a/n: k, tried to fix whatever grammar crap that was wrong with the first chap. also added in the last line...i realized the title said they were team three but it wasn't even mentioned in the dialogue or anything. stupid me.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Racing the Winds
Chapter 2 – Team 3's Jounin Instructor
"Hah...I wondered how long it'd take you kids to finally come out," the person spoke. She twirled another kunai by its ring, flicked it in the air, and caught it. She gave a sly smirk at the three genins. "So this is team number three.."
"Just what the HELL were you thinking throwing those kunai like that?!" Takuro shouted, pointing at her.
The woman crossed one leg over the other, crossed her arms together, and leaned her back on the tree. "Geez, you kids seem like a real pain..."
"Who are you anyway?" Seiji asked.
The woman smiled and sat upright, letting her legs dangle from the branch she sat on. Her face was now visible under the sunlight. She had dark blue hair that was tied up in a messy fashion and long bangs that parted from the middle. The plate of her protector reflected the sunlight vivdly. "I'm your jounin instructor. Matano Aki...Aki-sensei." Then she grinned similar to the way Takuro always did.
"Sensei?" Enno spoke, a bit dumbfounded. She blinked several times. "...I KNEW it! That's just our luck now is it? You ARE a dumbass!!!" she shouted at their instructor.
Aki's face contorted in annoyance and her eye twitched. "See if I pass you NOW..." she threatened.
"P-Pass us..? What do you mean? We're already genins.." Enno asked. Her expression completely changed.
The young instructor smirked. "Just because you've passed your academy exams doesn't mean you're really worthy of becoming genin level ninjas just yet.." she continued to tease. "All right sit around here and introduce yourselves."
"Why should we come over to you? It's so far away..." Takuro whined. The tree was really barely fifteen meters away.
An amused smile formed on Aki's lips. "Heh. That kid...he's gonna need the most training," she thought.
"Why don't you come here...?" Enno demanded, pointing to the ground before her feet.
Aki sat back like she did before against the tree. "No. I don't feel like it."
The students felt like falling over. "The friggin instructor's just a lazy ass!" Enno thought. Her eyes creeped over to Takuro and she sighed.
"You kids are already up anyway, come on!" Aki spoke. Her nonchalant tone made Enno even more annoyed of the jounin's arrogance.
Seiji walked over to the tree and sat down with his legs crossed. He gave a smile to his sensei, which was kindly returned. Takuro shrugged and followed, laying flat on the grass instead, and Enno rolled her eyes in defeat and joined her other two teammates.
"Great. Now, let's start with some introductions," Aki spoke. She sounded much friendlier all of a sudden now and even threw in a nice smile to go with it. "I'm 24 years old, and I just became a jounin recently," she began.
"So in other words, you have no experience as one..?" Enno teased.
Aki pursed her lips into a frown and squinted her eyes. "I don't like you."
Her pupil returned her irritated glare. Enno looked away impassively and spoke, "Go on..."
"That's all."
"Are you kidding me? You just told us your name and age. What kind of an intro is that?"
"A damn good one. Your turn."
She rolled her eyes. "My name is Sakurai Enno," she began, losing her aggravated tone.
"Ah...Sakurai. Is your family that clan?" Aki asked.
Enno gave an abrupt glare, this time out of sternness. "They may be related to me by blood, but they aren'tmy family." After the intructor gave a knowing nod, she continued, returning to her original regular tone. "I live with my mom, Sakurai Natsune. She was an ANBU until she became blind when I was little, and my dad was killed during Cloud Village's invasion back then," she spoke casually. Both Aki and Seiji listened with respect.
Aki closed her eyes briefly and opened them, changing into a lighter mood. "And what made you want to become a shinobi?"
Enno looked up and made eye contact with her sensei. "It was a promise to my mom," she answered, smiling.
Aki nodded. "What about you?" she asked the red-haired genin.
After listening so closely to Enno's short story, he was surprised by her sudden question.
"Uh, my name's Akanai Seiji. I-I live at the orphanage around here where some of the other students live too. My parents died during that invasion too. I also had an older brother. He was also an ANBU."
