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“Are we really doing this, Yuai?”
“What’s the matter, Mirai? Scared?”
There it was again– Yuai more or less scolding her to have fun. Who did this girl think she was, anyway? It got on her nerves sometimes, but then again, a lot of things got on her nerves. Unless said thing proved to have good intentions. And Yuai’s usually did. She didn’t mean any harm, and Mirai found it very difficult to stay mad at her best friend. So, Mirai just let out a small groan. “No, not scared, just smart. This is not a good idea.”
“That sounds like an excuse if I’ve ever heard one! We’re full-fledged genin now,” Yuai gestured to her new headband. “You can make your own decisions! Deep down, in your heart, you actually think this is a great idea, don’t you? You’re just dying to help me out!”
None of this looked like a good idea. Yuai perched against the edge of the door, trying to keep her balance while she set up the bucket of ice water. This prank looked like an awful, dangerous idea, and Mirai held her arms out and nervous inched to the sides whenever Yuai swayed. If nothing else, she was going to catch Yuai if she fell.
“Besides,” Yuai continued, wholly unconcerned. Yuai leaned back, and Mirai’s heart nearly stopped as she lunged to catch her friend, only to see that Yuai was still holding herself up with her legs. “Don’t you remember, Mirai? I’m the smart one! I’m going to be the brains of this team!”
“This team won’t last on many missions…” Kai hummed, probably frowning, but it was impossible to tell behind their oversized scarf and oversized book. “At least I lived a long, happy life. I have no regrets.”
“Hey! I didn’t ask for any comments from the peanut gallery!” Yuai called, trying to look intimidating and commanding. Hanging upside-down from the top of a door, holding a bucket of water between her knees, it proved to be a very difficult task.
Kai shrugged. “Alright, but if things go awry then don’t come crying to me.”
“Like I ever cry! I’m the smart one AND the tough one!” Yuai huffed and finally sat back up. “Mirai, ignore them! It’s not going to go awry! I planned everything out far too carefully for anything to go wrong! And this is an important test! We don’t know who they’re going to try to put us with! It’s just as important for us to make sure we can trust their skills. Knowing how good they are is another aspect of teamwork!”
Kai set down their book and looked up, dark eyes suddenly sparkling with excitement. Which, in Mirai’s opinion, was never a good thing. “That sounds like something I would read in one of my papa’s books.”
“—Which papa?” Mirai asked, her voice cracking.
Kai didn’t answer. They simply hopped up from their chair and ran over to the door. “I’m in.”
Yuai grinned, and that same sparkle was in her eyes, and now it was hopeless, there was absolutely no way Mirai was going to be able to turn this around if those two were on the same page. Yuai dropped down into Mirai’s waiting arms, a grin on her face and the bucket of water balanced above them. “That’s the spirit, Kai!” She ruffled the younger child’s hair.
Kai ducked away from Yuai’s hand, lips twitching slightly into a smile. Trying to hide their excitement, Kai crossed their arms, regarding Yuai through white bangs. “Alright then, let’s see this plan of yours. I’ll follow your lead.”
“How about you, Mirai?” Yuai asked expectantly.
“…You do make a good point…” Mirai conceded. And she did. Sort of –the three of them had known each other all their lives; if their teacher was incompetent, then they might throw off everything the three did that worked so well together.
…And maybe it was time to cure Mirai’s uptight habit. A strange thought, considering how much trouble Mirai had managed to keep the three of them out of by being “the responsible one.” But there was a point to their ways, too, like preparing for the unpredictable way things could be in the real world.
The more the thought crossed her mind, the more it swayed her. A gulp, downcast gaze, and a sigh, “I… guess I’ll help,” Mirai finally said.
Yuai perked up even more. “The first of many times you’ll both be following my lead, I’m sure!” she said fondly. “Good! Actually, with the two of you helping me, we can do something way cooler than the bucket of water thing! We’re going to do this with a lot of water! That’s why… Kai!” Yuai pointed to the younger child. “We really have to sell the idea! You’ll be our bucket! You can hide right over the door and spray the teacher with water style! They’ll see the real bucket and think that’s all they have to dodge, so they’ll be so surprised! We have to keep our new teacher on their toes!”
Kai nodded mutely, then jumped straight up. The prowess and agility they held in the field of combat allowed them to make the jump with ease, landing upside-down, feet first, and standing on the ceiling. “I’ll be harder to spot from here than balancing on the door.”
“Show-off…” Yuai muttered. “—Ahem! Mirai, you’re creative! I’m sure you can make it look like this whole place is underwater and make a sea monster! And he’ll think all that came from a bucket!”
“A sea monster? What kind of—”
“Someone’s coming,” Kai called.
“It’s time!” Yuai pulled Mirai with her to hide behind a desk. “Okay, places! We’re about to make a good first impression!”
Mirai sighed again, but didn’t say anything as she prepared to cast a genjutsu.
“Sorry, I’m a little late—” A voice called from outside the door.
The three of them waited excitedly as the door opened, and even Mirai anticipated the look of surprise their teacher would show. No, rather, she was looking forward to the stone-faced expression they would have, and how that would discourage her teammates from doing silly things like this in the future. She wasn’t looking forward to this at all, other than that. She fought to hold back her smile as she started weaving through hand seals.
The sound of footsteps halted. “Hm? Oh, really? A bucket? Come on, now, that’s the oldest trick in the book,” the voice chuckled, prodding at the door with their foot and letting the bucket of now-lukewarm water fall harmlessly to the floor. “Now, let’s get started—”
As soon as the jonin stepped from the hall past the threshold of the door —strange, Mirai knew a lot of people in the village, but she’d never seen this one, shrouded in a big hood and opaque glasses —they were doused by a waterfall from above.
