the new generation [ mission | private ]

[neko bo beko]

Name: The New Generation
Rank: "D"
IIC Length: 1 day
Difficulty: Easy
Description: The first day of Kusagakure's shinobi academy is underway and due to the influx of students with the lack of academy staff, petitions have been put out for active shinobi to help with grouping the new students and helping them navigate the hallways and grounds of the Academy.
Objective: Assist with organizing new academy students and help with initial orientation
Reward: 8,000 Ryo

acceptance

---

Harue arrives to the academy a few minutes earlier than she is appointed. She wants to look around her old school, as it's been ages since the last time she was here. She remembered the place fondly; she was smart, even as a child, so graduating was no more than a cherry on top of a cake. While she had been poor in the NinJutsu department, her acute intellect and GenJutsu understanding made up for it. Though, having not been apart of the sports, she was not particularly remembered by trophies or the like. In fact, it seemed none of the teachers that had been here a few years back when she herself had attended still lingered. She climbs the stairwell to the second floor, looking around the old building. While she was not here for very long, it still was a big part of her history. She liked returning to her place of education in a way.

When she got to the auditorium, there was already a sensei there. No kids were around; class didn't start for a while longer. When she approaches the front of the classroom, climbing down the stairs that marked each bench and desktop. When she was at the front podium, her hand on it nervously, the sensei turns to give her a look. The woman is older, with her long raven black hair tied in a neat bun atop her head. When she turns around, Harue gets a full view of her body; far too gorgeous to be a teacher. Her chest was heavy under her green Chuunin vest, the Kusa insignia upon her left shoulder. She smiles, and Harue mirrors the kind extension. "Hello."

"Hi! I'm, uh, Niyjua, Harue, and I'm here to volunteer to help with the new batch of students?" Harue says breezily, looking around the classroom. Though this room had not been one of her classes, she remembers it as a study hall room for upper classmen. That is, older students who had yet to pass. She smiles as the shapely woman bows and introduces herself as well. "I'm Yamada, Koichi. I'm glad they sent someone as respectful as yourself." Harue beams, nodding dutifully. She resists the urge to say yes ma'am, thank you ma'am. The older woman turns and gestures to the chalkboard she'd been scribbling on, gesturing to her small formula. For the life of her, Harue could not understand it. Easily, the woman erases it. "Sorry, that was my own time stuff. I should be writing up an introduction for the new students." Harue comes to stand next to her as the woman takes up a small, white stick of chalk. She writes in large, swooping letters. First she writes her name, and then a very cheesy 'Welcome to the Kusagakure Shinobi Academy! beneath it. She also tops the corner of the chalkboard with the date, and a small schedule under it. Harue recognizes it, 8:15-8:30 home room, 8:35-9:etc.,etc., so she turns her attention to the podium instead. She steps back to it, examining the small stack of papers on it. It is haphazard, but mostly in order, judging by the tiny numbers on the bottom of each page. She reads the large, bolded words first; syllabus, schedule, lunch menu, curricular, small sticky notes with personal notes written in the same swooping letters Yamada had used on the chalkboard. She blinks, turning back to look at the completed board. Koichi smiles wide, gesturing to the door at the top of the room.  "Shall I take you on the tour first, so you can help lead one of the small groups?" Harue smiles, nodding. As they climb to the door, Harue speaks softly. "I actually kind of know most of my way around here. But it's been a while since I graduated," she drops subtly, laughing airily to fill the silence that follows. Yamada inhales, then snaps her teeth and smiles brightly at Harue.

"Oh! When did you attend? Did you have a class with me?" Harue shakes her head, following her as she leads her through the short hallways. She only gestures to the lockers as they pass them. "No, I don't know if you were around. My homeroom sensei was Boyou-sama. Is he still a teacher here?" It's the woman's turn to shake her head. "No. He actually left a year after I got here. No connection, but still." Harue nods, though she is disappointed she won't see her old sensei. "When will the students be arriving?" "Shortly."

[neko bo beko]

Once Harue has gotten a boost to her memory about the place, Koichi leads her to the teacher's room. This one, Harue reconciles, she has never seen the inside of. Perhaps glimpses of the room behind the door as teachers would shoulder into it wit loads in their arms, but otherwise this room was a new one. She can't help but grin, though it can't be mischievous even if she wanted it to be. If she concentrated, she could smell the coffee in the corner, on a counter next to a little sink. She gawks; something sweet is over there?

