Joseibi blinked as some sort of uproar erupted throughout the academy and several instructors ran by in the halls outside the classroom. Her history instructor was about to fall them when a shout rang out from Iruka-sensei to stay.
The blonde's hands moved quietly through the simple seal on one of her only jutsu skills. As the genjutsu completed, the history teacher's mind rewound back about two seconds, to just before Iruka-sensei's instruction to stay.
And off he went with the other teachers, apparently after that Naruto clown from the upper classes.
Stretching out with a self-satisfied smirk, relieved that she'd made the jutsu just in time, she leaned forward amidst the sound of kids recently freed from the grip of their tyrannically boring instructor.
Now she could get some decent sleep.
"Well," and adult's voice cut through the peaceful approach of Joseibi's hard earned rest. "Looks like you're without an instructor. We'll have to remedy that."
The blonde student opened her eyes and took in the tall woman with red eyes in the white outfit.
"I think now's a good time to see what you all know about the basics of genjutsu," the woman said, with a smirk directed at Joseibi that deflated the eight-year old quite easily.
Good thing she was on hand looking over the next graduating class.
"Ahh, are we going to learn how to destroy people's minds?" Konohamaru declared loudly.
"Baka," Joseibi muttered.
Ryoko hummed quietly to herself as she swept up the step of the house behind her. Most of the people passing on the street paid her no mind, after all, few would consider sweeping a noteworthy activity.
The owner of said house was gaping in near shock in surprise as he held a bottle of flavored soda and taking in the nearly spotless appearance of the house.
"Th…the whole house was mired in the debris from the contractors this morning," he said, pointing about. "Where are all those awful concrete bricks?"
"I…I am al..lmost done with them, sir," Ryoko said as she continued sweeping up the grey dust at her feet. "D…do I get the b…bonus you mentioned earlier?"
The man's eyebrow twitched as he remembered the rash promise he'd made on hearing the girl say that she would be finished cleaning the house in a day. Given that she was such a skittish little thing, and just barely the age most ninja graduated the academy without being part of it, he thought it was a harmless promise to make.
He'd be eating light for a week or so now.
"Brat! Come back here!" a voice shouted out angrily from an angle above.
Ryoko and her client blinked and started to look up in that direction only to see a small rain of pain and buckets streaming downward towards them.
The black-haired girl's eyes flashed orange as she neatly dodged a small wave of colored fluid and deflected three buckets from the path of hitting her client. As she landed daintily on the toes of one foot in a crane stance, to avoid spotting paint on her clothes, Ryoko turned to look at the house and the paint that now criss-crossed all over it.
"Ano…." she said, eyes slightly touched by orange as she looked at her work of the day nearly destroyed in a few instants.
"Miss…" her client said more than a little irritated.
Turning slowly around, and lowering one foot almost to the paint covered ground, Ryoko blinked as she saw the man splattered in several colors of paint, eyebrow twisting in irritation.
"Ano…" Ryoko said hopelessly, biting her lip.
The Hokage rolled his eyes as a pair of distraught chunin burst into his quarters, distracting him in the practice of his calligraphy.
"Hokage-sama!" they shouted.
"I hope this isn't something trivial," the Hokage said. "Like something about one of Naruto's pranks."
"B…but, Hokage-sama," one of the chunin said. "He's gone too far this time."
"And what has he done?" the Hokage asked.
"He's put graffiti all over the Hokage Monument!" the chunin declared.
The Hokage took a deep breath of on his pipe and released the smoke back out. Such a pointless thing to come barging into his room for. A troublesome student and harmless pranks weren't things to bother the Hokage with.
Ryoko sighed as she counted the money she'd ended up getting from her little job. It wasn't as much as she had been hoping for since she wasn't able to get all the paint out of the façade before some of it soaked into the wood.
"I almost earned that extra money," Ryoko sighed. "I n..need to be much more aware of my surroundings."
She glanced back toward the mountainside monument and shook her head at the sight, maybe she should see about cleaning it. It would be a great way to do some extra training in the Kakeru Umareta.
The girl was considering that as she walked up the road to the Academy, to see a small group of advanced students start walking out of the building with sour faces. She stepped aside as they passed through and watched and felt them pass.
Strong ripples, their chakra coloring the chi that flowed out of them, in the current of the world.
Ryoko didn't have the best of ideas of what to make of each. Her father's explanation of chi seemed quite similar to his explanations of everything else.
Very vague and followed by wonderfully intense training sessions that she had to figure out on the spot.
It was not that she quite disrespected her father after all, he was able to create very effective means of training in various techniques. Of course, sometimes she suspected he was surprised at what she learned from his training methods. She just didn't have the overwhelming level of…respect for her father that she did for her mother.
In any case, Genma seemed to know how to channel chi quite well, but he'd only had a vague sense of how to explain what it was or how to interpret it.
