Drill Instructor:

Anon stood quietly at the gate of the Konoha military compound. He had taken a mission or two while in the village as a wanderer and he was permitted in places like this thanks to the word of the Hokage. Well, the office of the Hokage, really. With their permission he was set to enter the training grounds for Konoha's military force and teach some recruits! With a smile under his new black mask, a new style he was trying out, the white haired man held up a scroll that detailed his mission parameters. He opened it up while waiting for Supaku, meaning to read through it once more and refresh himself on what they could do to teach the recruits. He expected to open it and read that they would be covering bukijutsu techniques and sword wielding but stared in shock and disbelief at what was instead listed.

They were to teach the recruits basic formations and attacks, as well as cover jutsu and finesse so that the samurai could learn. He'd told Supaku it would be weapons training and now it wasn't! That must have been another mission and he'd gotten them mixed up! She would be here soon and she would undoubtedly think he was foolish for getting such a thing wrong and laugh at his misunderstanding. With a sigh, the ninja rolled up the scroll and shook his head. He already was off to a bad start with this mission and didn't feel as though he was going to do well with it. He only had Fuuinjutsu to fall back on if he couldn't use his swords.

Anon's hand came back to rest on the hilt of his longer short sword while the other held onto the scroll. He looked ahead at the gate and nodded at the two military personnel standing outside it at attention. They seemed reluctant at first to allow a ninja who wasn't from their village into their base and wouldn't budge to move the gate. Things were looking as though they were going to go from bad to worse at this point. He couldn't do the mission if he couldn't even enter the compound! He was waiting for Supaku, but what if she had already entered and he was stuck out here by himself? The man sighed and brought his hand up to rub his temples, noting that he was worrying too much about things that probably weren't true. If he couldn't enter yet, he'd just wait for the Hyuga girl and hope she was coming soon.

440

Supaku was hurrying along on her way to the Konoha military compound. She had been told to meet Anon here, and while she was usually incredibly punctual, but now she was forty five seconds behind the schedule she had set for herself. She had been ahead of schedule when she had been getting dressed this morning. She had carefully chosen clothing that would allow her a maximum range of movement for her taijutsu, a loose fitting pair of dark pants and a dark blue shirt with three quarter length sleeves made of a soft cotton that would allow her skin to breathe. She imagined that if they were supposed to be training young students that she was going to end up sparring, so she wore soft canvas shoes as the extra weight from her boots would just slow her down. Taking her signature yellow scarf and tying her long violet hair back with it and then securing her head protector on her forehead she had been just about to slip out the door when she was stopped by her mother.

“Where are you off to in such a hurry Supaku dear?” Her mother smiled kindly, moving up to her and pushing a stray bit of hair behind Supaku’s left ear. Her mother knew exactly where she was going, this was her attempt to get Supaku to not go. Since her last mission her mother especially had been very over protective. Although Supaku didn’t know if over protective was really fair. She’d had her eyes taken from her after all, so it was probably just good sense to be cautious. What her mother didn’t know though was that Supaku felt confident about this because Anon would be there. It’s not that her mother didn’t know about Anon, just that she hadn’t yet divulged the details of her feelings towards him. She would, eventually, but she wanted to keep it for herself for just a bit longer. Selfish perhaps, but that’s she was enjoying the newness of it.

“I’m going to join Anon, I have a mission to do with him.” She held her hands out and spoke as calmly as she could as she continued. “Don’t worry Mom, it’s nothing dangerous. We’re going to be training some students at the Academy. On the Academy grounds, perfectly safe.” Her mother seemed to accept her answer and gave her a hug and a kiss on the forehead before pushing her out the door. “Well alright then, but be safe, and if there’s any trouble you come straight home. I love you Supaku.” As she ran out the door she called back “I love you too!” and went as fast as she could towards the Konoha military compound. If she were completely honest with herself, even though this was a relatively safe mission as far as things went, she was still a touch nervous. The last mission she’d gone on had been deemed ‘safe’ as well. And while she didn’t any longer blame anyone for that, she was still going to be sure to keep a wary eye out for trouble.

