I sigh heavily as we find out what our first mission is. "What kind of stupid person would express their rat-in-the-roof problem as a ninja mission!?" I whisper to Jenko and Kiko.

It earns me a smack in the head with a bottle by Sensei.

We walk to this person's address and knock on the door. A frail old women answers it. "Aahh; are you the sweet ninja children who have come to help me?"

I hear Kiko mumble something and he gets hit in the head. The woman tells us the details of these 'sounds' that she has heard in her roof.

She welcomes us into her house. Jenko pulls down the ladder that leads to her attic. I climb up first and pull myself up. Looking around the attic, there is a lot of junk and dust.

Then I see it. It's disgusting. I feel Jenko and Kiko come up behind me and gasp in disgust.

In the dust balls is a rat. Not just any rat, a mother rat. Why is it so gross? It's having babies! \\

"I-I'm gonna be sick," I say covering my mouth and turning my head towards Kiko. It was a big mistake to do that though. 

Kiko lets out a horrid, high pitch scream. I jump back, along with Jenko who steps on the rat's head, killing it instantly. Kiko continues to run around screaming.

He then trips by stepping into the hole we climbed through; he falls. Whatever attacked him landed at my feet. I picked it up; it has eyes like mine, blood red.

It's a bat! I grin at it. "Oh, c'mon. It's just a bat!" I yell. Kiko grumbles as Jenko almost weeps about how he has just killed a mother rat. I roll my eyes and the bat clings to my shoulder. I shrug and climb down the ladder.

"Well?" Gama says when we leave the house. He is sitting on a cloud and meditating. "A rat, a mother. New born rats, gross. The Mother's head was squished. We'll clean it up," I say.

After we dispose of the mother rat and the baby rats, I decide to keep the bat. "Hhmm, hello Aka," I smile as we followed a floating Gama to the Hokage's tower to file a mission report. 

"Aka? As in red?" Jenko asks. I nod.

"You may fly free," Gama calls to us over his shoulder.

"Want to go and get some ramen?" Kiko asks Jenko and I.

"Sure," we reply.

As three of us walk to the ramen bar, Kiko keeps glaring at Aka. "Take a picture of Aka, Kiko, it will last longer," I laugh. He looks away.

Suddenly I am hit with a strong force. I land on the ground flat on my butt. I looked up to see Shikamaru. He's looking down, fear written on his face, as though I was to hurt him.

He offers me a hand and I take it shyly.

"Where's the fire?" Kiko asks Ino, who is panting hard, Choji still running up to us.

"We're just...doing...training," Ino says, trying to breathe properly.

"Don't you guys have to train?" Shikamaru asks.

"Na, we're already doing missions," Jenko speaks quietly. Jealousy is written all over their faces. I giggle slightly.

"Hey, Tai. Uh-" Shikamaru begins, but a man who I assume is there Sensei runs up behind them. He begins yelling at them and we scurry off to the Ramen Bar.

We order ramen when Kiko begins being his usual self. "I wonder what Shikamaru wanted from you," he smirks. I smile slightly at him as we finished our ramen, not adding onto the conversation.

We walk along the streets of Konoha. Suddenly, Gama is floating above us. "We have training," He says. We follow him. He lead us into the forest and to some totems.

"I would like you, to punch them as many time as you can, enduring the pain. The last man standing will get a special prize. Later we will be joined in training by my dear friends son Asuma's team. You may begin."

I punch the totem. Not hard, just hard enough. I continued. Left, right, left, right, left, right, and then Kiko drops out. I continued, not even thinking about the pain.

My arms had already clicked into the punching. I couldn't stop. I just kept punching, punching, punching. I could here footsteps behind as.

Alright, I'll admit. I didn't actually last very long. I fall backwrds on my butt and stare at my bloodied knuckles. "Ow," I mumble.

When a thumping sound reaches my ears, I realise that Jenko is still going, his fists seemingly unaffected.

"Hello..." I say when I turn around and find Shika's team standing there, watching Jenko in surprise. Not wanting to look weak, I remove my torn gloves like it isn't absolutely excrutiating.

It is, by the way. Awful.

"Sensei! These are my favourite!" I exclaim when I see their condition. He scoffs.

"Purple, your clan is among the richest in the village. I am sure you have many pairs," he says. I sigh and drop them on the ground.

Gama and Asuma began speaking quietly. I find myself glancing at Shikamaru occasionally. Kiko notices and nudges me with a grin. I blush and stare at my shows.

The training continued with sparring. Ino and I joined. We practise deflecting thrown kunai by throwing more kunai. It ends when the sun is almost down. I leave with Ino.

"I mean, it's not like he could be in love with Sakura! Her forehead; it's huge!" She exclaims. I sigh and roll my eyes. I'm sick of having this conversation with her. I have the same sort of talk with Sakura.

"Yeah I guess," I say absent-mindedly. I stare into the forest.

"Hey are you even listening to me?" I hear Ino say.

"Y-Yeah," I answer. She gives me a suspicious look.

It's practically night. I say goodbye to Ino and turn the corner. I stop and lean against the fence. "You could have joined the conversation at anytime," I grin at Shikamaru.

"Oh, and listen to Ino verbally bash Sakura and make herself look like the biggest hippocrit in the village?"

"More like country," I grin, and he laughs.

"How are your hands?" He asks. I look down at my knuckles.

"They hurt, but as you know my Dad's the head Doctor; he'll be able to heal them, I hope," I say.

"Well until then, don't go punching anyone, alright?" He chuckles. "Especially not rabbits."

"That was one time!" I argue, laughing. "I didn't expect Naruto to throw Kitsune's rabbit at me!"

"Yeah yeah! You punched it like it was a target," he laughs, and I do too.

We are close to the Nara compound, when a question comes to mind. "Do you know which teams passed and became Genin?"

"Actually yeah. Kiba told me today. There's your team, obviously. Kitsune's team, my team, Hinata's team and get this; Naruto's team.

We both end up laughing again when we reach his house. "Well, I'll see you later," I smile.

"Yeah, you two Tai," he says, before turning a way.

When I get home, I'm welcomed by the smell of steamed rice and chicken. I sit down at the table and eat slowly whilst Jikei heals my hands.

"Tai, I thought you would have eaten faster," Neyo says.

"Why?" I ask.

"Haven't you seen the date?" Jikei answers for her.

I look at the calander. It's the 10th! Every second month, on the 10th, Gaara, Temari and Kankuro visit. I quickly finish what I am eating and grab my weapons pouch.

Speedily, I leave the house before calling to Neyo and Jikei, "I'm going!!" There is a range of 'be safe' lectures and I jumped into the night.