As for the song… eh, it came on when I hit that point so I went with it. The song is Mr. Saxobeat by Alexandra Stan. It's one of those mindless dance songs, but I kinda like it.
Truth: Sometimes opposites do attract.
"What kind of mission is this?" Kiyomi complained. "Weeding a garden? Seriously? We're shinobi, not landscapers!"
"Everybody starts out on the bottom," Sayuri said with a shrug. She reached up and wiped the sweat from her forehead. It wasn't a particularly arduous job, but the sun was blazing overhead and making it hotter. "We have to walk before we can run."
"You sound like a fortune cookie," Kiyomi grumbled. Miyako let out a small giggle and Sayuri smiled slightly.
"I suppose I did a bit."
Kiyomi sent a dirty look to the woman whose garden they were tending to. She sat in the shade of the porch, drinking cold lemonade and chatting with Ayano. "Why can't she weed her own garden?" Kiyomi grunted under her breath as she viciously tugged out a weed.
"I think she has back troubles," Miyako guessed. "Look at the way she's holding herself."
"Oh yes, I see it," Sayuri said absently. Miyako gave her a stern look.
"Sayuri…" she sighed. "I mean that her back is very straight even when she leans forwards or reaches for something. I think she's wearing a back brace. I bet it's hard for her to bend over for very long."
"I can't get this one!" Kiyomi cried as she sat back on her heels, glaring at the weed. Sayuri's questing hand reached over. She touched a leaf and followed it to where the plant met the ground, wrapped both of her hands around it, and tugged. For a moment it looked like the plant would win, but then it suddenly gave way and Sayuri went flying back in a spray of dirt. She lay on the grass, blinking in surprise.
"Are you alright dear?" called the woman they were working for worriedly.
"Fine, ma'am!" Sayuri called back, pulling herself up. Kiyomi was laughing out loud while Miyako chuckled quietly, hiding her smile behind a hand.
"Your face!" Kiyomi laughed. "When you started falling! Ah, that was funny," she said, shaking her head as she got back to work.
"You've got a little…" Miyako began picking clods of dirt out of Sayuri's hair as she brushed her clothes off.
"Well that was fun," Sayuri sighed as she got back to work.
The sun was starting to set when they finished. The garden hadn't been tended to in a while and it was more weeds than flowers. Ayano came out to survey their work and smiled.
"Well, looks pretty good. What do you think, Miss Sato?"
"Very nice," the woman praised. She handed the payment to Ayano, who quickly split it between the three girls. Split three ways, it wasn't much. "Would you like to stay for dinner?"
The three girl's stomachs rumbled and they were about to say yes when Ayano laughed, "No, we'll leave you to it. Have a nice day!" She started walking off, leaving her team no choice but to follow.
"So, how was your first mission?" Ayano asked grandly as they walked back into the town proper.
"Boring," Kiyomi complained. "And pointless. How does that help us become better shinobi?"
Something flickered in Ayano's eyes. Sayuri couldn't see, but Miyako caught it and realized what the point of this was. The duty of a shinobi was to protect and aid their village. It was the protecting stuff that always made for a grand story, the aiding… well, it wasn't necessarily exciting, but it still needed to be done. Ayano wanted to pick out the complainers. Kiyomi wasn't making a good first impression, that was for sure.
"I'll see you three tomorrow," Ayano said. "We'll do something a bit different. Meet me at the Academy at seven. Well, I'm off for a drink." She winked at them. "This is when all of the jonin teachers get together and talk about the new generation. Whoever has the best team gets free drinks." She sighed. "Either Kakashi or Asuma are gonna win this year, I know it."
Kiyomi scowled in annoyance at that, but Sayuri and Miyako both knew that objectively it was true. Naruto didn't have much in the way of raw talent, but he had staggering amounts of chakra and a lot of guts. Sasuke was… awesome, there was no other word for it. Sakura was more of a thinker than a fighter, but that wasn't a bad thing.
Shikamaru was a planner, no mistake, and a dangerous one. Choji may not look very threatening, but there was a reason his dad was a respected shinobi. Ino's Mind Transfer Jutsu was a serious threat and she had some of the best grades. Really, they were both formidable teams.
Even Kurenai, with an Inuzuka, a Hyuga - and the heiress no less - and an Aburame, was leading a pretty powerful team.
They were good, certainly, but they were not great like some of the people on those other teams were.
"I don't want to go home yet," Kiyomi whined. "This has been a pretty good day, I don't want it to end yet."