"Really..how old was your brother when he became a jounin? And what was his name?" Aki asked.
"His name was Subaru, but I can't really remember when he became a jounin, haha," he replied, "but he was really young when he did. He died a few years ago. I think he was on a mission when he got killed. I always looked up to him when I was younger so that's why I wanted to be a shinobi too."
Aki nodded and smiled again. Before she called on her last student, her eyes narrowed after noticing the boy's limp body and the book he had covering his face. His steady breathing made it obvious that he wasn't even awake anymore. She became irritated again.
The other two students looked over at Takuro. Even though the book was covering his face, his muffled snoring could be heard clearly. His leg twitched.
"Oh geez...don't tell me that dumbass is actually asleep..." Enno mentally spoke.
Seiji shook his head and shrugged. The annoyed instructor rolled her eyes and flipped the kunai she still had in her hand into a position where she could throw it. "Hey, lazy one, wake up," she said and flung the blade at him.
The sharp object stabbed into the book. The impact was enough to wake the boy up. Takuro immediately jumped after seeing the point of the kunai right in front of his eyes. "AAGH! What?!" he shouted and sat up.
"You weren't listening to a thing any of us said, did you..?" Enno asked.
He scratched his head and gave a nervous laugh. "A little..." he meekly replied.
"You bum..." she said and smacked his head.
"Ow..." he whined and rubbed his head.
"You must be Nonaka Takuro," Aki spoke sternly.
"Yep." He pulled the kunai out of his book. "You could've been lighter on the wake-up call..." he said and threw it back at his instructor.
She caught it and returned it to its pouch, then smirked after realizing his comical attitude. "Hm, a slothy, but nice kid. He's definitely going to need more training than the other two.."
"Introductions, right? Well, you got my name. My hobbies are eating and sleeping mostly. I'm an orphan like Seiji, but I don't really know much about my family. I just remember that my dad was also a shinobi. I like to spend time alone where people aren't around. I dunno why but I don't really like the urban life or being around people, so I like to be in the mountains or some nice quiet place like that."
His small audience was actually listening to him well, to everyone's surprise. What he was saying was something new to his teammates considering how he always came off as some dropout who never paid attention in class.
"Interesting." Aki closed her eyes for a moment and opened them.
Takuro laughed and scratched the back of his head.
"Well, you're all an interesting bunch. Although, I admit my first impressions of you weren't all that positive. I might start to like you guys a little more later, though. You can have the rest of the day off," Aki said.
"Huh? We're not gonna start training today?" Enno asked.
"Naw, it's ok. Today's a nice day. Take a break—things'll start tomorrow," she replied nonchalantly. Aki jumped down from the tree. "And when I see how strong you guys are, the real training starts!" she said with a sly glint in her eyes.
"I guess this is what you'd expect from a lazy instructor..." Enno began teasing again.
"Go ahead...say that now..." Aki began and cupped her hands in back of her head. "I can't say for sure how tough my training will be on you, but I can tell you right now...you're still pretty weak."
"Hey wait a minute...you haven't even seen us fight yet!"
"I don't need to. It shows," she replied tersely.
"Well then, we'll just have to prove you wrong then," Takuro cut in and ended with his grin.
Aki smiled. "We'll see."
"Man, today's lectures were tiring. I'll be going home then," Enno said as she stood up, stretching and began to leave.
"Aki-sensei?" Seiji spoke.
"Hm?"
Enno stopped and turned around.
"One question...what was the purpose of that sneak attack when we came out? Why'd you make us wait like that?"
"That's how it is on missions. You don't know who the enemy is, or when and where they'll strike. Take that as your first lesson for today," she explained.
After taking in what she said, Seiji and Enno left. Takuro bent over to pick up his book, then his stomach growled again. He turned over to his sensei, who had a stunned look on her face.
"You....must be hungry," she said.
"Uhh...yeah, haha. I didn't have anything to eat all day." Takuro picked up his book and stood up.
Aki glanced at its cover. "You know...that's my favorite manga," she said with a smile.
Takruro laughed, then put the manga back into his kunai pouch. Before he left, he spoke, "You didn't make us wait for that, did you?"
Aki looked at him with a puzzled face.
