"My lady," said Shizune, looking over what was going on in one.
"Shizune. This is classified an SS-Class Secret as of NOW," said Tsunade, one finger thumping the desk with a sound of doom.
"'SS' class?!" asked Shizune.
"NOBODY gets told any of this without my direct authorization. NOBODY." Tsunade met her apprentice's eyes.
"Why?" asked Shizune.
Tsunade went over each code phrase, translating on the fly. "Mission has gone into unexpected territory. Mission has Fouled Up Beyond All Recognition. No fatalities. Not within the Five Great Shinobi Nations or Elemental Countries. They are assessing potential resources in unfamiliar territory, treating this as an infiltration mission. There was a conflict on arrival, since resolved and they are now using cover identities. The sealed documentation are these photographs."
"Yes, My Lady, I see - but why so classified for a few photographs?" asked Shizune.
Tsunade tapped down with one finger, then flicked a photograph towards her first apprentice.
"That's..." Shizune stared at it, then reached down and picked up the photo she'd seen earlier to compare the two.
"Exactly," answered Tsunade. "I just wish there was some way to send someone there."
"Why not just send back a message by toad messenger?" asked Shizune. "We could just wait for the next toad to arrive and have an outgoing message ready."
"Because we have Naruto Uzumaki and Jiraiya performing delicate diplomatic duties in that case."
Shizune tried to picture Naruto being delicate and diplomatic. The mind just failed to link those concepts.
"Though the idea about having a return message ready is good," said Tsunade, rummaging through her desk drawers. "I know I've got a blank one somewhere around here."
Naruto tried not to fidget.
"-which I read about in 'Hogwart's - A History'," bragged Hermione.
"Yeah, so it's a genjutsu huh?" asked Naruto, glancing up and trying to do that dispel thing he'd heard about. Unfortunately that and regular bunshin remained on his list of "can't do at all" jutsu.
"No, it's just an illusion," said Hermione. "No gems are involved. Well, I suppose the casting of it to make it permanent could have. It would make the stars easier to represent, I suppose. I..."
"Ahem, first years!" said the teacher with the well-practiced bit-into-something-sour look. However, she was directing it at someone other than Naruto, which made it all a lot better as far as Naruto was concerned.
"You're to be sorted into your Houses," said the teacher. "They are, as I said before, Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Slytherin, and Ravenclaw."
"Right!" said the hat on the chair. "Shall we get started?"
"Anxious, are we?" asked the teacher who'd spoken earlier. "We haven't even introduced the staff."
"Can't you do that afterwards? It always makes more sense that way," stated the hat, sounding very put upon even though it was currently not being worn. Or perhaps that was why.
"Well, I suppose," said the teacher, sounding as if she wasn't quite sure what was going on.
"Then I can get back to those lovely novels," muttered the hat to itself.
"What was that?" asked the teacher.
"Oh, nothing. Nothing at all. Just anxious to get this done and see if perhaps someone can sew up a section on the tip here. I think I'm thinning a bit there."
"Oh, yes, well," said the teacher. "Susan Bones!"
Naruto was not at all sure about this, and so was just looking around while they got this boring stuff over with.
It wasn't like anyone had even explained this stuff about these 'House' things anyway. What was the big difference?
He DID hear that 'Malfoy' kid get tossed into Slytherin House, which was represented by a snake. So kind of like Orochimaru had a house-thingie.
Everyone started whispering when the hat went onto the head of that "Harry Potter" guy and then the hat just seemed to move around a bit this way and that before it finally declared "Better be - Gryffindor!"
Which made the Gryffindor people kinda happy for some reason.
"Naruto Uzumaki."
Naruto startled as he realized that everyone else had been called. "Oh right."
The hat went onto his head.
"My goodness," said the hat in a whisper. "You're VERY Hufflepuff aren't you?"
"Is that a good thing?" asked Naruto.
"Hufflepuff are known for being hard-workers, but also being fiercely protective of their friends, and are reliable. When a Hufflepuff says they'll do something - they're most likely going to bloody well do it."
Naruto nodded slightly, not wanting the hat to fall off. "Okay. That sounds like me. What are the others?"
"Slytherin are those who seek power, who set themselves a goal and will do anything to get there."
"Sounds like an Orochimaru kind of thing," admitted Naruto.
"From what I can see in your memory, he'd have fit right in," said the hat. "Gryffindor is about bravery and often recklessness. You'd likely have fit in well there as well. Ravenclaw is about calm and planning and thinking things out. That would have been the poorest fit, I think."
"Okay then," whispered back Naruto.
"Hufflepuff it is then!" said the hat aloud.
Naruto made a face. No ramen. No rice. Lots of heavy foods with lots of meat.
"Not what you're used to, is it?" asked one of the others at the Hufflepuff table.
"Uhm, no, not at all," admitted Naruto.
"Cedric Diggory," said the older student, holding out a hand. After seeing Naruto stare at it, he prompted. "British custom. You take the hand in your own and shake it once as a form of greeting."