She follows Yamada to the back of the small room, where the sweet smell is emanating from. She freezes when she sees a box of donuts, from glazed to powdered to cream-filled, sitting curiously beside the sink. Up close, it is easy to distinguish; from far away, it had appeared as a take-out styrofoam plate. She eyes it as the sensei she accompanies fills a small mug of coffee, then peeks over the rim of her glasses to look Harue over. The pink-haired one notices and jostles, clinching her teeth nervously as she slides her gaze back to meet the teacher's. Had she seen her looking at the donuts? Oh no.. "Niyjua, was it?" A smile, too sweet. "Y-yes ma'am! Niyjua, Harue!" The teacher, still smiling coyly, slips her eyes towards the direction Harue's had been. Harue's blood goes cold, but then the teacher laughs. "You may have a donut, if you'd like, Harue."

---

Standing at the front of the classroom, Harue watches as young, shinobi trainees shuffle in neatly, pooling into available seats. She feels strange standing there with her back to the wall, the chalkboard touching her shoulder. She has her hands clasped in front of her, her chin down but her eyes scan the room closely. There are a lot of children, a lot more than when she had attended; there looked to be at least a dozen dozens. She wonders if she had been that small when she first entered the academy, with her long pink hair and stacks of books. Two other teachers accompany her and Koichi Yamada, but the other two seem less interested in the children than Harue did. There had been mention of someone else perhaps arriving, presumably around Harue's age, but he never showed; it was too late now, and they had one less patronage than they were expecting.

As soon as there are rows of young trainees in their seats, some scattered along the back walls and others leaning against desks, or talking to other friends in groups. Harue felt a bit strange even now; new faces, especially in mass quantities, sometimes it was off putting. She did not feel under pressure, however, but instead simply perhaps overwhelmed. She listens to Koichi start, standing in front of the podium. "Hello! You all must be very nervous and excited about being here for your first day of Ninja Academy!" The raven-haired sensei says from behind her podium, eyes moving from the papers in front of her to the students in rows and groups and loitering businesses. "Why don't you all take a seat."

Now that Harue thinks about it, she remembers a sensei much like Yamada, giving an oral introduction much like this one, on her own first day. She folds her arms over the small of her back as she waits alongside the other few teachers for the students to take seats. Some are squished in benches to fit a whole group, while other benches go eerily untouched. Briefly, Harue wonders if there was something gross in the third bench from the front, to the left. She cocks her head. "Alright, let's get on with how today will go, huh?" A collective groan. Harue feels their sentiments, but also because she feels put on display standing there in front of all the new students. She looks along the teachers; no volunteers, at least none her age. She frowns, twists up her mouth slightly; what group of children would she get? She hoped to get a tame one.

Once the oral introduction is over, Koichi gestures to the teachers lined up along the chalkboard wall; this also means Harue. She feels strange, but she gives a slight bow when she is introduced regardless. "This is Niyjua, Harue. She is not a member of the academy staff but instead she is a real life kunoichi!" A thin, red blush takes its place over Harue's cheeks and nose. Real life kunoichi? "She has agreed to help volunteer today! For her, this is a mission. When she's done with us, she will report back to the Kusakage Tower and get her pay." Why was she telling them all of this? Harue bites the insides of her cheeks, her eyes down as the class' own eyes are directed towards her. "Some day, you all will follow this same guideline; you take a mission from the tower, you go and do that mission, and then you go back to the tower and turn in your approved slip. Simple, simple." Koichi was a strange, outward woman. If she had cyan hair she could even be a Moemasu. The memory of her young friend makes her smile. "Do any of you have any questions for Nijyua-san?"

Hands shoot up, and Harue's heart squeezes, her face burning brightly. Excitement and dread both fill her instantly as Koichi smiles to Harue and gestures for her to take the stand.

[neko bo beko]

/ooc: sorry for slow posting. irl deals have me full of shit feelings and no motivation. hoping to have fun with this

Uneasily, Harue takes her newly assigned place behind the podium. Her voice cracks when she first parts her lips, so she clears her throat into her fist, pink eyes turned down as her cheeks burn. Her face is cracked in half by a smile no less. "O-okay, so... I'll take all your questions!" Harue says needlessly enthusiastically. Her chest swells with anxiety, but she beats it down with excitement. "We'll go one at a time though. If your question is answered, you can put your hand down.." Her eyes slip around the room to the teachers behind her, looking for support. They only smile, leaving Harue to scratch the back of her head queasily. She points to a young boy sitting in the front row, his arm so high over his head that his butt is no longer flush with his seat and a thin line of his skin is poking out between the hem of his articles of clothing. "Y-you first?"

