Cosmetic author's note, to get the first few lines away from the chapter index:D
Whoop for cosmetic formatting!
New chapter, here you go:
"Eat," Sasuke snaps irritably, "and stop being so annoying. If you break in half like the stick you are during training, you can go look for another team."
Ouch, she thinks, watching her little cousin glare at Sakura unapologetically, even as she shrinks away teary eyed. He really is kind of an asshole. She'd say something, but talking to Sakura turned out to be very much like talking to a brick wall.
"You took an hour longer than the deadlast for your run yesterday – we could have been training during that time."
Meaning 'I could have been training during that time'. Hisana made them wait for Sakura yesterday, hoping that the exhaustion and the disappointed looks of her teammates would snap her out of whatever diet nonsense she came up with.
Instead the answer was 'I'm a girl, of course I can't run that fast or that long'. Sasuke did not take kindly to that. They've spend three meals together since then – lunch at Ichiraku's, dinner at her and Sasuke's house for team bonding reasons, and now lunch again – and Sasuke has taken to more or less force feed the girl.
Hisana didn't even have to say a thing. It's a bizarre mixture of bullying and care taking, and she wonders if that is what the whole team has to look forward to. Her included, once her cousin reaches that age. She already dreads the day he grows taller than her, because she clearly remembers a gaggle of younger cousins suddenly thinking they'd have to protect her from the whole world. She resolves to instill enough fear in him, that'd he'd think twice about that kind of nonsense.
She throws a helpless look towards the trees, where she knows Genma is hiding, like he has for the last three days. The team hasn't sensed him, couldn't possibly, and he's made no move to introduce himself. The asshole probably enjoys her suffering right now. This is my team, she reminds herself, and then snatches the chopsticks with dumpling out of Sasuke's hand, that he'd been holding in Sakura's face. She cuffs him around the head and eats the dumpling herself.
"I'll be making your lunchboxes from now on," she tells the girl. "And you better eat everything that's in it."
"What about me?" Naruto asks hopefully.
"Yes, yours too. But that means no ramen for lunch anymore."
He gawks at her.
"Oh – oh, maybe not every day, Nee-chan. Just once a week or so ..."
She'd make him lunch alright. He'd probably run to Ichiraku's afterwards anyway, because, god can that boy eat, but she'll stuff vegetables down his throat in any way she can.
She doesn't really worry about money issues. It's not as if they are particularly rich – a lot of the Uchiha money apparently consists of the district itself, currently closed off until she comes off age and decides otherwise. But apart from the rather generous stipends that are deposited onto their account every month, they are also the recipients of bribes of various natures.
After she forcefully rejected the monetary ones, she finds that buying things on tab usually means these tabs will not so mysteriously vanish every once in a while, paid with the best wishes of various clans. No opportunity for her to say no, and, from her perspective, therefore no reason to feel indebted. Pulling a recently acquired cookbook from the kitchen shelve, she wonders if Sasuke ever realized he had this kind of power in the manga, or if she's special; a ruthless little brat with no compunctions about taking advantage of those trying to take advantage of her.
Kaarage, she thinks, salted salmon and cucumber. Maybe she could make some potato salad this weekend, for next week. And of course Sasuke's tomatoes. Or maybe some tofu? She's not very good yet at the traditional Japanese cuisine that seems to dominate Fire Country. She thinks of Kiri and Iwa and wonders if they all eat the same. At least Suna seems as if it might be a little different, if simply because they don't have access to fish. She misses spaghetti.
The next morning she is actually rather proud of herself. The bentos look nice and she'd peeled a few apples as well. Even if she wouldn't be making Naruto's bentos every day, at least she could talk him into a few of those.
Or maybe she wouldn't have to. After Sasuke passive aggressively forced Sakura to eat all of her food like a good little kunoichi, they gang up on Naruto.
"If I have to do it, so do you," the girl snarls, stuffing apple slices into her teammate's face, while Sasuke looms over the blonde menacingly.
