Dark Corners of the House of the Rising Sun

Part 5: Mission Impossible

A/N: Sorry I didn't reply to all the holiday reviews... holidays, you know how they are. Anyway, thank you all very much!

Do you realize that I have 13 years to kill in this story before I can throw in the kids? Thirteen years. That's a long time for someone like me. Expect giant time skips. Or maybe not. We'll see if I get any flashes of inspiration.

Louise tapped her foot impatiently and cleaned out her nails, waiting for her new sensei and teammates to show up. The teacher she knew would be late, because teachers inevitably were. But as for the boys—,

"GIVE IT BACK!"

"Give what back? It's my wallet!"

Louise glanced out of the corner of her eye at the dustball rolling towards her. She leaned against the wall of the school. It looked like her teammates had arrived.

"LIAR! It's got my picture in it!"

"Proof that it belongs to me. How vain would you have to be to keep your own picture in your wallet, Nii-san?"

"Don't call me—,"

"And we need money on us so we can treat Louise to lunch after we meet with Sensei."

"Since when do we have to treat her to lunch?"

"She's a girl! We're supposed to! Don't you have any sense of duty?"

"Not when my money's involved! If you want to flirt, pay for it with your own damn allowance!"

"It IS my allowance, it's my wallet!"

"It's not, and she'd never agree to go out with you, anyway."

"She'd never go out with you, maybe,"

"Why would I want her? She looks like a–,"

By this point the boys were standing right in front of Louise, and totally ignoring her. She decided it was a good time to clear her throat.

Hiashi turned a shade of gray similar to the future leftover rice in Naruto's fridge. "Erg—,"

Louise rolled her eyes and turned to Hizashi. "He's right, though, you know. I wouldn't go out with either of you losers. So you can give him back his wallet."

"It's my—,"

"Whatever," Louise sighed. "So, what ingenious and ill-timed piece of cheating has lead to you two being in my graduating class?"

"We didn't cheat! We combined forces."

Louise smiled. "Relax. I didn't exactly pass, myself. I'm friends with the janitor, he let me in the day before the test to put mirrors in the lights. You can see three or four other papers no matter where you sit. Rather clever, if I do say so myself."

"Wish you'd told me that before the exam," Hizashi muttered. "How'd you get by the practical test?"

"Oh, I passed that one," Louise laughed dismissively. "I mean, I'd be a little worried to have my headband and still not be able to even make a clone."

Hiashi became very interested something on the ground. Hizashi might have made a remark about that, but somebody on top of the roof began groaning rather loudly.

"Are you kids telling me that NONE of you passed your tests fair and square?" a man said, jumping down amid the new team, looking disgusted and a little worried.

"None of your damn business," Hizashi snapped.

"Go eavesdrop on someone else, you old perv," Louise yelped, pulling the edges of her v-neck collar together.

"Yeah, I may not be able to pass an entrance test, but I can still kick your drunken ass," Hiashi added.

The man rubbed his forehead tiredly. "Kids these days.. No respect for their squad leaders."

The three teens blinked, and Hiashi walked up to the wall that Louise was leaning against and slammed his head into it. "Not my day..."

"Not mine either, apparently, kid," the jounin muttered. "Let's see, from my first impression... I hate you all."

"The feeling's mutual," Hizashi said with a smile as Hiashi banged his head into the wall again.

"All right, kids," their teacher had herded them to a training field and was making a half-hearted attempt to do the things regular senseis did. "Um... Want to introduce yourselves? Maybe say a little bit about your... I dunno, likes, dislikes... vendettas and other goals?"

There was a long silence. The adult sighed. "Oh, come on, make my job a little easier. Anyone?"

Louise finally raised her hand, mostly out of pity. "Fine. My name's Louise Makoto. My favorite thing is hair dye, which I know sounds shallow, but it's a surprisingly good way to express myself, and if you laugh, I'll sock you one right in the kisser. My least favorite thing is immature little boys who think that jokes involving the words "booger" or "boobie" are funny, and my goal is to raise enough money doing this ninja gig to rent my own place and get away from my parents."

The teacher nodded. "All right. Boys?"

"Well, we're the Hyuuga twins," Hizashi said. "Hiashi,"

"And Hizashi," Hiashi said. "Our favorite thing is our grandmother's snicker doodles,"

"Or her chocolate chips cookies," Hizashi said.

"Oh, yeah, those, or kettle corn,"

"Yeah, kettle corn!"

"And our least favorite thing is written exams,"

"Or family genealogies," Hizashi said. Hiashi looked at him.

"I don't mind them so much."

"Then why the hell are you always complaining about them?"

"I don't like getting quizzed on them before I'm allowed to eat dinner, that's all. Oh, and you know what else I really hate? When Mom gets me confused with you."

"Yeah, or when Sensei," Hizashi glanced up at his new teacher, "Er, the one back at the academy, would say "oh, what's the difference? You look alike, you sound alike,"

"Yeah! I HATE it when people do that,"

"Um, boys?" the jounin interrupted. The two boys looked up at him at exactly the same time, with exactly the same expression.

"Sorry," Hizashi said. "Where were we?"

"Our goal," Hiashi said.

"We want to destroy our family!" they said in unison.

"Um..." the poor jounin was at a loss for words. "Do you maybe want to do that... separate? Is there anyway I can tell you apart?"

The twins tilted their heads in unison. "No," they shrugged.

"All right... Um... Well, the first piece of wisdom I want to impart to you three is, never, ever, EVER step on a twig really loudly just as your squad is sneaking into a camp of high-ranked enemy agents, because even if all of you manage to get out alive, you will be stuck doing D-rank missions with a team that didn't even pass their tests."

"Hey!" Hiashi said, "It took a lot more effort to cheat on those things than it would have to actually pass them. We're probably better ninjas than those saps who did it the 'right' way."

Louise and Hizashi nodded fiercely.

The teacher sighed and gave them a very hassled look. "Maybe you're right, but that doesn't... well, let's just say that I'm very clearly being punished."

"What's that look supposed to mean?" Hizashi asked.

"It's the Oh-God-Hyuugas look," Hiashi told him. "Can't believe you didn't recognize it."

"It is not. It's the Oh-God-Main-House-Brat look," Hizashi said, grinning snidely.

"You're way off, it's the Oh-God-A-Branchy look."

"Or maybe it's the–,"

The two boys grinned at each other and yelled together, "God-Help-Us-All-It's-Hiashi-and-Hizashi Look! Hell yeah!"

Louise pointed at them as they did some kind of secret handshake. "Sensei, I just want you to know that until I got assigned to this team I never spoke to them before in my life."

The jounin sighed and checked his watch. "Screw up one little mission and suffer for the rest of your life," he muttered to himself.

A/N: Heh... sooner or later I'm going to wear out the 'too young to tell' defense and start making people in character. What a shame.