By whatever Inuzuka secret ceremony, she had been assigned the triplets a month before, and their understanding of human-tongue was still shaky. But at least they had stopped peeing everywhere.
"If you keep letting your face unguarded I'll keep breaking your nose." I blandly pointed out, before performing the sign of reconciliation and leaving the academy' grounds.
...
"Team 10: Daiki Eatslug, Hana Inuzuka, Kanbei Shin."
A cloud of white smoke along with a 'poof' covered the sensei words, and from there emerged him. Wearing a green jumpsuit, orange striped leg warmers, and the standard Konoha flak jacket, which he left unzipped.
His red forehead protector was worn around his waist like a belt. Maito Gai, or Might Guy I didn't know, stood proudly in front of our class.
He placed himself in his trademark 'nice guy' pose, thumb up, and shouted "I'll race you to the training ground 10! And... go!"
He disappeared. I looked at my teammates, vaguely recognizing Shin, and amusedly noticing Hana was slamming her head on the desk, destroyed by having me in her team.
The huski triplet was looking at me like it was completely my fault.
And from what I knew, it was true, I didn't know if Guy had taught to another team before Lee's one, but the possible difference could easily be chalked up to some kind of butterfly effect.
However we left the classroom and ran toward the training grounds, we had to slow down because the dogs were too young to run on par with us. But after a couple of strides, I grew tired of wasting time, and without saying a word, I choose to act.
I grabbed one of the pups by the scruff of his neck and placed it in the arms of a flabbergasted Shin, took one for me, and threw the last to Hana, who scrambled to catch him on the fly. I may have thrown the last one because he had bitten me, nobody would ever know.
We reached the training ground 10 only to see our future sensei doing pushups, his fingers buried into the ground because once he finished pushing up, he pulled himself down, in a mystery of gravity-defying 'Just Do It!' meme.
"YOSH!" He shouted, jumping up in front of us "I AM THE KONOHA BEAUTIFUL GREEN BEAST OF PREY! MIGHT GUY IS MY NAME! AND MY DREAM IS TO TRAIN HARD AND PROTECT MY VILLAGE!"
He was so loud the Hainaru brothers had slumped down and were whining, covering their ears with their paws, and I wished I could copy them. I let my chakra pour lightly out of me, testing his 'presence'.
I couldn't get a read on him, nothing beyond the idea that he was solid. Like a boulder, but maybe with a hidden ember buried within. Guy was so different from what he portrayed himself as.
My two teammates were very easy to distinguish, the kunoichi was the one that felt like a cozy room with a lit fireplace, while the other felt like some kind of... ivy.
I decided. The three dogs were a confusing mess, but it was hard to feel something that held such a little sense of identity, their pack mentality blended one dog over the other. I opened my eyes, after unknowingly closing them, and looked critically at my teammates.
Hana didn't bother hiding her conflict between disgust and painful acceptance. She brought down her long brown hair which she usually wore in a ponytail with two locks of hair framing her face in a useless attempt of shielding herself from the loud presentation.
Her large, black eyes shut down to block any visive input. For the occasion she wore a light shade of lipstick that matched the traditional fang-like tattoos of the Inuzuka clan on both of her cheeks, in addition to a new tattoo on her upper right arm that resembled a flower.
She had a brace on her left wrist, bracelets on her right hand as well as bandages wrapped around her legs, while she wore light-brown clothes with white fur around the collar and a grey sash around her waist.
She noticeably had a softer appearance than the other members of her family, not having slit-like eyes, or wild, shaggy hair, clearly, she had dressed up for the occasion, and I smiled at her naivety.
Still, having Might Guy as our sensei was a lucky turn of the events. Taijutsu was the base upon any shinobi relied upon, the one thing you could use without chakra or weaponry. I was lucky, really lucky to have him as a sensei.
I studied distractedly with my other teammate. Shin was taller than me of a couple of inches, but beyond that he had a leaner build than mine, resembling the stereotypical scarecrow ninja.
He wore a combination of gray and dark brown clothes that would help him blend in with the vegetation, I approved. He had short black hair and brown eyes, while his high cheekbones and sharp chin made him look almost like an elf.
From what I remembered he had a knack for traps, and then my eyes widened.
I remembered that Naruto' s generation of teams had been heavily specialized in a field. Team 7 front liners, the team with the Nara was a kidnap and read minds, while Hinata's was a tracking one.
Before our sensei could ask us to introduce ourselves I blurted out: "We're a sabotage team aren't we?"
