Mercenaries, Ninja, Martial Artists, and Wizards
Cram School
Starting the morning with a brief training session as Mrs. Weasley woke her family and prepared breakfast, the twelve young teens and the older four were going through various exercizes and drills that used most of the Weasley's expansive back yard... not that they actually knew where their property ended and anothers began since the entire area was little more than rolling grassland with a few hedges scattered about. The Weasley children with their father, except Percy, decided to watch them train and perform feats of stength and agility they thought would be impossible for any human.
"This isn't really that impressive, we're only doing some basic training. If you want to really see something impressive you should see what happens when we get serious." A lazy drawl speaks from next to the Weasley's who were standing just outside the back door. They all jumped and looked around only to find Shikamaru lying on his back next them staring up at the clouds.
"Wha- when did you get there?" Ron yells pointing at the lazy boy.
"I've been here for the last five minutes." Shikamaru calmly says not even opening his eyes.
"You're joking." Fred gasps.
"He's got to be joking." George agrees.
"I'm not the joking type." Shikamaru cuts in.
"Look!" Ginny shouts as Denko, Ranma, and Lee each jump more than fifteen feet into the air and attempted to kick eachother only for the others to block and then land safely on their feet roughly six feet away from eachother before dashing into the middle of their triangle where they met with a flurry of arms and legs using a variety of attacks and blocks that continued for a mer thirty seconds before they seperated with grins on their faces.
"Those three are troublesome, getting caught up in their excitement of battle." Shikamaru mutters. "Good thing they're still holding back alot." The Weasley's gaped at the comment, half because he was so calm about this and acting like it was normal to see such things and half because of how fast the three moved and how hard they were hitting eachother yet they were smiling and according to the boy next to them they were holding back.
"Breakfast is ready!" Mrs. Weasley yells out the kitchen window bringing her family back to their senses and the activity in the yard changed from chaotic activity to a stampede to the table where the dishes carrying food and drink raced them to their places. Soon everybody was eating and talking, which seemed to focus on the exercizes the youth were performing.
"So how do you guys do that stuff?" Ron asks excitedly.
"We've been through a lot of training back home, some of us started since we were three like Hinata-sama and I. We needed to start from a young age to learn to control our families style and study other things in preperation for the future." Neji answers calmly leaving the Weasley's that paid attention to what he said speachless.. almost.
"You started when you were three!" Ron gasps.
"Yes and we started our acadamy training when we were six. Those of us who had families to teach us early had the advantage there and I was the Rookie of the Year in my class. We attended the standard acadamy classes for six years before taking a final acadamy test to see if we were ready and those who passed that test had a second test given by higher ranked teachers that has a failure rate of sixtysix percent. Of my graduating class our team, Lee, Tenten, and myself, was the only one chosen to come here and the others" Neji waved his hand at the others ninja at the table "They are all they teams that passed in their year."
"W-wait you said you graduated? What are you doing here then and what is this about teams?" Percy asks.
"We graduated from the acadamy, yes. But we are now students under masters in teams of three, Lee, Tenten, and myself are being trained under Maito Gai." Neji explains.
"Sasuke, me, and Naruto are training under Hatake Kakashi." Sakura pipes in.
"Kiba, Shino, and I are being trained by Yuuhi Kurenai." Hinata adds.
"And Chouji, Ino, and me are trained by Sarutobi Asuma." Shikamaru finishes up the list.
"Wow..." Fred and George say together.
"That's pretty interesting, so you are all basicly in advanced classes?" Percy asks with genuine interest.
"You could say that." Shikamaru sighs before taking a swig of milk.
"Anyway it looks like everyone's done with breakfast so let's get things ready so you lot can start learning!" Mrs. Weasley announces and with a flick of her wand she sent the dishes flying to the kitchen where the sounds of them washing themselves could be heard shortly after and with a flicl of Mr. Weasley's wand several books came flying from the house with rolls of parchment, bottles of ink, and quills and landed on the now clean table.
Their first lesson was learning English which lasted nearly until lunchtime. During their breif meal their headaches relieved themselves before starting an hour of learning the history of magic during which Percy had brought out all the notes he had taken during his time at Hogwarts, all five years worth of notes in which it was apparent he had written nearly everything Professor Binns had ever said as well as every homework assignment. All of it helped the Japanese to at least grasp the basics of what they learned during the hour before switching over to charms. The Weasley youth, Fred, George, Ron, and Ginny were all rather upset that they weren't allowed to do magic even when they were supposed to help teach. To Denko their frustration was entertaining to watch, as they had a small shouting match with their parents while Percy boasted about being of Age and capable of performing magic at any time and made sure to do so just to show his superiority of his younger siblings.
