Starring:
Misayo, Meimei (as Yoko), Minako
Date: December 2, 2010
Summary:
A trip to the baths for Sunagakure's Academy Students — but only the girls! — is not all in fun. Bath lessons are serious business, apparently.
"Boiling Tempers At The Baths"
Hokenjo Baths - Sunagakure
It was your typical day in Sunagakure, the Village Hidden in the Sand: hot, sunny, sandy. And, if your name was Harada Misayo, grouchy. The fact that they were at the baths did very little to assuage the girl's usually-gloomy mood, for not that long ago…
_
"Oh. Finally. Why do they put the baths so far down the road from the Academy?" The blonde-haired student grouses at her feet as she treads along down the dusty road, turning into the bathhouse itself. Once there, lagging near the rear of the group of girls heading over from the ninja Academy, she ducked into the changing room in order to store her bright-pink Hello Kitty backpack. She was in the midst of shoving it into one of the small cubbies when it impacted something solid before reaching the back wall of the hole, along with an 'oomph'.
Pulling the backpack out, the False Immortal frowns into the head-sized hole, finding a pair of eyes peering back at her. "Nani!?"
"HAAAAAAAI YAH!" Though the psuedo-movie karate yell was done in classic style, it appears that the boy was having trouble getting himself out of the cubby he had stuffed himself into! With a heroic surge of preteen-strength, the young boy was able to remove his upper half, but it appeared his lower half was stuck inside in whatever contortionistic position he had placed them in in the first place! "ERK! Prepare, Misayo-san, for the ultimate BATT-ACK!"
The boy cuts off as the tiny blonde begins to beat him over the back of the head with her backpack. Repeatedly. He does his best to cover his face and head with his arms, but the blows, empowered by the heavy texts Misayo was carrying around, continue to bash through his defenses. "You. Should. Not. Appear. In. Girls. Changing. ROOM!" Each word is followed by a resounding *THWACK* of her hefty pack.
"But I-!" *THWACK* "I'm just-!" *THWACK* "I was only-" *THWACK* "STOP HITTING ME!" *THWACK-THWACK!* "Nnngh…"
And finally, with the blonde breathing hard, the striking had ceased, half the boy's body hanging limply from the cubby hole, steam and several knots rising from his bruised head, likely only because Misayo's arms had gotten tired. With a final 'Hmph!', the fiery preteen sets her backpack down near the near-unconscious fellow's head before turning on her heel and walking out into the main bath area, leaving him to mumble something about 'supah raivaru' in a barely-lucid state.
_
And now the blonde was standing near the water's edge with her arms crossed under her chest, her weight on one foot as she frowns down into the almost-boiling liquid. Once again, despite the heat and humidity, the girl's body just refused to sweat, though her hair was getting damp and stringy where it hung out of her bandana.
"Are we to learn bathing today? Does the sensei not believe us to be shinobi-in-training? I am against this! I will not wash anyone's back. Do not ask me to. You should have learned to do this yourself."
Meimei likes being clean. She does NOT like being boiled alive. It's already hot enough in this stupid desert without climbing into HOT WATER. When she bathes in her apartment, she occasionally will go for warm water, but she tends to prefer luke-warm or just plain cold. She was born and raised in the Land of SNOW, after all.
Even so, she was happy to know that she would get a chance to wash up after yet another dusty day in the Sand Village. Or was. Because a short time before Misayo went to put her backpack away, because she was at the back of the group…
_
Meimei was stowing her own clothing in one of the lockers/cubbies. She had thought ahead and was wearing a simple one-piece underneath her typical clothing, so she didn't take long changing. However, when she went to store her stuff in the cubby, there was a muffled noise. Almost like… 'Oof!' The purple-haired woman paused. She then shoved again, and got a 'Hey!' Pause. She pulled her stuff out of the cubby and saw some kid huddled inside the cubby. "…Chiba Endou, what are you doing in there?" she had asked in a deadpan tone. She had gotten the story of lying in wait for Misayo. "…Okay, why are you lying in wait for Harada?" Because she had wronged him by not sharing water, and had shurikened him in the forehead.
"…Okay. So how do you know she'll choose to put her stuff in THIS PARTICULAR CUBBY? What if she picks a different one? Then you'd be sitting here — and in the girls' changing room, might I add — all day!" Pause. No answer. "You've been sitting here all day, haven't you?" Pause. No answer. Sighing, she just moved to a different cubby.
_
So now here she stands in a simple black one-piece. She has noted with some smugness that for once she is taller and better-developed than every other female in the area! She is busy smirking to herself when some dark-skinned woman in a bikini passes by in front of her, with rather large assets. Yoko is now scowling.
She starts shouting at her Students as they stand around chattering. "OKAY, LISTEN UP!!! TODAY'S LESSON IS ABOUT CHAKRA CONTROL!" Clearing her throat, she crooks her finger to direct everyone's attention, and then wanders over to one of the pools. "This water," she begins. "Is going to need to be impacted by your Chakra control. You need to be able to make the water move by Chakra alone. I'll guide you through it, but I won't do it for you."
Baths are new to Minako. New and a bit scary, and yet also exciting. She turns to another girl while in the middle of walking down the street with her arms crossed over her chest. "I HEARD THAT BATHING CAN MAKE YOU ILL. IS THAT TRUE?" she demands. The frightened classmate just goes, "Uhh… N-not that I know of." She blinks. "Really?" She then eyes the girl and faces forward again. After a moment, she turns to someone else and says, "Has anyone ever been killed by a shark while bathing?" she asks a girl on her right. "Only if they were bathing in the ocean." "…Seriously?" "Hai." Now looking a bit confused, the red-haired girl looks up at the sky and wonders about something else she heard. "So I heard that bath houses are where two men or two women go to do… Uhh…" As tough as she tries to be, some things are not easy for her to say. "…You know?" The girl she is talking to just keeps looking over her shoulder as she walks, staring at Minako. Then she stops and turns around. Minako stops too.
