Ryoko bit her lip and looked nervously towards where she thought one of the ninja magistrates in the funny animal masks was. She couldn't see him, but it still felt like he was there. The black haired girl really did wonder why the ninja magistrates wore those funny masks. They looked more like they belonged in a traveling kids show than as law enforcers or bodyguards.
Ryoko shrugged, one arm held demurely in front of her as she carried her bokken with the other. She looked around her for a moment and realized that in her distraction she'd past the market.
The girl sighed, looked around and noticed an alleyway that would take her back to the street she needed to be at. Quietly wondering when the Konoha people would decide it was time to send her and Joseibi home, she walked down the alleyway. Halfway down the alleyway, there was a turn to another that lay between the market on one side and the academy on the other.
Ryoko's shopping trip was cut short as she turned that corner and came to the image of a purple-haired girl not much older than her, maybe a year, but probably less, perched on the fence above her, and watching quietly into the academy practice grounds.
"Martial arts training?" Ryoko wondered quietly to herself.
Normally not one for interfering in other people's affairs, or even her own for that matter, Ryoko was still tempted by the idea of watching the ninja practice some of their basic techniques.
She leaped up casually next to the purple-haired girl, eager to see what sort of routines were being carried out on the other side of that fence.
To her surprise there wasn't anything but a boy with blonde spiky hair through kunai knives at targets down a range, with somewhat weak accuracy at that.
At about the same time, the purple haired girl turned to watch her land and called out loudly. The other girl reached out in shock, grabbing a handful of Ryoko's kimono and then a second girl's shrieks rang out before the two fell into a pile on the academy side of the fence.
The blonde boy, one Naruto Uzumaki turned around in surprise and dashed across the target range to see what had happened.
He found some strange girl he'd never seen before entangled with Hinata Hyuuga, that strange girl who always seemed to act funny when he looked at her.
"Hey, are you guys all right?" he asked.
He didn't get a particularly understandable answer.
"Ano…" the black-haired girl was saying in a dizzy tone while Hinata simply turned bright red for some reason and passed out.
"Ahh!" Naruto cried out, confused and alarmed by both responses.
He dashed to the Academy door, calling out loudly.
"Hey, can someone come over here and help? There are people hurt here!"
"What's going on out there?" Iruka's voice called out from inside. "Naruto this better not be some kind of joke."
The head instructor of the school came out to see the dazed and tangled pile of Ryoko and Hinata and immediately set about helping Ryoko stand up.
"I was just practicing my shuriken and then it was raining girls," Naruto said.
"I can see, Naruto," Iruka said, "Go in and get the first aid kit, this doesn't look too serious."
"S…sumimasen," Ryoko muttered as she worked at fixing her kimono. "I..I did not mean to cause any..trouble."
"It'll be fine," Iruka said.
Busy as he was taking care of Hinata, a common post-Naruto encounter situation actually, Iruka couldn't see the flickering orange fire in Ryoko's eyes.
"What's the big deal, trying to spy on my training like that…" Naruto asked as he came back outside.
The black-haired girl's eyes filled with orange fire at that statement.
"Bu…but…" Ryoko protested, unable to get much farther because that was pretty much exactly what she was doing. "I…I…didn't…did not! Did not! Did not think it would be…a pro…blem…"
"Sugoi," Naruto said, blinking. "How do you do the fiery eyes?"
That caught Iruka's attention.
"F…f…fiery?" Ryoko responded nervously, standing up frantically. "N..n…no."
Iruka turned around in time to see the burning eyes and a barely perceptible glow start to rise out of her skin. She stumbled back skittishly and leaned against the wall, where a small hiss of smoke lifted up into the air. She flinched away from the wall as she noticed, leaving a faint black handprint on the wall.
The orange glow got brighter around her, he was starting to see individuals tongues of fiery energy. There was also a tracery of reddening skin that suggested the girl wouldn't be spared from her own ability.
"Sugoi," Naruto said.
Iruka wasn't sure exactly what was going on, but it was easy to see that it would get worse if she stayed in the same state mind, and apparently awareness of it made things further out of control.
"Are you interested in learning how to fight?" he asked in a clear and friendly manner. He was greatly relieved when the girl turned to look at him and the orange flames faded from her skin, and fading from her eyes.
"Ano…" Ryoko said, blinking and biting her lip.
"What's your name?" Iruka asked.
"I am Ryoko S.. of the Saotome s..school of An..nything Goes M..martial Arts," the black haired girl said with a quick bow.
"All right," Iruka said, much relieved as he turned back to making sure Hinata was in a position that wouldn't leave her numb when she eventually woke up. "You've trained in your family style already. Do you have any fighting clothes?"
"N..not here," Ryoko said.
"You'll find some spare training togs in the closet through that door," Iruka said. "Maybe you'd like to have a spar with Naruto here?"
Ryoko turned toward the slightly older boy and blinked as she took him in.
"What?" Naruto asked. "Me fight such a cute little girl? I'd walk all over her."
"Ano…" Ryoko said, eyes widening slightly. "Is that a…challenge?"
"I don't need to challenge you," Naruto said proudly. "This is home ground, you need to challenge me."
Iruka rolled his eyes at Naruto's behavior, after seeing the girl burning just a moment ago.
"Wai." Ryoko called out cheerfully, all trace of a fire gone. A smile widening over her ten-year old face. "That is a challenge!"
She turned toward Iruka and bowed deeply before quickly walking into the Academy for the offered spare training clothes. Iruka watched her go and looked toward the confused Naruto as he squinted and watched the small girl practically dance into the academy.
