"Going to test some equipment~ Hoping to get something nice to invent~!" The green haired girl was humming a tuneless melody about her new mission. Testing new equipment for the military. Well, she had to stop her singing and think about how the inventing would go because she actually wasn't the one inventing anything, just testing them out.

Ahh... I wonder if I can keep anything? I wonder if I can eat anything.. The girl let absent minded thoughts fill her head as she kept walking down the path. It was a sunny afternoon, warm but not unbearably hot. A few white clouds dotted the sky, but the sun shone promisingly on the young girl. It was a nice day for an easy mission, and something to keep her head up for the chunin exams.

"Oh!" Before Tsuru knew it, she had bumped directly into a boy with dark hair and red eyes. Due to her own klutziness she ended up falling backwards to the ground. "Ah... sorry!" She looked to the boy, he was wearing a konoha forehead protector and a white collared vest. His black hair was slightly messy, but tied in the back. She felt as if she had seen him before, she ended up just tilting her head and staring him from the ground trying to figure out if she'd seen him before.

~229~

The raven haired boy with red eyes apologized back as he helped Tsuru up. "Don't worry about it. I'm sorry for not paying more attention." With those red eyes of his, he seemed to look at her like she had stared at him. Perhaps he had recognized her, but couldn't say where exactly. And the whole bumping into him gave Tsu an odd feeling of something like this had happened before. Just as the two were trying to figure out if that had seen each other before, a voice interrupted them.

"Hey Kai-bō, what's up?" It was a boy slightly taller than herself, with oddly two toned hair, brown and blonde. The raven haired boy looked at the newcomer with a partially confused stare. The raven haired boy recovered quickly, almost as if he was ignoring the other boy's comment.

"Itazura, I'm glad I found you, but I would thank you not to call me that.Now that you're here, we have to find Tsuru Shokubutsosou, and head over to start our mission. You wouldn't happen to know her, would you?"

Before he could reply to the raven haired boy, Tsuru realized that her name had been said. A particially mispronounced last name, but that was usual considering not many ever actually said it right om the first try.

"Ah! Um.... I'm Tsuru Shokubutsusou!" She pointed to herself to express the fact, though the girl was very confused as to why these two boys, probably named 'Kai-bō' and 'Itazura' were looking for her.

~276/505~

The oddly blonde and brunette boy seemed to hold in laughter as Tsuru had confirmed her identity. She had to tilt her head in some confusion as to what he was laughing at. "Sorry for this guy," He motioned to the raven haired boy. "being so rude. I'm Itazura Sarutobi, this is Kai-bo, and we're all three on a team together. And if I may say so, it's great having such a lovely ninja as yourself on our team."

The blonde, aptly named Itazura, gave a bow to her, along with a really, really friendly smile. He seemed very excited to have her on his team, which Tsu thought to be very nice. Though, her apparent teammate also happened to talk a lot and in a rather fast paced manner and the sudden rush of information he was giving her only made Tsuru even more confused.  

The blonde quickly stood back up, heading ahead of the other two genin to maybe where the current mission was. That seemed to be the only thing that made sense to the girl, as the testing military equipment was the only mission that she had taken. The sudden introduction of a team was very unexpected, but it was a pleasant surprise, especially if she was going to have such an energetic partner on her team.  The way that he was going he mentioned it having lots of plants, so maybe he even liked plants too? That was wonderful! If this Itazura really liked things like gardening or flowers or perhaps growing, Tsu herself was very excited to get to know him more.

She was just about to follow behind him before the raven haired boy, named 'Kai-bo' by Itazura told him that they apparently had no time for a scenic route Tsuru herself shrugged in disappointment. The raven haired boy turned to her, now finally getting a chance to correctly introduce himself, rather than the nickname that Itazura had called him.

"I'm sorry for mispronouncing your name. I had only read it the once and never heard it aloud. My name, contrary to what Itazura has told you, is Kaitu Burasu. I look forward to working with you." Unlike Itazura, Kaitu seemed more reserved and perjaps more serious than his blonde and brunette counterpart. Tsu thought it was so surprising and very funny to have two very different people on her team with her. The girl hadn't even realized that she was on a team. The two boys seemed to be very familiar with each other already, she hoped she wouldn't be an odd burden on their freindship. After all, Itazura seemed to be close enough to Kaitu to call him a nickname!

She bowed respectfully to both of them. "It's very nice to meet you, Kai-kun and Ita-kun."

Kaitu went on to say that they shouldn't keep the scientists waiting. Which was a very smart thing to say because it was probably true that the whole delay of them meeting and introducing each other probably was keeping them from the scientists. He even added that they should prepare a strong jutsu. "Oh, the weapons must be pretty strong too!" Tsuru said in awe just wondering what kind of new tools of the ninja trade she would see on this mission.

~571/1076~

Tsuru followed the two boys closely to apparently where they were testing the weapons. It was a rather large building with a rather large area around it. It reminded her of how her Uncle's greenhouse was situated in her family's gardens, put slightly out of the way on purpose for the reasons that something might possibly go awry. And to Tsu's experience buildings such as this one were erected in such a fashion for that very reason.