Miyako bit her lip. "We could all go out to dinner? We have a bit of money. We couldn't go anywhere really nice, but…"
"You're a genius!" Kiyomi praised, hugging her tightly. "I know an awesome place not far from here!" She grabbed Miyako's wrist and started tugging her off. Miyako seized Sayuri, making a chain of people.
The place Kiyomi took them looked like a hole in the wall at first, just a small place stuck between a grocery and a dry cleaner. There were tables scattered everywhere, far enough apart to be discrete. A bar ran along one wall where a trio of chunin were nursing drinks and looking tired. A few people were scattered around, reading or working to the music playing softly.
"Ow!" Sayuri yelped as she ran into the door frame when she tried to walk in. "Who put that there?" she groaned.
Miyako pulled her through the door, shaking her head. "Are you okay?"
"Fine," Sayuri grumbled.
"They have the best deserts here," Kiyomi said, sitting down at a table by one wall. Miyako and Sayuri followed her lead. They plucked out the menus from a little stand by the wall and started looking over it. Miyako quietly read out several options she thought Sayuri might like. A waitress came over and they placed their orders.
"I can't wait to get a shower," Kiyomi said, making a face at the dirt under her fingernails. "I feel all sweaty and gross."
"It's not so bad," Miyako assured her.
"You could be bloody as well," Sayuri put in. Kiyomi made a face.
"Suppose so. Still, what was that? Weeding a garden?"
"Someone has to do it," Sayuri said reasonably.
"Yeah, but not us," Kiyomi scoffed. "We're shinobi. We're trained to fight and protect, not pull up plants."
"I know it doesn't seem like much, but Ayano's right, she can't just throw us into the world. We need to learn more. These little missions need to be done and we might as well do them and earn some money."
"I know," Kiyomi sighed, slumping in her seat. "But… I don't know, I just hoped once we got out of the Academy things would be more exciting. We're fully-fledged shinobi now!"
"We won't be doing things like this all day every day," Sayuri pointed out. "There will be days when we just train."
"Training with Ayano," Kiyomi said happily. "I dreamed about that as a kid. I just never thought she would start teaching genin again! I wonder why she started again?"
"I bet it was Sayuri," Miyako theorized.
"Miyako," Sayuri said, shifting uncomfortably. "I really doubt she came out of retirement purely to teach me. She's been giving me tips for years."
"Think about it though," Miyako suggested. "Maybe she did it as a favor to Satoru?"
"Satoru doesn't ask for favors like that," Sayuri said, shaking her head. "And he certainly doesn't ask Ayano for favors like that. He'd be too nervous."
"They're so cute," Miyako sighed dreamily.
"Wait, wait, is Ayano with this Satoru?" Kiyomi asked blankly. "Like together?"
"No," Sayuri admitted. "But they both like each other. It's very clear. They just haven't done anything about it."
"And they've known each other since they were genin?" Kiyomi said, a giggle escaping. "That's so sweet! How long have they liked each other?"
Sayuri smiled slightly. Bonding over their teacher's love life. Who'd have thought?
"I don't know exactly," Sayuri said. "But I think Satoru's liked her longer."
"He gets this puppy dog expression on his face when he thinks she's not looking," Miyako smiled. "I wish someday some guy would look at me like that. It's adorable."
"Oh!" Kiyomi said, perking up suddenly as a new song came on. "I like this song!"
You make me this, bring me up, bring me down, plays it sweet. Make me move like a freak, Mr. Saxobeat. Makes me this, brings me up, brings me down, plays it sweet. Makes me move like a freak, Mr. Saxobeat.
Kiyomi started singing along, dancing in place in her chair. She hadn't been lying, she had a nice voice.
"I know this song too," Miyako admitted softly, blushing slightly.
"Then sing along!" Kiyomi encouraged. "What's the problem?"
Hey, sexy boy, set me free, don't be so shy, play with me. My dirty boy, can't you see that you belong next to me?
"It's a little… bold," she said shyly.
"So?" Kiyomi snorted. "Be bold right back!"
Miyako started singing softly as well and Kiyomi sang louder.
"Come on Sayuri!" Kiyomi invited.
Sayuri had never in her life sang along with a song, let alone in public. People were already looking at Kiyomi in surprise and Miyako was quietly singing along, her face beat red, sending terrified glances around the restaurant.
"You are shameless," Sayuri concluded. Kiyomi shrugged in response and got louder. Her confidence made Miyako's voice a bit stronger and Sayuri shook her head and joined in. She hadn't heard it before, but the lyrics were simple and repetitive. By the last line, they were all singing along.
Makes me move like a freak. You make me this, bring me up, bring me down, Saxobeat. You make me this, bring me up, bring me down, Saxobeat.
