"Hold on," said the blonde girl, crossing her arms in front of her chest and giving her jonin-sensei a most skeptical look. "Let me see if I've got this right. There's two bells and three of us? So you're planning on having the first team of two genin from the start?"
"First?" asked Sakura.
"There have been two genin teams," explained Naruko. "Usually when one of the three genin has died. Accidents, foreign nin, infection from cat scratches, and so on. Usually they get a third genin eventually. So, despite the fact that Leaf is NOT Mist, and we stress teamwork where they do individual deadliness - our first real exercise as a team is to boot someone off the team?"
"Yes, that pretty much sums that part up," admitted Kakashi.
"No wonder you fail all your students, you just plain suck," said Naruko.
"You know about other villages?" asked Sakura, thinking that maybe this blonde hussy trying to steal HER Sasuke might be a spy from a foreign village.
"Mist had a graduation exam where students were paired off, usually getting friends together," explained Naruko. "Then they killed each other to make the rank of genin. Winner becomes a ninja, loser gets tossed in a common grave with a marker that just reads 'failure' over it. You'd probably LOVE Hidden Mist, Sasuke."
Sasuke hnned, and it wasn't immediately clear whether that was an agreement or disagreement. He noted how the blonde had just tried to signal him, but he wasn't sure what that signal was supposed to mean.
"You know so much about them, maybe you're a spy for them," mused Sakura out loud.
"Summoning jutsu! Frog drop!"
"Eh?" asked Sakura before an eight-hundred pound toad flattened her.
"Can I has candy?" asked the toad.
"That's a toad, not a frog," pointed out Kakashi as Naruko handed off a lemon twist to the toad who vanished.
Pulling out a kukri and setting the point to Sakura's neck, Naruko waited a moment for the somewhat-imbedded girl's eyes to focus. "Now if I was a spy for Hidden Mist, I wouldn't be so obvious. I'd just wait till you had use the restroom or something and then use a little venomous dart. Clean, efficient, and I'd be able to deny everything because I'd make damn sure there were no witnesses. Instead I'm doing this to make a point."
"And what point would that be?" asked Kakashi, wondering if a group could get any more dysfunctional. On second thought, there were way too many examples.
"The tsundere here is the weakest link," said Naruko, stepping away and sheathing the kukri. "In a group with an obsessive vengeance type and a ninjutsu specialist - she's the dead last."
"I am not!" protested Sakura, glancing at Sasuke.
Sasuke considered the point and nodded.
"You!" declared Sakura, getting up and launching herself.
Naruko grabbed the hands reaching for her, went to her back as her legs came up to put her feet on Sakura's stomach, and launched the other kunoichi.
Kakashi leapt out to catch the flying genin, and his eyes widened at the sudden tinkling noise.
"There we go," said Naruko, accepting a bell from Sasuke. "Thanks Sakura."
"Wah? Hah? Eh?" asked Sakura as she stared between a smirking Sasuke and the openly grinning Naruko.
This team is either going to be great, or they're going to kill each other, realized Kakashi.
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(Posted Sun, 13 Mar 2011 19:34)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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