All too soon, the morning's training was over, and it was time to get a start on the day's work which they were being paid for. Today however, rather than it just being Naruto and Sasuke doing all the work, Sakura, who had recovered from the hike, would be working as well.
"So, you're team Medic then, huh?" Naruto said to Sakura when he'd returned from trying to learn an exercise that was supposed to help him with his Elemental Manipulation and saw her fiddling with a tricked out First-Aid kit, packing away all of the supplies that she'd taken out and messed with. Without even testing him, Kakashi had been convinced that his primary element was Wind, and had started him training accordingly. He complied because whether or not his primary affinity was actually Wind, the training in that element would only help him in the long run.
"But what if I don't want to..." Sakura trailed off as she carelessly crammed a black-bordered scroll that was bringing back bad memories into the bag.
"Look," he said, "Nobody's going to force you to become an Iryou-nin once you're off the team but, every team needs at least someone with a bit of medical training with them. You happen to be the best person to take that position for this team."
"But what about..." Sakura started, ready to point out that Naruto was better than her at just about everything when it came to being a ninja, so he would more than likely be better qualified than her in this as well.
"Sasuke-kun?" Naruto sneered, as he waved his hand at the tree that the other boy was struggling to climb despite the fact that he should be packing it in and heading over to the fence right now.
"You could..." she started, surprised, and yet not all that surprised that Naruto had misinterpreted her question. Sasuke-kun was still the best in her eyes, and she'd marry him someday, and Naruto, who had had a crush on her back when he was at the Academy, knew that.
"No, I can't." Naruto said somewhat bitterly. "I can bandage wounds, set bones, give stitches in a pinch if you don't mind the scar looking a little ugly, and about a dozen other things, but I cannot do Medical Ninjutsu."
"Why not?" she asked.
"Aside from the slight Chakra control issue that probably won't get sorted out in my lifetime?" Naruto said, as if said Chakra control issue was patently obvious to everyone. "There's an element to my Chakra that makes such things generally inadvisable. That of course leaves you, as you have better Chakra control than even Kakashi who's merely "Exceptional"."
Naruto turned and left at that, not waiting for Sakura to finish packing her bag. The girl didn't know it, but she had brought up issues that he'd rather not deal with with her questioning, and not just Kyuubi issues, though, as he'd recently learned, it was the Kyuubi which prevented him from being able to do Medical Ninjutsu without putting his patient's life at risk.
At the beginning of the year, after what had happened to his and Kurosaki's teams, he had intently studied anything associated with medicine he could get his hands on for a few months, which had been something he wouldn't have been able to do if Tetsuo-sensei hadn't made him learn how to read properly. Following the recommendations of a particularly useful scroll, he began getting practice in the practical aspects of the medical field by working on any and every injured animal he could find in and around Konoha, not caring that he got pecked, scratched, and bitten more times than he could count in the process. While he could clean and bandage wounds, and splint broken limbs and the like, he could not properly do a Medical Ninjutsu like the ones outlined in the books and scrolls. Every time he tried, something would go wrong. His Chakra would fluctuate in the middle of things, the wound would simply fail to start healing or, worse, everything would seem to go right, right up until the animal he'd been working on died for no discernible reason.
Konohamaru, who had sometimes worked as his assistant, was just as sad as him or moreso every time he he had failed to save one of the wounded creatures he'd gathered up from the woods, the parks, and sometimes just around town. Because the younger boy showed his emotions more openly as he was still young enough to be able to wear his heart on his sleeve, he'd had to wipe tears off of the child's face a number of times before the day he'd finally quit playing veterinarian. The boy who had latched onto him for some strange reason after he'd nearly killed him in front of his grandfather had been much happier when he'd taken to playing ninja with him instead
The reason he'd stopped working on animals had been because he'd been forced to quit after he and Konohamaru had been arrested while they were learning everything they didn't want to know about childbirth from a Nara deer. The Old Man had given him a lecture he wouldn't forget anytime soon before turning him over to the Nara for punishment. Fortunately for him, the head of the Nara clan was a laid back and understanding individual. Rather than demanding his head on a platter because he'd been hanging around in an off-limits section of the Nara property and might've spooked one of the deer that earned the clan their income, Shikaku had made him clean the deer pens that were reserved for sick deer for a week since he was "So interested in them". Deer poop had moved up several places on his list of dislikes after that.
As Sasuke pounded yet another nail into yet another board, he continued trying to regain the equilibrium he'd lost rather violently a couple of days ago when Umino Iruka had announced the team assignments. Rather than things remaining pretty much the same for him after graduating the Academy like he'd somewhat expected them to, his entire world had been tipped on its ear.
