"Isn't she the knife specialist?" asked Goemon.
"She's been trained by Anko Mitarashi and Ibiki Morino, after expressing interest in their line of work," said Iruka.
"Oh," said Goemon. "So - information gathering. Naruto sneaks in and steals it, Hinata observes from a distance, and Tokiko threatens to rip their intestines out through their nose if they don't talk. Yeah, that works."
"I don't know if their personalities will mesh too well though," admitted Iruka.
"Hi!" said Naruto. "Looks like we'll be working together. I'm Naruto Uzumaki!"
"Hmph," said Tokiko, letting the Valkyrie Skirt (a form of puppet prosthetic) fold back into the housings along her thighs that were normally hidden by her skirt.
"So, other than those blade thingies, what do you do?" asked Naruto, ignoring the glare the girl was sending towards him. Really, he'd been glared at by experts, and this wasn't ANYTHING compared to the looks he'd gotten from Hinata's father. THAT guy had the Disapproving Glare down at least at B-Rank levels.
"Valkyrie Skirt," said Tokiko, giving up target practice.
"That's a nice name, though I thought it was Tokiko," said Naruto, looking confused.
Tokiko glared at him again before moving to ignore him.
"This is Hinata Hyuga," introduced Naruto. "You were in a different class so you prolly don't know her. She's a Hyuga - so she's got the See Through Everything Eyes and her martial arts style. Watch out for that, cause when she hits you with that it hurts twice. Once when she hits you, and again when the tenki-something gets opened up again."
"Stop it," said Tokiko, anger building up during that simple statement.
"Stop what?" asked Naruto innocently.
"You're not that much of an idiot," said Tokiko.
"Told you," said Hinata from her position on one of the benches.
"Oh," said Naruto with a shrug. "Still don't know much about you, and it would be handy if we're working together. Besides, Kurenai-sensei has been watching us from that tree for the past five minutes."
"Ten," corrected Hinata.
Tokiko glared at the tree until there was a shimmer and their sensei dropped the genjutsu.
"In the future," said Kurenai. "You might want to hold off on blurting out any intelligence you've gathered."
"I thought it might be some kinda test," admitted Naruto.
"I'm not sure you can work together as a team," admitted Kurenai. "Admittedly, I did request a scout team. Gathering information is an important job for any ninja village. However, we have a prankster, a wallflower, and a closet psychopath."
"I don't do closets," said Tokiko.
Naruto licked a finger and made a gesture as if using it to make a mark on an invisible wall.
"So, we're going to do a little test," said Kurenai. "You three are going to gather information on someone in the village who I'm going to choose at random. Since a normal person wouldn't have a chance against any of you, it has to be a jonin. Let's go with -"
It wasn't random of course, she was making a show of it as if trying to pick a name out of thin air. No, she had already arranged this and put the individual on alert. This was going to be a test of their ability after all. Kurenai nodded as if just thinking of the name.
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(Posted Wed, 23 Feb 2011 16:00)
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