"I'd be doing the same thing with the kids back at the Temple." Denko whispers to Akane who happened to be closest to him at the time.
"And I know Ranma would doing that too, he's done it plenty of times before." She responds with mixed emotions.
"Hey! I heard that!"
"I don't hear you denying it though." Denko smirks.
"He got you there." Tsume pops in, almost quite literally since she was floating upside down between the three of them at around eye level.
"How are you doing that!" Everybody around them yells and jumps back except Denko who was used to her antics.
"That's easy, I can fly!" Tsume says with a wide smile as she floats straight up, giving everyone a good view of her cleavage before flipping over and slowly drifts to the ground. Kiba stood there with his mouth open and drooling , Shino merely adjusted his shades, Shikamaru and Neji sighed and got back to work, Ranma and Akane were surprised but were trying to study how she did that, Naruto's eyes went wide while Hinata looked between her crush and chubby girls style of dress and her own, Sakura and Ino were staring in shock that Tsume would and could do such a thing. The Weasleys stared in awe at the girl who flew and the males sported blushes. Mr. Weasley recieved a sack to the back of his head courtesy of his wife before she smacked her sons as well. Ginny herself sported a small blush but she was looking down at her feet in an attempt to hide it.
"Hey, Tsume! Maybe you oughta keep that keep things like that to a minimum, show those kids any more and they'll be scared for years." Denko grins as her puts a hand on Tsume's shoulder and bending to speak in her ear.
"But it's fun to mess with them." Tsume laughs in perfect english to make sure even the Weasley's understood her humor.
"Maybe so but try to keep the teasing like that few and far between. These westerners aren't used to things like that, hence the seperate, single baths and such." Denko tries to explain to the much shorter girl.
"I'm not stupid but I needed to do it, all this studying has been frying my brain."
"Same here but still." Denko mutters using his other hand to pinch the bridge of his nose in frustration.
"Yea, yea, I know. But are you doing this so you can get your own peek?" Tsume grins.
"You're kidding right? If I wanna see boobs all I gotta do is wait til sunset and for the rest of the day you don't exactly leave much to the imagination with the way you dress." Denko attempts to explain the situation.
"Exactly!" she chirps.
It wasn't long before everyone got over the shock of Tsume's 'display' but Mrs. Weasley just made them study even harder in response. The days passed and they continued to learn Magical History, Transfiguration, Potions, Charms, Defence the Dark Arts, Herbology, and Magical Creatures as well as devoting a good portion of the day to studying English in which some of them struggled.
Then the owl came from the Ministry to Mr. Weasley.
"What does the letter say dad?" Ron asks while they were eating breakfast. His father had dropped his fork with a sausage still skewered on it like his jaw which hung open when he read the letter. Mrs. Weasley looked over her husbands shoulder and her own jaw dropped in shock.
"I- I won." Arthor says quietly but the whole table could hear hi as they all went quiet as soon as Ron questioned his father.
"Won what dad?" Fred asks.
"The drawing at the Ministry... seven hundred galleons..." was the dazed response.
"SEVEN HUNDRED GALLEONS!" the rest of the Weasley's echo. Even the Japanese youth were in shock but couldn't help but agree that if there was a family that deserved a pile of gold it was the Weasley's. They had found out early on that their hosts were normally scraping the bottom of the barrel yet they were a happy family. They couldn't be happier for them and they began to wonder what they were going to do with the gold the patriarc of the family had won.
"So what are we gonna do with all the gold dad!" Ron asks with great excitement .
"Y-your mother and I had planned on going to Egypt to visit Bill and let him show us around the tombs and such. But with our guests I suppose we'll just have to save the trip for later." Arthor explains.
"There will be no need for that." a voice calls out from the house. Everyone turns to look as an elderly man with long silver hair and beard wearing long robes and a pointed hat walked out the back door with an expression of mild curiosity.
"Professor Dumbledore!" "Albus!" The Weasley's cry.
"Yes, yes. I came here to congratulate you all on your winnings and to help make those plans of yours happen." Albus Dumbledore explains with a smile as he takes a seat at the table and begins to munch on a sausage.
"Really? How? What about the children?" Molly asks the headmaster of Hogwarts.
"Simple, you and your family take the holiday you've desired for sometime now and I'll teach our guests in your place. I dear say it has been such a long time since I taught myself and I do need to discuss some things with them." he answers with a smile and a sip of juice.
"So you'll be taking them to Hogwarts early?" Mrs. Weasley questions.
"Actually I thought we could all stay here Molly, if you don't mind me staying here while you are away." Dumbledore explains.
"I don't mind at all Albus! We're always happy to help you in any way we can." Molly says as she rushes around the table to give the old man a hug before running into the house.
