SO-MANY-BATTLES
I'm no good at describing combat scenes but I'm giving it my all. Naruto without combat is like … I don't even know. Ramen without noodles?
Ok, no need to scream.
Shino is, of all the Rookie 9, by far the least dangerous to her. The boy is tall for his age, but so weedy he almost swims in his coat. When he bows his hair flops all over the place. She kind of wants to ruffle it.
"Nice to meet you," he says. Shizuha stands beside him like a proud mother. To her Shino's loss seems to be entirely unimportant.
"Yo," Shiki greets with a lazy grin. "Well done, little man."
"Unfortunate choice in teammates," Hisana agrees.
"They did their best," Shino demurs. "We did our best."
Shizuha picks at his jacket, straightens it and brushes off non-existent dust.
"Cooperation in you genin team will be more successful," she offers.
He suffers through her fussing with admirable stoicism.
"Agreed. Onee-san, I will go and buy tea now; I shall return shortly."
After another bow he marches off, shoulders straight and hair flopping in the wind.
"Ah," Shizuha sighs, voice still completely monotone, "cousin Shino is my favorite. He's very cute."
Shiki's mouth twitches but she keeps mercifully silent. Sasuke has made his way through the crowd; Naruto and Sakura are nowhere in sight.
"Hisa-nee, we have a plan."
"Good," she praises, ignoring Shiki's curious look. But the girl is not easily appeased.
"What?" she needles and reaches out to mess with Sasuke's hair. "What plan? Are you the enemy now?"
He struggles helplessly for a second before he can wriggle out of her hold.
Choji and Shikamaru seem to have collected themselves as well by now. They make as if to come over, but when Ino catches a glimpse of Hisana, she shakes her head vigorously. Choji makes an encouraging motion towards Sasuke, but to no avail. One last longing look at her crush and she disappears into a group of giggling girls. The boys exchange exasperated looks.
Choji waddles ahead, happily waving at them; Shikamaru follows at a more sedate pace. He now has a bandage on his other cheek as well.
"You look like a hamster," Shiki greets.
"Troublesome woman," he grumbles. "Don't even say it."
"What?"she croons, "That you got hip checked out of the arena? Because you underestimated you enemy, even though I warned you?"
Shikamaru rolls his eyes, but she waves a forbidding finger at him and reaches for Sasuke again.
"Be more careful next time; I've heard they have a plan."
By the time he can get rid of her this time around, his hair is a perfect fit for his mask – he looks just like his future-teacher. It's incredibly charming and Hisana can't bring herself to save him.
"I'm leaving," he huffs. "Our next match starts in ten minutes. Against Kiba's bunch of losers." He gives them all a nod. "Hisa-nee. Shizuha-san" – and after a glare at Shiki – "Troublesome woman."
Then he turns around and flounces away. Shiki's eye bug out of her head. Next to her Shikamaru bursts into riotous laughter.
They find the right arena just in time to see Kiba try to talk the trash talk of a much older boy.
"You stand no chance," he brags gesturing towards the boys posing to his right and – of course – himself. "But don't be too sad, we have an unfair advantage; three boys against three girls."
Team 7 looks incredibly unimpressed.
"I kind of really want to punch him in the face," Naruto remarks to Sakura, "but if you want you can have him."
"No thanks," she says, "I don't kick puppies. Sasuke-kun you want a go at Kiba?"
Her cousin still hasn't smoothed his hair down, and so Hisana nearly chokes when he replies with a supremely distracted, "Who?"
Kiba nearly explodes. For a second she can almost see Kakashi and Gai-sensei superimposed over them. Next to him his teammates are still flexing non-existent muscles.
"You just laugh, I'll show you!"
Ito-sensei ushers them apart.
"Settle down. You have two minutes to prepare – please take your positions."
There are short last-minute whispers, before they meet in the middle of the small arena. When Naruto looks for her in the crowd, she gives him a wave and a wry grin.
Ito-sensei whistles.
Maybe it's prejudiced, but in Hisana's head, Main Characters are the most dangerous. In any case it's all kinds of naïve and stupid – after all she's more than weary of Shiki's sharp eyes, and the Aburame as a whole are rather scary. It's still a surprise that the most devious of Kiba's team is not actually Kiba himself – it's the weedy dark haired show-off that nobody seems to know. He weaves through them, grabs Sakura's arm and twists.