A few people around the restaurant jokingly clapped as their meals were brought out, and one of the chunin at the bar raised his glass to them and drunkenly cried, "Encore!"
The three girls dissolved into giggles before digging into their food, casually conversing about everything and anything they thought of from the latest gossip to making up stories about the other patrons.
Sayuri was surprised at how well this was working. She'd assumed her stand-offishness and Miyako's shyness would make getting to know people, particularly someone as big as Kiyomi, difficult. This was actually going well though. Kiyomi was there to draw both of them out and they were there to pull her back if she got too wild.
The truth was, sometimes opposites do attract.
"Alright, who's ready for another mission?" Ayano called as they all met up outside of the Academy. She held up some microphones and headsets on one finger and bobbed her eyebrows.
"Awesome!" Kiyomi cheered. "This has to be better than weeding gardens!"
"Uh huh!" Ayano said happily. "This time, we're tracking down a cat."
Kiyomi's smile slid off. "Are you serious?"
"Uh huh," Ayano grinned. "Tora's escaped again."
"Tora?" Miyako said blankly.
"Tora belongs to Madam Shijimi, the wife of the Fire Daimyo," Ayano exclaimed. "It's a rite of passage. Every genin team has had to track down that cat at one point or another."
"Does she just not watch her cat?" Kiyomi asked blankly.
"Ah, no," Ayano winced. "You'll see when we return her to her owner. Come on, I know where she likes to hide."
They ended up in a forest. Sayuri's sensing made the task much easier than anticipated, as she was able to find the cat quickly. They all moved into place around the feline.
"Ready?" Ayano whispered into her microphone.
"In position."
"Ready."
"You bet."
"Alright. On my count. Three… two… one… Go!"
Miyako burst out of the foliage, startling the cat from its perch on a tree limb. It leapt to the ground with a yowl and started for the brush. Sayuri swung her arm and cried, "Digital Shrapnel!"
The bones of her fingers shot out and drilled into the ground in front of the cat. It howled and abruptly reversed, right into Kiyomi's waiting arms. She scooped the cat up, beaming.
"I got i- Oh my god! Stop! Ow! Why is it doing that?" she screamed as Tora sank her claws into whatever bit of skin was closest. Sayuri jumped out of her perch in the tree and seized Tora by the scruff of her neck. The bow-wearing cat hung limply in her grip, resigned.
"Well, that was relatively painless!" Ayano said brightly, stepping out of the brush.
"Speak for yourself," Kiyomi growled, glaring at the cat scruffed in Sayuri's grip.
"Should you hold it like that?" Miyako asked hesitantly, looking at the cat.
"It's how their mothers carry them," Sayuri shrugged. "She should be fine. Besides, I'm not bringing her anywhere near my torso."
"Come on, let's return her," Ayano said. She ruffled the cat's ears. "Pick better hiding places, my friend," she advised.
They did indeed see why Tora kept running away. Her owner apparently repeatedly attempted to strangle to feline in the name of love, disguised as 'cuddles.' The three genin stared after Madam Shijimi as she left, clutching Tora to her.
"You know, now I almost feel sorry for that cat," Kiyomi admitted.
"That didn't take as long as expected," Ayano said, stretching casually. "How about we head over to the training field and do a little bit of work?"
"Yes!" Kiyomi cheered. "That would be awesome!"
Ayano took them to an empty training field and her team assembled in a line in front of her.
"Alright, hands up. Who here specializes in ninjutsu?" she asked. No hands went up. Ayano frowned.
"Genjutsu?"
Miyako raised her hand hesitantly. Ayano grinned.
"Alright, genjutsu! Never was any good at it myself," she admitted. "So, your best jutsu. Right now, lay it on me."
Miyako paled. "Are you serious? You want me to attack you?" she squeaked.
"Attack is a strong word," Ayano reasoned. "You're a genin, chances are the most you've learned is how to distort the real world around me. So, come on. Try it."
Miyako took a deep breath and brought her hands together, flicking through hand signs. Ayano blinked as the genjutsu set.
"Release," Ayano said casually, brushing the illusion aside. "Basic, but well done," she praised. "A pretty good execution, but in the future don't try to use it head on. Genjutsu works best when someone doesn't even know it's been used."
Miyako flushed in pleasure and nodded. "I'll remember that."
"And I hear you've got the Hasekura kekkei genkai," Ayano said with a grin. "What's it called again?"
Miyako paled in fear. "S-Saiketsu."
"Alright, let's see it," Ayano said, gesturing. "Some kind of healing thing, right?"
"Y-Yes, b-but-"
In no time Ayano had slashed a small cut on her palm and held it out.
