Hana smiled as the blonde Saotome girl walked up the path toward the Inuzuka complex. It was good for her to be getting out and about on her own a little bit more often. Ryoko was very protective, perhaps too much so, and she wasn't recognizing that Joseibi needed to stand on her own at times now.
"So, short classes today then, Joseibi?" she asked.
"Yeah," Joseibi said. "They're running the chunin exam at the school, so no ungraduated students allowed. Morino-sensei was there so…"
"So no getting away with spying," Hana said with a smirk.
Not that Joseibi really got as much spying past her instructors as she thought she did, but given the amount of extra instruction she was getting between the Inuzuka clan, her sister and what Hana suspected, judging by slips like "Morino-sensei", were occasional tutoring sessions with Ibiki Morino, it wasn't surprising that she'd get away with a little bit.
"Yeah," Joseibi said with a smirk. "So what's up today?"
"Have you been taking your pills?" Hana asked. "Both forms?"
"Yeah," the blonde said, shrugging. "I'm starting to get used to the taste. What are they for?"
"They're for acclimating both your bodies to the chakra of the other body," the vet explained. "It's why I take frequent blood samples from you."
Joseibi blinked and thought about that for a moment.
"You're feeding me my own dried up blood?" she asked blinking in confusion.
"More specifically, I'm feeding your fox form the blood of your human form and vice versa with a few other things," Hana said. "It's based on the techniques to acclimate our canine brothers and sisters to be ready to accept our chakra."
"Am I going to start growing fangs, beady eyes and red marks on my face then?" she asked pointedly.
"I don't think I have beady eyes," Hana protested.
"Is that what we're practicing today?" Joseibi asked.
A cascade of water splashed down over the blonde leaving her to shrink down inside her clothes to the size of a small blonde-furred fox.
"Not, quite, kit," Tsume Inuzuka said with a smirk as she looked down at the irritated fox.
The woman grinned and chuckled as she looked up toward the dogs that were sitting and waiting at the corner of the compound. Then she glanced down again at the small fox who blinked, her ears perking as she snapped a look toward the dogs and up toward the head of the Inuzuka clan.
"That's right, kit," she said. "See how long you can stay free."
Joseibi little out a protesting yip.
"You've got a five minute head start," Hana said calmly. "Do not look for hot water."
A few more yips slipped out of her mouth, looking between the two dog women.
"You're using up your time, kit," Tsume said with a dark smile.
Ears flattening against her head, Joseibi darted away at full speed.
"Heh," Tsume said. "Haven't had a good fox hunt in ages."
"You did remember to tell the dogs not to harm her when they catch her right?" Hana asked.
"More or less," Tsume responded with a shrug.
Joseibi zipped along the path, sniffing out the paths of the air as she did so, under no delusions that she compared at all to the dogs that would no doubt be tracking her down sometime in the near future.
A series of howls sounded from behind her in the direction of the Inuzuka main house.
Very near future.
She paused and whined, looking about and cursing the fact that she hadn't thought to move off the path yet, just ran straight out. Which mean the dogs had a straight trail to her.
Okay, this was going to be over in short order following her scent on every bit of dirt and blade of gra…
Joseibi glanced toward the grass along either side of the path.
Kuromaru paused and barked a command to the three Haimaru brothers pacing behind him. They came to a brief stop and watched as the torn up fragments of grass drifted down to them on the wind. The little green bits were just about plastered in the little fox's scent, and Kuromaru could already tell that they weren't the only ones about.
Another quick bark and the line of dogs spread out and set to sniffing about in a more cautious manner as the wind born fragments of fox-rolled grass drifted down in the air about them. Laying such false trails by remote meant the trails were automatically feeble and quickly discounted, but it took time and consideration and it slowed the hunt.
A little bit.
Joseibi brushed her small furry body against a clump of leaves on the branch next to her before starting to twist the leaves off and leaped for the next branch shaking her head to let leaves fall off the branch in her mouth and carry her scent down and in random directions buffeted by the wind through the bows and trunks of the trees.
The fox came to the edge of the trees and jumped out as far as she could from the top, releasing the last of the leaves to go wherever they wanted as she landed on the ground in the middle of a small yard fully of tasty smells.
