Yay, third chapter down! I had this one part way done already so it got done a lot faster than I thought. As always, reviews are welcomed, needed, and appreciated along with story ideas.
Thanks to Samar Star for the review! You officially rock!
regular stuff
thoughts
And now on with the show!
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Kiri sat up in her bed, stretching her arms over her head, and yawned before drooping and flopping back down onto her bed. It was way to earl for any normal human being to be awake. Why had Tsunade made her get up this early?
Oh, yeah. Right. Meeting my team today. But why did it have to be at such a god forsaken hour in the morning? I swear she's out to get me for encouraging Konohamaru. Hehe, that was funny. He put a can of laughing gas in her sake drawer. Apparently it was really concentrated because she was still laughing by the time I got home last night.
Kiri grinned at the thought of yesterday's events. After destroying that tree, she had lobbed a ball of metal at her ANBU proctor. It had molded around him and completely incased him from the neck down. He hadn't been very amused at first when she made him walk around the clearing in the metal suit, manipulating the metal cocoon around him to control his actions, but he had eventually lightened up after she made him do a few cartwheels and do the funky chicken and the teapot dance. He was even laughing by the end of it. The tetsu-mayu no jutsu (iron cocoon) was a very useful one in both battle and in just having fun.
After that she and the proctor had a short conversation (though it was mostly one sided) and she had finally wheedled a name out of him. He had given her permission to call him by one of his mission names, Gurei. After that they had returned to the Academy to find Kiri's dwarf friends waiting for her, all sporting leaf headbands. They had all passed and were eager for her to tell them about herself. She gave them a short summary/abridged version. After that they had wanted her to stay and help them with their plan to get revenge on the crotchy old proctor from the first exam, but Iruka had arrived then, (still sporting his pretty tattoos) and hurriedly dispersed the group in hopes of preventing said revenge. Kiri had just smiled and waved as Kaitoru and the others all started home. She knew the dispersal was not going to save the old coot. One way or another, revenge was imminent.
She and Iruka and Gurei then took a trip to the Hokage tower and had a chat with Tsunade. Kiri had been given her headband, though what she was supposed to do with it she didn't know, since she already had one. After that Tsunade had simply told her to meet her new team at the dango shop the next morning at 6:00 in the morning. After that, Kiri had left while Iruka and Gurei had given their reports.
Kiri had, in the meantime, found each and every one of the new genin and spent a few hours with them, getting to know them and having fun. After that she had returned to Tsunade's house, at which point it was almost midnight, and collapsed into bed in her favorite set of pajama pants. They were black flannel, with little orange tiger cubs all over them. :)
She finally got up, frowning at the weak sunlight coming in her window. Morning sucked. She had never liked or had been a morning person. Morning people were way too happy, way too early in the morning. A reasonable hour to wake up and be happy was between ten and three in the afternoon. No earlier. She slowly climbed out of bed and got changed, slumping with her eyes half lidded. She walked down the hall and nearly fell down the stairs to the kitchen, stumbling towards the refrigerator where Tsunade always left her breakfast left-overs. She opened the door to the fridge and stuck her head in.
WOW THAT'S COLD! OKAY, I AM DEFINITELY AWAKE NOW! HAVE TO FIND FOOD BEFORE HEAD FREEZES OFF!
She quickly grabbed a square container of left over onigiri from the night before and walked over to the table, eating it as she went. She quickly polished off the leftovers and downed a cup of tea before going back up to her room to take a shower.
Twenty minutes later she walked out the front door in her usual outfit, plus a couple thick chains draped over her shoulder and around her torso. They were normally part of her wardrobe, but she had been slacking lately. They were her extra stores of metal and doubled as training weights since each of the three weighed well over four hundred pounds. She groaned as she readjusted to the weight, she hadn't worn them since she arrived in Konoha since she hadn't been anticipating any fights. The chains provided the metal for her staff, zanbatous, battle axes, and katana since her bracelets didn't contain enough metal to accommodate her double wielding form of each weapon. Today, though, she would most likely have to take the test that jounin gave their new teams and she wanted to be prepared.