The two scientists that greeted them definitely reminded the girl of her Uncle. The older women, Edina, had frizzy hair and talked in an eccentric scientist fashion. There was also a younger boy who went by the name of Asida, who looked about the same age as the group of three. He seemed also a bit more leveled headed than the older woman, even reminding her about the task at hand. It reminded Tsu of her younger brother and how he interacted with her Uncle, though Ruto was probably more sarcastic than the polite dark haired boy in front of her. The duo led them to another area, what appeared like a target range. Tsu looked around  in awe at the weapons and shields that lay about the place. She only half listened to the explanation of something about metal alloys and conductivity and whatever, as the girl couldn't really even follow what the lady scientist was saying. The duo soon left and it was Itazura who spoke up first.

"All right guys, what should we destroy first?" The blonde seemed really excited to begin testing, er, destroying things. Tsuru herself was also anxious to begin because both he and Kaitu were so anxious. Well, Kaitu seemed to be in  a thinking state of mind, as he had probably fully listened to what the scientists had said. Tsu felt sort of embarrassed that she had been hardly been able to follow their words. But she was also very glad to have such a thoughtful ninja as her teammate.

"Watch and be amazed." Itazura immediately headed towards the shields. He set his fists on fire and began punching at the metal.

He set his fists on fire.

Fire.

It was all the girl could do but stand in shock at the sight of the flames. In her mind she saw a burning building and an inferno swallowing her whole. The heat suffocated her breathing, hot beads of sweat trailing down her skin. She was nothing but a small girl. She was weak. She was-

NO!

She had to yell it mentally at herself. She wasn't the same girl from yeras ago. And neither of her teammates knew her past, neither of them knew that and neither of them had to know. right now she just had to suck it up and pull through.  

She looked up, Kaitu hadn't seemed to notice her nervous fit. In fact he seemed to mainly ignore Itazura and his fists of fire. Tsuru ended up watching him test the kunai. Small energy orbs formed and floated around the raven haired boy. He controlled them with skill and directed a few ahead of him. In a flash of light, Tsu had to cover her eyes from the sudden brightness. Kaitu had throw the kunai at said floating orbs . He didn't seem to be done as he went to pick up the kunai from the ground. Much to Tsuru's surprise he pointed the blade unto himself. "Ahhh... Kai-kun!" But as he was about to jab the kunai in his arm, it crumpled slightly before the impact, leaving Kaitu uninjured. The girl let out a sigh of relief,

Now it was her turn. Both of the boys had already demonstrated a few of their skills, she hoped that she wasn't far behind either of them. She carefully made her way across the training yard, careful to avoid Itazura and his still blazing fists. The girl reached the shuriken, a few small circular blades, each shining with the special metal alloy. The girl took a deep breath and knelt down to the ground, her long green braids . She still felt a little frightful from the appearance of flames. But she did not blame Itazura for using a Fire Jutsu, she knew full well that other ninja would have fire elements and would likely use her fear to their advantage. She had to prove that she was different from that helpless girl so many years ago.

"Multiple Vine Technique, Second Vine!" In front of her, two vines of Mokuton Jutsu sprouted from the ground. In truth today was the first day the girl was using this jutsu, she had just learned the rank above it recently. The animated vines circled around the girl, her long green braids lifted up mimicking the movements of the vines. The weapons were shuriken, so she needed to be able to use them effectively, perhaps even against herself. At the end of each vine's tip, the dark green color of the stalk faded away to a withered looking brown. Moving her animated braids closer to her hand, the girl whipped out a kunai, which she had kept handily in her boot, with a slash she cut the ends of her braids, releasing the three bands of hair that made up the braids. The two vines that surrounded her copied this action with their withered ends falling apart. It its place the vine split apart into three smaller whip like vines. Looking down to the shuriken, Tsu grabbed them with the smaller vines, her hair mimicking the vine's actions. Stretching the vines as far as they could go from each other,  she controlled them with ease. Suddenly, the vines threw the shuriken were thrown from the plants to each other.

Within seconds, the vines on opposite ends had caught the objects thrown at them. Though, Tsuru had missed one shuriken entirely and it ended up across the yard into a tree. And another was stuck in the stalk of the the vine. The test was probably more of one to Tsuru's own speed, but she also was able to notice that the shurikens were slightly heavier than normal shuriken, displayed by the fact that she realized that she couldn't throw them with the usual precision with her Hydra Vines. She sighed and decided to make a note of that, she also looked to the shuriken that was stuck in the vine stalk. Said Shuriken happened to penetrate deeper than a normal shuriken would have. It was a another note to tell the scientists. Tsuru let out another big sigh, it was another thing to tell the scientists.

And with that, she let her braids fall back down to her sides. The vines fell down to the ground. She didn't really know if she did the whole testing thing right, but it was what she had felt to be right at the moment.

"Tadaaa... Would you guys mind giving me a hand with this?"

It was Itazura again, and this time he was standing in the middle of a blaze of burning shields. "Mine are kinda on fire..."

Tsuru blinked once, in that moment she didn't see a shinobi being casually surrounded by fire, but instead she saw a small girl with dark green hair and dark green eyes trapped in an inferno of flames.

"Tsuru," She blinked again and she saw a boy with raven hair and red eyes calling out to her. He simply was asking her to go get a fire blanket from Edina and Asida to.. put out the fire. She seemed to stare at him for a little, still trying to decide whether he was real or if he was in her mind. She eventually realized it was indeed Kai-kun her teammate.  

"Ahhh... okay!" She nodded furiously and ran towards the building. If anyone had cared to notice, a blush of red had actually tinged her cheeks as she ran to find the scientists.

~Exit Thread~

~1351/2427~

1000/1000 Mission

Training:

Jutsu Used:

Chakra 120/150