Team Kazenkou Mission #1: Medicinal Mystery

As Hina, Meran and Akira were told to meet at the Kazekage Tower to get their mission, Kazenkou stood waiting for them at the entrance at the time they were told to: 7AM, long before the biggest heat of the day. She was browsing through yesterdays newspaper.
It was still as warm as ever, but also it would be great day for what Kazenkou had in mind for them. She was sitting on a bench, looking at the rising sun. The woman loved this time of the day, it wasn't too warm and she could just enjoy being outside without ending up like a lobster and she still was considering whether she wanted to continue modeling or not.

The woman looked as flamboyant as ever, with her black eyeliner and red hair which she had put in a ponytail. She didn't wear her usual Kimono, but traditional desert clothing: a blue dress with long sleeves, a darker blue scarf she could put over her head to protect her from the sun and a big necklace with a bright yellow gemstone. It was clear she wasn't planning on doing an awful lot today.

As the first (or all) Genin would arrive she would stand up and smile her welcoming smile. 'Good morning!' she spoke enthusiastically. 'We have got a big mission for today!'
She knew her students didn't expect much at this point: the only thing they really had done for the past three months was watering plants, saving cats from trees, bringing medicine to sick people and helping old ladies cross the street, as a matter of speech. Nothing much exciting anyway. Besides: Kazenkou always tried to keep her students motivated by telling them they had a big mission coming up. It much reminded her of her own time as Genin. She had never been particular fond it that time, but she also knew it would get better... eventually.

It was not long before Meran was ready for his mission, he was excited to do something else but train. It had been only a month since his leg was healed enough to resume training physically and he was excited to really do some leg work. He did not even care that this mission would only be an easy one. Sure he'd rather do something that changed the course of history, or at least allowed him to continue his side mission of finding out more about the blood Brotherhood.

He had put things on a low fire, because he knew he had to become healthy and stronger first.

It was a good night, one where he had a dream about Akira. It was a strange dream, though he could not remember many of the details, he did remember that it was not training they were doing. But what had they been doing together... It surely was something else they were used to doing together.

Since Hiten's disappearence, the trio had become closer than ever before. Relying more than ever on eachothers strengths and working as hard as they could to prevent something like this from happening ever again.

Though Meran did not have to wake bright and early. Honestly he only needed to roll out of his bed, into his clothes and accross the yard to the meeting place. He did rise pretty early. He wanted to pick up Akira and Hina for their mission, just like he had done during the previous one.

Getting up early was not an issue, in Suna you either did things before noon or after 3 PM. Working during the heat of those hours could be suicide. But you did not live for long in Suna before figuring out how to handle the heat.

While he walked towards Akira's place, incidently it was located furthest from the Kazekage Tower and the meeting place, he tried to remember what it was he had dreamed. Though he could not recall it, he had a bright smile thinking of it and telling Akira about it.. If only he could remember some of the details.

It was 15 minutes past 6AM when he arrived on Akira's doorstep. He softly knocked on the door to see if the girl was ready, hopefully not waking anyone else in the home. When she comes out he would say: "Good morning Ma'am, had a good night's sleep? Dreamed of anything fun? I dreamed of you!" He would say in his normally happy go lucky voice he usually had while talking to the girls.

Akira awoke a quarter to 6 and immediately took a quick shower because she felt icky and sweaty. What an annoying dream... While she showered, she idly wondered if she was awake now... or if she was still asleep. Afterwards, she got into her clothes -she debated putting on just simple garb instead of her shinobi gear... after all, their mission was likely going to be a plain and boring one... and decided that yes, simple garb would be fine today- ate breakfast with her parents, geared up with one hip pouch on her right hip with kunai and senbon inside, tied her headband around her waist and opened the door when she heard a knock. The sight of Meran greeted her eyes. "Good morning Ma'am, had a good night's sleep? Dreamed of anything fun? I dreamed of you!"

She almost laughed out loud, covering her mouth before answering quietly. "You know my parents can hear you right?" She heard a sound behind her, coming from the living room; her parents wishing her well on her mission today. "Thanks, see you later!" she called out to them with fake enthusiasm and stepped outside, closing the door behind her. "You should really watch your words around them. After 14 years I'm pretty sure they got no sense of humor." She shook her head with a small smile and they continued on to Hina. On the way, she told him she'd slept horribly and it had been no fun at all. The sun was slowly rising higher, but the temperature was still very nice this early. Akira's high ponytail waved in a slight, enjoyable breeze. Her simple garb consisted of a gold rimmed dark blue longshirt with sleeves that covered her upper arms, and short black pants underneath along with her boots.