"I know it's not much but at least we can see what you can do," she said with a grin. Miyako shivered as she looked at the cut.
"I-I c-can't-"
"Miyako's not good with the healing aspect of Saiketsu," Sayuri said softly.
It was a great shame for Miyako within her family. The Hasekura's were healers, first and foremost. The clan was small but powerful, and most of their members were med-nin or regular doctors. Their kekkei genkai, Saiketsu, manipulated blood. They used it to stop bleeding and encourage healing. Having a Hasekura on your team was pretty much a guarantee wounds weren't a big deal and blood loss wasn't an issue.
However, the blood didn't have to be outside of someone's body. All it took was a brush of skin to insert chakra into the bloodstream and the Saiketsu could allow you to manipulate the blood inside the body. You could stop a heart, cause a stroke, kill a limb, or even rip a person apart. You could also make them your puppet. It was at this that Miyako was – to her great shame and horror – a master.
"Then what can you do?" Ayano asked in confusion.
Miyako looked like she was about to cry. She touched Ayano's hand and inserted her chakra, coaxing it through the bloodstream. Like a puppet master, she raised her hands, fingers stiff. Ayano was lifted into the air with a startled yelp. Miyako flicked her fingers and Ayano's arms and legs moved about.
Miyako quickly broke the bond and lowered her hands, face burning in shame.
"That's awesome!" Kiyomi cheered. Ayano looked vaguely startled.
"That's very impressive Miyako," Ayano encouraged, but she knew precisely why Miyako looked ill. That was invasive, it took a way a person's free will, and something like that was enough to make even her a bit nauseous, let alone someone as sensitive as Miyako. "I think I'll leave that kind of training to your clan, though. They know better than me."
Miyako looked at her, grateful Ayano wasn't going to make her practice it in front of people or, worse, on people she knew.
"Alright, so you two ladies are taijutsu," Ayano reasoned, turning to Kiyomi and Sayuri and breaking the tenseness with a clap of her hands. "Kiyomi, you first. Come at, me show me what you can do."
Kiyomi wasted no time, charging in with her fists and feet. Ayano calmly blocked her strikes with her own limbs before throwing in a few attacks of her own. Kiyomi dodged and blocked them pretty well, until a knee caught her in the stomach and sent her flying. Kiyomi hurled a few kunai as she went flying, trying to keep Ayano back. Ayano just blurred, appearing behind Kiyomi and grabbing her, putting her in a headlock.
"Don't assume your opponent will come at you from the front," Ayano warned. "Keep a kunai ready at all times. Your technique is good, but you should work on your strength. There wasn't as much power as I'd like to see behind your punches."
"Alright," Kiyomi said with a wince. Ayano released her and Kiyomi fell back into her place in line.
"Alright Sayuri, you're up. I know how you roll."
A short bone sword slid from Sayuri's palm and she gripped it tightly, holding it at her side. She rushed at Ayano, who was now using the armored backs of her gloves to block the blows. Sayuri combined her blade with kicks and punches on withdraws, locking up one of Ayano's hands and then throwing a punch or kick.
Ayano took her down by tangling her stronger legs around Sayuri's, dropping her and pinning her with a foot on her sword hand.
Ayano raised an eyebrow. "You haven't been working out as much lately, have you?"
Sayuri flushed. "With graduation-"
"No excuses," Ayano said sternly. "I gave you those exercises to do, so do them. You've gotten weaker. Your movements are still as smooth and purposeful as usual though, so good job there."
"Yes ma'am," Sayuri sighed, rising as Ayano removed her foot.
"Okay ladies," Ayano said, running her hands together and sitting down on the ground. "Let's begin our day with some nice, relaxing stretches, shall we?"
Miyako quickly realized as Ayano put them through basic exercises that she was still testing them. She gave them stretches to see what kind of flexibility they each possessed. There were laps to see how fast they were and what their stamina was like. Pushups, sit ups, and crunches tested their strength.
Miyako was pleased with how well she did. As far as flexibility went, she could work on bending her limbs a bit more, but she could execute perfect backbends in seconds. She was pretty fast, but she couldn't go for as long. Stamina was really her weak point. She was fairly strong, thanks to her habit of doing pushups and sit ups in her room and then laying into a punching bag before bed every night.
Sayuri did the best. Miyako knew why. Sayuri trained hard and did about what Ayano put them through every day. Sayuri had somewhat lessened her nearly-obsessive cleaning over the years and now most of her early mornings were spent stretching. She went for a run when she came home from the Academy and before bed she had the same habit as Miyako of doing strength exercises, but she did more under the watchful eye of Satoru. She'd had to get good, fast, to keep up with his expectations.
