The Tale Of Flowering Fortunes

The road back was rough, though the terrain was easy. No one dared look at each other, let alone speak to one another.



Gai and Kakashi were sulking, and Murasaki was torn between shame and embarrassment. They arrived the next afternoon in the Hokage’s office as Murasaki handed in the report to a frazzled, tormented looking Iruka.



She didn’t say a word to anyone as she turned and headed back to her apartment. Jiraiya was gone…Naruto was in trouble…and she was alone.



She punched herself mentally. Not only had she managed to embarrass herself in front of Kakashi by having to be bailed out…she had inadvertently ostracized her best friend.



She took off her vest, hanging it in her closet before collapsing on the bed, staring at the ceiling.



“What on earth am I going to do now?” She whispered to the empty air.



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Gai and Kakashi sat on a bench outside the Hokage’s building.



Gai could feel his competitive personality beginning to get the best of him. He had to out do Kakashi…he had to prove, not only to Murasaki, but to everyone, he was just as good as Kakashi.



Kakashi sat on the other end of the bench, looking tired and flustered, wondering if he should just give up on Murasaki…Honestly, he had taken it upon himself to keep an eye on her since she came to Konoha, but…maybe she didn’t need to be watched over anymore…after all…she had been the one who had saved them…



He sighed, glancing over at Gai, who was beginning to twitch slightly.



Suddenly, the green beast sprang up, making Kakashi flinch slightly.



“I, Maito Gai, am making you, Hatake Kakashi, my eternal rival!” He shouted, making a few passers by duck and cover. Kakashi blinked at him.



“Okay, whatever…” He muttered, not really caring at the moment.



Gai blinked, giving a toothy grin and a thumbs up.



“Yosh! I shall win this challenge!” He said, doing his ‘nice guy’ pose and bounding off. Kakashi stared after him.



“What challenge?” He wondered out loud.



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Over the next month, Kakashi was randomly assaulted by Konoha’s green beast and challenged to several minor, but rather odd tasks.



Murasaki practically disappeared, not ever going out of her apartment save for work and the most necessary erands. Several times, Gai and Kakashi tried to drag her forcibly outside, but it got to the point where she wouldn’t even answer the door anymore, setting traps to keep people from bothering her.



Gai and Kakashi were beginning to worry about her, as was Sarutobi.



She hadn’t shown up for work in over a week when he finally decided to take matters into his own hands, having read the reports she had turned in from that fateful mission.



He called her into his office on sunny, summer afternoon, glancing down at a list in his hands.



“Fujiwara Murasaki…”



Murasaki stared at the floor. “Yes, hokage-sama?” She muttered quietly.



“I’m assigning you a team of gennin.”



Murasaki blinked at him.



“Wha-? Why?”



“Because, frankly, we’re all sick of you sulking around…” Kakashi said, coming in through the door, Gai in tow. Murasaki glared at Gai, automatically blaming him for the intervention. He simply crossed his arms and raised his nose in the air. Murasaki turned her glare to Sarutobi.



“Sarutobi-sama…with all due respect, I must decline…”



“This isn’t optional…” He said, pushing three file folders into her hands. “they go through orientation tomorrow, be sure to pick them up afterwards…”



Murasaki stared at them all, torn between fear, anger, and gratitude. She simply nodded and bowed, taking the folders from the Third and walking out.



Gai stretched, giving a thumbs up.



“Right, Maybe working with the children will restore her youth!” He said with a toothy grin. Kakashi scratched the back of his head, rolling his eyes at his new friend.



“Yeah, maybe…” He said with a sigh. “But a team of Gennin…now that’s cruel…”



Sarutobi glanced at him, a slight smirk crossing his face. “Uzumaki Naruto should be graduating in five years….”



Kakashi blinked. “Ah…with all due respect…” He said with a smile, rubbing the back of his head and thinking of the boy’s reputation.



Sarutobi chuckled.



“It’s not optional.” He said under his breath, but Kakashi didn’t hear.



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Murasaki was still upset the next day when she was headed to the academy. She was tempted to fail all three of them on the spot, but the village needed new shinobi…to replace the ones lost in the war…



She sighed, having gotten to the academy too early. The kids were still in orientation…



She sighed, leaning against the wall as several other jounnin showed up.