Then they arrived at Hina's place, and after they'd gone through their greetings and set off towards the place they were supposed to meet with Kazenkou, she told Hina about her night's adventures as well. "If your dreams are so real you don't know you're asleep, how do you know when you're awake?" She trusted the both of them completely, which was the reason she dared ask them such a question in the first place. It was a scary thought, to not be able to recognize reality. It occurred to her that this might also be the exact reason why genjutsu were so effective when used correctly. I should study up on genjutsu more...

5:30 The classic alarm clock went off. An arm lazily snaked out from under the bedsheets and blindly hit the snooze button.
'Mm... not yet...' The puppeteer thought as she pulled her arm back underneath the blankets and drifted off into her thinking-dream.

5:38 The alarm clock once again told her that it was morning and that she really ought to get out of bed. Another blind swing of the girl's arm gave her another 8 more blissful moments of comfort in bed. In her mind, the weapons and puppet ideas kept tumbling around, evolving and morphing into different shapes.

5:45 The alarm clock once again told her firmly to get out of bed. The girl groaned, rolled over on her face and pulled up her legs to her chest, resulting in a little "Hina-tent" with her bum sticking up in the air. She laid like that for five seconds until she just really couldn't stand the sound of the clock anymore! With another groan, slightly more aggressive and annoyed this time, she hit the clock, turning it off. She used slightly too much force and accidentally smacked the clock off the nightstand. She lifted her head off the pillow and cast a curious look over the edge of the bed. She reached down and picked up the clock, putting it up to her ear. 'Still ticking. Good.' It wouldn't have been the first time she'd have broken an alarm clock, foul inventions from hell made by the devil himself, in her opinion, but it was always a good thing if she managed not to break them. Even if her parents had a drawer somewhere with a couple of extra clocks in them.

With yet another groan she got out of bed and shuffled over to her workbench. It was quite a large workbench, but it easily fit inside her large room. She searched the bench for any papers she hadn't drawn or scribbled anything on yet. When she found them her next quest was to find a pencil. This however proved to be more difficult. "Where in the bloody.." she started muttering when she saw a pencil lying on her writing desk, which was stood against a different wall. Instead of taking, say, 5 steps she opted for shooting out a single chakra string from the tip of her right index finger and pulling the pencil towards her. She deftly caught it and put the pencil down on the paper, roughly sketching out the shapes and forms she had seen in her dream that she maybe would want to use for her puppet designs.

Ten minutes later she finished her sketching with a scribbled line of "Lotsa knives and shit" next to a brutal looking puppet. She walked over to her adjacent bathroom, she had one to herself, and proceeded to take a shower, making sure not to get her hair wet, because that would take ages to dry. She really had a lot of hair. She stepped under the shower and stood there for another fifteen minutes, lazily letting the water try to wake her up. It kind of helped. Then proceeded the usual routine of drying herself off, putting on clothes, taking her hair out of the braid, brushing it all, putting it up in her trademark three tails, and trying to avoid looking in the mirror as much as possible during all this.

She threw a glance at the clock on the wall as she excited the bathroom. Half past six. She had half an hour left to get to Kazekage Tower. 'Meh. No sweat.' She grabbed Chouchou from her designated spot on her headboard and headed towards the kitchen.

The kitchen was deserted. Her parents were probably still asleep, or just waking up. This wasn't a problem however, because Hina was more than capable of fixing her own breakfast, thank you very much. She was a big girl. Tied her own sandals and everything. As she sat down at the dinner table to eat breakfast she put Chouchou on the table. In between bites of her breakfast she checked the joints and weapon-blasters for any kinks and faults.

"Morning, Princess." A gruff voice sounded from the doorway. Her father shuffled in, looking tired. "Good morning, daddy." She said, sounding quite happy and much more awake. "Slept well?" He gave a positive grunt as he started on brewing coffee. Yuch. She would never start drinking coffee. She didn't like the idea of needing it in the morning. It was an addiction, really, and she didn't like being dependent upon anything. What kind of puppeteer would let themselves be controlled by anything other than themselves, and then let themselves be controlled by something so stupid as coffee?!

Kankuro sat down next to her and watched her go through Chouchou's checkup. Hina's mother walked into the kitchen as well, and poured herself a cup of coffee. She, too, sat down at the table, opposite of Hina, with a newspaper.
"No puppets on the table, dear, you know the rules," she said to Hina, while looking at the newspaper. It was not an unusual scene: Hina having her puppet on the table, Kankuro not telling her not to, and Kahoko being the one to remind her (and in a way Kankuro as well) of the rules. They sat in comfortable silence, Hina twisting Chouchou's limbs, Kankurou pointing out that one of the limbs needed oiling, and Kahoko reading the paper. When Kahoko had finished scanning through today's paper she picked up yesterday's Suna Prophet, which she hadn't come around to reading yet.

