A/N: hi people! This took a week to do…bleh, we're pathetic... heh heh heh! I'm listening to a Naruto CD that K-chan burned off the internet or something… hah! It would've been done a bit sooner tonight, but I was too busy torturing K-Chan in the torture chamber for pairing certain couples… then we ate ramen and returned to our normal Lee-Gai selves. Yes, we do act youthful on our free time because we're ummm… what's that word again? My brain forgot…
K-Chan: Uh….what? Sorry, my mind's not all here right now.:) Freakin Dragonfly was hitting me and poking me with her claws/nails for mentioning GaaLee…anyways! Dragonfly's thinking of killing off Ichi-kun:( This saddens me, so please tell her not to! She won't listen to me…she NEVER DOES. And I'm also watching Final Fantasy: Unlimited, episode 18, so I'm even more sad.:( Poor Mankenshi-chan….huh? Oh right, the roleplay. This was fun…and obviously, the non-bold stuff is mine. I like Team 8.:) Though you wouldn't be able to tell from my other fic…-sweatdrop- Anywho, goodnight/morning/afternoon lovely reviewers! See you all later!
Behold! The power of youth brings you Chapter !7:
"Hello," a man said to the group as he appeared from a guard tower on the other side of the wall. "My name is Kouji. I'll be your helper during your stay at the village. I'll be the one who tells you your numerous tasks and duties"
"Duties? Tasks? Numerous? You mean we have to work?" Naruto shouted.
"Yes, oh great subordinate of mine, you're here to help rebuild and improve the village, what did you think that meant?" Jiraiya said, stooping down to Naruto's level.
"Umm, I didn't really think about it actually..." Naruto trailed off.
"Well, I can see we have several geniuses in this group," the man said, smiling in a somewhat creepy way.
"Okay, so what do we do first?" Kiba asked, slightly annoyed.
"Well I would assume you would first like to drop off your belongings at the place where you'll be staying. Am I right?" The man said, still smiling in that odd way. He starting walking off in the direction of an inn, indicating that they should follow.
Jiraiya sighed and the group followed the man. I was really hoping I could sneak around the village looking for bath houses, Jiraiya thought sadly.
Team 8 followed Kouji, Kiba in front, then Shino, and then Hinata.
"Um, what was...what was it like in your village, Kikiru-san?" Hinata asked. Normally, she didn't initiate much conversation, but for once she felt somewhat incomfortable with the silence. Besides, she wanted to become a little more outgoing. "Is Konoha like...Suna, at all?"
She sighed as she looked over at Hinata. "Well, for starters my home village is Soragakure, not Suna. But, Suna does have the same kind of foundation." She paused. "But Sora is on a whole different level."
"S-Soragakure?" Hinata questioned. "I've never heard of that village...and what do you mean by different levels?"
"Well…" She said, pausing for thought. "It's like this. Your village school standards are under ours by a mile. Konoha only requires the basics to be a Genin, as far as I know. Sora, on the other hand-" She laughed. "You're required to kill at least one of your classmates, attack small villages, kill innocents and many other things that are better left unsaid," she finished, smiling.
Hinata's
eyes widened in horror. "K-Kill a classmate?" She looked at
Naruto, and closed her eyes as she shivered. She could never, ever
imagine trying to kill him. "B-But isn't that too harsh?"
"Not
quite," Jiraiya said gravely. "Killing people and
occasionally attacking villages is a part of being a ninja. It
doesn't surprise me that some villages do that."
"So, you mean your village really doesn't make you kill each other? Wow…that's pathetic." Kikiru sighed. And I had thought my life was tough. Jeez, I imagine it'll be hard for them if they actually get involved in wars. The white-eyed girl is already shaking at the thought of killing a classmate. If you think about it, it's not that bad. I wonder what she would think if I told her about one of my last assignme….I'm not going to think about what happened to put me into that damned cage… All away in the darkness…all alone. She paused in midstride, just as the group stopped outside the inn.
"Well," the man said, smiling at them in his eerie way that made the hair on the back of her skin stand up, "We're here." He then continued on, leading them in.
Hinata looked down sadly. "That is really…horrible. I'm sorry that you had to do that, Kikiru-san."
"Yeah! I mean, killing a classmate would be…" Kiba shuddered.
"So, how many rooms do we have?" Jiraiya asked. "And do you have any hot springs around here…?"
"Ero-sennin! Don't get any ideas!" Naruto said heatedly.
"It's okay. It's hard to have feelings for people like…people like that," she finished hurriedly. "So, how many rooms do we have?"
"Well, you'll have three rooms," he said, handing Jiraiya a scroll. "You'll need that for later, if you want to do anything outsides the lines of this mission." (BTW doesn't mean for perverted ways but…)
"Understood. Let's go you guys," Jiraiya said, leading them upstairs with a smile on his face telling of dirty thoughts.