There's a yelp and then a crack as her forearm breaks. For a second everyone else freezes. Kiba and Naruto aim identical looks of horror at the boy and Sasuke actually stumbles a step in Sakura's direction, before he catches himself. Far to the left, Kiba's second teammate yells for him to stop. "Hiro! What are you doing, let her go!"
Hiro sneers and gives her a shove.
"Shut up, Yuki. You said you want to win – I'm winning this!"
Sakura is clutching her arm. Her shoulders are shaking and Hisana's sure she's crying. There's an outcry from the parents but Ito-sensei lifts her arm to silence them.
"This is … unfortunate, but not against the rules. Unless team 2 wants to forfeit, the match continues."
"We're not giving up," Sakura sniffs, and ignores the nervous looks of her teammates.
"Her first broken bone?" Shiki enquires.
"Yes, I'm pretty sure. But there are medics around; better here than in a real battle."
Sakura's pain threshold has always worried her more than the boys'. Sasuke's been trained since he was tiny and Naruto has been kicked around all his life – it didn't make for a nice childhood but it toughened him up. Sakura though, for all her precociousness and mulish disposition, is a pampered civilian girl.
The girl's hard head does seems to translate to a high pain threshold, which is in equal parts comforting and disquieting. The boys are all staring at each other, unsure how to proceed. Nobody wants to be the first to re-start the battle and Hiro is still scowling and pointedly not looking at anyone.
"Prepare yourself," Ito-sensei says, "On my mark, re-engage!"
She whistles. This time the boys don't hesitate: Naruto hits Kiba in the face with something that explodes into grey all over the place. The pepper bombs. The Inuzuka howls and clutches his face. Sasuke uses the distraction to grab Hiro by the neck and pull him away from Sakura, who has her eyes set on the last boy. Said boy swallows thickly. A strange reaction, Hisana thinks; he's facing an injured girl. Most of his peers would be jeering and cocky, sure of their victory.
Then she remembers that this isn't the first time Sakura's fought one-armed today. In fact, her opponent might have watched alongside them how Sakura cornered Hyuuga Hinata with just one arm. He's certainly not wrong to be nervous.
There's also another thing most of them seem to have forgotten: Sakura has another pepper bomb. Hisana's pretty sure that, initially, she's planned to throw it in Ino's face. Since that's not going to happen she flings it at him with remarkable speed. He dodges narrowly, but Sakura's arm suddenly snaps back and the bomb comes along, hitting him square in the neck. Ninja wire, and – … not a pepper bomb. It explodes with a high pitched noise that has the spectators jump in surprise. A few feet away Kiba gives another agonized whine and tries to cover nose and ears all at once.
The boy though doesn't just jump. He starts swaying; there's blood is dripping out of his ears and he looks dazed – his eardrums ruptured.
When he shakes off the haze, he tries to reach for her, but his legs don't obey. Instead of taking the five steps straight ahead to her, he sways far to the left and falls over.
"W-what did you do? WHAT DID YOU DO? I CAN'T HEAR MYSELF."
He looks disturbed. Sakura gives him a jaunty little wave before skipping over to Kiba. Her foot comes down hard on his back and she turns to watch her teammates.
Sasuke and Naruto have engaged Hiro in the other corner of the arena. He's keeping up with both of them; it's truly remarkable. Maybe another child prodigy, she thinks. One that the Main Story simply didn't care for before. Konoha is full of wunderkinds after all.
"Look at that taijutsu style," someone whispers from behind. "Doesn't that look a bit like the Shimura clan's?"
"Who knows," someone else says, considerably louder, "old man Shimura had so many affairs – " "- not all willing, I hear – " "- never officially claimed -"
The whispers are getting louder now, bolder, and she can see Hiro take notice. His distraction costs him when Naruto lands a solid punch to his shoulder.
"- too many running around, can't possibly keep up with all of them –"
"SHUT UP!"
Hiro gives Sasuke an almighty shove and simply sidesteps Naruto.
"SHUT UP, YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT YOU'RE SAYING!" He's breathing heavily; not all of it is from the fight. "DON'T YOU DARE TALK ABOUT ME!"
Some of the spectators look indignant, as if he were the one behaving outrageously. His eyes sweep over the crowd with a wild look, like a cornered animal. He stomps his foot.
"You have NO right!"
For a split second there seem to be tears in his eyes, but before she can take a closer look, he runs from the arena.
"Hiro-kun!" Iruka-sensei calls. „Hiro-kun, please come back."