"Oh, right," said Naruto, feeling a bit dumb as he just hadn't connected it. "Just so much different stuff going on right now. So you're my sempai in this House thing?"
"Sempai?" asked Cedric as that term hadn't translated.
"How to explain it?" asked Naruto of himself. "Kind of like a student in a higher grade that the younger student looks up to?" Despite that he was actually older than this kid if you removed the henge.
"Yes," said Cedric with a nod. "A 'sempai' - heard that phrase before but I'm not remembering where."
"Probably some Japanese series," said a redheaded girl nearby. "I've heard the term used myself."
"Ah, Susan Bones, right?" asked Cedric.
"Right, some muggle films and series made the rounds at a school I was at." Susan picked at some fried potato dish on her plate. "I think it means 'upperclassman' or something."
"Ah, then yes, I'm your sempai then," said Cedric. "So you know the new Defense Against The Dark Arts teacher?"
"Jiraiya-sensei? Yeah." Naruto considered what he could actually tell them about him.
"So what can you tell us about him?" asked Susan Bones, quite obviously interested.
"He's... well," said Naruto. "He was the one to teach me the Rasengan."
"Raas-ehn-gahn?" asked Susan. "I see I need to keep a translation spell running around you."
"So, let me see if I've got it right," said Jiraiya. "Each of the Houses represents a quality of their founders, an element, and is otherwise a dormitory and common area for their students. The House is essentially an extended family-away-from-family that they will interact with from September to July."
"Early September to mid-July, and each Term is broken by a Half-Term Break. Autumn Term, for example, runs from the start of school to mid-December." Professor Flitwick nodded. "I take it the school system you're used to is rather more... intense?"
"Sort of," said Jiraiya. "When it was set up, there were intercessions by various clans and factions so the whole thing ended up with a lot of exceptions and limitations. Then Sarutobi got involved and re-did the system so that the rest of the students could just continue on with each clan having responsibility for teaching their own clan's spells and special techniques with allowances for that time away from the group school for such things."
"So it runs year-round then?" asked Flitwick.
"Yeah, there's a couple of holidays in there but pretty much," admitted Jiraiya. "Back to the Houses. Hufflepuff is hard work, kindness, tolerance, friendship? Also the element of earth?"
"Yes, basically," admitted Flitwick.
"Gryffindor is courage and the element of fire?" Jiraiya continued at Flitwick's nod. "Slytherin is ambition and water?"
"Yes, that's right," admitted Flitwick.
"Intelligence and creativity for the Ravenclaw, element of air?" asked Jiraiya.
"Yes, that's my own House," admitted Filius Flitwick.
"What about Lightning element?" asked Jiraiya.
"Lightning isn't an element, Mister Jiraiya," said Flitwick.
"In my land, there is," said Jiraiya, counting them off on his fingers. "Fire, Earth, Air, Water, Lightning. Everyone has a particular affinity for an element as well - and once they've gotten to the stage where they can regularly use magic they can learn and manipulate that element better than they can other elements."
"Hmmm," hmmmed Flitwick. "You know, I've noticed that some students always have more problems with certain spells than others. I wonder if this 'affinity' that you speak of could have a part in that."
"What's your affinity, Mister Jiraiya?" asked Minerva McGonagall, who'd been sitting nearby all this time.
"Primarily earth," said Jiraiya. "Though like many of my contemporaries I've also mastered a secondary and have worked at other elements to bring them up a bit."
"I would have thought fire," said Minerva, remembering an acromantula that had been fried crispy without a scorchmark on the wall behind it.
"That's one of the things I have to train Naruto in," said Jiraiya. "He has a lot of magical power, but his control is a bit shoddy."
Rolanda Hooch leaned closer from her position on the other side of McGonagall. "Be as that may, he's a natural on the broomstick. You might want to see if the boy's up to playing Quidditch."
Jiraiya tried to look thoughtful, all the while trying to remember what he'd read about it. It was a game, but he'd dismissed it after a few references because:
1) there were NO organized sports in the Five Elemental Countries. A few contests, but even the idea of organized sports was a strange one to Jiraiya.
2) the rules seemed improbably silly.
"Well, it doesn't matter," said Minerva McGonagall. "We'll all be busy enough settling down the classes for at least the first week."
"So what's with that one guy?"
"Uzumaki? Japanese transfer student as I understand it."
Jiraiya paused in his movement along the hallways, as he immediately wondered how much of his cover Naruto had blown.
"Oh, the 'ninja' guy. Really pathetic."
"I was kind of wondering how he was bouncing off the walls. Literally. And walking up them? He was pacing on the ceiling for crying out loud."
"Probably just some magic shoes or something."
Jiraiya nodded and passed the two without them ever detecting his presence. Best to go ahead and get things ready. Tomorrow would be a big day after all.
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(Posted Tue, 10 Sep 2013 19:55)
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