Team Player

“Did you have to hit me so hard?”

“It needed to look convincing, didn't it?”

“Well yes, but still...”

Kashii winced when Adachi's fingers stroked along his brow, fingertips healing the gash across it that she herself had afflicted. Despite obvious injury, Daichi slapped him on the back hard enough to knock him forward with a laugh. Adachi and Daichi had been with Kashii since their genin days, and they were glad to offer him a helping hand at his request.

Trapped in walls of earth, hanging upside down, were a set of genin. Wrapped around the left leg of each hung a sign. “I cannot tell the difference between life and death,” read one. “I don't know how to use elementary jutsu,” read another. “I let my teammates die to save my own skin,” read the third.

“You're really a cruel guy, you know that Kash?”

Kashii grinned, twisting his head to look back at his male partner as Adachi taped the last of the bandages on.

“It's called tough love.”

“If that's how you show love, I'd hate to be your enemy.”

“You wouldn't have to worry about that, Adachi. All of my enemies are dead.”

* * *

“Listen up!”

Kashii's voice, along with a loud clap, silenced the chatter of the fresh-off-the-press genin assigned to him. The three students, two males and one female, looked him over. Kashii knew that look. That look of disapproval. His appearance was so dreadfully unintimidating that it was laudable for a stranger to believe he was a capable jounin. He smirked at the look they gave him. He'd left them waiting a bit before dropping in at training ground 2.

“We'll do the standard get-to-know-yous, then we'll begin. Hello, my name is Namame Kashii, I'll be your instructor. Like to fight, hate to lose.”

By the end of the sentence he'd already sounded mildly exasperated, as if he didn't want to be there. As if he had something better to do with his time. The kids already seemed irritated, but followed suit.

“Yamamoto Hana... I like baking and dislike lizards...”

“Well, I'm Masamoto Kenshin, and I like to win! But I really hate people who cry.”

“Yagato Nue. I like rain, dislike dogs.”

Kashii clicked his tongue at the term “dog,” then folded his arms with a nod, examining the three over closely with his gold eyes. All in all, they seemed like a good bunch of kids. A nice mix of personalities. A lot more normal than his first team had been for sure. The thought of that left a half-smirk on his lips. Thankfully he wouldn't need to wait to see if these kids would try his patience the way the first team had.

“Alright, now that we're done with that, how about we learn what you guys can do. I have a little test for you to see if you all have what it takes to be an Iwa shino—”

Kashii didn't have the chance to finish however, and he cursed when a kunai whizzed passed his ear, nearly clipping it. The training ground he'd chosen to meet at was on the outer edge of the village. Hana yelped at the sudden kunai, bouncing backward when a set of shuriken implanted themselves in the place she stood not moments before. Kashii's black knife was out by the time the assailant revealed herself, jagged knife scraping the length of the kunoichi's tanto. Distracted with her, Kashii was unable to move in time to pull Kenshin out of the way of the second assailant, his form much larger than the kunoichi's. Both were clad in black, masks hiding their identities, both ready to kill the lot of them.

There was panic, the genin scrambling to do something, anything, but it wasn't enough. Three kunai lodged themselves into Kashii's torso, and before he could react, the hilt of the rogue kunoichi's tanto collided with his head, putting him on the ground. It was complete chaos. The calmest of the three, Nue, ran through handseals, shooting small bullets of earth at the enemy to lure them away from their injured teacher. The distraction worked well enough, and Hana dashed toward their teacher's side. She couldn't see him breathing, and panicked, checking for a pulse and finding none. The wound on his forehead had bled a lot, red seeping from the kunai in his stomach.

Kenshin was actively engaged with the male, but it was clear he was grossly outmatched. Barely dodging a stray earth bullet thrown by Nue, Kenshin stumbled, and the handle of a kunai got slammed into the back of his neck. Stunned, Kenshin was helpless to resist as the large male bound his arms and legs, hefting the young genin onto his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

“I got one of 'em! How're you doin' on your end?”

A feminine grunt as an earth bullet grazed the rogue kunoichi.

“The girl will be easy enough but the bookworm is becoming troublesome.”

In irritation, the kunoichi went through a string of seals and slammed her palms into the earth. In an instant, the surface fluctuated like waves, an uneven ocean of hard dirt. Unbalanced, both Nue and Hana fell, which was plenty of time for the kunoichi to charge. In an instant she lunged for Hana, tanto biting into the girl's tender throat with a started yell to accompany. In a panic, Nue bolted, using the shunshin his father had taught him to escape. The two rogues were busy with the other prey and the teacher was dead. He needed to run.

But there was no place to go. An earth wall rose quicklu, and he slammed right into it as he fled. Dazed, he stumbled back, turning around. In another moment, two more earth walls rose at an angle, pinning the boy in place by the neck. Nue cowered beneath the rims of his glasses as the two rogues approached him; Kenshin slung over the shoulder of the male, Hana being pushed by her hair forward with the blade at her neck. Nue screwed his eyes shut, absolutely sure he was going to be killed. With a grunt, both rogues tossed their prizes in a pile at Nue's feet. At the sound a slow clap, however, five pairs of eyes paused to watch the small bluenette emerge from behind the bushes where he'd been abandoned, an amused grin on his face as he approached.

“Thanks for the help, Daichi, Adachi.”

The two “rogues” pulled off their masks, white shells resting at the top of the head and black cloth yanked down to below the chin.

“It was fun,” Dai said with a grin.

“You really ought to invite us for things like these more often,” came Adachi's input.

The three genin stared incredulously and Kashii, who wiped the crusting blood from his forehead with mild irritation. A couple of handseals, and Nue's prision crumbled apart, the swift blade of one of the kunai from his own abdomen to slice the rope binding Ken's limbs.

“But you were dead!” Hana said, having been the one to check for vitals.

“If you'd stayed calm, you'd have realized it takes much more than that to kill a shinobi,” he said cooly, “And if you knew how to find a pulse and could tell when one holds their breath, that would have helped you as well.”

“But the kunai...” Kenshin started, eyes on the remaining two kunai lodged in Kashii's abdomen, the dark sticky color continuing to slowly spread. Without much of an answer, Kashii unzipped his jacket, revealing his flak underneath. The kunai fell loose when he pulled the jacket apart, revealing they'd been lodged in a thick leathery area at the navel, red ink now dripping freely from the holes.

“And in time, you'll know what blood actually smells like.”

Ink had an unpleasant smell when used in such large quantities; something he'd learned intimately under Soyokaze's tutelage. Getting hit with a dart of ink essentially meant you'd been killed and it got you sent home. Kenshin cursed, rolling to sit up. Moving to Nue, Kashii stood eye-to-eye to Nue, cold yellow eyes examining the child carefully.

“And you...” Kashii's gaze fell to the other children who still remained on the ground, then back to Nue's red eyes. “Without even so much as an attempt to try, without so much as a second glance, you abandoned your teammates at the drop of a hat. You may have learned excellent jutsu from your family, but that does not make you worthy of calling yourself a shinobi.”

Kashii stepped back, waiting until the three were all on their feet, all looking rather ashamed. He glanced at his former teammates, a wry grin replacing the serious face he wore moments before.

“Whaddya guys think? Another six months at the academy? A year?”

“A year sounds good.”

“Maybe two.”

Right as the three genin opened their mouths to retort, Kashii spat a line of mud over their feet, and raised a wall, sweeping them upward with it by their feet. With amusement he watched them squirm and curse, completely ignoring the insults. He crouched, as their faces were low to the ground, and poked Nue in the face, pushing the boy's glasses back in place.

“Shall we discuss what you three did wrong before I send you on your way?”