The girl did note something about the sour looking one, however, the chi that came out of him was…thick somehow. The world seemed heavier when he was about.
It reminded her too much of what things felt like when she had one of her panic attacks, just with a different flavor and not so intense. Then again, he was a chakra wielder, so most of his emotions would probably get bottled up within him, at least, if she understood the theories in Joseibi's text books correctly in comparison with what she'd observed about chi.
In any case, the world was heavy around her only during her shameful fits. It was heavy around Uchiha-san all the time, even just a little bit.
It always made her uncomfortable and cautious.
Sasuke for his part looked up at the younger girl and frowned expressively as she flinched back away from him, bowing politely in apology.
Just what he needed more of, curious girls.
"Is that scaredy cat ogling, Sasuke," Sakura wondered darkly.
Ino paused in her rivalry with the pink-haired girl for a moment to consider Ryoko. The black-haired girl, slunk under their glares and stepped off toward the academy.
"Ano…" she said as she disappeared, bowing one more time to the older class.
"Of course she is," Ino said. "Who wouldn't want my Sasuke."
"He's not your, Sasuke!" Sakura declared loudly as they broke down into fighting with each other and several other would be kunoichi who'd heard the discussion.
Sweating nervously at the disturbance even her mere presence seemed to be causing.
As she came in, she saw Iruka-Sensei talking to Uzumaki-san.
"Ah! Iruka-sensei, Uzumaki-san!" Ryoko said waving to them cheerfully.
The older blonde boy breathed a sigh of relief as the energetic girl distracted Iruka-sensei for a moment.
"Ryoko-chan," Iruka said, laying a hand on Naruto's shoulder as the other started to try to sneak away. "Here to pick up your sister?"
"Hai, Iruka-sensei," Ryoko said, bowing deeply and suddenly enough to make Naruto flinch.
The way the girl swung from energetic and cheerful to frenetic and scared, with a simmering skittishness in between was always rather strange to watch. Still, she was a good fighter for all the behavior. He'd wonder why she wasn't in the academy if it weren't for the fact that Iruka-sensei had told him there was nobody at the academy that could teach her outside of taijutsu, and she was already past basic instruction.
"So what have you been doing today?" Iruka asked politely.
"I was cleaning a house for extra money," Ryoko said.
"Don't you and your sister have a stipend from the Hokage?" Iruka asked.
"Hai, Iruka-sensei," Ryoko said. "But it was good for training. And the owner said he would give me a bonus if I finished in the day. So I would have been able to take Joseibi to the movies and all-you-can-eat dinner to celebrate advancing this week."
"Would have?" Iruka asked. "You didn't finish?"
Ryoko's mood shifted swiftly again and she bit her lip as she slunk into herself again.
"Ano…" the girl said. "I would have, but I c…couldn't. Could not. Could not! Stop the paint."
"Paint?" Iruka asked as he turned to look at Naruto.
"I…I..failed to acc..count for the paint th…that fell out of the s…sky," Ryoko admitted stuttering. "I..I will have to train myself to be more aw..ware…in the f…future. I shall have to be satisfied with ju…just the movies."
Naruto wanted to shrink small enough to disappear suddenly.
"Well, I'm certain you won't have that problem again anytime soon," Iruka said pointedly staring at Naruto.
"Heh…heh, sorry, Ryoko-chan," Naruto said nervously.
Ryoko blinked and looked from Naruto to Iruka.
"Ano…" she said, still blinking. "Why?"
Iruka and Naruto sweated a bit at Ryoko's apparent lack of understanding of the situation.
"Oi, Onesan," Joseibi said as she walked out, waving. "I'm done here!"
The younger Saotome practically sauntered out of her classroom.
"Imouto-chan!" Ryoko said in frantic tone. "That is not proper pos…."
"Uzumaki! I almost had a perfect nap-time because of you," she declared. "Next time get the jonin to come running too!"
"Imouto-chan…." Ryoko said quietly in a drawn out manner, eyes narrowing slightly as she looked toward the teacher."
"Err, gomen, Iruka-sensei," Joseibi said sheepishly as she looked to her sister.
"Now, stand up straight," Ryoko continued in her more normal tone of lecturing.
"Whatever," Joseibi said. "Are we going?"
"Hai! Hai!" Ryoko said cheerfully. "Let us go!"
"Do you have to be like that? Oneesan?" Joseibi asked as she followed after her sister. "It's so embarrassing to have a sister like you."
"Sumimasen, Imouto-chan," Ryoko responded as they exited the gate. "I have to do something tonight so I will not be able to make dinner, but I made some egg roll…Imouto-chan! Wait for me! Do not eat all of them. Some are snacks for me! I! Mou! To! Chan!"
See other episodes by Thrythlind
(Posted Wed, 08 Sep 2010 02:20)
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