"Egypt?" Naruto asks, he was puzzled about the place since all he knew about it was it was where the eldest Weasley child was working.
"Yeah! Bill works there finding treasure and breaking curses for Gringott's." Ron says excitedly. "It's been a while since he's come home, maybe we'll get some great souveneirs while we're there!"
"D-don't you remember Naruto-kun? We learned about it just last week." Hinata asks from her seat next to him, since Shikamaru said that she and Naruto should work together she'd been using it as a convienient excuse to stay by his side as much as possible which Naruto was oblivious to her desire but needed her help anyway so he tried to stick to her side when he could.
"Hehehe, sorry. History isn't my best subject." he grins Hinata couldn't help but to return a small smile of her own, seeing Naruto grin like that was somewhat infectious. Though she was glad that through Mrs. Weasley's teaching and her own help the boy had learned to speak English fairly well, for a beginner anyway and now and then still slipped up and mixed his words or switched back to Japanese.
During this time the rest of the Weasley family had dissapeared into the house while Dumbledore stayed seated and was now enjoying a slice of bacon and watching them all peacefully. Everyone else at the table simply went back to eating their breakfast and talking with eachother.
"Dumbledore sir, if the Weasley's leave for a vacation in Egypt will we need to continue learning magic on our own or do you have someting else in mind?" Neji asks the elderly man.
"Ah yes. Thank you for brining that subject up. I plan on teaching you and your friends here myself, it has been such a long time since I've taught a class rather than running the school I fear I may be out of practice." he explains.
"You will be teaching us?" Lee questions with his eye's wide... wider than normal anyway.
"Yes and I have a few things to discuss with you, after the Weasley's leave of course. We don't need them to know why I truely invited all of you here." Dumblebore answers casting a meaningful gaze across the table letting all who were there know he meant business but noone pressed him for details but they finished eating and began cleaning up the dishes and watching the members of their host family running by trying to gather their things for the trip whil Mr. Weasley who apparently had finished packing already began discussing things with Dumbledore.
It wasn't long before the Weasley's were ready, the dishes from breakfast were washed and while Dumbledore had sent for the Knight Bus to pick them up a simple lunch was put together so they could all enjoy what could be their last meal together for the summer. Naturally the main subjects were what the family were going to do during their vacation and what Dumbledore would be teaching them as he lived at The Burrow for the final few weeks of the summer.
"We'll be back before school starts, oh and we'll stay at the Leaky Couldren so we don't have to go all the way back to London. Albus will you make sure they get to King's Cross in time?" Mrs. Weasley says quickly, apparently all in one breath.
"Yes, yes Molly. All will be taken care of so you can take your holiday and enjoy yourself." Dumbledore reassures the much shorter woman with a hand on her shoulder which as soon as relief graced her features steered her onto the triple decker purple bus.
"We'll see you in London then!" Ron yells with his head out of the second story window, apparently he'd been listening to his mother.
"See you later girls!" Ginny calls out from next to her brother waving to Akane, Hinata, Sakura, Ino, Tenten, and Tsume who all waved back.
"We'll see you in London!" Akane responds.
Fred and George decided to say their goodbye's by way of firing several fireworks that screamed around the house and bus lighting up the early afternoon sky with amazing colors and patterns prompting gasps of amazement from everyone...everyone but Ernie the nearly blind driver of the Knight Bus though the shrunken heads hanging from the mirror enjoyed the show.
"I'll be seeing you at school." Dumbledore says pleasently.
As one "Goodb-!" the Japanese youth began but were interupted when the bus took off with a loud BANG! and the Weasley's were gone and a few of the remaining inhabitants of the Burrow and fallen over in surprise and shock.
The next day Dumbledore awoke to find the ninja and martial artists going through their usual morning exercizes and merely sat down on a comfy chair he conjured and watched with interest. He saw them throw steel stars and knives with precision into targets, run across the field nearly as fast as he'd seen Quidditch players move, and lifting rocks and logs he could easily tell were at least as heavy as they were. He watched as the boy in white shorts and blue shirt blew fire from his lips in several different ways, the brown haired girl conjured dozens of different weapons from a scroll and threw them into the bullseye's of more than twenty straw dummies, and the blond in orange multiplied many times over. He was amazed with the skill they showed as they moved through what to most would look like dances but to his trained eyes he recognized the power behind their movements and could almost see imaginary opponents taking the blows and noted that for most of them there was hardly a wasted movement. Comparing what he was seeing now to what he's seen in the past he could easily tell that they could run circles around most if not all western fighters, even without using their unique brand of magic.
