---

These are the kids she has to work with? To hide her irritation, Koko fiddled with the drawstring of her straw hat and avoided making obvious signs of annoyance like a clenched jaw or a tight smile. The little smoking shit thought he had her figured out already after having met her for less than twenty minutes, how irksome. Now wouldn’t be a good time to buckle under his assumptions; Koko is adamant in proving to the brat that she was the big boss around here, she’s not here for this psychoanalyzing shit.

At least the brunette girl won’t be such a hassle, seems manageable enough, as does the other girl.

“It’s fine, kiddo.” Koko sighed, smiling though it was less enthusiastic than her other smiles – she purposely tilted the corners of her lips to seem more gently indulging rather than overly excited. “You guys are just genin, I don’t expect you to be experts in reading people – man, I don’t even expect you guys to be amateurs, ne Kasumi-chan?”

Koko waited a couple of seconds, giving her new team of genin a chance to voice any more questions. While she was waiting, Koko took the opportunity to rewrite their confirmed names on her palm. She didn’t bother hiding the fact that she was scrawling something onto her skin, but she doubted the genin could see what she was writing, let alone read it with her messy handwriting. At Sadako’s stuttering and dismissal of her own question, the newly baptized sensei decided it was time to get the ball rolling. As Koko stood up from the table, she placed some money down for her meal and sauntered away from the table, under the assumption her genin would follow without her having to tell them so.

Amegakure looked dreary and manufactured, fake, like it always did and the air smelled strongly of smoke, petrichor, and that acidic gasoline-esque smell that accompanies industrialization. Koko hated that combination of smells, it made her nose dry up and bleed every once in a blue moon, but she certainly could be living somewhere worse. Adjusting her straw hat to better protect her from the rain, the sensei stepped out from the protective awning of the restaurant and set the path towards the onsen, hopefully her little ducklings following her.

“No time to pussyfoot around, yeah? We should get the mission over and done with so we can buy a nice meal with your first paycheck!”

---

The trek from Amegakure to the onsen located on the road to the civilian village, Nagaishi, was a leisurely one. Koko could have pushed the genin to their limits to help them build up stamina and speed; but, Koko would have to have been in the front to enforce the brutal pace. For the first mission, Koko ambled behind them for better protection and for better observation. If anyone asked why Koko wanted them to go slower than the average shinobi speed, the sensei would only shrug her shoulders and say it was for them to build their observational skills. She also would not voice that she was feeling a bit lazy that day, the heavy barbeque food settling in her stomach and making her body crave a food-induced nap.

Every once in a while, to keep up pretenses, Koko would point out tracks she could pick out of animals or people, name some of the few plants she knew from her study in poison, and check them to make sure they were paying attention to their surroundings. To make sure they were paying attention, sometimes Koko would make a clone and see how long it took them to notice it hiding. If they didn’t notice it in the allotted ten minutes she gave them, the clone would jump out and try to scare the shit out of them. It gave Koko amusement for the boring hour long walk to the onsen.

“There’s the onsen over there, kiddies.” Koko mumbled lazily, stopping at the line of trees that faced the back of the onsen.

It looked like a typical onsen, with steam rising from the protective high walls that had little gabled roofs topping them. Orange lanterns glowed in the mist, dimmed by the density of the vapor, and there was raucous laughter emitting from the hot pools of water. The group of travelers really had made the onsen home, but seemed to be just that: travelers. Bandits would be smarter than just taking over an onsen and making it a party house; they at least would have put some people outside of the onsen to watch for surprises.

“The mission is to scare them off, not fight them.” Koko reminded her students, grinning at them mischievously. “So, let’s see how good you guys are at planning. Anything you kids have in mind to scare a couple of unwanted tourists away?”

Koko would listen to their suggestions with an open ear – if it wasn’t to her satisfaction, she could always tweak it a bit. For the most part, though, Koko wanted to be as hands off as possible to gauge their abilities. This mission geared more towards testing their strategic thinking rather than their fighting skills; it’d be really unfortunate if the pipe-smoker ended up with a group of brats that fight with brawn rather than brain. On further reflection, this would be a good mission to test their teamwork skills, too. In teams there is always one genin that takes alpha position above the rest, or two that fight for it and cause a death. It’d be interesting to see which of these kids thought they were the alpha in the team – even though that position belonged solely to Koko and she didn’t plan on sharing it.

Sakamoto Isami
TIME OF DAY ▸ Late Morning
LOCATION ▸ Road to Kusagakure no Sato
INTERACTION ▸ Uragiri-sensei @Odin, Shinjo Tsubasa @McHaggis, Kajiya Tatsuya @RaijinslayerDid I make a mistake?

The shaft of his second arrow had shook as it caressed the bow-string, watching the jonin work their wonders. Tatsuya and Tsubasa had enthralled him as well with their deftness of movement, and the brilliant utility of their technique. There was a moment when Isami, eyes darting behind his amber lenses, had thought the battle shifting in their favor. The smith’s earthen technique offered him a sudden mobility, and Tsubasa’s instincts appeared to be an order above his own; if he could just keep up the ranged barrage, their sheer evasiveness and constant threat could… would overcome their lone adversary.

The aftermath of their initial onslaught, however, smothered those thoughts in the cradle.

He realized, then, the error of his thinking. Isami had believed that their performed, somehow, perfectly. The genin was mistaken. While each constituent aspect was performed well enough, their timing had left gaps - and, in any case, did not produce a threat that could overcome the jonin’s own trump.

And so, it was their turn to brave the storm. To die, he mused to himself, as the katon unleashed.

His father had always told him that the sign of mastery was when everything moved just slowly enough. Before him, the sputtering flame and cracked earth, that gave way to the glow of the raikiri, were as if kaleidoscope fractals, moving like flakes in the blizzard, utterly beyond his senses. Outclassed. Of course he was. He worked hard, and that meant that - perhaps one day - he’d reach his pinnacle. But before then…

“Team 7! Go!”

Those who rested upon the precipice would not wait for the hard work.

His draw and pull still maintained, he exploded to the left, putting sensei out of his arrow’s path. Swivelling on an axis, the trained marksman let loose as he felt his body coming to perfect, centered equilibrium.

He loosed.