"Ahhh!" someone shouted loudly.
Joseibi looked up to see the bristly end of broom swinging down toward her and yipped as she jumped aside.
"Out of my yard!" the wielder of the broom demanded. "Out! Out! Mangy fox!"
As he spoke he snapped down his broom at the little blonde-furred fox which dodged aside desperately yipping as she zipped around, trying to find a way out from under the broom's path.
One of the brothers Haimaru howled at the gates of a small farm, satisfied as the scent of the yellow fox they were tracking down grew stronger. Now with the other three dogs called, they'd be able to corner the kit and end this exercise.
"Out! Out!" some human was shouting, drawing a curious look from the dog as it started to leap the gate, and catching sight of a small yellow piece of fluff as he found himself in mid air.
The dog tried to twist about in mid air, but found itself stuck in its path. And then a firmly swung broom smacked him in the face, sending him rolling to the ground in a more or less unharmed but frankly confused mess and hitting the fence wall hind legs sticking up in the air and head pushed down into the dirt blinking as he started to roll up to standing, only to find himself being battered about continuously by the broom.
"First mangy foxes and now stray dogs, you aren't getting my chickens!" the farmer shouted as he continued to batter the Inuzuka dog about the head.
That is up until the dog irritably reached up and grabbed the broom shaft under the brush and snapped it off with a low growl.
"Uhh…" the farmer said hesitantly. "Nice doggie?"
Joseibi blinked as she darted out down the middle of the incoming pack of hunting dogs, another somewhere already behind her. All three of the dogs blinked and turned about to watch her pass with a trace of disbelief and skidded to a stop, turning about on a dime to follow after her.
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" a voice came from behind, pursued by loud, angry barks.
Kuromaru and the other two Haimaru's set it aside for a moment, up until the now fleeing farmer, eyes closed and fleeing, slammed over one of the other grey brothers and ending up in a tangle of limbs and fur, staring at a perplexed canine face.
"Ahhh! Don't eat me!" he shouted as the barking of the brother that had already been pursuing him, or so he thought, came filtering up through the air.
Pushing and kicking out at the new dog, which quickly moved from confused to angry, the farmer stood up and continued running along the same path the fox had used.
The third Haimaru brother thrust past his two brothers and Kuromaru and lit out after the scent of the fox, wishing the loud, whiny human would just get out of the way. The other dogs quickly followed in his wake.
"Ugg, dog walking again," one of the leaf genin said, rolling his eyes. "When are we going to get something else? How about gardening, or doing repair work on the old people's houses?"
The genin team was holding the leashes for collectively nine dogs.
"Don't you have any ambition?" one of the other two genin said. "Here we are, ninja for ten years and the chunin exams taking place right now and we're both doing menial labor instead of going out for promotion."
"Oh, I'm fine with menial work," the first said. "I just get tired of dealing with all this dog shit."
"Hey, at least that's all we have to deal with," the third said. "It's not like there are any…"
A blonde fox sped past, attracting the attention of all the dogs as it ran past at a heavy sprint.
"…surprises?" the last genin said turning to watch the fox and holding tightly to the leashes of the three dogs under his control.
"Make them stop!" a frantic voice called out in the next moment, drawing the glances of three genin struggling to control through nine untrained, somewhat spoiled dogs of various sizes.
All three found themselves unintentionally clotheslined by a frantic civilian who brought them all tumbling down in a clump, rolling ahead himself to an embarrassing stop, rear in the air. The domesticated pet dogs slipped their leashes and all four humans found themselves covered in paw prints in short order.
The three genin lifted their heads to glare at the farmer just moments before the Inuzuka dogs barreled past them, mostly jumping over the pile, but smacking at least one ninja in the back of the head on the way.
Seeing the huge dogs coming, the farmer shrieked and backpedaled at an amazing pace before finding his feet again and continuing his headlong flight.
Kuromaru gave an irritated whuff as the Haimaru brothers barked angrily.
For a moment, they thought that they had gotten rid of the annoying, screaming civilian.
One of the three genin stood up and dusted himself off irritably.