As she walked up to the gates she almost walked right past Anon. She got about one step past him when the image of the man dressed all in black with two swords rang with familiarity in her mind. She would pause in her stride and, spinning on her heel, would face him while tilting her head to the side as she studied him. His hair was white. It was unexpected to say the least, and a smile would light up her face as she approached him and spoke with a cheerful voice. “I didn’t expect to see you standing out here, thanks for waiting for me and I’m sorry I’m late.” Her eyes glanced up at the snow white fringe of hair partially obstructing her view of him as she continued. “It looks lovely by the way. I’m ashamed to say I almost walked past you. The purple was so easy to pick out, but this. . .” She would reach up and move some stray hair to get a better look at him. “is beautiful. Ready to go teach some kids about swords and punching?” She would coil her fingers through his as she laughed and stood up on the tips of her toes meaning to kiss him. “Come along then, we’re burning daylight.” She would tug at him gently as she went up to the guards at the gate, pulling out her ninja card as she explained who she was and why she was here. They didn’t look long at her identification, they knew who she was and waved her past with a disinterested hand. Once through she would turn to Anon, a sparkling smile still on her face and a friendly humour in her voice. “So where to? I’m assisting you after all so it’s your show. Does that make you. . . my sensei?”

845

He was greeted by the sight of Supaku and taken out of his thoughts. She thanked him for waiting on her and he didn't get the chance to explain that they wouldn't let him in anyway. She continued to speak , commenting on the snow white hair upon his head. He had stopped dyeing it recently, and was unsure of how she would react to it. At first it seemed like she said he was hard to notice with it, but she seemed happy about it just the same, moving hair from his face. She spoke about teaching kids about swords and punching which reminded him of the mistake he had made. He was ready to tell her when she interlaced her fingers with his and stepped up to kiss him. He obliged by pulling down his mask and giving her a kiss before he was led towards the military compound. Anon sighed and pulled the mask back up over his face, matching the glares he got from the military personnel as they were forced to allow him to enter now that he was with one of the village's ninja. He didn't understand the malice they had towards him, but he tried not to let it bother him too much.

When they got into the compound she turned to him and asked where they'd be heading to. And if this would make him her sensei. To be fair, he was only a rank higher than her if he could guess well enough. But she still wasn't up to date on the mission to his knowledge. "Well, actually. We're supposed to be teaching basic formations and martial combat to new recruits of samurai. I must have mixed up this mission and another that I wanted to take. So what we'll be doing is heading over to the barracks to ask the drill sergeant for our assigned group, and from there, we'll be showing them how ninja do it, so to speak. I dunno if I can be called your sensei, since you have more of a martial arts approach than I do, but we can still make it work. I'm sure the formations from Sunagakure and konohagakure don't differ too much. Let's go ahead and head over then!" With that, Anon tugged on Supaku's hand softly and began to walk towards where it looked like there were barracks. At least, he figured these were it, there were soldiers hanging around in day clothes and not uniforms. It was as good a guess as any.

Anon walked up to a man barking orders at recruits who were going through the basics of building their bodies and training, releasing Supaku's hand. He bowed before speaking to the loud man who turned to notice his presence. "We're here to train a group of recruits in martial combat and formations, as assigned by the Hokage's office." With that he took out the scroll with the mission details and handed it off to the drill sergeant who began to read it over. With a nod to each in a curt manner, he pointed his thumb behind him at a group of recruits who were busying themselves with push ups and sit ups, handing back the scroll to Anon. With a nod to the man, Anon grabbed Supaku's hand once more and led her over to the waiting recruits, stopping in front of them to whistle. They'd stand up slowly, confused a bit, but get into the orderly lines they were no doubt trained to stand in when faced with a superior officer. "Recruits, I am Anon Brier of the Mitarashi, this is Supaku of the Hyuga. We'll be teaching you the basic formations and martial combat that may just save your sorry hides. We'll start first with martial combat led by the woman you see before you. She will instruct you and I will follow along as we go!" His voice was clear and loud, ringing with authority. He'd helped train enough academy students and genin to know how to get attention and be succinct about orders given. He let go of Supaku's hand and stepped back, giving her the floor to do what she saw appropriate.

