"Nariume-san

"Nariume-san."

Tei-kon's eyes fought to adjust to the light. He blinked.

"Get up, Nariume-san."

Blinked again. Who's that? The gangly teen's pale gray eyes gazed up at a blurry figure standing over him. Then they closed. Closed tight.

"Wake up already, you idiot."

The sun was bright, real bright. Tei-kon's eyes could hardly stand it at first. He scratched his head, looking around and blinking the sleep out of his eyes. After about a half hour of waiting on the terrace, the boy had grown tired and slipped off into a deep sleep. And it was just his luck to be awoken, two and a half hours later, by the more annoying of his two new teammates.

Hyuuga Hatachi folded his arms across his chest, frowning down at his disappointing comrade. Well, what're you gonna do? Comrades can only disappoint, right? At least, that's what Hatachi always thought. He flicked a lock of his long blue-black hair out of his face, perhaps wondering why his shinobi headband had failed to hold back that particular group of strands. A grayish blue vest that was buckled three times in the front partially hid his black mesh undershirt. He wore black shorts with no pockets; a basic ninja's item bag strapped to his left hip handled that problem. Bandages were meticulously wrapped around his left forearm, and he had donned the traditional navy sandals of Konoha. Apathetic pitch black eyes bore down on Tei-kon until the Hyuuga tore away his gaze. Tei-kon guessed Hatachi had decided he didn't want to grace a down-trodden shinobi who had just woken up on the stoop of the academy with his royal sight. Instead, he took to staring at the magnificent wooden door upon which Tei-kon leaned. The golden handle of which had just begun to turn.

Tei-kon was stretching his arms and letting out a healthy yawn when the large doors swung open suddenly and knocked him clean off the terrace. The boy managed to let out a tiny yelp just before he was thrown headfirst into the neatly trimmed hedges that lined the academy's entrance, muffling him. Three Jounin stood in the doorway: you could distinguish their rank easily by their Konoha uniforms. Hatachi let his arms drop to his sides, but kept his eyes resolutely on the three shinobi. The one in the center opened his mouth to speak. The other two were scribbling furiously at their clipboards.

"I assume you're all here to meet your teachers."

Hatachi turned slightly. He was just now noticing that he and Tei-kon weren't the only two Genin present. A crowd of thirty or so young ninja had accumulated in front of the academy during the time Tei-kon had been asleep, and had taken to manifesting itself into little clumps of three. Teams. The Hyuuga snorted and turned back to face the three Jounin.

"Well, come with me. All of you." He was smiling. The middle one was. The other two? Still scribbling. And so they scribbled on, even while they turned around and began to guide the large, murmuring group into the massive interior of Konoha's Ninja Academy.

By the time Tei-kon had squirmed his way out of the hedges, brushed himself off, and run inside the building to catch up, the mass was strolling briskly down a hallway adorned every few meters with a set of doors on each side. As they walked, the middle Jounin spouted off team numbers and the rooms to which they would go to meet their new sensei. His breath was already growing short and exasperated when Tei-kon found a spot to saunter in the back of the group. Several teams had already left the group, leaving only eight ninja in the small congregation as they all walked on. Hatachi was at the front.

"Team Nine, room 16B."

Two chuckling adolescent boys and a ghostly pale girl branched off and entered a door on the left. Tei-kon yawned. Stretched his arms. Hatachi paid no heed. The group travelled on.

"Team Ten, room 18B."

A pair of giggling girls pushed a nervous wreck of a young male teen through another door on the left. Now it was just the two of them, following their three escorts through the grand halls of the school. Wait… two?

"Team Eleven, room 19A."

Tei-kon rubbed his eyes and blinked, ditching his grin and staring at the door on the right. Hatachi grabbed the doorknob, twisted quickly, pushed his way authoritatively through to the classroom on the other side, and stumbled face first into a tower of empty glass bottles. Needless to say, it was loud. Well, the bottles were loud, but what was louder was the boy, who was standing atop a step ladder, with the final bottle clutched tightly in his tiny hands.

"My tower! You.. you did this! You'll pay! I'll use some deadly jutsu on you! It'll be deadly, just you watch!" he bellowed in the most intimidating voice he could muster; which wasn't very intimidating at all, seeing as he stood at a meager four feet, four inches. He was trembling. It was somewhat pathetic to watch a small boy making a fuss over a tower of bottles, but it was funny, too. You could tell because, by now, Tei-kon was laughing. Hatachi blinked, splayed out on the floor with his back to the wood and looking, bewildered, up at the child on the ladder.

"I-it's a Saturday.. student's d-don't have to come to s-school.."

The boy stopped trembling. He tilted his little head, a curious look plastered onto his cute features. "I'm no student," he pointed out, stepping down off the ladder and really showing just how short he was. He looked about nine, maybe ten. Tei-kon was still laughing. Hatachi sat up, supporting himself by leaning back on his arms. Seeing the boy like he was now gave the Hyuuga more courage, so he tried again.

"Well, if you're not old enough yet, you shouldn't be in a place like thi--"

"I'm not a student: I'm your sensei."