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Sumire looked over her notes as she sat in her seat on the train. Over the last few months she had spent a good deal of Kanzaki Heavy Industry's revenue to refurbish the Great Imperial Theater. The world needed the Flower Division again and as hard as it was, Sumire knew she would need to be the one to take the first step and create a new team.
Of course, creating said team would be a lot harder than refurbishing the theater. Back when Yoneda and Ayame created the original Flower Division it was difficult enough to find young women with spirit power around the world. Now Sumire had to deal with that difficulty while nearly every major country in the world was also scouting for their own teams. Bringing in girls from Paris or America would be next to impossible when their own capitals would find and recruit them before they were even on Sumire's radar. For now she would have to limit her recruitment scope to Japan.
Finding girls with enough spirit power in Japan would be hard. Even the original Flower Division had only been able to recruit three girls who were raised within the country. Currently Sumire had been able to detect a single girl with enough spirit power within the country; a girl in the countryside named Azami Mochizuki.
Looking at her family records, Azami was currently 11 years old. Most countries around the world weren't recruiting division members that young, but Sumire knew well not to underestimate the spiritual energy of someone young though. She herself had nearly overloaded her grandfather's own spiritual energy detectors at the same age, after all. The only issue here would be looking after someone that young while she recruited the rest of the New Flower Division. Though, with a smug smirk on her face, Sumire was confident she could handle that. After all, the original Flower Division has practically raised Iris and she especially got along with her well. This shouldn't be too different.
Once Sumire arrived at the farming village where the Mochizukis lived, she was overcome with an odd sense of nostalgia. Sumire herself had almost never set foot in places like this but despite that the location made her think of the country girl who changed her life forever: Sakura Shinguji. Trying to put the thought in the back of her mind to prevent any potential tears, Sumire walked toward the home where Azami's grandfather lived.
The conversation went a lot quicker than Sumire expected, she had visited Azami's grandfather once before to explain the situation but she had expected him to have more questions about the situation and the theater before sending Azami away today. However with barely a few words he said he'd call Azami so she could prepare to leave.
As Azami's grandfather whistled for her, Sumire expected to see the young girl come down the stairs of the home. However, within seconds of the old man whistling, Sumire heard a a high pitched voice directly behind her "Yes, master?"
Turning around, Sumire was greeted with the small child she expected. Though considering where she was, the outfit was quite a surprise. The girl had a bright yellow dress with a purple sash and puffed sleeves, the top of her head was also adorned with a mob cap like a maid. The almost fancy looking outfit clashed with the other thing Sumire noticed though: mud. Azami's clothes and her long hair were stained with the substance.
"Ah, you must have been planting some of your village's crops." The very first words out of Sumire's mouth were criticizing the stained outfit, perhaps out of rich girl instinct.
Azami just shook her head "I was dueling the master ninja." The girl said as she innocently pointed to a boar near the property's edge. The small scrap of yellow cloth in the boar's mouth confirmed that was indeed what Azami was talking about. Sumire recalled that Azami's grandfather had been training the girl to be a ninja. She sighed, clearing this would be a completely different experience than looking after Iris.
Before she could say anything else, Azami's grandfather spoke up. "Azami, this is the woman we discussed. From today forward your mission will be to defend Tokyo as a member of the Flower Division. This will be your first mission as a Mochizuki ninja, are you prepared?"
Azami put her hands together in some sort of ninja salute "Yes master. I'll uphold all the village rules and bring honor to our village." Upon declaring this, Azami jumped away out of Sumire's sight. Before Sumire could even question where she had gone the girl reappeared with a small bag full of her possessions.
"Anyone you want to say goodbye to before we go?" Sumire made sure to ask the girl, she knew all too well that not saying goodbye to someone before a great journey could eat away at you.
Azami quickly shook her head no "The only person here is Grandfather." With only the minimum number of words exchanged between the two, Azami and Sumire walked toward the train station.
—----
Once they were on the train, the silence between the two was almost deafening. Azami clearly wasn't going to try and initiate a conversation herself and Sumire, despite her confidence, didn't know how to start one with her. So instead Sumire pulled a page of Yoneda's Flower Division parenting method and pulled out an orange she brought for the trip and offered it to Azami.
Without a word exchanged between them Azami accepted the orange and to Sumire's shock she nearly took a bite directly out of it. Thankfully the adult among the two tugged at Azami's arm and stopped her before she took a bite. Breathing a sigh of both relief and exhaustion, Sumire finally spoke up as she peeled the orange. "Honestly, I don't know what it is about the countryside that makes young girls act like apes."
As she peeled the orange and spoke her admittedly harsh words, she once again thought back to her days in the original Flower Division. How many times had she said something similar to Sakura? How many times had she berated her with harsh words only to regret it as they grew older. Looking at Azami, she couldn't help but be reminded of Sakura. "I'm sorry, that was uncalled for." Sumire gave a rare apology as she finished peeling the orange.
Azami seemed to not understand that she had even been insulted moments ago as she accepted the peeled fruit and began to eat. As Azami silently ate, Sumire couldn't help but notice her hair. Azami's hair was grown out but wasn't groomed at all. Aside from the mud stuck to it she also had plenty of knots and it seemed she hadn't brushed it in months. Speaking up again, Sumire gave an offer "How about we get you a haircut once we're back at the theater?"
—---
Once the two had arrived in Tokyo, Sumire brought Azami to the theater. Sumire herself hadn't entered the building since she had it refurbished. This place was full of so many memories of her friends and family, being alone in this building would be too much to handle. The only reason she could enter now was because she needed to guide someone else.
Walking through the theater lobby and halls, Sumire couldn't believe that the theater looked exactly how she remembered it. It was as if part of her youth was transported to modern day. Of course it looking like the past didn't change the fact that she and Azami were currently alone in the building. Sumire had yet to hire any employees to staff the theater yet, all her effort was currently going into recruiting a new Flower Division.
Taking Azami to the dressing room so they could have a mirror, Sumire grabbed a pair of scissors and prepared to give the child a haircut. Sumire had never given anyone a haircut in her life, heck she had never seen one done in her life as she mostly kept her eyes closed and relaxed whenever she visited a fancy salon. However, how hard could giving one be? She only wanted to shorten Azami's hair and get rid of those knots after all.
"Are you ready, Azami?" Sumire asked the clearly nervous girl in the chair.
"Village Rule 63: There cannot be victory without adversity" Azami said as she gripped the chair, the girl clearly hadn't had a hair cut in a long time and was viewing both the scissors and brush with fearful anticipation.
After spending god knows how long cutting hair off, realizing she had misjudged how even it was, and proceeding to cut more to try and fix the mistake, Sumire had finally gotten Azami's hair to look relatively normal again. Though it clearly wasn't perfect and there were plenty of uneven strands of hair sticking out all over the place. "I'm sorry" Sumire began again. "Maybe in a month or so we can get someone to-"
Sumire was interrupted by the small ninja girl shaking her head "It's perfect." She said as she looked in the mirror. Something about the imperfect hair seemed to please Azami a lot as she smiled for the first time since they had left the village. Sumire couldn't quite understand why, but she smiled too at Azami's actions. This girl was clearly going to be a strange one to look after, but in a way that made her perfect for the Flower Division.