She walked swiftly down the street, unnoticed since no one else was insane enough to be up that early. She enjoyed the quiet and the last of the fog slowly circling around her feet. The dango shop was only a few blocks away, so she took her time getting there, enjoying the quiet for once. Usually she enjoyed making a ruckus, but occasionally it was nice to relax, though too much relaxing got boring. Hanging around Tsunade's house for a month was definitely one of the instances when it got boring.
She finally got to the small dango shop and ducked behind the counter to inspect the kitchen. The owner was a friend of Tsunade's and often let Kiri make dango for his customers when she got so bored she had to do something. He wouldn't mind if she made some now for her new team, plus Kiri wanted to make at least a somewhat good impression since she would have to work with these people. She had gotten their profiles from Tsunade before she went to bed last night and had reviewed them as thoroughly as she could before falling asleep. Apparently, Tsunade had assigned her Sasuke's old spot on team seven with Haruno Sakura, Uzumaki Naruto, and Hatake Kakashi. She had been surprised when she discovered one of her former classmates would be her jounin sensei and even more surprised to find that one of her teammates was the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki. She had mulled it over, but decided against openly confronting the boy about his resident until she at least got a first impression of him.
She finished the fourth serving of dango and headed back to the front of the stall with the food. She was just in time to see a bleary-eyed, pink haired kunoichi walking towards the stall.
That must be Sakura, Tsunade's apprentice. Seems like I'm not the only one who isn't a morning person. Kiri thought as Sakura dragged herself the rest of the way to the counter and flopped onto the stool, completely oblivious to the presence of the person standing right in front of her, folding her arms on the counter and promptly falling asleep on them.
Wow. Someone either had a really late night, or she's seriously not a morning person. I don't think even I'm that bad, she's starting to drool on the counter.
Akiri studied her face intently, trying to guess at least some part of her personality, besides the fact that she isn't a morning person. She gave up, and taking a nice black sharpie marker out of her pocket, drew a giant curly mustache on her new teammate's upper lip and a goatee on her chin. Kiri smirked quietly, quite pleased with her handiwork, and went back to eating the rest of her dango. A blond, messy haired Naruto arrived twenty minutes later, half an hour late, in the same sleepy condition as the pink haired kunoichi and sat down next to his sleeping teammate, promptly smacking his head down on the table in front of him, starting to snore.
Kiri sighed, none of her teammates seem to be morning people, a shame for them, she was infamous with her sharpie skills. She pulled out her sharpie and started to apply some "eyeliner" to Naruto's eyelids, followed by vampire fangs and big, intricate, black butterflies on his cheeks and forehead. She had finished her dango ten minutes after Sakura had arrived (she was still sleeping… and drooling) and had been trying and failing to amuse herself with thinking of what Kakashi would do when he saw her. Unfortunately, since she hadn't seen him in, what, 15 years, she had no idea what had happened to him. He had never been the fainting type when she knew him, but then again, neither had Iruka or Tsunade. She was lost in thought, drawing a ladybug on each of Naruto's eyelids when the stoic, grey haired copy ninja arrived.
He smoothly walked up to the booth, reading some weird orange book that Kiri didn't know and sat down without looking up. Kiri cleared her throught, trying to get his attention.
Wow, he didn't change that much at all. Maybe he's a lot taller, but he still has that silly, gravity-defying hair and that mask.
Kakashi paid no attention to the noise and remained still as a rock, immersed in his book, as a pale blush started over his cheeks. Kiri got bored of the ignoring and read the title of the book he was so interested in. Icha Icha Paradise. She could feel her face turning red and steam starting to come out of her ears as she reached her boiling point and burst.
"HATAKI KAKASHI!!! I COME BACK FROM THE DEAD AFTER FIFTEEN YEARS AND I FIND YOU SITTING IN FRONT OF ME READING PORN!!!!! THAT IS IT, NO MORE IDLE THREATS, I'M GOING TO CASTRATE YOU ONCE AND FOR ALL!!!!"
She grabbed the book from the stunned man's hand, raised it above her head, and brought it crashing down on his head with as much strength as she could (which was quite a lot) before ripping it in half, storming back into the kitchen, and throwing it in the teapot full of water. When she stalked back out to observe the result, Kakashi's stool was flattened to the ground, Kakashi himself was lying next to it, flat on his back, almost out cold and certainly dizzy, staring up at her. Naruto and Sakura were looking dumbfounded and very much awake while staring at her as if she had just told them that Jiraya was gay.