722|1,162

Supaku chuckled and reached up to gently pat Anon along the side of his face. “It’s no big deal, about the mission mixup. No need to worry, as long as I’m helping out my Village and have you by my side, I wouldn’t care what we were doing really. And it was a joke, mostly. The Sensei thing.” She would wink at him as she let her fingers slowly brush across his mask where his jaw was. She was sure that a teacher and student relationship would be highly inappropriate at this point, but the stereotypical taboo relationship amused her to think about. It concerned her a bit that he always seemed so worried about the things he said to her. And of course she was happy that he considered her feelings or perception of him, but at this point she really felt he could do no wrong. Likely that view would create interesting situations at some point, but for now he stood atop a pedestal in her mind. She only hoped that she wasn’t giving off the air of a person that required him to be careful, while she had been that way for a long time, she had been actively trying to move away from her uptight demeanour into one that was more relaxed.

About the military training, he wasn’t wrong she supposed, it was a fair assumption that the training regimens for both Konoha and Suna were similar what with the Shinobi going back hundreds of years. Barring any differences related to the geography of course, like training in sand or knowing which plants to avoid when making your way through the wilderness. She would shudder slightly at the remembrance of poison ivy, a horrid plant that while not lethal, was certainly uncomfortable to come in contact with. From what little she knew of Sunakagure it was doubtful they had to worry about plants like that, or at all. She couldn’t even imagine what it must be like to train under the hot sun all day with, as Anon had described before, sand in absolutely everything. It was probably terrible, and she was all the more glad to be in Konoha by mental comparison.

Walking over with Anon to the group of students, she was surprised at how loud and commanding his voice was. With her his voice had always been gentle, not exactly quiet but certainly not the booming voice of a military commander. She was impressed and did her best to suppress a proud and affectionate smile. She would have to take the time to inform him later of the effect his presence currently had; namely if she was capable of swooning, she probably would. Fortunately for both her and Anon, she didn’t think she was, and so she would step forward as she was introduced to the group and take in the sight of the students. They looked fit enough, but they also looked very studied, as though they had learned nearly everything from books and safe drills like these ones. It worried her, because she recognized that look in their eyes, that innocence and naivety. It was a dangerous thing to think you knew everything, and that you were untouchable. But she didn’t know best how to get that point across without causing a real problem. She’d had to learn it through near fatal combat, and she didn’t want to subject anyone to that. Taking a deep breath she projected her voice so that everyone could hear her, without her having to yell. It was a technique she had learned when she had frequented festivals and shows where she recited her writing, or made presentations.

“I’m going to lead you through some basic strikes and blocks. I don’t know how many of these you already know, but these particular few have proven to be successful for me in the field. We will start slowly, and get faster as you get the hang of it. Once everyone feels comfortable I’ll split you all into groups of two and you can practice slowly on each other.”

Supaku would then begin leading the students through two basic attacks, a simultaneous block and strike, one aimed at the lower half of the torso and the other towards the head. All the while trying not to think too hard on when she had last used them.

741/1586

Anon looked over at Supaku as she began to speak to the students, with how she was reacting it was as though his commanding nature had an effect on her. He'd be sure to mention it later and ask her about it. For the moment, though, he would simply allow her to do the rest of her introduction and begin to speak about strikes and blocks. A few of which, he noted, she said had been particularly useful to her in the field. Anon personally hadn't gone on other missions with her before, so he didn't exactly know how well she could fight to defend or attack. When she said they would start slowly until the recruits got the hang of it, this looked like a chance for Anon to learn a bit about what she did for fighting bare handed, something he was not any good at himself.  It was when she spoke of getting them comfortable enough to split into groups of two that he felt a bit sheepish. Logistically, there were enough people here for everyone to have a partner for the exercises. Namely, that would leave the two of them as partners in such an exercise.

