Drogn's draft:
"Neshan-sensei?" Tenten leaned her head in the doorframe of her former teacher's office.
He glanced up. "Eh? Oh, hey, kid. How are you?"
She stepped inside and flopped into the visitor's chair. As always, the faint 'clank' that violent motion drove from the vast array of weapons hidden across her person brought an involuntary smile to his face.
Her expression, on the other hand, was outright distressed. "My team is impossible!"
He pushed his glasses back up from where they had slid down as he labored over his paperwork and leaned forwards on his elbows. "I hate to break it to you, but Kakashi's almost more of a pain in the ass than he is a ninja. You're hardly the only person to say that about him."
"It's not just him!" she wailed, waving her hands wildly. "Sasuke's not so bad when he's holding -still-, but he's got all the cooperation skills of a shark and almost as big a stick up his ass as... as..." She paused to cast about for an appropriate description.
"As a certain Hyuuga?" Neshan prompted, starting to twirl a pen through his fingers.
She huffed. "Don't make me smack you."
He laughed, and she started ranting again. "And Sakura's nice in those once in a blue moon moments when forgets she's convinced that I'm trying to steal away her great overwhelming childhood crush-" she broke off and stabbed an accusing finger at the older ninja as he opened his mouth. "-Don't- say a -word-, you!"
He held up both hands, palms out, and grinned. "Wasn't gonna!" he lied.
"You forget - I -know- you. But even when she -isn't- glaring daggers she's still just one of Suzume-sensei's bubble-brained 'infiltration specialists' - which is a damned shame, since when she doesn't think Sasuke's around to be turned off by it she's actually pretty smart." She trailed off for a moment, then grinned. "She talks to herself, you know. When she thinks no one can hear."
"She's a Haruno. They do that. It's a bloodline thing."
"Really? And I thought she was just being strange... And informative." Her grin turned mischievious. "I don't think my hair looks like puffballs, do you?"
He blinked. "Yes."
"Creep. So we go on a mission and he charges off solo - or solo until she goes trailing after him like a duckling after her momma, and never a thought from -either- of them if its the right thing to do and if -I- try to talk them into a better plan rather than just ignoring them or following along after myself, then that... that... Hatake-BAKA tells me to 'calm down and not get so strung out'!" By the end of her complaint, she had begun to wave her arms again.
The Jounin laughed, then waved an admonishing finger at her. "Hatake-_sensei_."
She gave him a plaintive look. "Even if he's an idiot?"
"-Especially- if he's an idiot." He paused. "Which he is."
She rolled her eyes. "Is he -ever-. Even with all the trouble we three Genin have been having he just floats around with his nose in that nasty book of his and spouts off about teamwork from time to time - as though -building- that wasn't just as much -his- job as ours! - and completely ignores the fact that Sakura hates my guts and Sasuke couldn't listen if his life depended on it! The only time he actually gets off his ass and -does- something is when it's our turn to torment poor Tora!" She sighed. "I wish you were our teacher instead."
He cocked an eyebrow and gestured at his desk - which, as usual, was covered in a minimum of three layers of cheap paper and messy handwriting. "Sure, I'll take it up in my copious free time."
She blushed, since she knew that the year he had spent instructing her while she waited for an opening in a forming or existing team had come entirely out of his own limited free time - without pay. "Eheh."
He waved it off with a grin. "So you wanted to vent about the fact that your team doesn't get along?"
Tenten sighed. "Yeah. I guess... I'm just so -frustrated-, because my team is just flying apart more and more every day, and they're good people despite that and I want us to be -friends-, too, the way you and I were..."
He stared at her for a moment, then smiled. "Are," he said, touched. "We -are-." She didn't know quite how to respond to the way her words had obviously meant more to him than she'd expected, and eventually he folded his hands in front of him. "I'll talk to Kakashi. I can't promise anything, but..." he trailed off and shrugged.
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"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."
Quote:Meets -my- draft:
Baksuta Neshan, Special Jounin of the Leaf, was just finishing his grocery shopping for the week when he heard a familiar voice call his name. Turning, he saw a tall girl, her brown hair in twin buns and dressed in a sleeveless pink top and blue knee-shorts, waving and calling to him down the street. He waited for her to catch up before continuing down it toward his home and more immediately to one of Konohagakure's many little parks, where they could sit and talk if whatever she wanted turned out to take a while. "Tenten-kun, it's nice to see you again. Getting along with your new team?" From the frustrated sound she made that might not have been the best opener for small talk, he reflected as he adjusted his glasses.
"I WISH, Neshan-sensei," the brunette sighed, after a few seconds of indistinguishable muttering. "Sasuke-san is all right I guess - I think he might have a crush on me, actually, since his ears keep turning red when I talk to him, but Sakura has resented me from the beginning, and since Kakashi-san doesn't seem to notice it she's just gotten worse since then."
He frowned slightly, and chided, "You should call him 'sensei' now, like me. Actually, I'm not your sensei any more, that was only a temporary thing since you got stuck without a team when your class graduated, and fortunately - though not so much for you - there weren't any existing teams that had lost a member at that time." Catching her uncertain look in his peripheral vision, the young-looking jounin quickly added, "That doesn't mean I don't want to help you if I can, it's just not official any more."
Resuming her train of thought, the girl explained, "He hasn't TAUGHT anything yet. In team practise he just has two of us spar and the other practise jutsu or thrown weapons, and on missions he mostly sits on a tree branch and reads while the three of us muddle along. Okay, so they've only been boring D-rank stuff like walking dogs and babysitting and cathing Tora, but you told me they're supposed to be teamwork excercises. Sasuke wanders off and does whatever, Sakura follows him like a puppy, and I have to fill in the holes... the only time he's done any leading is when we go after that stupid cat, and then he just tells us a plan without even asking if we've got one ourselves!" Realising she shouldn't be so negative about her official superior, Tenten bit her lip for a moment, before continuing more calmly, "It's just so frustrating. I'd rather have stuck with you for a while longer."
