned to his book, but Isao and Takara refused to put up with it.
"What are you doing, sleeping??" Taka yelled, her mouth reaching inhuman lengths and her eyes turning to that of frisbees.
"You said we had to get here early!!" Isao did the same.
"This is my early..." She looked up annoyed from her under her hood.
"It's mine, too, but I still got here and four..." Taka pouted.
Isao continued to scold and scream at the woman until she had become so annoyed she screamed back, "ENOUGH ALREADY!!"
"Fine!" She stood up and motioned for the other three to sit down on the bench.
"Why?" Takara inquired.
"Because I like to feel taller than other people!!"
'What a weirdo... she's already much taller than any of us.' Taka thought.
"Well... I've seen lots of sensei do this before, so-- uh-- introduce yourselves. I'll go first."
She cleared her throat. "Minohara Kaori. I got a son and an EX-husband."
"You wonder why..." Isao whispered to Kichiro. He was then given a glare that screamed DEATH and he shut up.
"Anyway, I like food and water. I dislike pain and dying. My hobbies include breathing and sleeping. My goal is to stay alive for the time being. I'm fully prepared to send you back to the academy OR WORSE."
"But that didn't tell us, like, anything!" Takara complained. Isao rolled his eyes and Kichiro gave a distressed look that she involuntarily used the phrase "like".
"Quit complaining! For that, you're next."
"Oh, okay!" Taka pepped up. "My name Shizute Takara but I prefer to be called Taka. I have a mom, a dad, and a spunky little sister. My hobbies include shopping, reading, admiring nature, singing, playing piano, having sleep overs, training, praying, playing with my pets--"
Kaori cleared her throat.
"Oh, sorry. I like fairy tales, sweets, gentlemen, magazines, books, make up, pink, boutiques, animals, my friends, music, my religion and my God, fashion, everything in nature, like clouds and stars and the moon and--"
Kaori cleared her throat, but this time louder and more annoyed.
"Oh, sorry. Anyway, I dislike, of course, mean people, gross stuff like blood, people who hurt animals, people who hurt people I care about, annoying emotions like jealousy, vegetables, bugs--"
Kaori cleared her throat, but it sounded more like a bomb going off. A very annoyed bomb.
"Oh sorry. Well, my goal is to be a princess."
Kichiro stifled a chuckle and Isao burst out laughing. Kaori gave a skeptical look.
"Shuddup!" Takara angrily defended.
Kaori sighed at her hopelessness, and pointed at Isao.
"Manabu Isao. I have a family. I like my friends and stuff. My hobbies are training and stuff. I like my friends, training, and other stuff. I dislike anything annoying. My goal is to be a good ninja." Isao refused eye contact with any of them. Obviously not the most open of people.
"Iga Kichiro," the brunette began, knowing that he was the next. "I have a family as well. My hobby is training among other things. I like anything basically decent, like all people. I dislike anything basically bad, like all people. My goal is to excel as a ninja."
Takara's hands sunk into her hands, in grief that her teammates were unsociable and cold.
"Well, you three appear to be very interesting..." As if the woman had any right to talk... "Now, we're going to have a little test." Kaori smiled with a mixture of playfulness and sadism. "If you want to stay a ninja."
"WHAT?!" Isao and Taka screamed in unison. Kichiro perked up in interest. "We already passed the test!!"
"Are you kidding? Just performing a little ninjutsu won't make you a ninja. You have to have real skills. So it's my job to test that. Here." She handed each of them a list.
"I'm sending you all on a scavenger hunt. Be done before sunset or be prepared for another year at the academy." With that she was gone in a flurry of leaves. Obviously she wasn't as tired before as she let on.
Takara's list read:
-A gift certificate for that Gonokima
-A small, red sparrow
-A box of fire crackers
-A gallon of sake
-Fiery Nights, the movie, on VHS
-My dry cleaning
-900 yen
-A Mirayoko chocolate cupcake
-Hatake Kakashi's Make Out Paradise book
After a few moments of staring in shock at the utterly random list of objects, Takara broke the silence.
"Well, we might as well get started.
A Few Moments Of Argument And Movement Later
"Gorokima, I love this place! Their pork is the best! Can we get something?"
"Takara, no time for that. We have to go get a gift certificate somehow."
They went into the barbecue establishment, and saw Team Ten through the crowded restaurant.
"Ino-chan! Ino-chan!"
