Starring:
Hanako, Nariko, Kotone, Amani, Hiroyasu
Date: August 13, 2013
Summary:
Team Siren has its first training session together, which opens some old wounds but brings them closer together.
Poster's note: foul language filtered in obvious places.
"The Training of Team Siren"
Kumogakure Training Grounds
It was their first day of training as a team, and Hanako had requested that the new 'Team Siren' should come prepared. For today they're set up in the Training Grounds in the Ninja Academy. Hanako figured that a variety of locations and landscapes would help them get used to working together under any conditions. The room is set up with a few tags around the floor, a couple of wooden dummies scattered around and at one end is one of those… fandangled new auto-weapon-launchers. Hanako's pleased with the setup and eager to get started! So, she sits against the round room's wall, her long legs stretched out in front of her as she waits for her team to arrive. Its a while yet before they're due to arrive, but Hanako left early to make sure that she'd be the first one here.
Kotone comes bouncing along- she's just about dried off from her accidental dip in the lake earlier, and seems to be in a pretty cheerful mood as she makes her way into the training hall. Aha, this time, Kambei won't be able to tell her off for practicing here because her team leader told her to! Take that Kanbei!
Arriving for her first day of 'Team Siren' training was Nariko. Draped around her neck is a towel, one should always come prepared when training, but she was a little nervous about this first day. She walked into the training grounds, her mouth dropping opened. "Wow.." Is all that escapes her mouth. She was pretty impressed with the way it looked. She notices Hanako and Kotone, bowing politely to them both. "Hanako-san. Kotone."
Come prepared, bah. Amani always comes prepared, but it's not anything to fuss over. She's just feeling a bit fussy today. She heads to the meeting place indicated by Hanako and feels a bit…more fussy. She hated the ninja academy. It was the worst place she'd ever been, both for her schooling and medical studies. She sighed as she entered inside and towards the training grounds. What she came in contact with made her question the sanity of their leader. "What the heck is this?" Is the first thing out of her mouth.
As the girls enter one by one, Hanako stands up slowly and smiles. "Alright girls, welcome to Teamwork 101!" she says, sweeping her hand across the room, and then she looks to Amani and says, "That's exactly what I'm about to explain to you." Placing her hands on her hips the superstar singer says, "Today we're going to run through a few exercises together. If you try to tackle them individually you probably won't have much success. If you work as a team, you'll do fine. Don't worry though, none of the exercises today are going to be very dangerous. The tags on the ground are simply fast-release smoke tags, and the auto-launcher is loaded with rubber shuriken that shouldn't hurt any more than a tennis ball." She laughs and walks up to her new team, "Now, I wanted to ask you girls some questions first of all. For starters, what are your specialties. I know that you, Amani, are a med-nin, and a Yamayuki to boot. How is your Sound Manpulation coming along? And you too Kotone, I saw you with your Kekkei Genkai unlocked the other day, and we've talked about possibly teaching you some Genjutsu. What about you, Yotsuki-san? Most of your clan specialize in Taijutsu, do you follow that tradition?"
"Ohhhhehehe. I kinda suck at Genjutsu." Kotone admits. "I'm mostly good with ninjutsu. I have some deception stuff, too, and I'm thinking of working on some sensory techniques now I've unlocked the Nejigan." She admits to Hanako then.
Nariko looks out towards the training area, looking from Kotone to Amani. ~What did I get myself into?~ Though she looks to Hanako as she asks about what their strengths are. When Hanako asks her she raises her arm, her hand going behind her head scratching it. She scrunches her face, "Umm…sort of…I kind of grew up away from all of that so I'm not so great at it, but I'm pretty good at Lightning Taijutsu."
"…" Amani is not sure she'll make it through this exercise alive. Rubber shuriken? She hopes they don't launch fast. On top of that, how in the world did she commission all this? "Specialties? Uh, I use sound jutsu with my bow and arrow to produce different kinds of effects and all. I am a medical ninja, as you mentioned…I am better at my medical skills than I am sound at this point, but sound is coming along nicely enough," she shrugged. She turned to Kotone. "You finally got Nejigan? Congrats. So, sound and lightning taijutsu, some medical here and there…I think we're going to make this work…somehow." She paused. "Are we going to die today?"
