Now it will get a little more interesting. I hope…TT

Sora: YAY! It's our turn!

Shigure: Geez, Sora, calm down.

Yuri: Yes, or we might have to force you up in a tree…smirk

Sora: NOOOO!

You're doing it again!

Shigure: Doing what?

Ugh, never mind, just shut up…

Not to worry, dear reader, but there is a main character to this unusual story. Now, twenty years after the establishment of the village, we are introduced to a boy turning thirteen from the Wolf Tribe. His name is--

"Shigure! Hey Shigure!"

Shigure Nomura. Shigure's best friends were the two other boys in his squad.

"Hey, Sora! Wait up!"

Sora Hirogawa; age twelve; Wolf Tribe--

"Are you coming, Yuri?"

"Y-yes...I'm coming."

--and Yuri Sato; age twelve; Bear Tribe. The three boys were on their way to the designated meeting spot in the woods where they were going to celebrate Shigure's thirteenth birthday by playing his favorite game of "Hide-and-Seek." Their sensei, Kisho Hashimoto, age thirty-two of the Lynx Tribe, occasionally liked to use this as a ninja exercise. The young Genin must use any ninjutsu, taijutsu, or genjutsu technique necessary to hide from the chosen "seeker." Lately, it was partially for fun, since Kisho believed that the boys were almost ready for the Chunin exams (except maybe Sora, he still needed a little work, as one will see later). He knew this exercise had become too childish for them. Kisho made an exception for today because it was Shigure's birthday into teen-hood.

The three boys ran to their meeting spot and, sure enough, there was their sensei apparently waiting impatiently for them in the middle of their clearing with the snow up to his ankles. It wasn't as cold that day as it usually was. It was actually kind of sad. Spring was ending and the snow, which was normally shin to knee-deep, was melting and the beautiful, glistening ice that coated the trees was slowly, but surely, disappearing.

"Aw! Kisho-sensei beat us again!" exclaimed Shigure.

"He normally does, Shigure." said Yuri almost in a whisper. Yuri was the smallest of the squad, in age and height reaching only four feet and three inches tall. He really only talks to the ones he knows best like Shigure, Sora and Kisho, but Sora especially. He never really has much to say, unless it is something worth saying.

"Of course I did. I think you guys are slowing down! Getting lazy, are we?" Kisho looked at them almost disapprovingly, but they soon saw a playful twinkle in his eye.

"We are not, Kisho-sensei! I think you're just getting faster," said Shigure.

"Seriously, Sensei, now-a-days you are hard to beat," said Sora. Kisho laughed and then said, "Stop trying to flatter me and let's get this game...um 'exercise', I mean, started," he smiled, "Oh yes, happy birthday, Shigure!"

"Thank you, Sensei."

Now, Shigure and Sora are hard to explain. Their personalities are very much alike, considering their both from the Wolf Tribe. They liked to joke around and have a good time, but they were often very serious in different ways. Shigure-- thoughtful. Sora--calm. Especially when they would talk to each other about certain things. There was always a special connection between Shigure and Sora that they, unfortunately, would never understand.

Kisho appointed Shigure as the first "seeker" (since it was his birthday). Shigure never really liked being "seeker." It was always harder to find his ninja companions than to hide from them. Unless Kisho was playing. In that case, you don't want to be hiding or seeking (which was always the case because he would always play).

Kisho was a very hard-working sensei. With no children of his own, he soon fell in love with teaching the graduates from the Academy. He was a tough sensei, being one of the first thirty ninja to establish the village, but he stood by the guidelines that he was to push his students past their physical limits. He also knew that there were other limits to this teaching method. If you pushed a student too far, it can lead to frustration, hate, and failure, which is something that Kisho refused to allow in his squad.

Shigure began to count backwards from one-hundred and the three "hiders" hurried off to find their hiding spots. Yuri would normally hide in the water under the ice, but, because there was none to be found, he favored being very high up in the trees. Sora and Shigure preferred dark, shadowy places to hide, normally in the frozen undergrowth or sometimes buried in the snow all together. Kisho liked to hide among rocks using the genjutsu technique Rock Formation with which he visually disguises himself as a rock making it almost impossible to find him out the groups of hundreds of rocks. He, some how, always managed to find these groups when he wished to use this technique during hide-and-seek.

So all three assumed their positions. Shigure finished counting. He immediately transited into his wolf form. Surprisingly, the students of the current Genin class were the ones who could maintain their other forms the longest in their tribes. Lord Inakura had just recently been trying to figure out why this is. Why these Genin children could control the permanent jutsu given to them almost twice as long as an experienced Jounin could. After twenty years, Lord Inakura finally decided to get to work in translating the smeared writing on the scroll he had taken the jutsu from, hopefully to find some answers. He discovered that with this permanent jutsu, every generation will become increasingly more like the animal inside of them. He read on that in a few years he would no longer have to perform the jutsu on newborn children because it would begin to be passed down trough the DNA of the parents. And, within a few decades the human half of his people will start to dissipate and eventually disappear completely, leaving them as nothing but animals. Only now did Lord Inakura begin to truly understand the curse that he brought upon himself and his followers.

End…Chapter Two: Shigure, Sora, and Yuri