He gave a soft bark of laughter, then waved her toward the benches as they turned into the park. "I'm flattered, but you can't advance without getting experience outside the village and going through the chuunin exams, and for both of those you need a team. You told me your dream is to be a great kunoichi like Tsunade-hime, didn't you? It would be hard to do that as a genin, even if I taught you everything I know."
Tenten sighed and slouched forward, resting her chin in her hands. She scuffed the spiral insignia of the Leaf into the dirt with a foot as she glumly replied, "Yeah, I know, but right now I don't have a team, just some other genin and a jounin that I work with. Even if Orochimaru eventually became a missing-nin, the Legendary Three were still a team at first."
The tall jounin was silent for a moment, sitting with lips pursed in thought. "Was this what you wanted to talk to me about?" he asked finally.
"Yeah, well, I guess so," she replied, with a slight shrug. "It's just... the discussions we had about teamwork were better than this, and that was without having a team to practise with. I realise you can't do anything official about it, and I wouldn't want to make trouble, but it's just, well, frustrating, like I said." Tenten wiped out the pattern in the dirt with a swipe of her sandals, then pushed of the bench and bounced to her feet with a more positive expression. "Thank you for listening to me, Neshan-sensei. I trid to say it to Kakashi-sensei himself, but I wasn't sure how he'd react, even if he seems relaxed usually. I want to get along with them, really, and not just because we have to trust each other with our lives. You showed me how good it is to be freinds with your partners, and I want that for Team Seven."
"Neshan-sensei?" Tenten leaned her head in the doorframe of her former teacher's office.
He glanced up. "Eh? Oh, hey, kid. How are you?"
She stepped inside and flopped into the visitor's chair. As always, the faint 'clank' that violent motion drove from the vast array of weapons hidden across her person brought an involuntary smile to his face.
Her expression, on the other hand, was outright distressed. "My team is impossible!"
He pushed his glasses back up from where they had slid down as he labored over his paperwork and leaned forwards on his elbows. "I hate to break it to you, but Kakashi's almost more of a pain in the ass than he is a ninja. You're hardly the only person to say that about him."
"It's not just him!" she wailed, waving her hands wildly. "Sasuke's not so bad when he's holding -still-, but he's got all the cooperation skills of a shark and almost as big a stick up his ass as... as..." She paused to cast about for an appropriate description.
"As a certain Hyuuga?" Neshan prompted, starting to twirl a pen through his fingers.
She huffed. "Don't make me smack you."
He laughed, and she started ranting again. "And Sakura's nice in those once in a blue moon moments when forgets she's convinced that I'm trying to steal away her great overwhelming childhood crush-" she broke off and stabbed an accusing finger at the older ninja as he opened his mouth. "-Don't- say a -word-, you!"
He held up both hands, palms out, and grinned. "Wasn't gonna!" he lied.
"You forget - I -know- you. But even when she -isn't- glaring daggers she's still just one of Suzume-sensei's bubble-brained 'infiltration specialists' - which is a damned shame, since when she doesn't think Sasuke's around to be turned off by it she's actually pretty smart." She trailed off for a moment, then grinned. "She talks to herself, you know. When she thinks no one can hear."
"She's a Haruno. They do that. It's a bloodline thing."
"Really? And I thought she was just being strange... And informative." Her grin turned mischievious. "I don't think my hair looks like puffballs, do you?"
He blinked. "Yes."
"Creep. So we go on a mission and he charges off solo - or solo until she goes trailing after him like a duckling after her momma, and never a thought from -either- of them if its the right thing to do and if -I- try to talk them into a better plan rather than just ignoring them or following along after myself, then that... that... Hatake-BAKA tells me to 'calm down and not get so strung out'!" By the end of her complaint, she had begun to wave her arms again.
The Jounin laughed, then waved an admonishing finger at her. "Hatake-_sensei_."
She gave him a plaintive look. "Even if he's an idiot?"
"-Especially- if he's an idiot." He paused. "Which he is."
She rolled her eyes. "Is he -ever-. Even with all the trouble we three Genin have been having he just floats around with his nose in that nasty book of his and spouts off about teamwork from time to time - as though -building- that wasn't just as much -his- job as ours! - and completely ignores the fact that Sakura hates my guts and Sasuke couldn't listen if his life depended on it! The only time he actually gets off his ass and -does- something is when it's our turn to torment poor Tora!" She sighed. "I wish you were our teacher instead."
He cocked an eyebrow and gestured at his desk - which, as usual, was covered in a minimum of three layers of cheap paper and messy handwriting. "Sure, I'll take it up in my copious free time."
She blushed, since she knew that the year he had spent instructing her while she waited for an opening in a forming or existing team had come entirely out of his own limited free time - without pay. "Eheh."
He waved it off with a grin. "So you wanted to vent about the fact that your team doesn't get along?"
Tenten sighed. "Yeah. I guess... I'm just so -frustrated-, because my team is just flying apart more and more every day, and they're good people despite that and I want us to be -friends-, too, the way you and I were..."
He stared at her for a moment, then smiled. "Are," he said, touched. "We -are-." She didn't know quite how to respond to the way her words had obviously meant more to him than she'd expected, and eventually he folded his hands in front of him. "I'll talk to Kakashi. I can't promise anything, but..." he trailed off and shrugged.
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"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."