“Hey, you must be the one in charge of the new squad nine…” She heard a rather rough sounding woman say. Murasaki looked up and nodded, recognizing the alpha female of the Inuzaka clan. The woman smiled.



“Hang in there, it’s always rough at first…” She said, clapping Murasaki on the back so hard she had to clutch the wall for support.



“Ah, er, thanks…” She muttered weakly. A few minutes later, Yokoi sensei came out, nodding to the assortment of jounnin that waited patiently in the hallway. He paused when he saw Murasaki in the hallway.



“Fujiwara-san, are you taking on gennin? I had no idea you had gotten so far.”



Murasaki nodded and smiled weakly. “Yeah…how time flies, eh?” She said, scratching the back of her head and kicking herself for making such a Kakashi-esque statement. Yokoi nodded. “Yes, Indeed it does…” He said, before nodding and walking away. She looked around at all the others. She had to be the youngest one there…



She walked into the classroom behind a black haired man with an eye patch and several bandages. The kids were gathered together in groups of three, talking excitedly as their jounnin came and got them. Murasaki recognized her team right away, consisting of a very uptight acting Hyuuga named Yashiro, Moeko, a very shy girl with a large mole on her right cheek, and Fukuzawa Toshi, the class clown, who was currently chucking origami shiruken at whatever held still long enough.



“Squad Nine.” She said, putting her hands on her hips as she towered over her group.



“Y-yes?” Moeko said, giving a small squeak and holding on to her stuffed animal rabbit, attempting a small smile. Yashiro stood up, his perfect posture giving him an almost military-like bearing.



“Hajimimashite, Hyuuga Yashiro desu, doozo youroshiku.” He said with a bow. Toshi scoffed, making a face behind the other boys back.



Murasaki bowed slightly. “No need for such formalities…I am Murasaki, I will be your sensei until the village sees fit to graduate you.”



“You’re the sannin’s daughter?” Yashiro asked, raising an eyebrow.



Murasaki frowned and nodded, keeping in mind that the boy was a Hyuuga, and parental accomplishments were important to them, especially in the past few years.



Toshi made another face.



Murasaki felt her hands beginning to sweat.



“So, shall we move on to getting to know one another better?”



“I already know these two…” Toshi whined. “Moeko is a baby who still has a stuffed animal, and Yashiro is a stuck up Hyuuga with a stick up his butt.”



Moeko gasped, hiding her face behind the ratty purple toy and Yashiro glared effeminately at his new teammate.



Murasaki sighed. “Let’s turn this into a game…we have to say something nice about the person on our right…I’ll start…” She said, smiling at Moeko. “Moeko has a lovely smile…”



Moeko blushed, clinging to her rabbit as she stared at the floor.



“Y-Yashiro-s-san h-has pr-pretty eyes…” She mumbled. Yashiro stared at her blankly. Murasaki nodded with encouragement, smiling kindly. “Now Yashiro, you say something nice about Toshi…”



“Toshi is…ah…good with shiruken…” He mumbled, crossing his arms. Toshi smirked.



“Ah, hells yeah, I told you so, because I’m the best!” He shouted, jumping out of the chair he had been half standing in. Murasaki cleared her throat.



“Oh, yeah, you have, erm…” His brown eyes looked her up and down. “You have a hot body, for an old lady.”



Murasaki choked slightly. She wasn’t sure which had offended her more, the idea that she was ‘hot’ or the idea that she was old. It had become clear to her now that he was a bit of a pervert, which would be easy enough for her to deal with.



“Next time, why don’t you just say something nice about Moeko-chan.”



“Okay, Teach!” He said with a grin, adjusting his headband.



Murasaki smiled and turned to Moeko. “Moeko has a kind heart, I can tell…” She said with a smile.



Moeko blushed deeper, her dark hair hanging in her face.



“Yashiro-san…he’s…good at stuff…” She said quietly. Yashiro sighed.



“Toshi’s not as annoying as he used to be…”



Toshi glared at him, looking like he was going to punch the other boy. “Hey!”



