Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Harry Potter

Posted: Tuesday, 15 December 2009

The Daisy Division

Chapter 5

•◊ΰ◊•

"Heh, he's only a snot-nosed little brat, there ain't no way he'll even last a month!"

"Wasn't that what you said about San? Heh, that kid was in the next level in two!"

"Shut up! How was I supposed to know about the freaky jutsu thing?"

"Um… maybe because he had arms growing out of his stomach?!"

"…Shut up."

"Ha! I've heard that guy's in the RAU now."

"Wow, really? Huh, never imagined…"

"Yes yes, we all know how you've never imagined, Hachi."

"Quiet, you."

"No. Oh, watch out, there's the new kid."

"Oh, come on. It's not as if he can understand shit. He's only been here two weeks. It took me like, a month to start to understand what the hell everyone was saying, and I had Hyaku as my sensei. That bitch is insane. She spilt my blood every time I spoke Japanese at the start. There ain't no better motivation than that, trust me."

"Sounds tough. But he does look a bit smarter than usual. Who knows? You do know that he countered Juuichi's genjutsu the other day, right?"

"WHAT!? There ain't no way that scrawny little kid could do that. No way no how."

"Yeah, that's what I thought, too. But I saw it myself. It slid off him like water – never even got a foothold."

"… I gotta admit, that's impressive. Ish. In a couple a' months he might be able to get to the next level."

"Hey guys! Um, is there a reason you're just talking in front of the new kid?"

"Psh. Why do I have to keep reminding you people that there ain't no way the gaki can understand sign language? Hell, we only started it a month ago."

"Hachi, you keep forgetting that you ain't the best here."

"Meh. Anyway, guys, I've just found out who took the new kid for taijutsu."

"Hey! Don't pull the conversation away from his insult! That's just not fair!"

"Hachi, do us all a favour and shut up. Even if we can't hear your annoying voice, the words are grating. So Go, who's unfortunate enough to get the gaki?"

"Heh. I think you mean who the gaki was unfortunate enough to get."

"…You don't say."

"Rrr. Come on, Go. Just spit… sign it out already!"

"Fine. The gaki's got Ishikawa."

…

"…ow."

"What should we put on his grave?"

"Psh. What grave? No one would bother even trying to find the remains, 'cos they'd be so small."

"When did you get so… witty Hachi?"

"Hmm. I dunno. There's just something about finding someone's remains… ya know, I dunno. I think Hyaku (damn that bitch to hell) is rubbing off on me."

"…I didn't… that was… never mind."

"Well, you have been here for almost four months. Don't cha think it's time to move on up? Like, you're at the top of the Rankings, and I know ya love blood and stuff, so why don't ya?"

"Hmph. The grand bitch won't back me for promotion till' I finish this month. Some shit about wanting to make sure I don't die."

"Um… are we talking about the same raving blood maniac?"

"Oh, I don't know. I suppose there was the extra creepy part where she included 'because you're blood looks so good' but if ya get around that, it's just about the same meanin'. And I don't like thinking about it much, ter tell ya the truth."

"Phew, just as long as we've got that cleared up."

"Um, Hachi, Roku? Ain't it time for your genjutsu lesson with Aoki?"

"FUCK!"

"…Well, bye. Don't mind me… I'm fine here… all alone..."

Kai watched Go, resident 'funny guy' trail dejectedly out of the training grounds after Roku and Hachi – two that he had learnt to watch out for. He had managed to monitor their conversation without arising suspicion – it was sometimes useful being the new kid as everyone expected him to not know what they were saying. He'd managed to find out quite a few things about the Root facility through conversation between the others that they would have guarded carefully in other circumstances.

Kai looked back to the targets and focused; if he didn't manage to get a bullseye in his next lesson with Aoki she said she was going to 'poke enough into him that he could pass for a pincushion' – not like he hadn't already been skewered, but he thought that no one should want to try to figure out how her mind worked.

He just counted it fortunate that there was a full medic-nin station that you could go to after practise – sure, it hurt, but they healed you up without a scratch.

He didn't know if he'd have preferred to have physical evidence of his agony or not, but he wasn't given a choice. …Well, he could not go and bleed to death, but that wasn't really a viable option.

He threw the kunai and it landed with a thunk in the target, a few centimetres away from the centre.

Well, at least he was managing to hit it.