"Which room d'you want, Hinata?" Kiba asked, looking at his teammate.
"Um…any room is fine with me, as long as Kikiru-san is okay with it," Hinata said.
"Well then, what room does Kikiru want?" Kiba asked, looking at the blonde girl with a lazy smile.
"I really don't care...the one on the far left I guess," she said in a non-caring tone as she walked into the room, Yenmai at her heels.
"Kay. We'll go in this one, right bug freak?" Kiba said in a joking manner.
"Alright then," Shino said, un-amused. Kiba rolled his eyes, and the two walked into their room.
"Well, goodnight Hinata-chan, Kikiru-nee-chan," Naruto said cheerfully, making sure that the last part was loud enough for Kikiru to her from her room.
"Um, goodnight Naruto-kun," Hinata said, blushing as she walked into the room she shared with the Sora nin. Hinata looked at her temporary roommate with a slight smile. "So…Kikiru-san, did you ever have a team…?"
"Yeah…technically I still do. Lets see," she said in a pause as she flopped down on one of the beds. "First we have Ichi, he's the teams medic nin. He's pretty nice, if a little odd at times. But he's really polite, like you. Then, there's-"
"The idiot. I despise him," the one-eyed wolf growled.
"Let me finish. The second one is Dark. He's the team analyzer and strategist. But he acts like a total idiot out of battle; and another thing. He's my older brother. Then, there's Verin. He's our sensei; he has a really low tolerance level. Dark used to get in trouble with him all the time. Verin is twenty seven, Ichi is seventeen, Dark is sixteen, and I'm fourteen. Such an age difference huh?" She finished, smiling.
Hinata smiled. "Yes…Kiba-kun, Shino-kun, and I are all the same age, so I never had to worry about my teammates being older than me."
"That must be nice…" She whispered, a memory coming to mind before her eyes; the room disappeared and a new one took place.
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This one of a school room full of children, a teacher standing in front of the class, clipboard in hand and a slight frown on his face as he looked around at his loud class.
"Okay class, settle down. The day has finally come when I have to separate you into groups of three," the teacher said from the front of the class.
He smiled as he looked up at the rows of his precious children; this was, by far, his best taught class. They were all perfect for the exams that would take place next fall, but for now they would have to settle with doing missions for the village. He loved them all: from the idiot of the class to the village demon, they were all perfectly trained to his standards.
And so he began with the list, calling out names and separating his students off into groups of three, telling them which class to wait in for their sensei.
Kikiru sat at the very back of the class in the top row, alone as always. Her bandaged thumb fondled her newly earned headband, the sign of the yin-yang representing good and evil. Had it been worth it? Training for them, doing what they wanted? Her orange eyes traveled over to the window where a bird, a swallow, flew past, twittering and minding its own business, not a care in the world. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. She sighed and returned her eyes to her side, where curled up at her feet was her one-eyed wolf, Yenmai. He had always been with her, growing tougher over the years, going from a little pup licking up chocolate ice cream to leaping onto enemies and ripping out their throats, drinking their life-blood still warm from its trip from the heart. And she herself had gone from being a sweet little girl depending off her older sisters to survive, to what she was today: a shinobi.
"And for team #23, we have Miss Kikiru." He paused as her orange eyes looked down at him, and he gulped. He hated her eyes; they weren't human, she wasn't human. And to even think that he was in the same room with it… "Then there is Ichi." A brown-haired boy looked back towards the girl and flashed her a smile; she blinked once.
Good. If there's anyone who can handle her, it's Ichi. "And the last person to be put in the team is…" He smiled. "Seeficata."
Instantly, the purple-eyed boy jumped up. "HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU PEOPLE? MY NAME IS Dark! D-A-R-K!" He shrieked, sending the class into fits of laughter.
Even Kikiru smiled slightly. Good, she needs one to teach her how to laugh. That'll be something different for her. "Yes, Dark, it was meant as a last minute joke." He smiled.
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Hinata frowned at the distant look on Kikiru's face, worried. "A-Are you alright, Kikiru-san?"
She blinked several times. "Huh? What? Oh, yeah...I'm fine, just remembering something that happened, that's all," she replied.
"What were you remembering?" Hinata asked, tilting her head as she leaned back against her bed frame.
"My last day at the academy at Sora… when we got assigned teams. I had almost forgotten how it had gone… I didn't remember being so...un-me," she said thinking back to the flashback.
"Oh…" Hinata said quietly. "Well…are you ready to go to sleep, Kikiru-san?"
"Yeah, why not," she said, smiling as she laid down, Yenmai curling up at her feet, yellow eye never leaving the door.
A/N: next, Lee and Gai…and some other stuff io don't feel like mentioing.