"TA DA! Happy birthday!"
An eye peeled back to see that the now-dry floor had a table set up near the bars, where it was getting light from a window.
Wait. He had a window?! Dusty with warped glass that didn't really show anything. But he had a window.
And that brat was standing there near the table beaming up at him with that idiotic grin.
"First," rumbled the Kyubi. "It is not my birthday. Second, you call that a window? Third, what the hell is wrong with you? I hate you in particular and your race in general!"
"Yeah. You've said that before. But look, it's a CARROT cake. With whipped cream frosting!"
"What do I look like, a rabbit?"
"..."
"I AM NOT A RABBIT!"
"Didn't say a thing."
"Hmph. And that is just a mental construct like the table and window. It has no actual substance."
"So, Mister Kyubi, when IS your birthday?"
"My name is not 'Kyubi' brat. My name is not something a mortal mind can handle." He was rather proud of that, it sounded dark and mysterious and all that.
"Whoa."
Kurama smirked with his back to the boy. Kid certainly hadn't earned his name.
"So what do you want to be called?" asked the nine year old boy.
"Suit yourself. I reserve the right to ignore it."
"Okay, Mister Grumpy-pants!"
The Kyubi winced, then actually uncurled enough to look over at the boy again. "No pants. Go away."
"Mister Grumpy-tails then! Oh. Iruka-sensei is shaking me. Gotta go."
"'Mister Grumpy-tails'? I hate humans. Stupid underage mouthy little brats most of all. And he left the damn cake."
A few moments went by.
"Ugh, carrot. And the icing tastes entirely too sweet. Stupid brat."
Ino Yamanaka was nine years old, heir of the prestigious Yamanaka clan, and a budding young kunoichi.
She was also of an age where she was planning her future. Graduate the Academy, date Sasuke, become a genin of Konohagakure, go on romantic dates with Sasuke, perform missions for the village and prove her worth, accept Sasuke's proposal, graduate from genin to chunin and work for Torture & Interrogation like her father, marry Sasuke, reach the rank of jonin and retire to raise a family.
Yes, she had her future all planned out.
Except that Sasuke Uchiha wasn't paying attention to HER. Instead, Sasuke kept watching another boy - Naruto Uzumaki. Who kept falling asleep in class.
She had her suspicions as to why, and told herself she was just honing the skills of a kunoichi who would eventually lead the clan. Information gathering was a VERY important part of that heritage and planned future, wasn't it? Of course it was!
Which brought her here, to where the boy was apparently napping. She'd just use this technique to probe his mind, never mind that she hadn't quite mastered the body-switch jutsu and this was her first time trying the mind-reading jutsu. She had read the scroll locked away in her father's desk.
And if he hadn't wanted her to learn the technique, he wouldn't have used such a cheap lock, right? Right!
Now he was asleep with his back against a tree, so she'd just take a position here and do the hand-signs carefully and-
Ino's body stiffened, looked around, and then down at her hands as if seeing them for the first time. "Okay, this is different. Huh. There's a chakra connection between this body and... oh. Heh. I can have fun with this."
"What just happened?" asked Naruto, looking around from where he'd been trying to fix the window.
"What happened? Where am I? Why am I in a cage?" asked the Ninetailed Demon Fox, though sounding rather like a little girl somehow. "Why am I so tired?"
"Who are you?" asked Naruto, a suspicion forming.
"Uhm, going to sleep now, go away," stalled the Kyubi.
"Okay, that was weirder than usual," said Naruto.
"INO!" declared Sakura. "I won't let you win!"
"Win what?" asked Ino, looking up from eating dango.
"What's with your voice?" asked Sakura, who then shook her head. "You aren't on a diet to win Sasuke anymore - that means you must have some sneaky plan!"
Ino's expression was completely flat. "We're ninja. Sneaky plans are kind of de rigeur."
"See!" declared Sakura.
"And really? Diet? For a kunoichi? My previous ho... that is to say - I've known active kunoichi. They don't need to go on diets because they have physically demanding lifestyles that burn calories."
"Well, Sasuke won't like you if you're fat, so eat up!" said Sakura.
"Sasuke? Some boy? Is he a ninja, child?"
"We're the same age, Ino. And you know that Sasuke is the coolest boy in the class - that's why I'll be the one to win."
"So he's a serious ninja. Don't you think that if he was interested in sniffing around any female, it would be one that was a serious ninja herself? Someone who trains and gets stronger and actually eats food?"
"Uh," said Sakura.
Ino threw the wooden skewers into a tree. They sank about halfway and momentarily had thin trails of smoke rising from them. "So. You want to make out?"