Considering that he hadn't even held a kunai until two weeks ago, it was probably some kind of miracle.

But then, if every ninja was trained like this, he would think it safe to assume that it wouldn't be healthy to miss.

In the fourteen days he had been in the 'Daisy Division' he had been stabbed, trod on, knocked unconscious, broken a (record) total of seven bones, fallen from a great height, been pushed off a great height, practised the basics of kunai throwing until his fingers bled, been under twenty-four and a half separate genjutsu, poisoned, scorned, taunted, beaten up… just about every thing under the sun.

And most of that was just from his fellow students.

What the others had said about his sensei being insane (more than the norm for this place) was excruciatingly correct.

The reason he got Ishikawa as his sensei was because he apparently favoured the 'water' element and she was the taijutsu instructor that went with it – all the students were taught specific styles that complemented their preferred elements and it just so happened that he had drawn the short straw in that Ishikawa had been disabled and had decided to teach him the basic katas for the style. The style didn't really have a name, but it focused on flowing around and with combat and moving faster than your enemy – a style that fit Kai perfectly, as he was so small.

… The bad thing about learning this was the way in which it was done – Ishikawa-sensei had taken him to a swiftly flowing out-of-the-way stream and pushed him in. He had gotten his feet quickly, spluttering and she had grinned ruthlessly at him, "Now here's how it's done…"

Apparently, you had to do the moves slowly and against the flow of the water – that added resistance and built muscles, not to mention that you had to focus on the flow of the water. She would demonstrate some move and Kai would stand in the cold water and attempt to copy it.

Needless to say, it was painful and he had gotten extremely sick after a few hours stuck in the water and doing repetitive work – everything was aching and he had been in danger of dropping to sleep when his sensei had pulled him out by the scruff of his shirt and dropped him off at the med-station.

There was now a bed with his name on it there, actually.

Well, he was (fortunately) developing his taijutsu through hours of intense practise, both with and without supervision.

And then, on top of the taijutsu and basic weapons lessons, was the language aspect.

All of his sensei used sign language to communicate; everyone he came into contact with used it… there was no one speaking the language he had used since he could remember.

And the worst thing was that no one expected him to understand most of it.

Well, it was a blessing and a curse.

The good thing was that he could 'listen' in on conversations.

The bad thing was that it got annoying watching people insult you to your face. Also that everyone addressing him used extremely short words – they would say things like "You… here… come." And that would be it.

It was quite insulting.

There was also the problem that while he could understand it, he had difficulties forming the correct hand signs to respond back – after all, even though he could remember it all, his limited muscle memory made him stumble over the gestures.

He had to admit that there was still a lot he didn't know, but he could deal with most of the everyday conversations; a few gestures and signs still confused him, and he always forgot the sign for the letter 'T', but apart from that, he was good.

He grimaced and walked over to the miniscule target, pulling out the kunai.

Something – he didn't know what – sent off warning bells in his head and he instinctively stepped to the side.

He managed not to flinch as a kunai slammed dead-centre into the target that had been in front of him. He had no anger for whoever had thrown the weapon – it had happened countless times in his stay here.

At least he had managed to dodge this one.

He really wondered when the insanity of constant attacks had become the 'norm' to him.

Kai reached out and easily pulled the weapon from the target, then turned around to see one of the other students. He pulled up a memory of a name – this was Kyuu. Kyuu was the youngest in the 'Daisy Division' at the moment; he was also the most freaky and abnormal of them. This was a kid that had been honed to be a weapon since before he knew what a 'weapon' was.

Kyuu started 'talking', "I know you know what we're saying."

Kai couldn't actually care enough to be surprised. After all, he wasn't consciously trying to give that impression – but right now it seemed like a good idea for the future. After all, maybe he could just stay in the 'Daisy Division' for as long as it took him to be good enough to escape?

"Well, it's not like I care." Kai signed back, only stumbling a little.

"I know. You're weird, but at least you can dodge now. It was starting to get pathetic, how you would be hit by the most obvious attack."

It was obvious that the kid wasn't actually insulting him – after all, Kai didn't actually think that Kyuu had the capacity to be condescending. It was just a comment, and even if he was aiming to be insulting, Kai found he didn't really care. "Well, I guess I just got tired of being hit."