She shrugged and said "Hello, I'm your new teammate, nice to meet you."
They kept staring at her for a few seconds, and then Naruto exploded with laughter and fell off his stool, rolling on the ground and clutching his sides. Sakura just kept staring back and forth between the her laughing teammate and flattened sensei. Akira chuckled.
"Alright, I guess I should see if the infamous Copy Ninja is still alive. We can't have the village's reputation sullied if the other villages hear that Sharingan no Kakashi was killed by a 15 year old genin by a book to the head." She walked out of the stall and over to the still stunned form of Kakashi. She looked down at him and nudged him with her foot, causing Naruto to laugh even harder till it sounded like he was barely able to breathe.
"Come on spikey, get up or I'll castrate you in front of your students. We wouldn't want that would we?" Kiri said as she pulled out a kunai. Kakashi instantly jumped to his feet as fast as he could and took the seat that Naruto had vacated. Naruto was still trying to recover from his amusement. Then he actually looked at her, and fell back off it onto his butt. "Ki, Ki, Ki , Ki ……Kiri?" he stammered, both shock and complete incomprehension making themselves known on his mask covered face.
"Yes, yes, it's me" she said. "I might explain when it's my turn for introductions. "Now," she said speaking to all of them (Naruto had finally gotten his breath back and was sitting on Kakashi's, well, now it was more like a seat cushion, since there were only three stools) "I know your names and what I've read from you're files, but they don't tell me anything about your personalities so why don't we do the classic game of genin introductions. Name, likes, dislikes, goals, and favorite food. Who wants to start?"
It looked like everyone was finally coming back to reality and then, once again, came another whoop of laughter. Naruto exclaimed between gasping breaths and suppressed laughter, "Sa , Sa, Sakura…..Why, hahaha, do you…..have a mustache and snicker, snicker, snicker, goatee?" He managed to get out before once again giving in to his loud, uncontrollable laughing.
"WHAT?" Sakura exclaimed, then stared at Naruto. "Why are you wearing eyeliner? And have butterflies all over your face?" Naruto immediately stopped laughing and put his hands to his face.
"NANI??!!"
Now it was Akiri's turn to fall to the ground laughing and clutching her sides. It took a few minutes of all three of them staring at her until she could get herself under control.
"Naruto, that's not all, you also have some beautiful lady bugs on your eyelids." she choked out. "You should see your faces! The infamous Prank Master has returned and already claimed it's, well I guess it would be third and fourth victims! " She declared and collapsed again into a fit of uncontrollable laughter.
After a few seconds, Kakashi studied the faces of his students and, after very careful consideration of the designs, started to chuckle along. His laugh grew until it was nearly as loud as hers and he too fell off his stool in favor of the ground. (wow, they seem to like being down there today) Naruto joined them after another look at Sakura's face and soon they were all rolling around on the ground, laughing like morons, while Sakura just stood there staring at them with a weird expression on her face (which only made them laugh harder). Good thing it was only six o'clock in the morning and no one was around or it would have been really embarrassing. They finally got themselves back under control and took their places on the stools, and in Akiri's instance, behind the counter and tried to look serious. Kakashi recovered, more than slightly embarrassed.
"OK, now that that's over, we'll do introductions, and Kiri, is that the sharpie that I think it is?"
"Yup"
"Uh-oh"
"What's uh-oh, Kakashi-sensei?" Sakura said worriedly.
" Back when I was in the Academy," Kakashi said, "Kiri was one of the best pranksters in the school. She even got officially named the Prank Master. She always had some way of catching people when they were asleep. Students, teachers, on-duty ANBU members, even the Hokage wasn't spared. She could draw on even the lightest sleeper and not wake him up, and that's not the worst of it. Somehow, the designs always managed to stay completely visible for over a month. She even got me with it and I had to suffer through having eyeliner, kitty cats, and smooch marks all over my face for six weeks, including during the genin exams! No matter what I did it wouldn't come off!"
"Okay," Naruto said, "First question, You were in the Academy at the same time?!?!?! Second question, AM I REALLY GOING TO HAVE BUTTERFLIES, LADYBUGS, AND EYELINER ON MY FACE FOR A MONTH!!!!!"