Kahoko let out a slightly amused chuckle, at which both Hina and Kankuro looked up from the puppet, who's joints Hina had been oiling.
"Something amusing, Kaho-chan?" Kankuro asked. As a manner of response Hina's mother slid the Suna Prophet across the table to her husband and daughter and pointed at an article titled Konoha graduation: recipe for failing genin? Hina quickly read the article and let out a grin. She could see her father next to her trying to hold back his own smile.
"I wonder how Temari-obasan's son did." She grinned sadistically at the prospect of her blond-haired cousin possibly failing his genin test. He annoyed her, always drooling over her father and wanting him to teach him puppetry. The little twerp had to stay away from her father!

She heard the door open and stood up from the breakfast table. That must be Akira and Meran. She peeked around the kitchen door to confirm that, indeed, her two best friends were standing in her hallway. She turned around to her parents and said, "Meran and Akira are here. I'm going to go now. Bye mommy and daddy!"
"Goodbye, dear! Have fun!"
"Knock 'em dead, Princess!"

She greeted her friends and together they walked towards the Kazekage Tower. They still had about ten minutes left, which was plenty of time. Akira told them about her dream that night and concluded: "If your dreams are so real you don't know you're asleep, how do you know when you're awake?" Hina wondered about this for a while and answered, "If you manage to do impossible things, that could be a clear indicator that it's a dream." She wondered about how in their world some things could already be seen as "impossible" "Or it could be a genjutsu, of course." She said with a grin. "So either use kai, or inflict pain upon yourself. If you snap out of it, it's a genjutsu. If you don't feel pain, it's a dream. And if you just stab yourself in the arm.. well, then you're bleeding." She snickered a little as the Kazekage Tower came into view.

Meran smirked as they walked back towards his house... He thought to himself that he knew when he was dreaming.. Especially if he dreamed a dream in which the girls were present. Hell! Any situation where Hina would rather pick flowers to put in her hair than talk abut puppets and ideas for puppets or where she has a punk rock hairdo, most definitely be a dream. Just like last night... When was Akira EVER a damsel in distress?!

Meran tried for an answer as the group got closer and closer to their goal. "Well, I think things are a dream when it seems to good or too bad to be true. Life has its ups and downs, but once situations only get worse or only get bigger and better, than something probably is amiss... But yeah, that can also happen when you are awake..." He thought of his brother and Hiten and how those days did have their bright moments, but somehow the darkness eventually took over and made him forget about the bright moments.

There were plenty of times he did wish that it was just a dream, that he could wake up... Suddenly he realized he was getting melancholic again and he fought his mood. He smiled at the girls and cheerfully asked them "Soooo..... What do you think our mission will be today?! Observation again? Or are we going to be allowed to actually do something?"

Akira listened to the responses she got from Hina and Meran. "If you manage to do impossible things, that could be a clear indicator that it's a dream." It made sense, but no impossible things had happened in her dream. Well, maybe seeing Hiten could be counted as something impossible... "Or it could be a genjutsu, of course. So either use kai, or inflict pain upon yourself. If you snap out of it, it's a genjutsu. If you don't feel pain, it's a dream. And if you just stab yourself in the arm.. well, then you're bleeding." Akira chuckled after Hina's last words, glad for the interruption of her pensive mood. After all, she had done a kai and it had worked... well, for a short while. The pain was a good measure though. Stupid, she should have thought of that herself. Meran gave his own suggestions, speaking of situations that seemed too good or too bad to be true. Like actually seeing Hiten again, she thought sullenly.

"Soooo..... What do you think our mission will be today?! Observation again? Or are we going to be allowed to actually do something?" Akira was shaken out of her thoughts and focused her attention on Meran. The mission? "Well, I dressed for the occasion," she spoke, obviously meaning her informal clothes instead of her complete ninja attire. "I'm expecting big things." Sarcasm coated her words. It wasn't long afterwards that they stepped before Kazenkou, who greeted them enthusiastically. "Good morning! We have got a big mission for today!" Akira resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Yeah sure, a biiiig important mission, as per usual. "Hello Kazenkou-sensei, ready for duty. What is our big mission today?" She hoped she didn't sound too sarcastic.