"You're a freak," the other girl says. Then she turns around and walks off. Minako stands there all :| for a few seconds then resumes walking.
_
Of course, falling behind everyone else because of her need to clarify whether illicit activities go on in bath houses means she is the last one into the changing room. Still caught up in her thoughts, she is already half-way through undressing before she realizes she's not alone. In the middle of lifting up her shirt, she turns her head to see forehead-boy lying half-out of the cubby next to her, bleeding. She assumes it's blood from his nose, or maybe just assumes he's a pervert, because she lowers her shirt, turns, and >kicks him in the face so hard he goes ricochetting off the walls and ceiling before crashing into the tile floor<! Then she stalks off to join the class.
_
And now she's here, standing with the others. She has not the curves of even an under-developed midget like Yoko, so her tankini is not filled out all that well. Still, she's only 10. She has plenty of time! Not that she cares about irrelevant things like that! She just glares off to the side. Until Yoko starts >yelling<. Hair frazzling out like a frightened cat, eyes twitching, she goes, "What… The…" but doesn't get to finish, because here's the explanation of today's lesson.
"Moving water with Chakra? What if I don't have a Water affinity, Hibiki? What then, huh?"
"Chakra control! Who is not knowing chakra control? Everyone should be knowing this by now! I wish to learn of the replicating myself. Two of me! More than the world can handle, neh?"
The blonde-haired girl looks left, then looks right, before pulling off her black shirt-dress over her head and tossing it aside. She'd been a little too busy in the changing room to change! Her dress is left to crumple and wilt on the floor, yanking off her headband next that finally unrestricts her normally-restrained hair. Her hands are placed haughtily on her hips as she allows her mouth to perform the previously-unseen motion of a tiny, smug smile, even if it did look kind of evil with the way her brows were perpetually drawn down. But then, having had a former shinobi as her guardian gave her a leg up when it came to the most base techniques.
"Oh ho! You are not knowing how to move the water!" Unfortunately for Minako, her challenge of the instructor also caught the angry preteen's attention. "You can not stand back here and expect to do it. You have to get closer. Closer. Closer, closer!" Taking several aggressive steps towards the tankini-wearing young girl, Misayo begins to push her towards the waiting baths, a little shove accompanied with each 'closer'. "You should have learned this by now. I am not wanting to spend time helping you when I could be making two of me. Closer! Closer!"
Let's just hope she's stopped before one girl shoves the other right into the water!
Yoko frowns. Frowning is just about the only thing she and Misayo have in common. Normally she would just refuse Misayo's demands on principle, but she actually sees no reason that she can't incorporate it into the lesson. At least the blonde is enthusiastic. "Well, if you already have Chakra control down, how about I teach you Bunshin no Jutsu and then you can do the lesson while maintaining it—" She keeps talking while Misayo is shoving at Minako, seemingly a bit too unprepared to really react. But eventually she stops and hurries over to try to grab Misayo and pull her away. "This isn't a Cloning lesson, so how fast others go or don't go won't impact what YOU learn! Just worry about yourself, Harada!"
Once the issue of who is learning what and who is getting shoved where is settled, Yoko says, "No, you're not controlling the water in this case, Uzumaki. You're just supposed to move it with your Chakra. More like… Putting pressure on it without truly TOUCHING it. Anyone who gets THAT done before ending time for this class can try to do the reverse, and try to pull water up out of the baths to their hands. And if you do both of those successfully, I'll let you skip your first written test."
Minako is waiting for an answer, when she suddenly finds herself being whisked across the slippery bath tiles towards one of the steaming pools. She just sort of blinks a bit as she skids on her heels, until she looks over her shoulder to see who is pushing her. "Hey!" She turns around and tries to struggle back against Misayo. Whether the slightly-older girl's hands remain outstretched or get wrestled away during this little exchange, Minako does her very best to punch Misayo in the ear until she lets up.
That's how she made her name on the street, defending other orphans. Is someone messing with your buddies? Punch 'em in the ear! It apparently hurts a lot. Once she and Misayo are seperated by the teacher, Minako mutters and backs up to put some distance between them.
"So… Controlling water with Water Release is different from just moving Chakra with Chakra? Hmm…" The redhead listens to the explanation and wonders if it's worth it to try to learn both in a single lesson.
"Nani, nani!? You are telling me to only worry about myself! What about this 'team work', neh! What has happened to the unit cohesio- Do you hear ringing?"
The blonde-haired student pokes at her freshly-punched left ear with a finger, as if trying to dislodge the aforementioned sound. She levels a squinty-eyed scowl at the other girl even as she's yanked away from her, struggling for a moment to get loose from the instructor's grip and making strangling motions towards the orphan girl. "This is what I am getting for trying to help, neh! I will be making the punching fists at you! You have to learn to respect your elders! You must let me go! She is needing the kicking of a sandal!"
A few more heartbeats of struggling ensue until the aggressive preteen is brought to heel by the promise of learning to make 'another her'. As if there needed to be MORE of her! "Hmph!" Dropping her hands to her sides, the altercation is forgotten almost instantly as her wrists are propped onto her hips. "Very well, I will learn the Bushi-Bushi move. But your students, sensei. They are very violent. You should do something about them. That is not the way that they should be."