" Yes to the first and no to the second." Akiri said with a completely straight face, "I did go to the Academy with Kakashi, and the Sharpie won't stay on your face for a month. I perfected the ink while I was training last year. It'll last however long I want it to, and it can re-appear any time I want it to." She finished the last sentence with an evil grin.
"NOOOOO!!!!" Both Sakura and Naruto wailed pitifully.
"Don't worry, I'll make it disappear now and deactivate the jutsu so it won't appear like that again. But…." she said with an evil smile, "if you ever drool on my dango shop again, I'd stay awake twenty four seven if I were you."
Naruto, Sakura, and Kakashi all looked properly warned and she continued.
"Sooooo, who's going first? I call last."
Naruto volunteered. " My name is Uzumaki Naruto, I like ramen, training, and uhh ramen. I don't like Orochimaru, people who believe in destiny, and broken microwaves that make it so I can't make instant ramen. My dream is to become Hokage and drag a certain teammate of my back to the village, and my favorite food is…. ramen."
Akiri listened intently and stared at him while he was speaking, then suddenly asked, when he was done, "Are you the Jinchuuriki of he Kyuubi no Kitsune?"
He replied, a little confused, "Yeah, why?"
"You are not at all what I would have expected." she replied cryptically, and then continued. "OK. Sakura, do you want to go next?'
"Sure," the pink haired kunoichi replied, "My name is Haruno Sakura, I like training, shopping, and being a medic nin. I don't like perverts or ramen, and my dream is to bring one of my misguided teammates home, even if I have to drag him by his hair. Oh, and I guess my favorite food is sushi." She finished.
"Great," Kiri said, " I totally agree with you on the perverts. They need a good smacking around every once and a while to keep them in line. Although, I've given up on Jiraya, that man is completely incurable. Oohh, look who's turn it is. And Kakashi, if you just give those crap answers you gave when we became genin, I'm going to fill in the blanks with what I think the answers are. You've been warned."
Kakashi gulped. "Um. My name is Hatake Kakashi, I like reading. I don't like magically, soap-proof sharpies, my dream right now is to ask what the heck you were doing for fifteen years while you were dead, and I like a lot of foods."
Kakashi unfortunately realized his mistake too late and the vague answer slipped out of his mouth. Kiri flashed him her evil grin and the revealing began.
"Kakashi's name is Kakashi. He likes porn, dangerous missions, and has a bondage fetish. He does not like Tora the cat, cotton sheets, wool sweaters, and absolutely hates 'why did the chicken cross the road' jokes. I am not going to even go into dreams because it would completely deflower your poor virgin ears and likely mentally scar you for life, and his favorite food is (magical random drumroll)…… miso ramen."
When Kiri go to the last part, everyone, including Kakashi stared at her in shock. She turned to Kakashi who was still gaping at her.
"Ha, how did you know any of that?'
" Oh, half of them were rumors, the porn, sweaters, sheets and jokes were quite obvious, and the dream, well, lets just say I've been mentally scarred since the day we became genin and Anko decided it was a good idea to try and get you drunk. To say the least, it worked and you probably don't even remember since you could barely even spit out that you needed a 'pretty lady bird to carry me home to my nice soft sheets to do …'. Enough said. Now it's my turn."
Kakashi was still staring at her in near disbelief.
Oh, well. He'll get over it. Plus, it'll be fun to see what Naruto and Sakura do with this…interesting information.
"My name is Gintora Akiri. I like weapons, tigers, training, eating and making dango, pranks, and my sharpie. I don't like perverts, Orochimaru, giant rampaging things that kill me, and the judge for the written genin exams this year. He sucks. My dream is… yet to be determined beyond becoming the best ninja ever, and my favorite food in the whole wide world is RAMEN!!!!"
Naruto and Sakura looked surprised at her ramen outburst, but Naruto smiled and flashed her a thumbs up and Sakura gave her a 'wonderful, it's a second Naruto' kind of look. Kakashi however, looked like he was going to go into "interrogation mode" and just stared at her like he was going to kill her if she didn't explain further.