"She's strange," Naruto said, scratching his head.
Iruka looked at Naruto and sweated, before that last statement, he'd been planning to ask Naruto to go easy on the girl. Now, he was wondering if he should have sent Naruto in for the clothes and spoken to the little girl instead.
Off to the side, leaning against the wall, Hinata started to blink slowly awake. It quickly became obvious to her that she had fainted again and sighed in embarrassment. Then she saw Naruto standing a few feet away and swallowed as she stood up and moved quietly into a corner to avoid attention.
It wasn't much later that a black-haired girl wearing a spare academy training outfit. Hinata quickly recognized her as the girl that had surprised her earlier. Seeing Iruka-sensei watching things eased her mind a bit, but she still felt a little confused as to what had been going on while she was unconscious.
Quietly, she ran through the hand seals and activated her byakugan. As her vision came clear, what she saw seemed to make no sense.
From what she could tell, the other girl wasn't mainly drawing on her chakra coils, but pulling energy from the air and earth around her to fill and suffuse her muscles and nerves. The energy turned sluggish wherever it mixed with her chakra coils, like rapids hitting a sudden, deep lake, but it didn't slow its passage at all.
"Are you going to get in stance at all?" Naruto asked as he looked across at his opponent.
Ryoko was standing in a formal and proper stance for a young lady, legs together, one hand holding her bokken to the side like an umbrella that wasn't in use and the other bent demurely in front of her chest. An expectant smile on her face.
It was easy to see the muscles primed and ready for action for Hinata, looking through her byakugan. The energy, she couldn't call it chakra, that the girl was pulling from around her was concentrated heaviest in her nervous system. Given that she didn't even know what she was dealing with, she couldn't even make an estimate about how strong the girl was.
"Your name is Naruto?" Ryoko asked.
"Yeah, Naruto Uzumaki," Naruto said. "Greatest ninja in all of Konoha."
"Then, I am ready Uzuamaki-san," she said, bowing once again.
"All right," Naruto said, shrugging. "Your loss."
"Naruto-kun," Hinata said quietly. "…be careful."
Naruto turned to look at Hinata and blinked in confusion.
"I'm not going to hurt her," he said, shaking his head before turning a friendly, arrogant look back towards the younger girl. "Let's get this started."
Both looked toward Iruka, who raised his hand for the spar and let it drop.
Naruto shot forward at his opponent. Not at his full speed of course, no reason to hurt the girl. Heck, she wasn't even moving in response.
"S..sumimasen, Uzumaki-san," the girl said as he got closer.
The girl bent aside of Naruto's attack, just barely.
"Damn it, almost had her," Naruto thought as he twisted about to kick, only to watch his leg slip easily over the girl's crouching form. He came down into a wide sweep only to find the girl easily hopping up over the attack. "Damn it, quit hopping about."
"I..I do not mean to be a…p…problem," the girl said as she easily landed and slipped her head just aside three punches in succession.
"Fight properly, damn it!" Naruto demanded, spinning into a roundhouse as he did.
"Sumimasen," Ryoko said as she ducked low under the kick again.
Naruto smirked as the girl fell for the trick and, instead of sweeping, he dived into an overhead hammer blow.
Or would have if the girl hadn't raised her bokken up into the crook of his knee and pushed, sending him into an unexpected twisting motion that brought him down to the ground in a dizzying crash that had Iruka and Hinata wincing sympathetically.
"Grrk," Naruto grunted needlessly from his landing point.
The black-haired girl stood up gracefully and again returned to the posture she had at the beginning.
"Sumimasen…Uzumaki-san," she said quietly.
Naruto stood up, but almost toppled over again as his body was still trying to recover his sense of balance. When he finally did, the young student looked across at the younger girl across from him with a new appreciation for her skills.
"What kind of monster is this girl?" Naruto wondered to himself.
"D…do you wish to continue, Uzumaki-san?" Ryoko asked.
"I think that'll be enough for now," Iruka said quickly, putting himself forward before Naruto could say something.
"Ah…okay..." she turned toward Iruka and her cheerful face faded again into uncertainty and confusion. "Ano…shinobi-sama."
"My name's Iruka Umino, Ryoko-chan," Iruka said.
"Arigato, Umino-sama," Ryoko said, bowing deeply and then turning toward Naruto. "Uzumaki-san. It was…enjoyable."
"Maybe you can come again, and we can work on your chakra-control," Iruka suggested, a bit taken back at the sama added to his name.
"Iie," Ryoko said pleasantly. "I…I do not use chakra. I use chi."
With that she bowed again and demurely walked into the academy to change back into her kimono.
Naruto cursed to himself as she left earshot realizing that he'd never live this down if it got out. Losing to a little girl from outside the village like that. And what was with all the politeness and crap.
"I tell ya, she's stranger than Hinata over there," Naruto said, gesturing to where Hinata had edged out into view.
Iruka winced at the wording even as Hinata bit her lip in response to the comment.
"Anyway, what's this chi stuff she was talking about?" Naruto asked.
See other episodes by Thrythlind
(Posted Wed, 08 Sep 2010 02:20)
Questions? Problems? Suggestions?
Send a mail to addventure@bast-enterprises.de
or use the contact form.
らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
All other series and their characters are © by their respective creators or owners. No claims of ownership of these characters are implied by the authors of this Addventure, or should be inferred.
The Anime Addventure is a non-profit site.