"No, Takara!" Isao insisted. "We have to keep on the job."
"Okay. I understand." As they passed the table, Ino and Takara made a bit of girly small talk, including one inside joke. They waved each other good bye, and Takara turned to see Kichiro politely asking a waitress if he could speak to the manager.
The lights suddenly went out.
Then, a spot light came on upon a humongous, burly man giving a "good guy" pose.
"Did someone ask for me?" Two call girls dazzled in kimonos behind him.
All the customers and gazed upon him freakishly, some dropping their tea or chopsticks, and the employees sighed at what was likely to have happened before.
"Yes, we'd like a gift certificate," Kichiro requested without break, to show he wasn't as weirded out as we was.
"Ho ho ho, you'd like a gift certificate, now would you? Tell me, how much money do you have for it?"
The three genin searched their pockets and came up with nothing.
"Then I can't give you anything, now can I?"
"Wait!" Isao begged. "Even though we don't have cash, can't we come to some compromise? Even if the amount on the card is low, can't you give us something? We'll do anything!"
"Hm..." the manager made exaggerated thinking poses. "A brilliant idea has struck me!! I will give you the gift certificate for free if you can defeat me in an arm wrestling match!!"
Isao, Kichiro, and Takara cheered and "yes"ed that they weren't going to have to return to the monotony of school, but were stopped when the manager raised his finger.
"But," he smiled viciously. "If you loose, than that girl you have there will have to come and work for me as a stand-in girl." The girls behind him "ooh"ed.
"NO WAY!! There is NO WAY I'd EVER--" Isao slapped his hand over Taka's mouth.
"We'll just have to beat him, then." Isao smirked.
The man pulled out a chair from a table and stratled it. He set his arm on the table, and Isao came up to meet him.
"Hit me with your best shot, all three of you!"
When their hands first met, Isao's was slammed to a few inches above the table top. He then built up his strength and started to push the manager's hand up. Kichiro came to help, and they were about to push him over, when the calls girls came and wrapped their arms around them.
"You don't want to waste time on THAT, now do you? We could have some fun..." They teased. Kichiro and Isao still tried to push, but having two skinny girls in the way was surprisingly making it harder.
Just then, all the manager's strength was relinquished, and his hand slammed down, as he burst into laughter.
Takara was behind him, tickling him.
In good humor, still laughing, the manager handed them a check, and the three made a run for it.
Crazy much?
One Mad Dash And Bird Location Later
"So that's it, huh?" Takara stared up to the top of the seemingly mile-high building in apathy. "So... who's gonna go get it?"
After a small, collective silence, both Isao and Kichiro outright pointed at Taka.
"Eh?! Why me??"
"'Cause you're a girl, and girls are skinnier and can climb better."
"What!? That's stupid! Guy's are supposed to do the work!!" Her eyes went frisbees again. "Wait-- no!! That's sexist-- I'm not sexist!! I can do anything you can do, and better!! I'll get that stinkin' bird!!" Flames of ambition flew from Taka's eyes as she jumped onto the building platform, and climbed upward.
A moment of silence passed between the two boys.
"Chick's really crazy, isn't she?" Isao looked up disdainfully at his teammate.
One Climb Later
"Nice birdie... Nice birdie... Stay still now..."
Takara, inches away from the single red sparrow, lunged.
Inside The Top Window
"Well then, Iruka, I understand you aren't glad that Kakashi is testing Naruto and his team, but what of Takara and her team? Kaori has never tested a group of genin before and I'm not even sure about it."
"Well, Isao is a bit of trouble, but Kichiro is more neutral. And I trust in Takara's ability to--"
Out the window, a blonde girl was seen flailing downward with a red bird in her grasp.
The team doesn't get along to well!
But that can be left behind.
'Cause now we're on a scavenger hunt!
And the bird's really hard to find.
Author's Corner
Lot's o' love, review if you wanna!!
Shout Outs(regulars get nicknames)
Hikari-Kasumi: Eh, not so much. But you got something right! Anko-chan and Kaori-chan got a relation... of sorts. You'll see. (NO GIRL ON GIRL, JUST A REMINDER! I wasn't hinting to that... XD Don't misinterpret, this girl is already looking for a special man... you'll see who.)
Punk-chan: Yeah but I'm putting the Shikamaruness on hold for a bit... though he's not gone yet.
Domi-kun: Well things are gonna get kinda silly... oh well. Scavenger hunt much?