"You know what Kakashi? Staring at me like that is not going to make me cough up any more information. I believe I still have to take the genin 'survival training' test, right?"
Kakashi nodded.
" OK, if you can manage to keep the bells away from me for two whole hours, then I will tell you anything you would like to know and I will allow you to read perverted books in my presence for a week. If I manage to steal both bells before two hours is up…" she chuckled evilly. "You will admit that I am more amazing than you, you will buy me and the rest of the team breakfast wherever we want, and you will not read a single perverted book in front of me for the rest of your life, or else. Deal?"
Kakashi nodded quickly, got up, and started walking towards the training grounds.
Wow, he must be really curious. I don't think he's ever actually agreed to one of my deals and I can't believe he actually risked losing his porn privelidges. He's usually smarter than that. Oh well, his loss.
She, Naruto, and Sakura hurried to catch up with Kakashi as he walked to training ground 7, where Kiri's two new teammates had recently had their own success on the test. Kiri brought the dango with her for a group snack. She knew that the test wouldn't last too long.
Once they all caught up to the jounin, Kiri spoke up
"Hey Kakashi, you might not want to use those bells. If you do, I can guarantee that I'll have them within two seconds. I suggest you find something else for me to retrieve. Specifically something not made of metal. Just a suggestion." Kakashi looked at her weird, but pulled out a second copy of Icha Icha Paradise.
"OK, if you think so. This will do for a target, don't you think?"
"Perfect." Akiri replied smiling coolly, "As long as you don't mind it being destroyed completely beyond repair when I get a hold of it." Kakashi quickly rethought his choice and instead pulled out one of those cheap plastic spider rings that you get at Halloween. However, this spider looked a little different for some reason and had a Hello Kitty face painted on its rear end.
"Kakashi," Kiri said, holding back laughter, "Why do you have a Hello Kitty plastic spider ring?"
"It was a gift that came along with a sharpie make-over that I somehow acquired during the academy. It wouldn't come off my ring finger for a week." Kakashi replied.
Kiri grinned as she remembered, though she didn't ask why the heck he had actually kept a Hello Kitty Spider Ring for nearly 21 years. She wasn't sure she wanted to know if he liked it. He had had enough embarrassment…… for that day. They arrived at training ground 7 and she and Kakashi moved to the middle of the clearing. Sakura and Naruto decided to observe from perches atop the training posts and Akiri and Kakashi faced off. (Yay, real first battle scene. Hope it doesn't suck too much, I'm not too good at this)
Kakashi and Akiri faced each other from opposite ends of the field and watched their opponent, trying to judge when the other would attack. They stared at each other for about two minutes and Naruto and Sakura started eating the dango Kiri made with obvious delight.
Kiri finally got tired of the staring competition and ran into the surrounding woods. Kakashi's eye opened wide when he couldn't follow her movement. Kiri set up a number of wire traps in the surrounding forest and then quickly hid in a tree near the clearing to observe her target. Kakashi stood in the middle of the clearing, reading his book. Annoyed tic marks appeared on her forehead.
Geeze, the guy doesn't see me for fifteen years and all he wants to do is read porn. He needs to get a life. It's about time he found out why I wasn't just called the Prank Master. Konoha's Steel Terror is back with a few tricks up her metaphorical sleeve.
She quietly took a kunai out of her pouch and threw it, aiming at his book, before quickly moving to another tree. Kakashi caught the kunai an inch from his treasured book.
"You'll have to do way better than that Kiri. Stop holding back, or are you not the Steel Terror of Konoha?"
Kiri bit back a chuckle.
So he does remember, I'm flattered. Now lets see if he remembers anything else.
She tripped all of the traps that she had set up by disconnecting the main cable from its anchor. A hail of kunai, shuriken, and various shovel tips that seemed to be plastered with exploding notes whistled out of the forest surrounding Kakashi. The jounin quickly jumped straight up to avoid the rain of metal, only to find more coming at him from above. He quickly used a substitution jutsu and teleported into the forest. The weapons dove into the log that used to have grey hair and a mask, then flew out the other side, cleaving clean through the wood. The shovels planed themselves point down in a circle around the log and then exploded. Kakashi, watching from the bushes, sweat dropped.
If I had been that log, I would have been dead at least twice over. I guess she finally stopped playing.