Without letting it affect him too much, Anon tried to mimic what Supaku did as she showed the recruits how to do the strikes slowly. It was a good thing she did them slowly, because he was definitely not skilled in this sort of fighting at all. As he watched her perform the strike and block movements, he looked down at his own feet placement and her own, doing his best to mimic her stance. It just didn't seem like he was going to do well when it came to hand to hand combat because he had trained to use swords instead. The Mitarashi man must have looked a fool shadow boxing to the right of the woman doing so well in the face of these recruits. Sure, he had more skill with his weapons than they probably did, but he was sure they were all learning more here than he was. The ninja shook his head to clear it of the thoughts he was currently having and did his best to replicate everything he saw from Supaku, failing for the most part as it seemed to elude him.

When it came time to pair off the recruits, he would sheepishly pair off with her and get into the stance she was showing them earlier. "Don't hurt on me too hard, I have a meeting with  the Hokage later on." He chuckled, but was only half joking. He did his best to put what she had shown them into action, and would try a basic strike when he saw an opening or a block should she try to strike back. All in all, it looked rather sad if one would observe it from the outside. He was struggling more than the recruits were. While his body was trained to take and dish out strikes, it was not trained to use fists effectively. Sure, humans had a natural instinct of swinging their arms with closed fists to strike someone, but the instinctive way was open and easy to exploit. Which he was sure would happen to him as he did such things a few times during the course of the two being paired up.

After some time of training, the drill sergeant would come along and hand the two a letter for each of them, signifying that their task was done for the day. Anon would bow to the man and nod curtly, turning to Supaku. He huffed a bit, sighing before he spoke. "Well, I hope I didn't embarrass myself too badly while training with you. As you can tell I'm more proficient with my weapons. In any case, let's get back to the administration building to turn our mission in. I'd like to get onto our next assignment." He'd wait for her to speak and acknowledge what he said before he bowed to the recruits and took her hand to lead her back the way they'd came. Should they leave together, they would exit the compound and head back into the heart of the village where the administration building was so they could turn in their mission. At least this one was finally over so he wouldn't have to embarrass himself further in front of the military and Supaku. He would probably never get to live this down.

761|1,923

[Exit, Mission Complete]

1,500/1,500
423 left
25 Ryo per 100 words is 100 extra Ryo

300+100 = 400 total.

Supaku was pleased with the progress of the students before her. Some of them obviously had prior taijutsu training and were able to pick up the strikes and blocks she was demonstrating quite quickly. Others, well, not so much. She remained patient and helped to correct an off balance stance, or a block that was too low, every time coming back to Anon and continuing her slow work with him. She had no doubt in her mind that he was likely an excellent swordsman, but taijutsu seemed to be something he had not studied much of, or possibly at all. She was not overly surprised though, in order for her to be as skillful as she was with taijutsu she’d had to focus on it almost exclusively, which hadn’t left much time to master any other ninja arts. She smiled as she corrected him, trying her best to make him look good while doing so. “Don’t worry dear, you’ll still be pretty for the Hokage later.” She gave him a wink as she teased him, murmuring the words so that the students didn’t overhear. So far she very much enjoyed being on missions with Anon, she was even now looking forward to the next one.

Right on cue, in tandem with her thoughts of the future, the drill sergeant came to relieve them of their task. Handing them each a letter proving their completion of the mission, he turned his attention back to the students and left Supaku and Anon to the rest of their day. With a twinkle in her eye she would laugh gently at Anon’s comment about embarrassing himself. “You didn’t embarrass yourself dear, you did great. I’d love for the tables to be turned at some point though, weaponry is something I’ve recently taken an interest in.” She wasn’t just being kind, she honestly did want to learn how to use weaponry, something Tsuyo had said to her had firmly planted the idea in her mind. And she was finding it difficult to set the idea aside, if she could learn to use weaponry it would be quite the feat, and something that would set her apart from her fellow Hyuga. She followed along with Anon on the way to the Administration building to turn in the completion of their mission, appreciative of the time she had got to spend with Anon, and thinking on the future that they’d spend together.

416/2002

{Exit Thread}

C-Rank Mission Complete - 1500/1500
Extra Ryo Payout - 500wc (25ryo per 100wc = 125 ryo)

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