"How much is your payment? How much are you getting for this mission?" His eyes are round and bright, clearly money-hungry himself. Or is he just looking for a quid pro quo with the tower? Something like that. Harue smiles, inhaling sharply through her nose. "It ranges from mission to mission, rank to rank. For this one I'm getting, uh.." With a memory that never fails to fail her, she slips her mission slip from her hoodie pocket and scans it quickly, turning her pink gaze back up as she replaces it. "8,000 Ryo for helping here. Last mission I did, I was paid relatively the same amount. But the mission I did before that one, where I met my" she almost refers to Chizu as her teammate, but corrects herself quickly "new best friend, I was paid roughly 12,000 Ryo. But they were all D Rank." She pauses before adding. "The higher the rank, the more intricate the mission, that's how the payment is determined. You get into A and S rank missions, and your payment generally ranges from.. 50,000 Ryo to as much as 150,000 Ryo!" An awe, greedy and envious, falls over the audience of younguns. Harue smiles crookedly, and the hands shoot back up.

"What's your favorite thing? About being a ninja, I mean!" A young girl asks, eyes bright and blue and her bob uniquely lime-colored in contrast with her black eyebrows.

Harue blinks, thinking for a second. She smiles, wringing her wrist; the center of attention, her face flushes as she gives a sappy answer. "I really like meeting all the people that I do. I've already made some great friends, and I was never this social when I attended here. I was actually sort of-" She doesn't want to say outcast, but nobody really plays with the nerd. She breezes a nervous giggle into her sleeve, face turning darker. "Sort of a nerd."

She picks out another raised hand quickly, to change the subject. "What's your specialty? If you were a nerd, were you good at everything? Do you practice everything?"

Harue shakes her head quickly, pursing her lips. "N-no, I wasn't good at everything. I'm really bad at NinJutsu, if I'm being honest - and I'm not so pretty when I try TaiJutsu, though I am trying to focus on that between the two." She straightens up, smiling. "But mostly, I practice GenJutsu! Not many people seem to be interested as much in Illusions as they are the Elements, but I'm quite fond of them! You can even cast spells on yourself, to enhance your own being! It's not all just pretend guts and staring at people." She hoots a little, because it is also very much pretend guts and staring at people. Not to mention a lot of manipulating people; something she is not so attuned to. She moves to the next question.

"Do you have any summoning animals? Or weapons? My Uncle has an animal companion named Spike, he's a giant dog, and he's so cool! What would you have for an animal companion, if you don't have one?" The young boy talks too full, the mouthfast too much for Harue to register at first. She blinks, the words catching up to her. She smiles, shaking her head slightly with a small noise. "Spike is a great name for a giant dog! But, um.. I don't have any summoning Jutsus, anyways.. I- I want to!" She piques, rolling onto her toes as she explains. "I-I'm actually very, quite new to being a Kunoichi. I've still got a lot to learn, and a lot to experience! I still have so much to do, and so many people to meet, and I hope that someday I do have an animal companion! I hope to have a lot of things in the future, near or far." She thinks, turning her eyes away for a moment. Then she meets that excited boy's gaze again, smiling. "I think, if I could have any kind of animal companion I wanted, I'd pick a lion. Or something big! But pink!" She laughs.

[neko bo beko]

Questions last shortly, and as soon as there are no more hands in the air, Koichi trades places with Harue. Ignoring the bell that chimes overhead, loudly in the room they stand in but also echoing from corridors down, Koichi smiles and clasps her hands. Harue listens as she addresses the class, asks them to pipe up one at a time and offer something small about who they are, where they come from, what kind of abilities they're interested in. Harue is almost surprised when the woman shows an interest in each of their ambitions, sympathizes with each of their inhibitions. It makes the pink kunoichi ponder why she couldn't have such a nice teacher in her own time of attendance; instead she'd been stuck with.. well, they weren't bad teachers, but none of them were nearly this interactive and nice.

Maybe Koichi was just very, very enthusiastic. Or had a really good mask. Harue twists up her mouth with thought, only snapping back when Koichi turns to gesture at her and the rest of the staff lined up. Not that Harue was staff, she reminded herself. It was kind of fun to pretend she was though. "Alright," Koichi says loudly, her voice booming even more than usual. Was she wrapping up? "Now that we know about how today will proceed, let's get started! First is the tour, and then lunch, so please hang on tight." Harue dusts her hands down her sides, smiling nervously to herself. She listened distantly as Koichi continued briefly before assigning groups to leaders. All the groups, once divided, were relatively small to each leader; about 15 to each of the dozen teachers. Lots of kids, but still. Harue got a small group of mostly girls, the green-haired-black-eyebrowed dark skin girl was in her group, as well as the boy whose Uncle had a companion named Spike. As soon as they are all left to disperse, given only a basic sheet of words, Harue leads her group opposite of the rest of the leaders. Mixing it up was always preferable.