Akiri smirked from her hiding place in the tree right above the copy ninja. He hadn't even noticed her yet.
Well, time to change that.
She dropped down from the tree, kunai in hand, directly onto Kakashi's back and pinned him to the ground. "Kakashi, that was way too easy," she said in a bored tone as she twisted his arms behind his back, "where's the original?"
The clone did not reply and simply poofed out of existence without a word.
Damn it! Now I have to find the real one….. Or, I could just wait for him to find me!
She thought, grinning evilly. She stood up, put away her kunai, and strode into the middle of the clearing where she promptly laid down and went to sleep. Kakashi once again sweat dropped from the bushes on the opposite side of the clearing at the antics of his new "student".
What is she doing? Either she's not taking this at all seriously, or she's planning something. I if I know her at all, it's the latter.
Kakashi slowly walked out into the clearing, kunai out, careful not to make any sort of noise as he circled closer and closer to the girl.
Wow, she's actually sleeping from the look of her chakra signature. What in the world is she doing?
He finally stepped next to the sleeping form of the kunoichi and gently nudged her in the side with his foot.
"Akiri, if you're not going to take this seriously, you're going to end up answering a lot of questions, and not just ones about where you've been."
Suddenly, the girl smirked and her chakra signature practically exploded as she woke up in a split second. She grabbed his foot, twisted over, and slammed him face down into the ground. He made a very nice dent in the dirt that was about three inches deep. She quickly stood up, still holding his ankle and flung him across the clearing, into the forest and through several trees. Kakashi stood up slowly and walked back to the clearing with a slight limp. He was covered in tree parts and had multiple leaves and sticks tangled in his hair. Kiri smirked at his rumpled appearance and dropped into her usual taijutsu stance, beckoning at him with her finger. Kakashi warily dropped into his own stance and they returned briefly to their staring competition.
Boring! Back where we started. Maybe I should stop going easy on him and actually use some of my weapons. He's either improved enough to defend himself, or I'm going to pulverize him. Glad I remembered to wear my chains today. Need to get back into the habit of wearing them every day again.
Kiri grinned and stuck her tongue out at her new sensei, then grabbed a chain in each hand and unwound them from her torso, letting them clank onto the ground.
Kakashi didn't remember anyone ever mentioning that Kiri used chains in combat and he couldn't ever seeing them before. Shock of his life when she grinned even wider.
Kiri chuckled as Kakashi's eye went as wide as electric purple chakra leaked out of her body, forming her tail as the thin black rings around her eyes started to form and her eyes started to glow. Her canines lengthened and her fingers sported hooked claws. She thought his eyeball was going to pop out of the socket if it got any bigger when she snapped the thick chains like whips, and they turned into two, giant, heavy looking, double bladed battle axes.
""Kakashi, a fly is going to fly in there and have its children on your tongue if you don't stop gaping. You didn't really think the Steel Terror came to a fight without her steel? I thought you read Flower-chan's report on my new status. I'm a Jinchuuriki now. Don't underestimate me." Kiri reprimanded in a mock scolding voice.
Kakashi looked lost when she called her ANBU proctor 'Flower-chan' but he quickly made the connection and remembered back to the file he'd been given on his new teammate.
Wow. How did I actually forget the fact that she can manipulate metal? That's not exactly a minor detail.
Kakashi dropped lower in his stance and pulled out two kunai.
"Silly Kakashi. Are you really going to be able to block two four hundred pound battle axes with those little things? Never even mind the fact that they're metal and I could absorb them into my axes in a second." Kiri taunted as she charged at her friend head on, her axes held close to her body, ready to strike or block.
Kakashi paled as two three foot long axes whistled his way. Kiri lashed out with one, aiming for his head, and he ducked just in time to see the second sweeping up from under him. He jumped back and narrowly escaped getting castrated like she had threatened earlier. He had no time to ponder it as she spun and lashed out with her foot aimed at his chest. He rushed to block the kick with his arm. Unfortunately, this was not the best idea. Her kick had way more force behind it than he had expected and her foot slammed into him and sent him flying across the clearing.
Damn, she's as strong as Sakura!