First of all, he had been dragged out of the village practically the instant he'd been placed on his new team, taking him away from all that was familiar, in order to do menial tasks at a farm in the middle of nowhere. The journey to said farm had been arduous and, rather than being the top dog and teachers' favorite on the team like he had been at the Academy, he was a distant second in both power, and his teacher's affections. Instead of catering to him like the Instructors at the Academy had done, his new sensei had paid attention to him only long enough to point out something he was doing wrong before turning back to the Uzumaki.
That in itself was another interesting reversal. Rather than being held up as a failure and an example of what not to do as he had been back at the Academy, the Uzumaki was held up as an example of what a ninja should be. He understood why though. After coming from something that was even worse than an ordinary civilian background, and being either ignored or outright sabotaged by his Instructors, the Uzumaki, who had had nobody to help him or train him but himself, had managed to secure an early graduation. After graduation, the boy continued to rise, showing that with help and training, he could become something exceptional, something that had the natural potential to match or even beat That Man, were he placed in the right hands.
Himself however...Despite all of his best efforts, he was topping out at just slightly above average for a shinobi of his clan. He remembered how instead of comparing him to Him, and Shisui, his relatives had compared him to someone called Obito when they thought he wasn't listening back before IT had happened. When he'd gone through the old clan records, he'd found that Obito had been a clansman who had died in the Third War at the age of thirteen, and had activated his Sharingan at that age as well. About the only thing he didn't have to match Obito's record was an early graduation and the rank of Chunin, even if both didn't really count because they'd been earned in a time of war, which tended to lower the bar for such things. He'd most likely have to wait until he was thirteen before he activated his Sharingan if ever as well, considering how things were progressing.
Rather depressingly, about the only thing that remained the same in his life since his graduation was that the pink haired girl continued trying to get his attention. Now however, she didn't do it as much, because she hadn't been given the time to do so by their sensei who seemed intent on running the both of them into the ground.
Haruno Kita felt unaccountably nervous as he was called into his boss' office. He'd served as an accountant at Konoha's main bank since the tail end of the last war. In all those years, nobody had had any complaints about his performance. Normally, he wouldn't be worried, but he had been getting some rather strange looks from his co-workers yesterday evening, and all of this morning as well.
"You wanted to see me sir?" he said as he entered the reasonably well appointed office which belonged to his boss, who was a retired shinobi, which was something that showed in his decorating habits.
He found himself staring straight ahead at the well-used sword that was mounted on the wall behind his boss' desk, a sword that had seen action during the Second Shinobi World War, as he waited for his boss to respond.
"Haruno-san, you're a hard worker, a good employee all-round, and an asset to the bank, which makes it all the more difficult to do this." his boss said, looking at him with an expression of pity. "But, I've been forced to terminate your employment. The vast majority of our customers are ninja, and if they don't have faith in our employees..."
"But why?" he asked, wondering what he'd done wrong.
Had he accidentally said something that a civilian wouldn't think twice about but a ninja would find offensive due to the fact that certain words had taken on a different meaning because of their use in euphemisms? Had it been because he had spilled ink on that one form? It hadn't been all that much, just a little dark blot in the corner that was barely noticeable and didn't obscure any of the figures.
"I'm afraid you'll have to ask your wife about that." his boss eventually replied. "You will be given until the end of Lunch to clear out your desk."
After clearing out a desk on and in which bits and pieces of nearly fifteen years of his life had accumulated, he despondently headed home, wondering what he would do for work now that his family had somehow fallen out of favor with the village ninja, which was practically the kiss of death in Konoha. His wife was there eating a lunch she had prepared for herself when he arrived.
"Dear," he said when he entered the dining room of their small home. "Do you have any idea about why I was fired?"
"WHAT? !" his wife screeched.
"Apparently, we've lost favor with the ninjas, and my boss, my former boss, told me that it had something to do with you." he replied, hoping and praying that it was all some sort of big misunderstanding. His wife wouldn't be stupid enough to do something like that, would she?
"That is it!" his wife yelled, dashing his hopes. "That Shimura bastard is so dead!"
Shimura? Where had he...? Oh, yeah...Holy crap! His wife had pissed off that creepy guy that he thought was going to eat him when he was little.
He remembered that day. He'd been six, and his mother, who had gone to the capitol to visit that one aunt he'd hated, had asked one of her friends from work to watch him because he had the chicken pox. That man, who had bandages over one of his eyes, had been big and scary and very, very, strict. The Hokage had dropped by to visit the man and see how he was doing since he'd apparently just gotten out of the hospital, and had talked to him too for a while which was nice. What wasn't so nice had been what happened when the man had caught him trying to steal a couple of extra treats from the jar in the pantry. The smile the man had given him after he'd told him that the scary story his friends had told him about him was true had haunted his nightmares for years afterwards.
That had also been the day that he'd decided that he didn't want to be a ninja.
Edited 10-5-12