That was Mirai’s cue. She weaved through several hand seals and transformed the room around them into an underwater cove.
When the real waterfall stopped and the jonin shook their head and opened their eyes, they were greeted by the sight of what looked like a world fully submerged in water. A true perfectionist, Mirai poured chakra into the sounds, the distorted lights, the slight pressure; everything was exactly as it would be from underwater.
Except, perhaps, for the monster she’d created according to Yuai’s vague instructions.
That would have to be wholly fictitious. She would draw on her mother’s teachings for that.
The aquatic beast Mirai conjured up was immense, prehistoric, terrifying. Beyond the rusting, grafted armor the imaginary beast chafed against and the bruised, dying flesh that preceded its craggy teeth, there was nothing but blackness, all consuming, unnatural and absolute.
The jonin’s eyes widened in shock.
Then they fainted, falling to the ground with a heavy, lifeless thud.
Yuai took a cautious peek from her hiding place at the sound. “Mirai, I think that was a little too creative.”
“Sorry. I panicked a little. Mom’s genjutsu is always so intense, so I tried to mimic that…” A slight self-deprecating note could be heard in her tone, but she chuckled softly.
Kai leapt down from the ceiling and landed gracefully on their feet. “I didn’t think a jonin would get fooled by it… who is this?”
“Well, whoever he is, this guy is going to be our new teacher, so hopefully he’s not too, too mad at us for having a little fun when he wakes up! I mean, he was the one who kept us waiting.” Yuai knelt down and ran her hand along the jonin’s arm, pausing at their wrist and trying to feel for a pulse. “…Um.” Her face went pale, and an uncomfortable feeling settled over the room. The atmosphere was still, silent— almost fatally, in a sense.
Kai was the first to break the silence. “Did we just kill our jonin instructor?”
“—We killed our jonin instructor? I think we just killed our jonin instructor!” Mirai released the genjutsu, and now the one with a look of genuine terror on her face was her. Yuai’s face reflected the same expression, and that was all the answer Mirai needed. “Kai, we killed our jonin instructor!”
Kai sighed, more disappointed than concerned. “Calm down. Dad will be fine with it… probably… He killed people before.”
“Oh! Good point!” Yuai let out a sigh of relief. “Now that you mention it, my dad—"
“We just killed our jonin instructor!” Mirai cut in. “My mom is going to be so mad!”
Both Kai and Yuai shivered at the thought of a furious Kurenai. “We should fix this,” Kai suggested.
“We have to fix this,” Yuai agreed.
“The one who knows medical ninjutsu should be trying to fix this right now!” Mirai ordered.
Yuai nodded in solemn agreement. “Exactly, the one who… oh, you’re talking about me, aren’t you?” She cleared her throat. “Of course, you’re talking about me! My mom is Rin Nohara! The best healer, the best jinchuuriki, the best everything in the world! That’s what my dad always says! And I have her genes running through my veins, so I’m all those things, too! If there’s anyone here who can bring him back to life, it’s me!”
“Okay, then we’re counting on you right now, Yuai,” Mirai pleaded.
“Even if you fail, you can’t make him any deader than he already is, so don’t worry too much. Dad taught me some ways to dispose of a body.” Kai ducked to dodge the reprimanding hit that Mirai aimed at them. “It’s encouragement.”
“It’s not,” Mirai whispered.
“Ha! Don’t worry, I’m sure I can do this! Leave it up to me!” Yuai sat down beside the body and set her hands on its chest. A warm green glow surrounded her hands as she tried to focus.
Mirai and Kai watched. This was a technique Yuai had yet to properly master, despite apprenticing under Rin herself, but maybe the added urgency of the situation would awaken something in her. Another silence settled over the room as they waited for any sign of life to return to the jonin.
“Your chakra control could use a lot of work. Your form has gotten better, though,” said a sudden voice that didn’t belong to any of the three children.
Yuai screamed, voice cracking with shock. Mirai reflexively stood between Yuai and the voice, taking a defensive stance.
“It’s Sakura-san…” Kai remarked, not seeming surprised by her sudden appearance at all. Or at least not as much as
“It’s Sakura-sensei,” Sakura corrected, grinning from her spot against the windowsill. Her stealth was definitely jonin-level.
The three children collectively breathed out a sigh of relief, then immediately gasped it back in when they remembered the jonin from before.
Before they could say anything –an excuse or a plea for help from one of the most world-renown healers in the village—the jonin they had been attending to vanished in a puff of smoke, leaving behind only a log in his place. “Sorry, did I freak you guys out? I haven’t seen you guys makes faces like that since you were babies. I knew you were probably planning something, though! Lesson number one! You guys are still a hundred years too early to pull a fast one on me!”
“That was a clone?! You couldn’t tell it was a clone?!” Mirai asked, looking from the log to Mirai to Sakura .
“It was a really good clone, okay?!” Yuai shot back. “And it really didn’t have a pulse! Because it was a log! So, I was right about that part!”
A pleasant, cheerful laugh left Sakura-sensei at that. “I’ll say this! Your idea for a prank is definitely more advanced than it was for us at your age! Naruto’s falling eraser can’t compare!” Her laughter stopped abruptly, and the emotions in her eyes shifted to something sterner. “Now, does anyone want to confess about whose idea this was?”
The sound of frantic voices all trying to answer at the same time filled the room.
“It was Yuai’s idea,” was Kai’s answer.
“We worked together to do it, so—!” was Yuai’s answer.
“I take full responsibility, I’m the oldest and I didn’t stop them, they didn’t do anything wrong!” was Mirai’s answer.
Sakura sighed, a sympathetic grin coming back onto her face. “Well, that was your first test, and you failed it. We have a long way to go with you three!”
Mirai decided she was going to need to keep being the responsible stick-in-the-mud of the group, after all.