He barely had time to think as he jumped up from where he had landed in a tree before she was on him again, this time with her arms and axes crossed and flying towards him. He brought his kunai up and managed to block her strike, leaning and straining to keep the weapons from separating his torso from his legs. Kiri grinned.
"Nice job Copy Ninja. Do you play as nicely with katanas?"
Kiri jumped back and her axes quickly melted into two silver katana.
Kakashi sighed and lifted his headband to reveal his Sharingan. He was definitely going to need it. This was turning into more of a battle than an easy genin test.
Kiri smiled at the appearance of the red, swirling eye.
Finally getting serious. Now lets see if he can keep up with me.
Kiri swung the weapons into a guard position and waited for Kakashi to make the first move. Kakashi dropped his kunai and started making hand signs as fast as he could. All Kiri could see was a blur, but she knew either something big was going to try to crush her, or something else was going to come out and grab her. It turned out to be the first as a giant water dragon rose out of the stream in the nearby forest and plunged towards her. Kiri crouched and molded her katana into a dome-like shield around her, bracing herself for the on-coming torrent. The dragon hit her shield heavily, spraying water in several directions. Kiri pushed back on her shield and skidded back a few inches before coming to a halt.
Kakashi attacked her from the rear as the last of the water dragon dissipated and Kiri molded the metal to form a complete globe around her. Kakashi warily stepped back. Then the sphere began to rise into the air, taking Kiri with it. Kakashi stared as it ascended and then suddenly appeared to melt from the top down to reveal Kiri standing on a silver disk about three feet wide, arms crossed and smirking. Then she bent down to the disk, plunged her hand into it, and pulled out another silver katana. She braced herself, then directed the disk, sending it and her on top of it, speeding towards the now panting jounin.
Kakashi narrowed his eyes at the approaching silver meteor and pulled out another kunai.
Akiri arrived back on earth with a bang, hopped off her still hovering disk and attacked Kakashi is a flurry of movement.
Damn, she's fast too. Even with my Sharingan its hard to keep up. I can see what's going to happen, but I'm barely fast enough to react. This is not going to be easy. If she starts mixing in taijutsu, I'm going to have to resort to long range, if she'll let me. I can barely keep up and if I block too many kicks or punches with mine, I'm bound to end up with broken bones. She's practically dancing circles around me with that sword.
Kiri spun in the middle of a parry and whipped her foot up and into the jounin's chin, sending him several feet into the air. She leapt to join him and flicked her sword in a series of arcs, sending ends of silver hairs and edges of clothing to float down to the ground before swiftly and accurately slicing through the band of the spider ring on her sensei's left hand, neatly separating it from his hand without leaving so much as a scratch. She quickly reached down and plucked it from the air before landing easily on her disk. Kakashi was not so lucky as to have a flying metal disk though and Kiri caught him by the ankle with her other chain, leaving her poor friend to hang upside down.
"Well Kakashi, you asked me to get serious. And look at the time, it's only been forty-five minutes. You owe us breakfast." Kiri chided as she gently lowered the silver haired man to the ground.
Kakashi had to admit that she had definitely given him a run for his money.
Kiri hopped off the hovering disk and grabbed the edge of it, then compressed it and the katana back into the two chains and rewrapped them around her shoulder and torso. Kakashi slowly stood up, feeling rather battered, and watched curiously as the purple chakra, claws, and fangs receded, leaving her looking as if she had just gone for a walk in the park.
Kiri laughed softly and offered him her shoulder to lean on as they looked around for the rest of the team, who had apparently moved from the training posts to avoid the battle. He grinned and accepted it, draping his arm across her shoulder as she braced herself slightly to bear some of his weight. He was still favoring his leg a little from the first time she had thrown him into a tree. It didn't seem serious, and it wasn't broken, but he would probably have to ask Sakura of Tsunade to look at it for him.
Kiri gave him a bow, somehow managing to avoid tipping both him and herself over in the process.
"I thank you very much for the spar, Kakashi." She rose up from her bow and gave him a smile to rival Naruto's. "That was the best challenge I've had in 15 years! Plus it was almost as fun as hanging that old fuddy-duddy genin exam judge from the Hokage's nose!"
Kakashi looked at her in surprise.
"That was you? I thought it was Naruto."