Kyuu stood for a moment, and Kai examined him more closely. The boy had straight black hair and eyes; quite common-looking for someone who exuded absolutely no emotion. Kai had heard that he had some kind of freaky ninja ability (most of those in the RAD did) that allowed him to practically be anyone, anywhere – if he touched them, he'd be able to copy them exactly – right down to mannerisms and expressions. He was being trained for the RID – 'Root Intelligence Division', more specifically the infiltration branch.

Kyuu was in the first Level only because he had to be taught basic defence – it was likely that whoever ran Root would pull him out of the RAD and throw him into the field as soon as he hit a certain age.

"You're doing it wrong."

Kai stared at him weirdly. "…Aren't you guys supposed to be 'hazing' me right now? You know, it's horrible, it's gonna hurt, blah de blah blah?"

Kyuu just stepped forward, the kunai curiously appearing in his hand before Kai realised that it had been taken. "Shichi, you can dodge. That mean's you've got a place."

It was the first time anyone had referred to him by his 'name' – Shichi – and Kai recognised the gesture for what it was. He was getting a chance to get into the loop and out of the dangerous role of 'Target'.

He silently watched as Kyuu positioned himself before quickly releasing the kunai, allowing it to shoot towards the target. It hit dead centre once again.

Kai didn't like the fact that he would have to fit in with the other kids – they all had, by some form or another, consented to be here, or at least accepted what was happening to them. But he hadn't enjoyed his daily and sometimes hourly visits to the medic-nin so he swallowed his real thoughts and copied the boy next to him.

It was all to get good enough to get out.

He settled into the stance and eyed the target, twisting his wrist as he threw the weapon towards it.

It hit dead centre.

•◊ΰ◊•

"Faster."

He moved against the current, straining to keep his limbs in the correct position while moving faster against the cold water.

"Faster."

It had become like a chant in the back of his mind; he moved almost seamlessly between the taijutsu sequences that had been pounded into his body, at most times quite literally.

"Faster"

Half the time he has unsure if it was himself or his taijustu instructor goading him to go just that little bit faster; to push his body just that little bit more.

"Faster."

To raise the bar, to raise his endurance, to step towards getting out, away. A step towards living in some village and running a normal business, far away from the shinobi arts.

"Stop."

The words cut through his haze of mental and physical exhaustion and the red-haired woman looked down her nose at him in distaste before grabbing the back of his shirt and heaving him out of the ice-cold stream.

"Stupid gaki." She said, her voice carefully crafted to sound like she was talking to a very small child.

Kai regained control of his shaking limbs and managed to stand fairly steadily in front of his teacher.

A split second and she was in front of him, a punch aimed at his jaw.

He instinctively moved around the punch, just enough that it ruffled his messy hair as it passed.

He caught the arm and pulled it towards himself in an attempt to throw off his teacher's balance.

He only noticed the leg poised to kick his knee when it was too late.

He landed heavily on the ground with a pounding pain in his left knee.

But still, he got up again; after all, there was nothing else to do.

It was a one-sided massacre of a spar; his sensei having all of the advantages that mattered; skill, height, experience, knowledge… there was never any chance of any other conclusion.

As Shichi kept getting up to meet the barbaric sensei in their parody of a 'spar' he kept his thoughts away from the burning in his already exhausted muscles; the stabbing pains where kunai were lodged that he hadn't gotten a chance to remove, the places that his sensei had landed powerful kicks and punches.

The first thing you learned in the 'Daisy Division' was that you would not learn without pain. The pain would only recede once you started to learn and get a handle on it – and then the pain would become more vicious, as the sensei deemed you less 'breakable'. They were called 'Daisies' for a reason – they were the lowest of the low; the most inexperienced, the youngest, the most vulnerable. Shichi had heard some of the Level Two 'Snapdragons' laughing at him as he got the shit beaten out of him by several of his classmates sometime around his third week at RAD. He didn't understand what they were saying – they were using a different language – but he could get the general idea through their body language.

That was another thing he had been forced to learn at Level One – if you couldn't understand a thing people were saying, you had to be able to interpret them another way. The things that you learnt to read were body language, facial expressions, tone of voice… and most often than not those you would be reading were reading you as well.

The sensei had switched languages a month into his entrance to the RAD. They were now learning English and it was much harder than the sign language largely because, on top of everything, they had added writing and reading classes to the student's schedules. Shichi and the others were struggling through it, although he did notice that the younger students had it easier – himself included.