Hanako laughs at Amani's suggestion that they're going to die and shakes her head. "No, sweetheart, you aren't going to die today," she says, "In fact, I'll demonstrate." And with that she moves out into the centre of the room and sings a note. A gear on the auto-launcher shifts, and it suddenly fires a shuriken at the Chuunin. Hanako doesn't even bother to move, she just lets the shuriken hit her shoulder and bounce off. "Ouch," she says, rubbing the spot gently for a moment before returning her attention to the Genin. "Hurts slightly more than a mosquito bite. Anyway, you have some pretty diverse skills between you, and I bring some Sound Manipulation and Genjutsu to the mix. So, what we're going to work on today is a couple of ways to work together in tough situations. Here's the first," she says, motioning for the girls to come towards her in the centre of the room, "I'm going to be your target. I'm an injured ninja on the field of battle, and your objective is to reach me, heal any urgent wounds and get me off the battlefield. Of course Amani-kun will be doing the healing, and Nariko and Kotone will be covering her." And with that, Hanako lies down in the centre of the room and starts moaning fakely. "So, whenever you're ready… Medic! I need a medic!"
Kotone nods her head then, forming the final seal of the clone technique, and summoning a couple of them- they can take hits from that automated weapon launcher for her. Then she'll begin rushing forwards- already forgetting it's a team exercise, apparently. This can only end badly…
Nariko nods to Hanako as she listens. "Kotone, we have to also get Amani out there!" She yells to her. She looks at Amani and motions to go forward. "Get get out there!" She begins to make her way out into the area, looking back to make sure Amani is following. She looks to Kotone. "Kotone, once you get there hold the left flank." She points over to the left side of Hanako.
Amani observed the way the launcher worked and saw how it struck Hanako. She nodded cooly, thinking that this might go well after all. Okay. "I'll try and do my best," she smiled, though it faded somewhat as she saw Kotone begin to run off onto the field. Already?
"Alright!" She states and gets going into the exercise after Nariko. Things appear to be going well so far, but the cries for a medic are making her somewhat nervous.
Hanako squirms and writhes on the ground, playfully pretending that she's been injured. As the three Genin start running out the auto-launcher activates again, firing a small volley of rubber shuriken at the girls. One of the shuriken thuds into a practice dummy, which rocks back and forth after the hit. The remaining shuriken head straight towards Kotone, who is in the lead and not really paying much attention to the 'teamwork' part of this exercise. Hanako, while still playing 'pretend' on the ground, watches the way the team acts together carefully, assessing who naturally takes a leadership role, who keeps a cool head and who needs help in which areas.
Kotone's recklessness costs her deerly- she gets pegged by a whole cluster of shuriken, her clones going poof, and she's driven back by the attacks- sure, they didn't do much damage, but they stung like alarm. "Ow, ow, ow! What sort of mosqitos do you get bitten by!" she complains, She begins pushing on again, forming a series of hand seals to try and summon some fresh clones.
Nariko looks back and notices Amani's hesitance, she calls to her. "Amani, think of it as Hiro is out there. He needs our help." She says, trying to encourage the younger Yamayuki. She looks towards Kotone and shakes her head. "Dodge them Kotone, or block them. Don't run in blindly." She keeps running forward, keeping an eye on both her teammates and the autolauncher.
Amani remembers going through something like this. The image she gets in her mind flashes every few moments as she watches Hanako writhing on the ground. Though she seems to be able to tell that she's not injured, the images appear to prove otherwise. She keeps going, though some of her focus is lost as she alternates between past and present. "Hiro?" She questioned distractedly. She lifted a hand to her face to rub her eyes so that she could pay attention and keep going.