"What the hell was that?" he asked.
"Damn it!" another shouted. "The dogs! We have to get the dogs!"
And off they went.
Joseibi turned a corner at a brisk run, passing under the legs of several people on the street, who glanced down briefly before the pack of wild dogs pushed through much less gracefully. The little yellow cursed fox, watched ahead, looking for some sort of new distraction and found it in the form of three more genin returning a particularly hated rival to the mission office.
The fox Joseibi smirked.
"Tora," she thought. "Meet your doom…or at least mine."
And up she jumped onto the shoulder of the one of the genin not carrying the cat and started yipping in a decidedly mocking tone.
"Is that fox actually…baiting the cat?" one of the genin asked.
Tora hissed and spat with new rage and reached out to slash at the fox which jumped from the shoulder of the genin she was on and towards the man's face who was carrying the cat.
Blinking in surprise the genin through him his hands to cover his face, providing Joseibi a perfect spring board to bounce off of, and tossing the cat up into the air and back to the ground.
Tora looked like he was about to take off after Joseibi when the raucous barking behind attracted the cat's attention, sending it into a shocked yowl as it took off at a skittering run and bringing the horde of dogs past the ninja that had been assigned to recover him.
The tangle slowed down the dogs, but the cat was out like a rocket, and now the dogs had two targets to pursue. And, as a particularly frantic farmer ran around the tangle of dogs and ninja to join pace with a particular cat just before the majority of the dogs worked themselves free and into the pursuit.
Kuromaru and the Haimaru brothers exchanged exasperated looks as they worked around and over another group of tangled up humans in pursuit of the damn yellow fox.
And now six genin were following the dogs.
Joseibi, thinking frantically, dashed past a corner and glanced over her shoulder.
"Okay, pissing off Tora again was a bad idea," she said to herself.
She passed a street through the feet of a large number of ninja travelling down the street from the academy and wondered if that was perhaps the people taking the exams, but put the thought aside for the moment.
"Ryoko-chan!" Kiba called out to the black-haired Saotome just as the girl reached a corner and glanced back over her shoulder briefly towards him.
Just in time to miss a little yellow blur dashing past and attracting Kiba's eyes for a moment as it disappeared into an alley across the way.
"Was that Joseibi's fox form?" he asked curiously before turning back to more important matters.
"Ryoko! Wait!" he shouted again.
Ryoko took another step forward past the building corner into the street and turned about to look at Kiba.
"Ano, Inuzuka-san?" she asked for a moment.
"Before the next test, I need to talk to…"
Tora the cat ran past the two hissing and spitting fervently.
"Ano?" Ryoko asked.
Just before she vanished in a near tidal wave of canine fur, leaving her behind covered in dirty paw prints and face in the ground.
"The hell?" Kiba asked, flinching.
A screaming farmer ran past moving around Ryoko. He was followed by Kuromaru and the Haimaru brothers and then six genin
From where she was trampled, Ryoko muttered weakly.
"Itaiiii..."
Tsume arched an eyebrow as she looked over toward the clock.
"This is taking longer than I thought," she said. "You haven't taught her how to escape a hunt yet, have you?"
The older woman turned to look toward her daughter.
"Maybe she's just being lucky," Hana suggested.
And on that, the sound of barking came from the yard.
"Ah, there she….is?" Tsume said, blinking at the sight before her.
Joseibi was there, held by the scruff of her neck in Kuromaru's jaws, looking utterly exhausted and embarrassed. All four canines and the one vulpine were splattered with paint of various colors, scratched up in several small ways, and had what looked like candy sticking to their fur in places.
They all looked more than a little exasperated.
Hana and Tsume stared with their mouths hanging up.
"I get the feeling we're hearing about this," Tsume said with a sigh.
I may be getting a website fairly soon, in which case, I'm going to start transferring my fanfiction over there. I'll probably still be posting parts of chapters here so you can continue to benefit from the alerts and such you set up (and so I can keep using the data-tracking tools). After a month or so, I'll take the chapters from my website and put them here.
But they'll be going up on my website first by at least a month.
See other episodes by Thrythlind
(Posted Wed, 08 Sep 2010 02:23)
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