The mind-numbing difficulty of learning the language sometimes got to the students, and a few had resulted to sign language, assuming that since the sensei wouldn't hear them, they would be fine.

What they hadn't counted on was the sensei anticipating this and assigning one of the 'Snapdragons' to monitor them. Apparently, those in Level Two were taught entirely different things, although Shichi only knew about stealth and deception.

What they would experience on the Levels was a closely guarded secret, and the students rarely interacted.

Well, the students that were caught using sign language had all of their fingers broken, one after the other. In front of all of the students, including the newest one, named 'Ni'. Ni had winced and looked on in shock, and Shichi had watched in grim silence.

After all, that punishment was a favourite of Ishikawa's, although it would only be one finger.

The students had then been sent to the medic-station but had been denied a full and quick healing – they had instead been forced to wear splints, which was an extreme hindrance on both their training and ability to operate – no one in Root would deign to feed the students (or at least risk doing so and becoming the next Target) so they had struggled for a week, at which point the medic-nin consented to heal them properly.

It had certainly stopped all attempts at using sign language in their tracks, and Ni was severely disillusioned as to what went on in the RAD.

Shichi was bemused at the naming system though – the numbers seemed to follow no order in regards to who got which, but he suspected that it might have something to do with ninja that died in the field or graduated from the academy.

The language classes were held every day for three hours, and the sensei would talk through the whole lesson in that language, either distracting those that were trying to read or just plain inhibiting those that were trying to look up words or other things.

Shichi had taken a tape that he played at nights, and he would usually just sit there and listen to the sensei while practising the letters – he thought that he was starting to get the hang of it.

There was something in his mind telling him that he had already heard the language – he had taken to it almost too easily, although he gave no hint of this to the instructors.

Well, not as if he would complain.

A kick to the shoulder and subsequent crashing into a tree effectively knocked Shichi out of his reverie.

He struggled up and slipped into a parody of his previously faultless stance; his limbs were wracked with involuntary tremors, his breathing came in harsh pants, blood sluggishly dripped from kunai stab wounds on his arm and shoulder and he was favouring his left leg.

Ishikawa-sensei snorted, "Psh, gaki; beating you up right now as you are wouldn't be even a little bit of a challenge. Get your scrawny ass to the medics– I heard ya haven't been to see them today."

Shichi didn't bother nodding because the crazy woman was already gone. He allowed himself a grimace as he started the painful hobble towards the medic-nin – it had become a ritual that he honestly dreaded.

But at least he had faired better this time.

He didn't know if he had gotten used to the pain and thus no longer felt it as sharply anymore or if he was actually improving, but if he had to guess, he'd say it was a little bit of both.

Kai made it to the medic-station and sat down to let the specialists take care of his injuries – he would bet that they were probably the most proficient in their area. After all, they had to be; what with all the practise they got.

Kai had at first found it extremely hard coping with the… relentless training schedule and pain that was heaped on him during said training. At that moment, he could completely understand why many of his peers had become emotionless drones – after all, you can only experience so much pain until you decide to try and forgo it completely, right? When he had realised this, he had developed something to help him cope.

It was probably not the healthiest of approaches, but Kai began to think of himself as two different people. 'Kai' was who he was; his emotions, his goals – he held onto this part of himself desperately, not letting himself forget. When he was required to be an in-training shinobi, he would be 'Shichi'. As Shichi, he could take on anything – he was a shinobi, he was what they were training him to be. As Shichi, he would lock away 'Kai' to keep himself in tact and view almost everything from a clinical perspective.

He was both and neither at all times; the 'personas' melded together and emerged or descended as needed. This way, he could be a shinobi and himself. It made it easier to do the things required of him if he did not think of it as himself doing them – it was Shichi of the RAD. It was a weird and convoluted twist of logic, but one that saved him from cracking under the stress like he had seen his classmates do.

Kai got out of the medic-station an hour later – they may have been good but they weren't miracle workers.

He made his way to the mess hall for dinner – he reckoned that he had already missed about half of it anyway.

As he strode into the hall, looking every bit the calm and collected shinobi, he was surprised that it was totally silent. Meal times were the best time to collect 'information' (or to gossip like all ninja were wont to do) so it was usually filled with sound – even if most of it was the student's attempts at English which were met with varying success.

He paused for a second, seeing that another newbie had arrived, before trailing over to collect his meal.

He glanced at the poor kid out of the corner of his eye.

