AN: I'm working on updating all the stories I have but it's hard getting back into the plot lines I came up with for some. So taking a break from that lineup for a quick harassment of my favorite spaz.
()()()()()()()()()()
Ten-Ten often was the one on the sidelines in her team. It wasn't on purpose, but Neiji was a natural prodigy in almost everything and Lee needed all the help he could get. That his exact type of help was precisely where Gai excelled was only a blessing but Ten-Ten couldn't help but wish her cousin was a little less...weird. Oh, he was Lee of course, eccentric flowed in the veins but any semblance of normality had frankly dispersed with the arrival of green spandex and for some reason after cutting his hair for the formal Yue-clan style ceremony, he got the same awful cut as their sensei.
Ten-Ten complained at times, of course. After all her cousin was anything but cool or well, he was most the time frankly embarrassing. However, he was also genuine, kind-hearted, and determined. All the things he had always been and part of why Ten-Ten had worked so hard to make him the same knife he carried tucked away in one of his weights for safety now. The triplet to hers and Zi's. Every so often even in the midst of training her cousin would start speechifying with their sensei and Neiji would give her a dark look, as if asking her to control them.
It had finally hit the point Ten-Ten would just roll her eyes because frankly her Hyuuga teammate was used to Zi! Okay, he admittedly had sparred with Lee but it was when he had been concerned for his sister over the Uchiha fiasco and thus more subdued and serious but still. Ten-Ten knew Ziwei had been going to the compound for years, Neiji shouldn't be that surprised at how peculiar her cousins were. Only, it seemed, he was always in a perpetual state of denial. Huh.
Little did he know that honestly compared to the rest of the extended family Lee and Ziwei were kind of on the normal and rational side.
"So! I think you are all ready for a C-rank!" At that, each of the three children perked up and Ten-Ten wondered what the catch would be this time. "If you can get to the building before I do going backward on my hands blindfolded!"
A very impolite word fell out of Ten-Ten's mouth as she shuddered. Of course, he'd only give them such a short window to race across the village! Why did her sensei have to be so weird? Not a one of them gave their sensei time to prepare his blindfold, starting to race at full speed because every tiny fraction of a second counted. "LEE GO AHEAD!" She managed to scream out at her cousin who took off with a veritable dust cloud behind him. If at least one of them got there on time they could argue with Gai that they'd met the challenge. Neiji grunted and left her behind as well but Ten-Ten didn't care, she was strewing the path with ninja wire to try and slow their sensei down.
()()()()()()()
"Who's a good tiny fluffy murder machine? You are! You are!" Anko was cackling as I cooed over the soft bellies of my poor Inuzuka teammate's very happy ninken as we waited for our turn to get our missions. Beside me I could hear faint snickers from my bundled up Aburame teammate, seriously even though I knew their names it was just..easier..to think of them by their clan.
"I like that one minion! Murder machine..ha!"
"Fluffy murder machines, Anko-sensei." I piped up and grinned at her. It was probably a little less than a sane grin, but she was rubbing off on us. My correction earned me a senbon whistling past my ear which Sei calmly plucked out of the wall to add to their pack. Honestly, our sensei kept us nicely supplied with senbon and so we were most diligent in practicing with them. Diligent but not yet accurate. Still we had properly traumatized yet another of the temporary 'Bosses' by being such well-behaved minions while still breaking out in various behaviors Anko had taught us to creep them out like her grin and a few twisted phrases that we were being rewarded with a C-rank. Apparently there'd been a bet by said Boss on if we were really such a good team and Anko was leering far too much for her to not have enjoyed her winnings.
My guess was she either got some good sake or laid, or both. Not that I should know that at my age but if my teammate's wanted to keep believing she'd just gotten a huge tab of dango paid off, I'd let them.
Honestly by now there was a lot of gossip I could hear if I carefully enhanced my hearing -turns out there are different types of sound waves and I was capable of wishing my chakra to enhance the long-distance one as opposed to that up close which thank you, no more shrieking and headaches- lots of gossip about Anko's insane gennin.