"WHAT?!" shrieked Sakura.
"You're training to be a kunoichi, aren't you?" asked Ino.
"Y-y-yes," admitted Sakura, backing away from Ino.
"You're hoping to win the affections of this 'Sasuke' as well aren't you?" asked Ino as she put some money in front of the bemused dango stall owner and turned to regard Sakura.
"Well, uhm, yes," admitted Sakura as her back bumped up against a tree.
"Don't kunoichi have to be able to use their 'feminine wiles' or something like that?"
"Yeah... I really don't like the way this conversation is going," said Sakura, beginning to edge around the tree.
"Well, we're a bit young, but wouldn't it make sense to practice things like that now where we can carefully build upon those skills for later use?" asked Ino, slowly advancing on Sakura. Somehow conveying the idea of a hungry fox advancing on a helpless prey-animal.
"Got homework! Bye!" declared Sakura, as she turned and ran as if Mist Missing-nin were on her tail.
There was polite golf-clapping from the stall owner.
"That was surprisingly amusing," admitted Ino as she bowed lightly towards the stall owner. If he ever got free, have to avoid destroying that stall. Now, where next?
Only had the chakra reserves and physical capabilities of this human while on this little outing. Have to make the most of it since the girl's reserves wouldn't last much longer.
"Ino! Ino!"
"Whasss... whaffur? Why does my head hurt so much?"
"Because you tried to drink an entire bottle of a drink from Cloud called 'whiskey' and managed to get roaring drunk after about a quarter of it?"
"Ungh," Ino slowly blinked, trying to get the fuzzy to go away. She looked down at herself and the shock was enough to cause an adrenalin rush that swept a lot of the fuzzy out. "WHAT AM I WEARING?! Oh. Yelling is bad."
"I'd imagine so," said her father. "You're wearing a clown costume. You also have five bags of expensive clothing charged to the clan, a set of 'adult only' novels, a rubber chicken, and three scrolls on mixing drugs and poisons."
"Wait. A 'rubber chicken'?"
Inoichi gave a flat look to his daughter. "That's the part you decided to focus on?"
Sakura was sure something was going on. That Ino had gotten into some poison or drug and gone nuts that one afternoon had been her own conclusion.
That didn't mean that Ino hadn't had a point.
So she was jogging in the early morning, using the time to plan her revenge in the prank war that had developed between her and Ino.
It made sense that Sasuke would want a strong kunoichi eventually - he was the top of the class and all. So she had to get stronger to attract his attention. Ino had an unfair advantage as she was from a prominent ninja clan. She had to do something to narrow the gap, but what was she good at to allow her to compete?
"Ho! It is unusual to see anyone run at this hour. Truly the fires of youth burn brightly within you!"
Sakura recoiled as she saw the man in green keeping pace with her, while running on his hands. "Uhm. Just morning exercise before the Academy."
"Indeed, it is nice to see Academy students taking their studies so seriously!" declared the very very strange man.
"Right, bye," said Sakura, deciding to use a different route from now on. Seriously, those eyebrows. That suit.
"Good luck on your path to become a strong kunoichi," said the strange man, managing to flip long enough to give her a thumb's up before landing on his hands and accelerating past her.
Yup. Definitely take a different route tomorrow.
Route? Yeah, that'd work. She could get even with Ino by taking advantage of knowing the other girl's route home.
Ino ducked her head at the call from the meatseller.
Everyone was convinced that she had been experimenting with poisons and gotten a dose of something particularly interesting. So she had adopted the tactic of trying to ignore everything and pretend that day had NOT happened.
"Yo. So you're the little flower that wants to learn poisons," said someone who had just stepped into her path.
"Sorry," said Ino, trying to go around.
"Now don't be like that," said the woman in the trenchcoat. "Your daddy wanted me to train you since you made a mistake the other day. Be glad it wasn't one of my poisons. You'd be a dead rugrat instead of just trying to hide."
"You don't mind if I confirm that with my father, do you?" asked Ino, scooting around the woman and getting ready to dash the last short distance to her home.
"No, I don't..." The woman stopped and frowned, then glanced up. "What?"
"What what?" asked Ino, following the gaze upward.
KER-SPLASH!
A glimpse of pink hair and a barely-heard "oops" as she wiped some of the ice water off her face.
Anko grinned, quite aware of the little yellow-haired girl shrinking back in alarm at the sight.
"A prank war?" asked Anko. "Someone just involved ME in their prank war?"
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(Posted Wed, 26 Nov 2014 22:54)
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