"If you run, I'll start feeding you," he warns.
"Now, now kids," Genma says, as he drops down from above them, making Naruto choke on his last piece of apple and startling the rest of them into undignified squawks. "I'm all for healthy food, but it's bad form to stuff your teammate like Inarizushi."
"And who are you?" Sakura snaps, suddenly embarrassed.
"I'm Shiranui Genma. I'm a chuunin – you may call me Genma-sama."
All three of them give him a flat look.
"Or senpai, that's also fine."
"This," Hisana intervenes resignedly, "is our supervisor, who finally decided to grace us with his presence. Took you long enough."
Genma scratches the back of his head unabashedly.
"Yes, well, you had it under control. And I've been around."
With a flourish he produces a scroll from behind his back.
"Also," he says, excitedly widening his eyes at her, "I brought a peace offering!"
She is going to kill him. It's going to be their first proper mission as a team, she thinks. Kill Genma and make it look like an accident. The scroll he so cheerfully waved in their faces is indeed full of 'missions'. Using the term lightly. Of course missions of any kind are only available for proper genin squads, even D-rank ones. The tasks written down in Genma's scroll are what the mission office desk unofficially dubs 'E-rank missions' – less physically taxing and incredibly low paying jobs that are usually rejected or used as a punishment for particularly misbehaving members of the Genin Corps.
While D-rank missions usually consist of painting houses, babysitting kids or weeding large lots, E-rank missions center around bringing food for the elderly, scrubbing public property (especially toilets) or washing dishes.
The latter of which they are currently doing. She kind of wanted to stay out of it, being the team leader and everything, partly because of laziness but mostly because she wanted team 7 to bond without her. The decision was taken out of her hands, when one of the kitchen aids simply shoved an armful of dirty pots at her.
"Wash this."
Now her hands are wrinkly from the dirty water, there's crusty food under her nails and she's had to snap at the kids twice to stop any kind of water fight from happening. Genma, meanwhile, is sitting in the front of the restaurant, eating dumplings and drinking hot sake. "They're your team", he said, "I'll come running if anything explodes."
He'd then been escorted out of the kitchen by a simpering waitress.
"Naruto," she snaps without turning around, "you throw that sponge and I'll throw you." "Eeeh ... Nee-chan, I d-didn't-"
"Don't lie, baka", Sakura cuts him off. "You'll only make it worse!"
The girl speaks from experience. Not fifteen minutes ago she insisted that no, she didn't just dunk Naruto's head into the dish water. She got bopped on the head twice for it – once for picking on her teammate, once for lying to her team leader.
Team 7's dynamic is a strange one. They seem to get along well enough outside of training and 'missions', but add a little stress to the equation and things get explosive. Training is already a challenge for Hisana, but this is a little too much for her still. It's probably one of the best means of improving team work, but it is also one of the most taxing.
Reading the manga it was always easy to judge Kakashi for being kind of a bad teacher. 'I'd do this differently, and that – and I'd handle this so much better'. The truth is though, that team 7 is a bunch of brats and dealing with them 24/7 is eating away at her patience. Adding another five years to their age will change nothing, but substitute some of their immaturity with a dangerous cocktail of hormones.
After a week of this they've settled into a more or less comfortable routine. They meet after classes, at 2 pm, where she deals out the lunches. They force some vegetables down Naruto's throat until 2:30 pm. Genma picks them up at 2:45 and escorts them into town to do something tenuous and embarrassing in exchange for money.
At 5 pm there's team training, followed by dinner at around 7, sometimes as a team, mostly on their own.
A well-rounded timetable for a genin, but sadly not the end of Hisana's day. Her promise to Iruka-sensei still rings in her ears.
'Don't let your grades drop'.
Her head is in it, but her body is steadily pushed past its limits.
"You know," Genma remarks, "I admire your dedication, but maybe you should take a day off a week. The brats can train on their own and you won't do a Nara and fall asleep in class."
"You just don't want Ito-sensei to lay into you."
