The tree's whispered to each other, the birds listening and repeating their gossip in song while flying through the air. The clouds looming overhead hear, booming in laughter, and part so the sky can hear the gossip. The sky glimmers in amusement, rainbow's dancing across its surface. The children were sparring again, and the deadlast had won against the second worst in their class. The dirt ground had been clothed with children who were watching the matches.

"Naruto wins! Good try, Kaito-san. Try harder next time, okay? The last spar of the day is Noriko Akaishi-san and Sasuke Uchiha-san!" Iruka shouts, standing in the area surrounded by children. A girl with a black spider mask on walks forward, moving to face Sasuke. Noriko didn't look up from her notebook, scrawling words in a code only she knew.

"Make the seal of confrontation." Iruka states.

Noriko stops scrawling, quickly doing the sign before going back to writing. She wasn't going to waste her time sparring against a genin, of all people. Her taijutsu was on the same level as a genin she knew, known as Rock Lee. Of course, she was way faster than him. After thinking it over, Noriko slowly put away her notebook and pen, changing her mind.

She hasn't sparred in a while, it'd be nice to realize what level she should be at. She looked up at her opponent, the red eyes on the mask gleaming ominously.

Sasuke gets in a starting position, smirking at Noriko. Noriko knew that look. It was the look of someone confident they'd win, disregarding the opponent.

Noriko hesitated in her decision to lose, frowning. She wants to defeat him now, but how could she do that while making it seem like her win was an accident? A shout of encouragement interrupted her thoughts, and she watched Gai and his team run past. Noriko's eyes widened behind her mask. Of course! Rock Lee! Her mind snapped back into focus as Iruka's hand fell like a makeshift flag.

"Start!" Iruka shouts.

Noriko stumbles to the side as Sasuke tries punching her, his fist just barely missing her mask.

"Sensei, what were the rules to win ag-ah!" Noriko stumbles around, her fists barely able to raise in time as Sasuke's foot brushes past them and plants itself into her stomach. She makes herself stumble back as Sasuke's other foot swipes against her mask, almost dislodging it.

"To win you must strike the opponent three times. Sasuke-san is in the le..." The rest of what Iruka was going to say was overrun by the screeching of fangirls cheering. Noriko nods once, stumbling forward and slapping Sasuke twice before she got punched in the mask and stumbled away.

Noriko held her hand to her mask, readjusting it while she barely dodged every punch and kick sent away. After a few seconds of close misses, Noriko lurches forward and trips, accidentally punching Sasuke in the shoulder as she tackles him to the ground in a mess of limbs.

"Noriko-san wins! That's it for class today, don't forget to do your homework!" Iruka shouts at the already receding line of children as they rushed towards their homes. The only ones left were Iruka, Mizuki, Noriko, Sasuke, and Naruto. Naruto and Sasuke were arguing about something, while Noriko walked towards the two sensei's, the noise around her muted.

"Sensei, can you tell me more about the Konoha Council? What does it do?" Noriko asks, deciding to prank whichever elder Iruka said first. She hoped he would say Danzo. Noriko liked pranking Danzo, he could never catch her, even though he has a bunch of unofficial Anbu following his orders. Iruka smiled at Noriko, happy that someone was actually interested in the workings of the village.

"Well, as you know, the Konoha Council was once made up of three people. Danzo Shimura-sama, Koharu Utatane-sama, and Homura Mitokado-sama. Now it's made up of two, because Danzo-sama had betrayed Hokage-sama's trust." Iruka explains, "They exist to help the Hokage govern the village and to make sure all decisions are made with the best interest of Konoha and its inhabitants in mind." Iruka finishes. Noriko nods.

"So they also control Konoha, then?" She asks, making sure she gets all the information out of him. Iruka shakes his head.

"The Hokage always has the final say in the matter, but the councillors are there to give their opinions and advice, thus making sure the decisions made are fair and take into account all possibilities and viewpoints." He says, a calm smile on his face as Noriko begins to ask more. None of his students have ever taken such an interest in anything before, this is a great change.

"Oh, okay. What about the people in the council? Why are they the ones in the council instead of any other old men?" She asks, hoping he'll go into more detail about Danzo.

"Both have decades' worth of experience and knowledge and hold a social position similar to that of the Hokage. They exert great influence over the governing of Konoha and have garnered wide support from the village's shinobi and are regarded with the same respect as that of the Hokage." Iruka says. Noriko nods once again.

"What about the third one? The one that got kicked out? What's he like?" Noriko asks. Iruka's smile gets uneasy.

"I uh, don't know much about him. He got kicked out when I was still a genin. Haha, sorry." Iruka laughs, scratching the back of his head.

"It's okay. Thank you! Have a good day!" Noriko calls, waving as she darted off at a slow pace.

Noriko grins underneath her mask, slipping into the window of Danzo's traditional Japanese house. She pulled out two large fish with '1 Haha!' and '3 Danzo is a senile old man!' written on them. Noriko put the one with the three on it underneath a loose floorboard, and put the one with the one on it underneath a dresser. Staying silent, she slips back out of the window, sliding it shut. Her grin widened when she saw the kunai smash into the wooden frame of the window. Darting off as fast as she could, she then dived into a lake, swimming out through a tunnel she dug out using a jutsu.

Noriko doubled back, the speed of which she ran drying her off. She arrived at the market near Danzo's house, writing in her notebook new ideas on her Ai no Jinsei, or Love Life series. It was the only competitor to the Icha Icha series. The only one. No other people have written smutty romance series. There have been one or two good novels, like the Ninja Love book, but there are only two smutty romance series in all of the Five Great Nations. Noriko is snapped out of her mourning by a spike of chakra. Looking to her side, she see's an ANBU. The ANBU wasn't looking at her, but at a drunk ninja fight. She walked up, deciding to place her bets with the other ninja.

"I place my bets on the black haired one." Noriko states, and the ANBU looks down at her, before looking back at the fight.

"No way. The brunette will obviously win." The ANBU says in an unmuffled voice.

"I'll bet you ten thousand ryo the blackette will win. And yes, I have the money. I'm an Akaishi." Noriko explains, waving around a stack of money. The ANBU shrugs, nodding, and they look back at the fight.

"Sure, kid. If the blackette wins I'll give you ten thousand ryo. Not like that's the equivalent of an A rank, or anything." The ANBU says, getting sarcastic at the end.

The blackette slurred something unintelligible, before stopping the rain of punches and slamming his head into the brunette, knocking the brunette out. The ANBU freezes, almost robotically turning to look at Noriko. The ANBU sputters for a second.

Eventually the ANBU chokes out a, "How?" Noriko smiles innocently, although the ANBU couldn't see it, and gestures towards the blackette, who was throwing up against the side of the already grimey bar.

"That's Rai Hayashi. He is an active jonin ninja. He was fighting a chunin, who goes by the name Hayate Gekko, Rai's rival. They were both drunk, so I just assumed he'd win." Nariko states, holding out her hand. Defeated, the ANBU hands over the money. Noriko snickers, shaking her head and walking away.

"Thanks for the money, Neko-san. Enjoy your day!" Noriko calls back, before going to training ground 44 to train for the rest of the day.