Well, whoever this was, she had the company of Ni – after all, that kid hadn't gotten accepted into the fold just yet – he still got hit by kunai.

Kai's lips twisted into a sarcastic grin as he easily sat down next to Kyuu, who didn't even look up. It was really funny to him that they wouldn't count you as a Daisy until you could dodge a kunai coming at you from a blind spot – he seriously had no idea (nor did he want to know) why that particular hurdle was chosen. Shouldn't it have been first broken bone? First punishment from a sensei? Eh, how was he supposed to understand shinobi, anyway?

It would be silent for this meal, as it was part of the tried and true intimidation effects doled out to new students.

A part of the 'new student' gig was that any 'accepted' Daisy couldn't help them or associate with them until they could dodge the kunai. If you did, you were made 'Target' once again – that was actually what had gotten him attacked in his third week; the week that Ichi had arrived.

Kai ate in silence, not bothering to shoot glares at the newcomers, which were awkwardly communicating – after all, Ni wasn't allowed to speak Japanese and the new one didn't know that so she was whispering (quite loudly) at him.

Poor Ni.

Ah well, it wasn't his problem. Kai internally shrugged and just ignored the other student's antics – he didn't really see the point.

He finished up his meal quickly and sat back. A few moments later two very tall people kicked in the door and the new kid almost fell out of her seat. Kai rolled his eyes – those two were the language instructors and had a strange love of dramatics.

He enjoyed the contrast between the usual 'sadistic bastard sensei', but he knew some of the others were disdainful of them – they thought they were clowns.

"COME! WE MUST ALL GO TO THE LIBRARY TO LEARN ENGLISH!" the red-haired man yelled, pointing his finger towards the ceiling.

The woman butted in, "YES! THE LIBRARY!"

This, of course, was roared in English, which half of the students didn't understand properly. The other half, which included Kai, were snickering at those that had looked at the body language and the sheer volume of their voices and came to the flawed conclusion that their eccentric sensei had decided to punish them or something stupid like that.

The woman raised an eyebrow, "Hurry up, hop to it, get out of here, bye-bye for now, smell ya later… well, you get the idea. Go!"

Kai rose to his feet and lazily made his way out of the hall, just following some of the other students that were eagre to show their understanding of the sensei's instructions. He idly thought that it was lucky Go had passed to the next Level a few weeks ago, otherwise that would have been very confusing for him.

He settled in for another difficult session with the customary piles of worksheets and books and sighed. He guessed he should probably be happy that doing this meant he couldn't practise anything else, but it really felt like the languages would never be any real help – apart from being able to say something that not everyone could understand, he guessed. Which was, of course, good for the shinobi profession.

He just wished it wasn't so damn hard.

•◊ΰ◊•

Dodge.

Duck.

Move.

Kick.

Push.

Dodge!

Throw!

Drop, roll.

Up.

Jump, punch.

Grab, pull.

Trip.

Slash.

ROLL!

Catch!

Behind, get Behind!

Jab, hit the point.

Uh oh…

!CRACK!

"Itai…" Shichi rubbed the back of his head as he muttered to himself. Something invaded his field of vision and he went cross-eyed to see a hand in front of his face.

Or more specifically what that hand was holding.

Shichi went white, horrified. That was an application to go to the next level. That had been exactly what he had managed to avoid for his whole time in the RAD – he hadn't thought that he'd drawn attention to himself – after all, now that he'd gotten used to the routine, it was simple to just blend in.

He had actually broken a record for the longest stint in Level One – he had been there for a drum total of five and a half months, blowing the previous five-and-one-week out of the water. Students didn't generally hang around Level One – it was almost totally focused on physical conditioning and the basic arts, with the exception of the languages – and there was the slight problem that those that hang around were killed by some kind of stray weapon or by their sensei because they couldn't meet the grade.

It was a harsh cycle.

But Shichi had aimed to stay at Level One for as long as possible, and had spent the free-time that had emerged after he got accustomed to the harsh routine in the library, the main focus of his studies being finding out how to detect chakra. Knowing when someone was trying to kill you was half the battle.

It had taken a full month to take what the scroll said and twist it to allow for his strange chakra, but he had managed it.