Kiyomi seemed to struggle the most. Unlike Miyako, she was very flexible in her limbs, but she could not execute a proper backbend to save her life. She was definitely weaker than the other two physically. She held her own on the laps, indicating she spent more time on speed than strength, but she had the same problem Miyako did with stamina, burning out quickly and panting as she went.
"Alright ladies, now the real fun begins," Ayano said as she stared at the line of sweaty girls.
Ayano gave them punishing series of kata to work through and was ruthless in her critique. While she was fairly lackadaisical in her everyday life, she took fighting very seriously and made sure every move was perfect. She frequently jumped in front of them, showing them what they were doing wrong by illustrating how an opponent could get around it, giving them soft hits to sensitive areas or knocking them down.
Sayuri knew exactly why Ayano was like this too. She'd noticed it during her first year with Satoru. Ayano came over one day and just sat silently at the table, drinking tea with Satoru. She didn't say a word beyond 'hi' and 'thanks for the tea' and Satoru respected that silence. He just sat there and held her hand while she sipped her drink.
Once she was gone, Sayuri had asked Satoru why Ayano seemed so down. He'd very sadly explained to her that it was the anniversary of what she considered her greatest failure. He told her about the last genin team Ayano trained. They went out on a C-rank mission and were attacked by a group of Mist-nin. Her entire team was killed under her watch, and Ayano was the only survivor. She blamed herself for their deaths and was always down when the anniversary came down.
It was why she'd stopped teaching genin teams. Ayano didn't want the responsibility of genin lives on her hand. Some from every class invariably died and she didn't want that on her conscience.
"She goes to the KIA stone today every year and puts flowers there," Satoru explained.
Kiyomi might complain about getting lame missions, and even Sayuri and Miyako were starting to get annoyed, but at least Sayuri knew why. Ayano was trying to protect them. She wasn't letting them out of the village until she was confident that they weren't going to get in over themselves and get themselves killed. Maybe she was paranoid, but it was to their advantage, so Sayuri refused to let herself complain, no matter how tempting it became as the months dragged on with little quests.
They all were getting stronger, and at a staggering rate. Part of this was because Ayano didn't accept giving up and made them keep going until they got something, which included keeping Miyako at the training field for three solid days until she got a new, higher-level genjutsu down pat. If they so much as muttered anything along the lines of 'it's too hard' or 'I can't do it' Ayano was there with a quick smack to the back of the skull and a very loud 'lecture.'
"If I'd given up when everyone told me I was never going to be any good at ninjutsu, where would I be, huh? I'd just be good for kicking things, and where's the fun in that? Now I can use lightning, and I can use it in a way no one else can! Yeah, it was hard, and there were times I thought maybe I couldn't do it, but I kept my mouth shut and I kept pushing and now I'm one of our best-known kunoichi and I have people begging me to teach them my technique! So I don't want to hear you ever say that you can't do something, because that's just stupid and weak. If you give up, then of course you can't! When I was your age-"
It would continue in this vein for a while, Ayano impressing them all with her lung capacity and the strength of her vocal cords, before she finally wound down and set them to their task again, this time watching closely with a stern look on her face.
Ayano made up different training plans for each of them, working to their strengths. Like she'd said when they first came to the training grounds, Ayano was no good at genjutsu. In fact, she was also well known for how bad she was at it. Mostly she gave Miyako books to read on techniques and asked Kurenai how to train her. Miyako was a better distance fighter. She was quite accurate with her throws, so Ayano also gave her several long-range ninjutsu to learn, teaching her how to refine them. Miyako showed herself to be quite proficient with wind-based attacks, even using them to speed up and conceal her thrown weapons.
Kiyomi and Sayuri benefitted from both being taijutsu types, like Ayano. Sayuri's kekkei genkai gave her the advantage in their fights though. She was capable of growing a membrane of bone under her skin, so even swipes and stabs with a kunai just meant cuts, no deep wounds. Ayano made her work diligently on her kekkei genkai, developing it, as well as teaching her new taijutsu and kenjutsu moves. She had proven herself to be completely incapable with genjutsu. Ayano gave her a few ninjutsu techniques to study, but she was undoubtedly better suited for taijutsu.
Kiyomi showed equal skill for taijutsu and ninjutsu. Ayano worked with her especially on the ninjutsu, leaving her taijutsu training mostly down to spars with Sayuri. That way, their team would have an expert in each of the three disciplines. Kiyomi was very good with fire-based techniques just like Sayuri and showed a surprising knack for them, considering her grades in the area hadn't exactly been stellar back in the Academy. Because of this, Ayano spent most of her time with Kiyomi, urging her to try harder.