The others whirled on me with a questioning expression on their faces, while Guy shot me a thumbs up along with a wink, followed by what I think he believed was a roguish grin.
"You are indeed youthful, my young student! Explain why or you'll do five hundred laps around the village!"
At that point I simply went with the flow, and I knew that his training methods had merit, and their result was mastery over the eight gates, and power made you go on par with a god. Sure, then it killed you, but one could not have it all.
"I'll run one thousand laps if I get this wrong sensei!" I shouted back in kind, raising both my arms over my head with hands closing in fists. I brought down said fists on the shoulders of my teammates and kept shouting.
"And since we are a team, they'll run with me!"
Ignoring the satisfied 'YOSH' shouted by my sensei and the subtle but unmistakable approximation of killing intent Hana was leaking out, I was surprised by the complete absence of any kind of protest.
Maybe the pack mentality of the Inuzuka served us well there, and my other companion seemed to be quietly accepting his fate. I hoped that such a demonstration of teamwork could spare us the bullshit of the bell test.
I pointed toward Shin: "Traps and camouflage," I turned toward the kunoichi and the Haimaru triplets.
"Tracking, hunting, and Hana has chakra control good enough to become a proficient med nin, and vet too."
I pointed toward Guy: "You can teach us how to be kickass on the close quarter since taijutsu isn't loud like ninjutsu. And..." I pointed at my chest with my thumb, before deflating a bit, it was a time good as any other to learn what Konoha knew about me.
"I... what do I do?"
Might Guy leaned forward, a knowing grin on his face. Oh, I was so busted. He pointed at me:
"Thieving and Subterfuge."
Shit! I thought. Not only he saw through my blatant attempt of fishing for what they higher-ups knew about me, but they also knew that I had been stealing from the civilian population. But the fact that they knew and didn't intervene raised more questions than answers. My teammates too were looking at me with raised eyebrows.
"Why nobody stopped me?" I quietly asked. I had been stealing ryos, and little sums here and there, only from people who wouldn't suffer their absence. I didn't need the money to survive, but the chainmail I was wearing under my clothes was sold in a shop of a retired shinobi, so stealing it had not been an option.
The same went for my ninja wire, shuriken, senbon and kunai. I had been looking forward to being able to purchase armguards, but it couldn't be helped. Luckily I had already bought a tent, so I wasn't in a hurry to find myself a flat.
Becoming Genin meant that I could no longer stay at the orphanage after all.
"Why, my youthful genin, because you stole randomly only from people rich enough to barely notice it, and from three people that had been unknowingly suffering at the hands of a shoplifter for years.
Then you stole enough for them to notice, and they issued a C rank! Be warned however, that shinobi are not allowed to act against the civilian population in Konoha."
I nodded quickly, hiding a grin. I liked that he had specified 'in Konoha', whichever mission we took outside the village would see me getting a tiny bit richer than normal.
"So! Introductions, please! Tell me your names and most youthful dream!"
"So we aren't running?" Hana sighed in relief.
"Oh No! We most certainly will run! After all Daiki-kun didn't finish his explanation!" The sensei in green spandex most youthfully answered, and I could feel that my teammates were less than amused.
I grimaced, I knew that the taijutsu master knew what he was doing and that the results of his training would pay off, but that didn't mean that I had to like it.
I sighed and went first: "I'm Daiki Eatslug, I like calligraphy and old stories, and I dislike wasting time. I have chakra control good enough to learn medical jutsu and genjutsu. My dream..." I thought briefly about it.
It wasn't something that I had actively thought about. Staying alive was an objective, and condition through which everything else could be built upon. So I naturally shifted over the following task on my list that I didn't know how to achieve on my own.
"And my dream is to become the best Seal Master to have ever lived!" And it was even mostly true.
I turned towards Hana, who was still looking at me with raised eyebrows. "I'm Hana Inuzuka, and my dream is to become the best vet for my family dogs, and one of the strongest kunoichi in the village!"
"I'm Shin Kanbei, I like knives and... fire" o
Oh, fanfuckingtastic a pyromaniac. I thought amusedly. "I dislike bandits, stuck up clan shinobi and vegetables, my dream is to become a shinobi strong enough to protect my family business."
That sounds terribly like a mafia thing to say. Go to Italy! I sarcastically considered in my head.
"YOSH!" our sensei shouted "Now my youthful students! I was supposed to test your teamwork, but you selflessly accepted your team mate's bet! And helped bring here the triplets! So we can get straight to training! I can already tell that your dreams mesh well together!"
And so it began my grueling new life.
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