Hanako can't resist the small smile that creeps over her face as Kotone gets hit by several of the shuriken. Hopefully she'd learn quickly and wouldn't make that mistake again though. As the group continues on towards Hanako, another volley of mostly-harmless-shuriken fire out of the machine at them. This time they're fairly evenly spread, and a little slower than the first group.
Kotone gets her clones up in time, and her control is a bit better now that she's concentrating a bit more- but she still gets pegged again, right in the chest. "Ow, whistle!" She complains then. "I'll try to cover you but- ow- these things hurt!"
Nariko gets closer to Hanako when the rubber shuriken is thrown at her. She sends pulse of lightning through her arm, pulling her arm up to block the shuriken from hitting her. "Just pretend its someone you care about a lot." SHe looks to Kotone and smirks. "You okay? You looked like you got it good the last few times."
Amani is struck by one of the shuriken and she reaches for her arm, gripping it as if she's been stabbed. She's beginning to grow more upset, though she tries to keep herself together. She tries to consider Hiro, though her attention and much of her mind tries to keep from inserting anyone into the role at all. The actual person was wounded and bleeding out, insides hanging from her wound. "I just want to get this over with. How close are we?" She asks of her team. She can't waste much more time. Those explosions will be closing in at any moment now. Wait, no, there aren't any explosions here. She shakes her head. "How close? I need to get to her quickly," she called.
Hanako is slowly becoming more concerned about Amani, and watches as the girl's grip on the present wavers. It almost appears like she's just having some trouble concentrating, but the singer suspects that there's a lot more to it. But for now she doesn't halt the exercise, instead allowing the girls to run their course. One of the smoke tags explodes, covering the room in smoke as the girls arrive at Hanako's side, and another volley of shuriken are unleashed at them. Hanako says to Amani, "Alright, remain here for a minute, as if you were using healing ninjutsu on me, then we'll head off and finish the exercise, ok?" She's considering how interesting it will be to see how Amani handles the remainder of the exercise, and how well her team mates deal with her tenuous grasp on the here-and-now.
Kotone blinks, just now realizing that Amani is having a hard time, she calls out to Nariko, "Help me cover her!" Forming another clone she leaps to the side, lashing out with a Kunai to try and deflect one of the attacks going for the mednin- as a result two of the rubber shuriken hit her with a couple more stinging blows, and she actually goofs her landing- But Amani is protected at least and able to continue working her medical jutsu.
Nariko looks to Amani and smiles. "We got this. Don't you worry." She looks to Kotone as she tells her to cover Amani. "Got it. Her arms surge with lightning as she moves in front of her. "Worry about fixing the problem." She raises her arms up, bouncing the shuriken off her arms. She wasn't going to let Amani get hurt, besides if she did she would get a mouthful from Hiro or Hiei.
Amani was feeling increasingly distracted as this exercise went on. She appreciates her teammates jumping to her defense and keeping her protected from the volley, but as she came to Hanako's side, she found herself blanking out for a few moments. The smoke tag that erupted nearby sent her reeling. She began working on Hanako as if to actually treat her wounds. She began pulling out items that would aid in keeping down bleeding and bandages to seal up the wound she thought she saw. The words of her instructor were lost to her.
Hanako sings another note loudly, which causes the smoke to dissipate and the Auto-Launcher to turn off. Hanako sits up and gently takes a hold of Amani's wrists, attempting to make eye contact with the girl and break out of whatever fugue she was in. "Amani-kun," she urges the girl gently, knowing that something is quite wrong in this scenario. She looks up to the other girls and says to them, "You both did very well! Could one of you run and get us some water please? I'm afraid Amani is going to need a minute to recover."
Kotone does one better than that, she pulls loose a stretch of her scroll from its case, and produces several bottles of water for the group- she's pretty out of breath herself. She flops into a sitting position, and opens up one bottle offering it over to Amani before she grabs one for herself and Nariko too.
Nariko takes the bottle of water from Kotone and then sits down. She looks to Hanako and smiles, it wasn't often she was complimented on her abilities.She looks to Amani and puts a hand on her shoulder. "You alright? You did great." She tells her, trying to reassure her. She seemed out of breath and sweaty as she sat, drinking her water. This was the type of training she could get used to.