'Sakurai-chan!' Kazenkou almost giggled. 'You don't seem to enthusiastic!' She winked at the girl and looked at Meran and Hina for a bit. She completely understood what the kids were going through. 'I already picked up the mission, we're expected to go to the hospital!' she smiled. 'Maintaining the hospital garden! You will be looking at medicinal herbs all morning!' she almost sounded enthusiastic herself, but she knew it was like... super lame and well... boring!  'Follow me please!'

As they walked through the hospital district she started a bit of a conversation. 'What kind of intense dream did you have, little brother?' the sensei giggled. 'Had nightmares? Do I need to get your teddy bear from the attic?' she was just teasing him a bit, like she always did. She had every right to do so, being his older sister, even though she was his Jounin Sensei. Why couldn't she?

Meran just nodded, he was not up for much of a conversation with his sister, not if she acted like that. What was she getting at anyway?! All he had dreamed was a fun dream where he and Akira had an adventure together. He couldn't remember much of the details, but it had something to do with an important mission they had to do for the Hokage.

It was a lot of fun, that much he did remember, where the two of them just found great ways to triumph over the problems that faced them.

It was very hard for Meran, why did he have to get his sister as Sensei... if he had to be professional, why didn't she have to be the same?! Meran sulked as he proceeded to follow his sister to the job. If she wasn't even pretending any more, than it would be a long day indeed...

"Soooo..... What do you think our mission will be today?! Observation again? Or are we going to be allowed to actually do something?"
"Well, I dressed for the occasion. I'm expecting big things."
Hina looked down at her own clothes. She wore one of her more poofy pants. She could easily fit four legs into each leg-hole. They tapered down at her feet, creating a nice water drop-shape. Her pants were a rich colour of brown, as usual. She had just found that it was a colour which really complemented her nicely. Her shirt however was blood-red instead of the usual beige teint, but still sleeveless and simple.
"I'm sure we will have a mission of high importance. After all, the skill of Suna's "all star genin team"," she used her fingers to make quotation marks in the air, "can't go to waste on unimportant trivialities." She was mocking the fact that Kazenkou had praised their team, yet since their exams events had been dull.

"Good morning!" Kazenkou's chipper voice greeted them when the entrance to the Kazekage Tower came into view. "We have got a big mission today!"
"Hello Kazenkou-sensei, ready for duty. What is our big mission today?" Hina had to look the other way to hide her smile at Akira's sarcasm. It's wasn't very evident, but she knew the girl well.
"Morning, Kazenkou-sensei." She said with a smile. She had a habit of never saying "good morning". What's so good about them anyways? No, "morning" would just have to suffice.

At the word "hospital" Hina dared to get her hopes up. Perhaps, just maybe, this mission wouldn't be shi- "Maintaining the hospital garden! You will be looking at medicinal herbs all morning!" 'Son of a camel!' Fooled again.
"Follow me please!" With a forced smile, Hina trudged along after Kazenkou. They would probably have to weed the garden. Well, best get it over with so she could go back to her designs. Or perhaps Meran and Akira wanted to hang out after the "mission". Or perhaps a combination of both. It wasn't unusual for Hina to be scribbling away on a piece of paper while the other were lounging around. They mostly hung out at her house, because it was big and luxurious, and had neither Akira's parents nor Kazenkou in it.

At Kazenkou's mention of Meran's dream Hina looked over at Meran with a grin. It was highly common for Kazenkou to tease her little brother, as siblings were prone to do Hina had learn from observing other families. Meran however didn't seem to be interested in retaliating. Ah well, she didn't know anything about Meran's dream anyway, he hadn't told her anything, so she had nothing to work with anyway.

"Sakurai-chan! You don't seem to enthusiastic!"
Akira's lips tugged upward in a sarcastic smile. She didn't comment on the -chan. She'd done that so often in the beginning, but she had learned Kazenkou had selective hearing. Either that, or she simply didn't care. Kazenkou never used the suffix in a demeaning way anyway, so Akira just let her be. "I'm super enthusiastic. Can't you see how thrilled I am?" The sarcastic smile remained on her face, unwavering. She knew her friends were probably as thrilled as she was.
Kazenkou continued saying she already picked up the mission -which saved time- and said: "Maintaining the hospital garden! You will be looking at medicinal herbs all morning! Follow me please!"
"Oh, jolly!" Hina looked as pleased as Akira felt. As the two followed their sensei with two fake smiles, Akira leaned over towards Hina and whispered: "I wonder when we'll get real missions." On the upside, at least she was dressed for the occasion. And the place they'd go was the hospital. Maybe they'd see something exciting in the course of the day.