“Toshi-san, remember the game, please, you cannot get distracted like that on the battlefield…” She said patiently. She was beginning to like this ‘sensei’ idea.



Toshi crossed his arms.



“Moeko’s the cutest girl in class.” He said, a slight flush crossing his nose.



Moeko made a soft sound and slumped to the floor in a dead faint.



“Hey, bakaaa, what did you do to her?” Yashiro said, punching the other boy in the arm.



“I didn’t do anything, I just told the truth, teme!” Toshi said, raising his arms in defense.



“I am not ‘teme’ you are ‘teme’, usura tonkachi!” Yashiro hissed. Murasaki sighed, rubbing her forehead. It was going to be a long few years as their sensei.



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It was a good six months before Murasaki even dared to let them go on anything above a d-rank mission. Yashiro and Toshi had continued to fight, but Murasaki blamed that on Yashiro’s aristocratic upbringing and Toshi having to fend for himself after his parents died in the war. They were so different, and yet they both just wanted one thing: acceptance.



It reminded her heartbreakingly of a certain blonde boy, who was still acting out. She just hadn’t had the time to visit him since she’d taken on her team, but every time she thought about it, she just made more excuses. He was a heartbreak to be around…and a reminder of her own failures…like failing to take proper care of him.



One early morning in late September, just after her nineteenth birthday, she was called into the hokage’s office.



She had been in charge of her team for almost two years now, Yashiro had become a chunnin only a year before, and then Moeko six months ago. Toshi was sill too impulsive for her to even consider entering in.



“You’ve done surprisingly well…” Sarutobi said, looking over the files. “It’s amazing that someone as young as you has managed to pass two of your gennin in the chunnin exams…” He said with a knowing smile just as the door opened behind her. “And that is why I am recommending your team for a b-rank mission on the border of Suna. They’ve been having problems with highwaymen.”



Murasaki was more than surprised. “B-rank? But that’s for jounnin and chunnin!” She said, thinking about Toshi and his impulsive personality.



“You’re team is more than capable of handling it…” said a cool, calm voice behind her. Murasaki turned slightly, catching sight of Kakashi, who turned in three case files. Her heart skipped a beat in her chest. No matter how many times she had told herself she was over him, he still managed to take her breath away.



The hokage nodded at the copy-nin slowly.



“Failed another group?”



“Yep.” Kakashi said, shoving his hands in his pockets. Sarutobi sighed and wrote it down in a book.



“Like he said, your team can handle it…I wouldn’t be giving it to you if I didn’t have full confidence in your abilities…” Sarutobi said with a smile. Murasaki shook her head.



“No, it’s too soon…” She said, handing the file back to the hokage. Kakashi scoffed.



“Don’t you think you’ve protected them long enough? By the time I was their age..”



Murasaki cut him off.



“My team is nothing like you, Hatake-san…I don’t want them to get into a situation they can’t handle…besides, you should talk, you never pass the teams assigned to you, you don’t even give them a chance!”



“That’s not true, they have to fight me…”



“Come on, three newbie gennin versus an elite jounnin, how is that a chance?”



Kakashi was about to respond when Sarutobi cut him off.



“I’ll give you twenty four hours to think it over…” He said patiently, handing the files back to Murasaki. “Look it over, and if you’re still apprehensive about taking the mission, then we’ll find another team…”



Murasaki nodded, taking the files with a bow before turning to leave.



“You can’t shelter them forever, Murasaki-chan…” Kakashi called after her. Murasaki bristled, slamming the door behind her.



He looked back at the hokage as a bit of dust fell from the ceiling.



“Ah…I should go after her…I don‘t think she took that the right way…” He said scratching the back of his head.



“Well, you have been known to pick on her…” Sarutobi said, taking his pipe out of his mouth and looking over some papers. “I think you have to make a decision soon; Do you want to keep pushing her away and protect the both of you from that kind of pain, or do you want to take that chance…because at the rate your going, she’ll make that decision for you…”



Kakashi nodded thoughtfully before bowing and leaving.



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A/N: Kyuu is the word for 9, and also the word for 'pain' so that should give you an idea to their fate....