With her wrists restrained and Hanako looking at her, she is finally able to separate the images of past and present. She hadn't realized how heavily she.was breathing nor how tense she was until she came to. She took the water bottle offered to her and began to drink from it. "Thanks…" she stated to Nariko. "I'm sorry…" She offered to the group. "I-I had a…moment." She thought it best to explain now.
"I had training similar to this, but without a team. My instructor wanted to give me a real experience, so…She cut herself across her abdomen. Deep enough that her insides were hanging out. She set up explosions to go off and draw closer the longer it took me to repair her wound all while screaming for a medic and in pain." She seems shaken up enough that her water bottle begins to crackle under her grip, the water sloshing lightly inside. "It was only coincidence that this session was similar to that one, but…it became real enough for me. I couldn't focus…"
Kotone looks to Amani then, with concern in her eyes. She reaches out and places a hand over the other girl's where she's holding the bottle. "That sounds awful." She says then, and shakes her head a bit. "But, it's alright now. You saved the day."
Hanako nods and strokes Amani's head settlingly. "I gathered that there was something going on in your head, but you did very well," she says, and looks between the other two Genin as she adds, "But, this is a perfect example of how teamwork can work so well. You came into this exercise expecting one thing - a relatively low danger exercise where you'd all try to rescue someone. Instead, you've learnt something else." Looking at Amani, Hanako says, "You've learnt that you can rely on your teammates to protect you. When you started phasing out of what was happening in this room, they fought to keep those kunai off you." Looking back to the other two, she says, "And you two learnt that when conditions change in the middle of a mission, you can count on Amani to get the job done no matter what." Hanako jumps back to her feet and smiles at the three. "I think the exercise is done for today. You all did brilliantly!"
Kotone looks to Amani then, with concern in her eyes. She reaches out and places a hand over the other girl's where she's holding the bottle. "That sounds awful." She says then, and shakes her head a bit. "But, it's alright now. You saved the day." She nods her head a touch at Hanako then, "You lied, those things hurt a bunch." She complains, lifting her top a little to peer at the ugly red welt where one hit her in the abdomen.
Nariko looks at Amani, listening to her story. ~What an awful thing to go through.~ When Amani finishes her story, she opens her arms offering a hug. She looks to Kotone and smiles. "We're in this together." She looks to Hanako as she tells them what they learned. "We adapt to what is going on. If one of us needs help we will be there." She says, thinking she understood what was going on. When Kotone says they hurt a bunch she chuckles. "Well, we have much to work on then. And its a good thing we know Amani and Hiro." Giving a wink to Amani.
She never recognized what could make a good team, but Amani thinks this was it. She settled down enough for her breathing to return to normal and get mind to clear the haze out. "Yeah…I guess I did," she replies to Hanako with a weak smile. She wasn't expecting any hugs, but with all the support being shown to her, she sobs quietly. There was a mixture of emotion within it, but happiness was at the forefront. Maybe she could finally put that event behind her. "I'm glad you guys helped me out. I promise that I'll be better from now on," she sniffled and smiled. "I still managed to save.the day. Hopefully we can work together to save more."
A flash of his cloak, the rattle of plates and Hiroyasu is standing at the entrance to the training area that Team Siren has requisitioned. He has a large basket filled with delicious goodies and even hot tea. "Lunch Time!" he shouts gleefully. But he can see that not all is well, and moves over to the group setting down the basket of tasty sandwiches with every combination of meat and vegetable you could hope for.. "Tsukikage.. are you alright?" he asks, he didn't need a special spiritual eye to see that she was disturbed then again the hugs and the crying were maybe strong indicators too. "I brought you all sandwiches and fresh tea.." he says pointing over at the basket before moving over to Amani, he looks at her and offers a hug of his own having waited his turn. "Shine brightly, My Star." he whispers kissing the side of her neck. "I love you." he adds.