'I'm glad all of you kids are so enthusiastic,' Kazenkou replied, a bit sarcastic. She looked at her brother, who didn't even reply, was he trying to make himself look better than her again? Kazenkou grinned a bit teasing. 'And Sakurai-chan, you'll get real missions when you're good enough. You might be the star-team of Suna, but everyone starts off like this and you know that. This kind of work is very important, all of you should know that.' Kazenkou shaked her head, she sounded a bit fierce, but her happy and kind personality wasn't getting the better of her "star-team." Sometimes she wondered if it would have been better if Ranmaru or Souran should have handled them. Not that she wanted to get them involved in HEAT of any kind, but still.

In the distance the hospital appeared in their sights. It was only a short walk, but still the temperature wasn't really that pleasant. 'Have you kids visited the nomads bye the way?' she just asked bluntly. 'Their scorpion lollies are heavenly! I heard team Souran is taking jobs from them...' It wasn't really good to hear if she was displeased by Souran or by Team Souran taking jobs from the nomads.

Akira sighed audibly, hearing Kazenkou berate her like a little child. "I know, I know... Sorry if I sound like I'm bitching." She held her hands up in an apologetic gesture. "Wasn't meant that way." Though you weren't meant to hear what I told Hina... She put her hands down and smoothed some wrinkles out of her dark blue longshirt. "So, medicinal herbs... could have been worse. Do we have to sort them? Pull out weeds?"

"Have you kids visited the nomads bye the way? Kazenkou later asked. Akira nodded and answered affirmative. After her riding school experience, she'd been curious to see people actually ride animals out and about. Shinobi generally preferred to use their own legs, after all. "Their scorpion lollies are heavenly!" She grinned a toothy grin, having seen those too. "So they are." She chanced a look at Hina to watch her reaction. Hina was deathly afraid of scorpions. Okay, maybe that was overstating things, but still. She'd bought a lolly herself when she'd visited the nomads, but hadn't eaten the scorpion. She couldn't bring herself to do it, it was too bizarre, and fascinating. She kept it in a small jar with preservative liquid on her desk. It somewhat reminded her of that laboratory a couple months ago... but the scorpion wasn't nearly as odd as the things that had been floating in jars back then.

"I heard team Souran is taking jobs from them..." Kazenkou added.
The grin was immediately wiped off Akira's face and she whipped her head around to look at the older woman. "Seriously?!" Team Souran... They'd hardly encountered them after their genin graduation, but she knew who were in that asshole's team. One of them was Kazuo, a kid she met in the library. At the time she didn't know who his sensei was. The other was a mute kid who also happened to be the asshole's son. The last was a replacement for the late Amaya who, sadly, died during their graduation. Not that Akira cared, it only proved their incompetence. However, she knew for a fact the new guy was good with swords, which was interesting because so was she. She remembered that he was about the only guy who could give her a challenge back at the academy. "I wonder what the nomads needed. Let's pray they won't lose another team member again like last time they went out in the desert."

"You'll get real missions when you're good enough. You might be the star-team of Suna, but everyone starts off like this and you know that. This kind of work is very important, all of you should know that." Hina hung her head in a sulking manner, pouting as she kicked a small rock. She knew Kazenkou was technically right. They had only had a handful of missions so far, of course they wouldn't get anything majorly important. But still.. at least at the academy she had the feeling that she was learning. Weeding gardens, or whatever they were supposed to do today, didn't feel all that challenging or educative.

Akira apologised for bitching. "I apologise too, Kazenkou-sensei. It's just.." She sighed, trying to look for the right words. Her eyes darted around, falling on the world around her waking up. "I don't know." She decided, non-committal. Luckily Kazenkou changed the topic.

The nomads. Yeah, Hina had been there, checked it out. But of course Kazenkou had to bring up the scorpion lollies. The woman knew how Hina felt about scorpions. She decided not to react to the scorpions. She could see Akira throwing her a glance when the lollies came up. This made the girl roll her eyes. No, she didn't like scorpions but it wasn't like the mere mention of it made her flip her shit. She didn't shudder at the mere thought of those.. vile, repulsive, disgusting little bastards. The idea of those little feet tripping across her skin did not make it crawl. And she most certainly didn't want to curl up into a little ball of protectiveness whenever she pictured those little claws and the stinger lodging itself under her skin. She threw a vile look Kazenkou's way as she realised she had been zoning out. Did she do this on purpose?!

She had completely missed any talk about team Souran taking jobs from the nomads.