Fieldtrip to the Pool:

[Continued from the "Training the Academy! (Pt. 2)" thread]


Poor little Kosuke would finally manage to catch his breath after what felt like minutes of wheezing. Chigetsu was beginning to feel sorry for the kid at first. Of course, it was more like seconds rather than minutes. It was nearing five minutes though that those two were holding themselves underwater, which was a nice start. A trained ninja of the Mist could hold their breath for an impressively long time before giving up, much longer than that of any other village. It was part of their training to be superior underwater combatants and served to make them some of the best at ocean combat. Of course, it should be expected that the ninja from the Land of Water would be good in the water. Daiki would rise up out of the water after a few moments, breathing a big gasp full of fresh air. Following him would be Akari, both of them gasping for breath. Considering it had been nearly five minutes with them under water it should be expected.

The three children all rising back up to the air would mark the arrive of massive number of other children coming to the pool. There must have been at least twenty of them, all in colorful swimsuits. To say this was a bit surprising would be an understatement, but the situation quickly dawned on him. Seeing about twenty or so little children along with one older adult coming into the pool all at once surely meant there must be some sort of Academy training exercise going on. It wasn't uncommon that children in the academy have one day a week devoted to acclimating themselves to swimming and moving in water. Typically, they used the pool that was kept on the Academy grounds, but apparently not today. There were any number of reasons that the classroom was coming here instead but going through them in his mind didn't seem all too appealing. Having three children around him in the pool was fine, but having now five times that amount more made it a bonafide headache.

[Part 1/2]
[WC: 345]

Chigetsu would sigh. It seemed suddenly like his day was going to become much longer. He considered himself at least somewhat responsible for Akari, Kosuke, and Daiki, and leaving the pool without them would have been a stain on his good conscious. Now though it was nearly impossible to see where they were with all the others who had jumped into the pool. All the little academy students looked alike to Chigetsu. As the children continued to pile in the pool Chigetsu would feel himself being driven out, leaving to avoid any close interaction with them. If they had been a bit older Chigetsu wouldn't have felt so anxious about it, but they couldn't have been more than nine years old. Chigetsu was nearly twice their size, and probably could have killed the lot of them without any real effort. That wasn't really something he should be thinking about though, considering that killing academy students was heavily frowned upon. Still, he felt like if he accidently tripped and fell on one of them he would end up being guilty of a murder. They were all so fragile. If he continued training with his little group that would be something that he would have to train out of them. More endurance training. Chigetsu nodded to himself as he stepped out of the pool.

Stepping out of the pool gave him a new context though on the classroom of academy students that entered though. Nearly all of them had entered the pool, but strangely enough there would be a few over to the side who seemed to be waiting anxiously. Chigetsu normally wouldn't have paid this much of any mind, but the sudden presence of a glop of mud being thrown through the air brought the full focus of his attention over to them. The mudball arced through the air and collided directly into the arm of the seat in the lifeguard tower, splattering the mud all over the lifeguard's bikini. She would respond almost immediately with a shout, pointing down towards the group of children who seemed to be responsible. One of them was very clearly holding a few more mudballs, primed and ready to throw, and it seemed very obvious that he was the one responsible for the initial mudslinging.

Chigetsu sighed. Children were so annoying... He could barely stand them sometimes. Pulling off annoying pranks like for no reason was just such a big mess and headache. If they were going to do something like this he just hoped it wouldn't have to be on the same day he decided to come. He had a strong desire to just simply leave after that, ignoring that he would be leaving the three he brought here in the middle of what would surely be a mess that would spiral out of control. Chigetsu sighed again. His conscious was beginning to tug at him again, especially as he saw that same child begin to wind up for another throw.

He would burst forward, propelling himself across the pool grounds in a sprint. Chigetsu was moving at nearly six meters per second, as fast as he was able to. The slippery nature of the usually wet pool grounds would be offset as he flooded the bottoms of his feet with chakra. The chakra would enable him to walk across the water as if it were solid ground, and because of that he would simply take the straightest line to the mudslinging child – right across the pool. Chigetsu would dash across it, weaving in-between the various swimming children and bobbing heads until he reached the other side, managing to just barely intercept the mudball as it left the little boy's hand. He would have extended his own arm to catch it, the ball of mud splattering into his palm rather than hitting the lifeguard. The catch would be completed with a fluid motion as Chigetsu whipped his arm forward, returning the ball of mud into the child's face at point blank range with all the force he could muster. The sheer force of the mud being thrown would actually throw the child backwards, lifting him off his feet and sending him directly into the deep end of the pool. The entire pool would be frozen after that moment, stuck in silence. The silence would go on until the boy who had been thrown into the pool rose up from the water, gasping for a big breath of air. The color brown would surround him in the pool, spreading out from his body with each little ripple of water.

Some of his class broke out into laughter, while others that were closer to him screamed and attempted to swim away. Everyone seemed to assume that the poor boy had pooped his swim trunks in fear after getting hit in the face, rather than he was simply carrying more mud. Chigetsu would stare with completely blank eyes at the incident he had caused. This was not what he had intended. He swore he could feel the dirty glare of the lifeguard boring into the back of his head. Slowly he would begin to edge away from the scene, seeking to make his exit before somebody could actually pin the blame to him. All reservations about leaving his three students behind fled with his conscious. This was a moment that would haunt him for the rest of his life, Chigetsu was sure of it. He could already envision waking up in a cold swear in the middle of the night from this memory repeating in dream form. As he silently escaped from the pool he did his best to scrub the thought from his mind, while at the same time making sure that he would never turn to this pool ever again.

As soon as he managed to exit the pool grounds Chigetsu would let out a loud sigh of relief. It was finally over, and he could just try to forget all of this ever happened. It became very easy to remember though, once he stepped out into the street barefoot and in his swim trunks. The realization dawned on him that he had left all his clothing back in the pool changing rooms.

...



[WC: 1047]
[Total WC: 1392]
[Mission: 750/1392]
[642 remaining]
[Extra Ryo - 642/100] x6
[42 words wasted - 150 extra ryo]