Akiri grinned evilly. "He deserved it. Who in their right mind treats the Prank Master of Konoha like a disobedient six year old while making her retake the genin exam with a bunch of dwarfs? Said dwarfs may be cool, but that's not the point. It's basically asking to get hung upside-down from the Hokake's nose dressed in a geisha dress and make up with a sign welded to your forehead that says 'I am an arrogant fart face and my mother was a hamster'. It's just common sense."
Kakashi smiled, he had seen the unfortunate elder as he was walking to the team meeting and had meant to talk to his blond haired teammate about it. Lucky he hadn't, since he didn't do it.
They both turned back to see what Sakura and Naruto were doing and searched around for a few minutes before Akiri found them and pulled Kakashi over to look at the funny sight.
Naruto and Sakura were sitting on the branch of one of the bigger trees, hugging each other with seemingly permanent looks of shock and amazement on their faces. Akiri fell over laughing and Kakashi hastily untangled himself before he fell over too and went over to shake them and try to get them back on track to reality. He was unsuccessful until Akiri managed to stop laughing long enough to say "Naruto, Sakura, unless the two of you plan on making out while you're hugging, I would suggest you wake up really quick. If you decide to stay put, I will gladly video tape you and play it from every television in the village."
Naruto and Sakura quickly separated, both blushing and screaming that that was not at all necessary and they were completely awake now. Kakashi and Kiri smirked at their loud protests and pink faces.
Kakashi sighed and gestured towards Sakura.
"Sakura, would you please heal my leg, I don't feel like using one of you for a crutch for the rest of the day."
Sakura quickly stopped stuttering and walked over to her sensei who was now sitting under the tree, serious the minute someone mentioned work. She sat down and quickly examined his knee with her chakra, her hand glowing green.
"There's nothing serious, just a pulled tendon and some bruising." She extended the green glow to wrap around said knee and was finished in a matter of seconds. Kiri and Naruto looked on interestedly before turning to each other and exclaiming at the same time.
"Your're a Jinchuuriki too!!?!!"
Sakura and Kakashi sweatdropped, thinking along the same lines of
Did they just figure that out now?
Kiri and Naruto stared at each other for a couple more seconds before both starting to speak at the same time. They both attempted again and Kiri finally just gestured for Naruto to go first, which he did with great enthusiasm.
"You're a Jinchuuriki? Which demon? Why do you have it? Why haven't I ever heard of you? How come you're wearing Konoha headband and I've never seen you before? Are you really my new teammate? How come you went to the Academy with Kakashi-sensei and you're still a kid? Kakashi's old. How come you could control metal? Why were you using your demon's chakra? Could I do that too? How do you do that? Can you teach me? I…"
Kiri cut him off, placing her hand gently over his mouth.
"Seriously, you're as bad a Konohamaru. One at a time please. Which one do you want answered first?"
Naruto looked down at her hand, which was still shutting him up, and then looked back at her. Kiri was puzzled at why he wasn't answering. Then a light bulb appeared and she removed her hand, using the other to scratch the back of her head while chuckling embarrassedly.
"Hehe, sorry about that."
Kakashi and Sakura continued staring from their seats on the ground. Kiri was giving them both a serious case of déjà vu of Naruto.
Naruto thought for a minute before coming up with his question.
"Which demon and what about the metal?"
Kiri sat down facing Sakura and her new team leader before answering. Naruto soon joined them as she explained her situation and answered a few more questions from them, especially when she told them about meeting their wayward teammate. That prompted a flurry of questions from all of them, including Kakashi.
"okay, okay. Please stop the endless stream of questions before I drown!" Kiri laughed. "I'm not going to get anywhere with you guys interrupting! Sit back and listen to the story, leave questions for after. Deal?"
Naruto and Sakura nodded their heads emphatically while Kakashi just stared at her.
"I guess I'll take that as a yes." And Kiri began recounting her time with the younger Uchiha.
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And that's a wrap, for now at least. Sorry about the cliffy. Hopefully I'll be able to get the fourth chapter up soon, but i don't know. My parents are probably going to make me study for the regents coming up. EEEEEEEWWWW!
Next time: A deal with snakey junior, Akiri's first genin mission (in a while anyway), and Kurobi decides to make an appearance (finally).