Meanwhile he had a few of the house elves from Hogwarts in the kitchen preparing breakfast and to help him teach the transfer students. From his seat near the kitchen window he could tell they were doing an excellent job as always and he made sure to tell them as such and thank them for their work, he pushed the house elves to accept the conditions since for some odd reason they desired to serve witches and wizards like slaves and absolutely abhored proper clothes. So the house elves he had working at Hogwarts all wore a uniform of a towel with the Hogwarts crest and gave them plenty of work but was always polite and treated them like anyone else in the castle. For many of the elves it was a big change though a few of the other elves, almost considered outcasts to the more traditional elves, accepted his reform but he could happily say that along with the largest population of house elves being at Hogwarts but they were argueably the happiest as well.
It wasn't long before the elves had the table under the tent filled with food and dishes and within seconds the seats were filled and they were all eating well. As the dishes were emptied the elves would wisk it away as quickly and quietly as possible. As they began to finish their meal Dumbledore cleared his throut and everyone stopped what they were doing to direct their attention to the Headmaster.
"Now I'm sure by now that you know you are all here for more than attending Hogwarts." He began and seeing the nods he continued. "I invited you all to Hogwarts as transfer students as a cover for your true goal for the year. As you may have heard from the Weasley's radio and Mr. Weasley talking about work that Serius Black has escaped from Azkaban this summer and as this is the first time anyone has ever escaped from the prison it is a very serious situation, Further complicating the situation is the reason we believe he's escaped, Harry Potter, who I believe you have heard a great deal about during your time here." Once again there was nodding heads around the table. "Good, while you are at school I'd like you to keep an eye on Harry. The teachers and I cannot always be around to do so and if there is any trouble I trust that the unique skills you've all trained in back home will give you an advantage over most adversaries you may encounter."
"And with the addition of learning Western magic will give us familiarity with what any opponents weapons and skills may be, correct?" Shikamaru interupts.
"Exactly Shikamaru. Now since you are friends with the Weasley children I expect it is highly likely that they will introduce you to Harry and Hermoine Granger and become friends. Thus giving you better vantage points to keep an eye on the three of them, as they've been known to be involved in some trouble since they started their education at Hogwarts three years ago and do most of their activities together."
"So you expect that with us as students we'll also be able to watch more of the school and blend in to the student body to protect this one person?" Neji asks.
"Yes Neji, with three of you in the third year, nine in second year, and four as seventh years and teachers there will be adaquate coverage for you all." Dumbledore answers before being interupted again.
"Matte! Who's the sensei?" Naruto shouts and leaping to his feet.
"We are." Akane answers pointing to herself and husband then to Denko and Tsume.
"But we thought you were just gonna be older students with us!" Naruto shouts but had switched back to Japanese. As a result Albus didn't understand what said despite being able to take a rather accruate guess if asked. Shino, who happened to sitting next to the Hogwarts Headmaster provided a quick translation.
"They will be both students and teachers, with four of them they will reduce the strain of teaching on eachother while they attend normal classes for Seventh Years, though they will have a smaller schedule than others due to both teaching and the fact that they haven't gone through the entire school system to qualify for some of our other classes. Nonetheless if they pass the classes in their schedules they will officially graduate and can continue teaching so long as they wish. The rest of you may go through the rest of the schools classes as you are attending early enough to do so." Dumbledore explains for all of them.
"While we're on the subject, instead of Sorting all of you into the four houses you will all be as your own house with these four in charge. Of course you will have your own common room and dorms with the teachers having seperate rooms from the rest of you. And I'll need to borrow the four of you so we can discuss how you need your classroom and what you need. the rest of you may gather your things and we'll start class." Dumbledore says and the ninja left to gather their books.
"So what do you need for your class? You will be teaching your martial arts though your class will be titled Eastern Magic." Dumbledore asks as soon as the ninja had left the table.
"Ano...we will need plenty of space no matter what, some training dummies would help." Ranma began.
"We're going to need some practice mats too so they don't hurt themselves too much when they fall." Akane adds, to which Dumbledore nods in understanding.
"We're also gonna need a few weapons and armor." Denko says after a few seconds. "It wouldn't really matter what kind they are, East or West, though we could make our own training weapons for the kids if we feel their ready to handle them."
"And maybe if we could have some big doors open to the outside. Oh, and locker rooms for boys and girls so they can change into their gi." Tsume adds her own two yen to the pile.
"Their... gi?" Dumbledore asks as he was unfimiliar with the term.
"Ah, yea. The gi, gimme a sec." Denko says before dissappearing in a blur from the table only to reappear a few seconds later holding a white gi and held it up for the elderly man to see.
"Hmm... They are not much different from our own robes." Albus mutters taking a close look at the gi while one hand waves over his own robes to indicate. The four soon to be teachers couldn't help but grin at the slight joke. "Now then, since everyone is here again and we have that business taken care of it's time to begin class."