And was he relieved that he did! Only a week after that was the first Watcher. He called them Watchers because they had followed him around, but the skill in detecting them had allowed him to avoid 'unfortunate' accidents; 'stray' kunai that just happened to have been thrown far faster that any of the other Daisies were capable and always in blind spots. Another problem was the odd totally unpredictable movements from his sensei – like when she had hidden underneath him only to emerge sword-first.

Because in their minds, hesitation was as good as disloyalty, and the thing that the instructors repeated time and time again was the song and dance about being loyal to 'Danzo-sama', answering solely to Danzo-sama, and above all being better than the 'regular' Konoha shinobi.

…Yes, they preferred shinobi that chose to advance as quickly as possible, and generally tried to assassinate those that didn't – felt they were not worth the effort put into their training. Level One or the 'Daisy' Division of the RAD generally had a dozen trainees (the numbers changed regularly, from new entrants, deaths or promotions) and the standard time for recruits was four months – about the time they had learnt a bit of two languages, were able to perform at the required physical standard for more advanced training, and had the basics of throwing weapons and a taijutsu style down. Kai had been able to find out that there were two more levels in the RAD – the Second, called the 'Snapdragon' Division or more regularly the 'Snappers' were trained in stealth, deception, chakra manipulation, psychological warfare and tracking, and continued the languages from Level One. They were not taught anything further on taijutsu unless they were exceptionally good at it, and the only way to learn more was through the very frequent and cutthroat fights that regularly broke out between recruits. They were also assigned mock missions in the form of ghosting the Level One recruits to ensure adherence to the set rules, as well as looking for any possible dissent against Root and their ideals – in which case they were tasked with elimination.

Kai hadn't found out anything specific about Level Three and the training received there, but he knew that recruits were pulled out if they were useful in a specific task for specialised training to groom them for entrance into one of the other two divisions in Root – the RAU and the RID, 'RID' standing for Root Intelligence Division. He hadn't found out what 'RAU' stood for yet though. He had also heard nightmare tales about competitions incited by the sensei over learning specific jutsu – that the recruits had to battle every week and the victor would be taught a technique not available anywhere else, and if the others wanted to get the technique they resulted to blackmail, extortion, torture, mind tricks and anything else against the winner.

He hoped that it wasn't true.

Shichi was brought back to the crushing present by Ishikawa forcing the scroll into his hand, a venomous taint to her expression and radiating killing intent (which she did constantly) as she growled, "Report, Shichi. Level Two."

Apparently, there was not going to be a proper test for his 'graduation' onto the next stage, which could mean they either felt he was ready or they believed he'd be killed from getting in over his head.

They probably wouldn't find fault in either of the outcomes, the bastards.

Shichi bit the inside of his cheek to keep from visibly reacting though he knew his knuckles were white around the scroll. He did the only option available to him – he bowed silently and walked back to the low building that was the RAD.

•◊ΰ◊•

And that's chapter 5! Yes, it's early, but I figured 'meh, why not post it?'

Ok, in case I confused a lot of people, I'll include a short recap to pre-empt some questions:

Root is made up of Three Divisions: the RAD, RAU and RID.

RID is the 'Root Intelligence Division' which is all the information provided as of yet

Root Academy Division (RAD) is made up of Three Levels, which focus on teaching different standard shinobi skill sets, and all have a plant-related nickname that serves as a kind of 'code' to confuse outsiders. The first Two Levels are summarised as follows:

LEVEL ONE: Physical conditioning, taijutsu, throwing weapons (mostly kunai) and languages. A.K.A 'Daisy Division'

LEVEL TWO: Stealth, deception, tracking, chakra manipulation, psychological warfare, languages. A.K.A 'Snapdragon Division' or 'Snappers'.

The Third Level has not been explained as of yet.

Code Numbers are assigned to recruits, usually given at random. The ones mentioned in this chapter were Kai's Shichi (Seven), San (Three), Hachi (Eight), Juuichi (Eleven), Go (Five), Roku (Six), Kyuu (Nine), Ni (Two) and Ichi (One). (***Note: 'Kyuu' is not Naruto***)

Of the sensei mentioned, only one went by a number; Hyaku (One Hundred) who is in charge of Rock natured recruits. Ishikawa (detailed to Water natured) and Aoki (Assigned to Fire natured) were the others.

~Ok. I hope that cleaned up any problems or whatever with complicated descriptions.

BTW, did you know I've gotten 35 alerts and only 14 reviews? If I get double the amount of reviews, I'll post the next chapter early as well :)

-Skyflyte12