Graduation passes without a hitch and Tsuzuri lands on a team with Hiroyo and an Inuzuka boy. Their teacher is a Nara named Shiwano. An odd choice for a name, Tsuzuri supposed.

(Really wasn't her place to talk. Her own name essentially meant village and spelling.)

Their first test involved choice. A choice between three civilian and an immediate family member. It was a harsh start — their sensei hadn't bothered to learn their names before she cast the genjutsu and Tsuzuri is beginning to hate genjutsu more and more. No one quite seems to make it as fun as Jomei did, and for the first time in years, her heart tinges with jealousy as Akari chatters loudly beside her about her own sensei— A Kenma Hiromi who'd preached about teamwork and passed Akari and her teammates without any shortage of fanfare.

All jounin sensei's came from different backgrounds, different battlegrounds and walked away with different morals and different ideas. Tsuzuri can't help but this that her grandmother likely had a hand in Tsuzuri landing on the team she did.

+

The morning after, Tsuzuri drags herself up at the crack of dawn to shuffle off to the Nara forests, where Shiwano-sensei had instructed them to show up at. Hiroyo had already arrived when she got there. The two of them smile at each other tiredly before Tsuzuri decided to take residence in a tree to get some shut-eye. To her dismay, she woke up to Hiroyo's shriek and an alarmed bark some ten minutes later.

Masao, the Inuzuka, had arrived five minutes after she did, stood under the tree trying to keep an excited puppy at bay while Hiroyo seemed to be trying to scramble up the tree in her panic.

The puppy barked again, causing Tsuzuri to fall off the branch she was perched on, successfully scaring Hiroyo (again) alongside Masao and his puppy.

"A-are you okay?" A face loomed over hers as she attempts to find the urge in her to get up. He offers her a hand and pulls her up. Before he can thank him, however, the wind whistled and their sensei popped out from behind a bunch of smoke.

Nara Shiwano stood in the breeze with her hair down, spiky hair tamed and chin-length. She had fashionable bangs styled at the side of her face and a strand of hair from both sides tied together at the back to keep the rest of her hair at bay. The wind ruffled her long jacket and the sunlight glinted off of her sunglasses.

"Ah," Masao says beside her. "Age really does increase your aptitude for drama."

Tsuzuri's shoulders come up as she turns away to keep from laughing. She stops, however, when Shiwano pulls down her shades with one finger and gives them the flattest stare she's ever seen.

Before she can blink, the three of them are abruptly picked up and thrusted into somewhere dark and damp. It takes a couple of moments before her eyes adjust to the dark. They choose to do so right at the moment something cold touches her skin and she raises her head to come face first with a giant mass of shadows.

Ah, crap.

Tsuzuri spends the next four-or-so hours running for her life from absolutely nothing. She doesn't realize that until much, much later of course, but what she does realize is that everything that occurred from dawn till roughly noon probably happened because of Masao.

The genjutsu dissipates as quickly as it is created and before she knows it, Tsuzuri is crumpled on the ground again, almost as if she never left. Whatever Shiwano put them in must not be the normal genjutsu's that she'd learned in class, because Tsuzuri was really feeling that burn in her legs.

"Alright," Shiwano beams like any self-respecting sadist. "Why don't we do this again?" Her smile is threatening and Tsuzuri is entirely too sure that the threat isn't directed at Masao alone.

"Why don't we introduce ourselves?" Ah, the sane facade, Tsuzuri grins at Hiroyo as they sit next to each other in a form of a line.

"My name is Nara Shiwano," their teacher begins. "I don't like... Jokes about my age." Her gaze crosses Masao, who twitches alongside his puppy. "I enjoy painting. Other than that, I hope we'll get along, minions." Tsuzuri may or may not have just developed a semi-permanent tic in her eye.

"My name is Tsuzuri!" She slides into the conversation by throwing her hands up in the air and diving to the front of their line. "I like swords and I don't like cranky old people!" The cute persona probably isn't going to help her in the long-run nor is pissing off her first teacher. Nope.

"My name is Yamanaka Hiroyo." Her friend doesn't offer anything else, likely having caught Tsuzuri's flow of spite the teacher kekekeke because that's the best idea one can have right after they graduate.

Masao beams. "My name is Masao! And this is Ohmaru, I don't like dark, scary people!" he exclaims cheerfully.

They're thrown into the genjutsu every day for six hours for the next four weeks. Tsuzuri doesn't know if she should laugh or cry.

+

Her grandmother is out of the village for the next month, but true to her word, Tsuzuri begins training immediately. They begin as simple physical drills— The ones that Tsuzuri already does. Then it's a box of rice-paper scrolls that come at random, at first, anyway. Tsuzuri takes them in her hand and almost feels the weight of the history inked in them. The harsh ink on paper too brittle to carry them.

In the beginning, she is able to finish them in mere minutes. Then more, half an hour, one hour. And then she begins being more and more pressed for time as Yunano usually returns to the compound to check on her process the day after two days after.

What begins as a simple endeavour, soon becomes a room half drowned in boxes. As Tsuzuri returns to find in her room, planning to change and go out. She, Akari and Hiroyo had already agreed to go out for Dango tonight and go shopping at the city market, where Hiroyo's parents said that a new batch of all assortments of new things had just come in.