"You were just too lazy to come inside the building for us...that was just some excuse," he said and smirked.
She didn't say anything for awhile, but eventually burst out chuckling. "You're a keen one."
"Not really," he replied, cupping his hands behind his head. "I know lazy when I see it. You're lazy."
Aki gave a nervous laugh. "Ah, come on, let's get something to eat, my treat."
"Really?! Hah, thanks!" he shouted happily. Being the huge moocher he was, anything remotely close to the phrase 'free food' always revived his spirit. The both of them began to leave campus.
The sun wasn't quite at the horizon just yet, but it was almost getting near there. An orangy coat of light beaming from the early afternoon sun glazed over the entire village. Following the two figures as they approached the horizon was a pair of pale grey eyes. The wind picked up again and the shinobi brushed her hair away from her eyes. Her forehead protector gleamed clearly as her dark hair was brushed away.
"He really is a weird kid..." she thought.
There were two others—both masked ANBU officers, who stood by her on the rooftop of the academy building.
"Hokage-sama is taking quite a while," the male ANBU spoke.
"What are you looking at?" the female ANBU asked her.
"That shinobi right there," she replied and pointed to Takuro, who was now quite far away. "He's a really cute kid," she said and laughed.
"I think the genins this year will become excellent shinobi," a voice spoke from behind. The three turned their heads. There stood the young Hokage. His ambitious sea-green eyes almost glowed with the sun as his long bangs and protector's sash—both a light shade of red, billowed with the wind. He walked up to them.
"Hachidaime-sama!" the female ANBU spoke.
"I told you before—don't act so formal. It makes me feel weird," he replied.
"What took you so long?" the male ANBU asked.
"There're some spies who have come from other villages," the Hokage sternly answered and looked off into the distance. "I was just being cautious." The wind continued to blow. "Can you do something about this?" he asked the other woman while trying to keep his hair still.
She smiled in amusement, then looked off in another direction. "The East Wind is my messenger," she spoke, opening her right hand. "It carries the chakra of two ninjas. They shouldn't be here. Should I go report this to the other jounins?"
"Tell everyone to be alert; don't start trying to hunt them down just yet."
"But then—" the male ANBU protested.
"Right now, I need you all to do a favor for me..." he interrupted him.
The female ANBU removed her mask. Her face showed concern. "Yosai...are you really going to do this?" she asked.
"Please don't tell anyone. It's for our home's sake."
The other ANBU took off his mask too. He didn't speak, but everything he wanted to say was told through his solemn face.
"And I want to see Yuki-sama...it's been too long," the Hokage spoke longingly.
"Let Hokage-sama do what he needs to do. Leaf Village isn't as powerful as it once was anymore. And...if there's someone waiting for him, he shouldn't keep that person waiting any longer," the grey-eyed woman spoke.
The two ANBUs contemplated about everything that was going on. Before they could say anything else, the Hokage had already disappeared. Although they had their doubts, they convinced themselves to have faith in their leader.
The other jounin glanced over the academy campus again. Takuro and Aki were already out of sight, and aside from the few remaining teams that were still training, the school was pretty much empty.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
wee! 2nd chapter done. review and a cookie please. :
here are lil semi-profile things so you have a teeny...very teeny idea of what they sorta look like...kinda. (i'll leave em at the end of each chapter when some new characters are introduced):
Nonaka Takuro – 12 years old, light brown hair and blue eyes
Sakurai Enno – 12 years old, brown hair and dark blue eyes
Akanai Seiji – 12 years old, dark red hair and black eyes
Matano Aki – 24 years old, dark blue hair and blue-green eyes
hah...now if i stuck in their blood types, height, and weight, lol.
reminder: if you wanna see my retard character sketches, tell me in a review and leave your email address—i'll send em through email when i scan em. (btw, i can't make an account on deviantart for some reason..so that can't be an alternative)
response to Kagami's review: i've already made up a buttload of characters and most of them don't have any relations to the original characters. some of them are relatives of them, but i don't think any of it will have any significance to the plot, and the story is set quite a few generations after the original story so none of the real characters can really be part of the plot. sorry, if that's what you were kinda expecting.