Walking the first hall, Harue smiles forward, her voice light. "So, what're your names?" Harue asks pleasantly, looking over her small group. Though she hates to admit it, she's only interested in a few of their names; mainly the green bobcut Komorebii and the excitable young man Gou. There was also a Cho and Akemi, a Meghumi and a few nicknames she doesn't understand the reference to. Komorebii walks beside her closely and Harue half expects her to cling to her arm childishly, but instead she accentuates her talking with hand gestures. The young boy, Gou, walks just as closely on her other side, craning forward and moving a few inches faster so he can look to the green-haired girl and listen. "So, you used to go here, too? And now you're a really, real ninja? That's so cool!" Harue resists the urge to coo. "Y-yeah! It wasn't so bad. But, to be honest.." She peaks into a room to survey the inside; no one about. It's not a very important room. She gestures to the chalk board in the back. "You guys are really real ninjas, too. It doesn't really take a headband to prove it." She smiles down to them, her pink eyes bright. "It's in your heart though, right? That's what counts." Her face falls briefly, but in an almost playful way. "That doesn't mean you can go and take missions, though." She says, mock-sternly.

"Of course not!" Gou hoots as they move away from that room, crossing the hall to the sets of bathrooms. Harue points them out plainly, finding it needless to open the doors and show them the toilet holes and the water basins. She leads them to the stairs, another group stopping briefly if only because the students with friends in the other group wanted to reconcile. Even though there had been such little time since they'd all last seen each other. Upstairs, Harue introduces the children to the back class rooms that used to be her homeroom and (some other) class. She shows them to the dojo and to the gym adjacent to it, slowly making her and their way to the cafeteria. They are not the first to arrive, nor are they the last; it was, after all, the last stop on the mutual lists of the leaders.

"Stick together, or at least in pairs, okay? After lunch, each group is going outside." She smiles at the younger students, and they nod dutifully before scattering in twos and threes. Wandering towards where the teachers are congregating, Harue picks up something sweet. For a while, she's not sure if she should say something about how it went to Koichi or if she should make small talk, so she instead busies herself with eating her rice cake slowly. By the time Sensei makes her way to her, she's licking the crumbs from her fingertips. She wipes her mouth and tries not to laugh nervously into the back of her wrist; she'd snort out a lot of that rice. "You doing alright?" Yamada says easily, her plush lips tugging into a gentle smile. Harue can't help but mirror it. "Y-yes, thank you. I'm actually having a bit of fun." She smiles before turning her eyes away to wipe her face, standing up to dispose of her napkin. She returns to Koichi with a beam. "I really like my group, too. They're all very sweet." There's a deep scoff from the side, and Harue beside Koichi snaps to look at a larger sensei. They have broad shoulders and a straight jaw. "Lucky," they say, voice gravelly. "My group is full of little sh-" Their eyes shift uneasily around the room, and then they snort with some sort of derogatory amusement. "Buncha punks, is what they are."

"I have a respectable bunch," Koichi says, her voice angelic compared to the scratch of the other sensei. Yamada's eyes, narrowed, snap pointedly to meet a vulgar comment about respecting her honkers from another sensei still nursing his sandwich in the corner. Harue gapes. The adults were worse than the children. How odd. Dazedly, Harue wanders away from that commotion and finds her favorite students, Komorebii and Gou. They must ironically be friends, because they sat together and shared their trays of school food. Awkwardly at first, Harue stands at the other side of the round table. "May I sit here?" Gou is the first to nod, but they're both smiling. Somehow, the pinkette feels better amongst these two than the senseis on the other side of the cafeteria.

[neko bo beko]

By the end of the day, Harue has made a connection with Komorebii and Gou. They make her promise to return, or at least say hi if they ever pass by each other in the village. It makes her smile and beam, though she doesn't know why. When Koichi extends the same gracious invitation as the children, Harue does not quite feel as welcome or truly significant to the woman. She supposes she's still a child, as opposed to the adults of the world. The thought makes her... angry. But also, somehow happy.

When the students had all dispersed, some to go home and some to hang out somewhere throughout the village, Harue lags behind to help with the organization of students into classes. It takes longer than she's like to have stayed, sitting around the large conference table with a bunch of teachers trying to fit children into packed rooms. At least most class lessons take place outside, in school-wide quantities. Once all the paperwork is done, though Harue doesn't have much to do with that part of the student body, Koichi returns to Harue with a bright smile. "Thank you for helping out today, Niyjua. It was really quite kind of you." Harue smiles, can't help but feel like she's in the clouds. "O-oh, thank you!"

With her stamped mission slip, Harue exits the old academy. She heads for the Kusakage Tower right away.

[ e x i t ]