"And there's that."
A free day does seem nice, but if there's one thing she knows about herself, it's that she won't be able to enjoy it. Free time means time to over think things. There doesn't seem to be a choice though.
"Go home."
Sakura's skinny arms cross over her unimpressively skinny chest. "You need to sleep. You lost weight and you look like crap", she blurts out.
The determined glare doesn't do a thing to make her look menacing, not when the word 'crap' seems to sit so badly with her, blush crawling blotchily all over her big forehead. Hisana's eyebrows rise without her consent. Lost weight? Oh the bitter-sweet taste of irony. She looks towards the boys. Sasuke squints at her unhappily, while Naruto looks back and forth between his teammates, trying to imitate both of them at once and ending up looking rather constipated instead.
"Did Genma-senpai put you up to this?"
There's a guilty silence, before Sasuke says, "No."
So, yes.
It's a little endearing how they seem to be unable to lie, but it's probably not such a good thing for a ninja. They'd have to work on that.
So Hisana turns around, decidedly not pouting, and goes home.
It becomes a thing. Once a week the team refuses to work with her and sends her home. They probably already know they're going to regret this. Hisana's not used to so much free time anymore and so she keeps busy by sticking her nose into her team's private lives.
She 'broke' into Naruto's apartment, which wasn't even locked, and threw away most of the contents of his fridge, consisting solely of spoiled milk, a single carrot and a lump of moldy cheese. She took his ramen hostage and spring cleaned everything - a mild summer temperature of 35 degrees Celsius, inside and outside of the creaky old building.
She spent two Thursdays shopping for acceptable training attire with Sakura, lecturing her on the importance of proper skin coverage.
She even haunted Genma until he agreed to pay a little visit to Haruno-san. This turns out to be unnecessary.
Haruno Sayuri is a tiny woman with shiny blonde hair and forest green eyes. She is wearing a nice, half-formal kimono as she approaches them on Friday afternoon with tiny, dainty steps. Hisana wonders if binding feet is a thing in the Shinobi Nations.
"Good evening, everyone."
Even her voice is tiny and sweet. Dear god, is this what Sakura has to live up to?
Haruno-san bows deeply.
"My name is Haruno Sayuri, very pleased to meet you. If you don't mind I would very much like to take lunch with you."
This is going to be great. There's cold sweat breaking out on the back of her neck and as she turns to Genma – perhaps in the vain hope he would tell her no – she can see that his smile has turned very fixed.
"Ah, uh – Haruno-san! Of course!" She scrambles for something a dignified Uchiha might say. "Please sit! We will be with you shortly."
This woman is already making her feel inadequate, with the way she daintily unfolds a blanket onto the grass and sits down, elegant like a geisha. Sakura has turned faintly green. She's not sure whether it's because her mother is going to witness her being very unlady-like, or because she's aware of the effect Haruno Sayuri has on other women. The way her eyes dart between Hisana and her mother strongly suggests both.
As much as she'd sometimes love to whack all of them, there are times when tiny glimpses of team 7's potential shine through and those make it all worth it. Hisana doesn't know if anyone else can see it, but right now it's clear as day to her. Training isn't as much of a disaster as she'd feared. Sakura is still darting nervous glances every once in a while at her mother, but the casual way her team had dismissed the woman seemed to calm her as much as it surprised her.
The girl's match with Naruto is constantly moving in circles and absorbs therefore most of her attention. Halfway through Genma has started circling them in turn, and Hisana only needs a minute to understand what he's doing: whenever Sakura looks as if her attention wanders to her mother, he moves to block her view. Sakura seems caught between relief and annoyance at it and instead comforts herself with quick glances at Sasuke, whose eyes are firmly on his teammates.
She wonders if anyone ever picked Sakura over her mother.
She wonders if anyone ever picked Sakura over anyone at all.
We're your team, she wants to snap at her. Stop being like this, stop being so afraid. But Sakura is only seven years old, and fear isn't logical at all.