But the boy is already gone.
"Victory team 2," he calls hastily, before hurrying out of the arena himself. On the way he rather viciously shoulders through some of the whisperers. "I hope you're proud of yourselves," he says and gives chase.
Oh wow, Hisana thinks. Konoha is not a nice place for orphan children, is it? She watches Naruto from the corner or her eyes; he looks completely floored.
When they walk over to her, it's in a very subdued mood.
"This wasn't a good victory," Sasuke says grimly. Hiro has obviously ruffled his feathers. As far as she knows none of his peers has ever given her cousin such trouble, and now there might never be a chance to fight him. She hopes he doesn't try and befriend the boy – 'befriend' quote, unquote, as this is Sasuke – no matter how much she pities Hiro right now. If Shiki made her sweat, the attention of 'old man Shimura' might send her into cardiac arrest.
A medic is taking care of Kiba and his other teammate. Both boys are pouting extensively; the medic looks amused. Another medic, a tall man carrying a knapsack, is already smiling at them from a few feet away. He jogs over cheerily.
Aha, Hisana thinks, opportunity.
The man kneels down next to Sakura; he still dwarfs her by almost two heads. She presents her arm with a grimace. No doubt she's never been in contact with a medic before. Sakura's parents are both civilians and this is her first serious injury – at most she's seen a civilian doctor.
Instead of the pain she's visibly bracing for, there is only the faint, mint green glow of the yin chakra.
"Oh", she only manages.
The medic chuckles.
"I know, it's a little cool, but I'm almost done."
He probes the bone with nimble fingers and then applies more chakra.
"Medics are highly respected."
Hisana is trying for casual, but she's intently watching the girl's eyes as they are fixed onto the healing chakra. "It's incredibly difficult to become one. Your chakra control needs to be as close to perfect as possible. Only few people ever manage more than the basics."
She ignores the visibly flattered medic, in favor of watching awe bloom all over Sakura's pale face. "They have to have extensive knowledge over the human body, so it's better not to mess with them."
There's a moment of silence.
"This is great," Sakura breathes. "I've read about it." Then her face falls. "But they aren't allowed to engage in combat. I want to fight."
"That doesn't mean we don't have to be exceptional in battle," interjects the medic, a good amount of pride in his job written all over his face. "We are only sent on the highest ranking missions after all. Most enemies know to eliminate us first, so we have to be able to protect ourselves – if we die, there's no one to heal our teammates, after all."
"So you do fight?" she asks, the glimmer back in her eyes.
"Of course. We just don't pick fights. Our team is supposed to protect us, but that's not the main objective of the mission; they're not constantly babysitting us."
The rest of the conversation descends into the specifics of an apprenticeship. The only time Hisana has to interfere, a little panicked, is when Sakura wonders aloud whether or not she even needs a genin team or if an immediate apprenticeship might not be best.
"I don't think you should discard such an opportunity," she says hastily. "After all, to make chuunin you need a genin team sooner or later. It might be best to do it now, rather than when you're older and stuck with a bunch of younger kids."
The medic agrees vigorously.
"I have a colleague who did that," he muses. "Nice guy, but he's not really part of us, you know? We were all genin together at least for a while. Hard, honest work kind of forges a bond between people, and he's just never been part of that. Pity."
Once Sakura's arm been welded back together, the boys descend on her like wolves. Naruto, completely ignoring all protests, forces her into a bear hug. She's nearly a head taller than him, so he has to bend back pretty far. With Sakura struggling he almost topples over.
"Quit it," Sasuke grouches, even while he's crowding in on them and brusquely grabs Sakura's arm to inspect.
"Don't worry, little man," the medic says. The conversation has obviously put him in a good mood. "Her arm's as good as new."
He makes as if to pat Sasuke's head, but her cousin's glare makes him decide otherwise the last second. His arm hovers awkwardly.
"Haha! Ha … yes. Please consider," he tells Sakura, "we're always looking for medics."
With a last wave he power walks away.
"You don't always have to be so … prickly," the girl scolds her teammate. Sasuke sputters.
"Prickly?"
"Yes," Naruto crows, "like a hedgehog, dattebayo!"
Before a scuffle can break out, Hisana wraps her arms around their necks and pulls them tightly against her. Both boys wheeze and Sakura giggles.
"Come on, it's lunch time. Let's get some food first, and then you can beat the crap out of each other."