Aw look we're traumatizing Konoha! Tobirama would be..er. Not so proud but hey! Maybe it was time I started idolizing some of the women role models? Come to think of it we didn't have many. Hm. I turned to Sei while still scratching at the fur of Dai's ninken. "Hey, Sei? Do you think Tobirama-sama would be mad at me for cheating on him if I started to swear by Mito-sama?"
Ever so slightly Sei tilted their head in my direction before speaking. "Unlikely. Why? Because both are dead."
"Sei..." I warned and held up my fingers in a tickling motion. It turned out my chakra worked really interesting if I wanted it to say, get kikaichu to act like they were on catnip. The end result was buzzing little bugs that would tickle Sei from their chakra coils and worked despite all the layer they had on. Tickle threatening a bug wielder, so cool.
"Ah, this is one of your nonsensical make-believe games?" Sei realized and when I dropped my hand with a nod to resume rubbing bellies Sei grunted. "Understood. I believe if you chose to separate situations you creatively utilized the names there would be no need for the Second Hokage to be jealous of his sister in law." Under their breath but not so quiet I couldn't hear. "Why must my teammate be such a peculiar civilian clan child? I do not understand. It is not logical."
Pfft. Yeah, go be all Vulcan-y there Sei. "I guess, but if I only use Mito-sama for good things that doesn't seem fair."
"Mito-sama was like Tsume-sama right?" Dai blurted out from where he was sprawled on the ground while we waited. So we didn't like to just stand around, so what?
"Yup!" I agreed and grinned, going to shove his arm playfully which made Dai grin and shove me back.
"So then use her for uh..girly wrath stuff?" He said and for a moment all Sei and I could do was stare at him.
"Girly..wrath?" I mouthed slowly before snorting. "I like that. Whatya think of it Anko-sensei?" Because none of us ever doubted that our teacher was listening. That casual acceptance of her capabilities seemed to always both please her and make the other sensei's give her dark looks. Weird.
"Works for me, mouthy brat." Anko stuck her finger in her ear to wiggle it around for a bit. "Kunoichi don't get enough credit anyways so yeah, use her when you're about to obliterate someone in a way. I like that."
"Kay!"
It was about that time the front door flew open and a figure slammed into the ground wearing green. Right behind them was another green figure.
"Hi, Lee! Hi, Gai!" I waved from the ground not that they heard me.
"YOSH! I made it before Gai Sensei! My teammates will be so thrilled!" Lee was cheering with his eyes full of stars. Gai bounced back on his feet from where he'd been on his hands, untying his blindfold.
"Indeed you did Lee! I am proud of you!"
Sei and Dai swiftly covered my ears and eyes, much to my confusion. What? Did they forget that it was my brother? It wasn't like I hadn't seen this a lot of the time before. Really. I even had done speeches like this before in front of them. Oh. Got it, they didn't want me to join in.
Meh. I was comfortable on the floor, and well worn out thanks to Anko-sensei. I'd join in next time.
Gai and Lee ran back off, apparently to collect the rest of their team and Anko took the chance to scare the four other teams ahead of us away and all but shoved me through the door. Looks like she didn't want to see me get silly again either. I grinned up at Anko slyly just for a moment and she snorted, cuffing me in the back of the head lightly.
"You got the energy to do that you have the energy for dodge training mouthy minion."
"Okay!"
"Stop encouraging our sensei, Ziwei!" Dai scolded me.
A chuckle made us turn to the front and bow to the Hokage.
"A C-rank outside the village I think for team 44.." His assistant suggested weakly.
I can only imagine the four of us had the same terrifying grins because he actually whimpered and the Hokage looked disturbed.
"Agreed." The Hokage nodded. "We'll send you to a village in the land of waves to take the usual reports from the outpost there. We do not use it much during peace times save as an exchange location so be certain to repair it as needed."
Translation..hey Anko-sensei there's gonna be someone you are meeting up with or getting something from but keep it from the brats. What? You read as many of the old dusty scrolls as I do you start getting a feel for this stuff.
Wait.
Land of Waves? Wasn't that where someday the Great Naruto Bridge would be?
Tobi-freaking-rama and Mito-sama eating dumplings. This was going to get confusing.