Despite the protests bubbling up her throat and the disappointment sinking into the chasm of her chest— Why today, why, why—

And then she remembers her grandmother's words, remembers her grandmother's sword. The birds in the clouds and the room, hidden as if it's a shameful secret. As if peace that needed to be hidden.

Tsuzuri stops making long-term plans with her friends.

+

"Minions, I have something to tell you," Shiwano declares solemnly one morning.

The three of them snap to attention. Or not really, Masao is the only one mildly paying attention as he cuddles with Ohmaru. Tszurui continues to watch the controlled chaos that is the hospital.

"What do you think you'll specialize in, Tsuzuri-chan?" Hiroyo asks, enamoured by the medic-nins running around the expanse of the space.

"Not medicine," Tsuzuri says as Hiroyo laughs.

"Minions." A hand lands on each of their heads. Shiwano glares.

"Shiwano-sensei," Hiroyo complains as she gets up, trying in vain to get their teacher's hand off of her head. Tsuzuri rolled her eyes and stuck with it, knowing that it was useless to try, beside them, Masao laughed hysterically before Tsuzuri jutted her chin at him and slammed the sole of her feet into his stomach. He winces and is on the verge of a whine before a medic-nin glares at him and he shuts his mouth right back up.

Shiwano laughs at them before hauling them upright and continuing their merry way.

+

To her dismay, Yunano forbids Tsuzuri from specializing in kenjutsu, genjutsu and ninjutsu. Instead, her grandmother commanded her to focus on tracking, taijutsu and kenjutsu.

Tsuzuri chalks it up to the whole you're too young to know what you want montage, but avoided.

Taijutsu is mostly dance and movement training. There isn't much learning but a lot of doing. Tsuzuri doesn't even realized she improved until the next Shiwano compliments her on her form. After that, she seeks out some dancing schools that trained entertainers. There were many girl like her. Better, prettier.

She learns dance — it's mildly dull, a lot of jumping and twirling and stretching. It doesn't really interest her all that much. But her friends: namely Akari and Hiroyo are plenty impressed when she shows them her routines? And it isn't like she has anything to either way.

Classes continue on, they do D-rank missions, they do a lot of them. They do the one hundred required before they finally, finally do a C-rank.

It's a pretty low-key missions: it's a run-of-the-mill escort job, mostly. The catch is that the client wants to go through a part of the most beast-infested part of the Forest of Death and feel like he's a part of the action.

Honestly, civilians.

They're clearly not actually going to do it. Shiwano's is going to create an elaborate genjutsu — much like the one she threw Tsuzuri and company on orientation — the dark, gloomy forest, just with more life-like beasts.

It goes just as well as one expects it would.

Not very well, because non-trained civilians aren't capable of defying the laws of physics.

But either way, the client's alive, albeit traumatized, and life goes on.

Though Tsuzuri's definitely impressed by the genjutsu in a way that hasn't happened since Jomei died.

x

"Can I learn genjutsu?" Tsuzuri asks a couple of weeks before her twelfth birthday. They're in one of the Hayakawa metal-working facilities because "believe it or not, simply talking to people and annoying the hell out of them does not make a living", and thus the Hayakawa have taken up the mantle of being one of the biggest weapon-crafters for the Shinobi World. Not providers, crafters.

They don't just make regular kunais, nu-uh. If they make it, then it'll definitely have style. Tsuzuri thought the endeavour was foolish once, but as she grew older, it was clear that like all of the clans, the Hayakwa sought more. Once a minor clan— And still a minor clan, they wanted the prestige of the Hyuuga, the respect of Uchiha and the myth of the Senju. At some point in time, they realized the couldn't get it, because those three were blessed: by gods or by demons always remained a debacle. So they honed other weapons, they forsook the knives for words, they swallowed the humiliation and begged — one day, one day, their hearts whispered. Just as Yunano held firm to the belief that today is it, today cannot be lost, for if nothing else, the Hayakawa clan always had their words to save them.

"No."

And it takes that single word to cut Tsuzuri down.

Her head jerks up and Tsuzuri knows better than to get riled over something like this— The disappointment, the disapproval in Yunano's eyes and the subtle shakes of heads when she looks to her parents for assistance. But the denial and the excuses are already on her tongue, stubborn like a cough from colds and I'm a child, I'm a person— shouldn't I be able to do what I want?

Deep down, she knows she should be better than this. She is the heir of the Hayakawa Clan, heir of everything that Yunano believes important. But more than that she has an obligation to be strong — the wars, the bloodshed, the birds missing from the clouds. They won't ever touch her family. Tsuzuri won't let them.

But she tries — maybe as the last fading sparks of childhood naivety. She tries, she lowers herself onto the tatami mat and she kneels, presses her forehead against the rough straw and pleads. "Please, obaa-sama."

There's a rough sigh and she feels her stomach sink, feels the tear prickling at the corner of her eyes. It's better that she doesn't see Yunano's face, she thinks. But still, it hurts nonetheless — words for blades — as she reiterates.

"No."

x

what an oppressive family jesus