The Traveling Pussy

Author Note: I've add a little crossover action here. You might recognize the two boys in this chapter: Ritsuka is from Loveless and Shuichi is from Gravitation.


Chapter 24: Shuichi’s Sensei

The next morning I looked at the calendar and remembered it was parent-teacher day at the ninja academy. My heart suddenly filled with sympathy for my three favorite students—my orphans—Suichi (male, age 10), Mikage (female, age 11), and Ritsuka (male, age 12). They wouldn’t have anyone to attend for them. As Ibiki and I sat eating breakfast, I hesitantly brought up the idea of showing up at the academy.

I think the sex last night and reading my autobiography had soothed Ibiki a bit because he just shrugged and said, “Fine, but be back here by six p.m.”

I thanked him and started racing with breakfast. They all lived in small apartments fairly close to the school. I wanted to leave as soon as possible to try to catch them before school—and to make sure they would go to school. Orphans tend to play hookie on parent-teacher day. Of the three, the only one I was pretty sure would attend was Ritsuka, who made a point of needing no one. He didn’t pay that much attention during classes, but that was usually because he was reading or studying something far more advanced—or obscure—than whatever the class was covering. He had good chakra control, but his social skills sucked. He was usually quiet and reserved, but he had an intense core of anger that simmered in him. He looked girlish, fragile, with his big purple eyes and that small, thin frame. He’d be there during parent-teacher day, I could just see it—he would be painfully quiet and his whole body would radiate sorrow.

Shuichi, on the other hand, resembled Ritsuka only in size, shape, and the color of his eyes. His hair was a wild unruly mass of pink. He reminded me a little of Naruto because of his loudness, his stupidity, his natural talent, and his ability to make you love him; but he had none of Naruto’s stubbornness, confidence, or pride. He would weep and sob when he was sad, and clown about singing and dancing when happy. He would swing wildly from being full of energy and attracting everyone’s attention to despair, crying and moping about. His attendance record was atrocious, but just when he was facing failing out, he would throw himself into his work and learn a jutsu the class had been working on for two weeks in two days. He was the least likely to show for school today.

Mikage was quiet and intense like Ritsuka but without the hidden anger. She drifted and took the path of least resistance unless it involved her great interests in plants and medicine. She seemed an ordinary or less than ordinary kunoichi until you saw her working, practicing, or studying something connected to plants or healing. Then she came alive, fiercely focused, passionate with a dedication almost spiritual. Her problem—or blessing—was that she lived as if she was going to die tomorrow. Petty things like policies, deadlines, anything that could be classified as red tape, the social niceties—none of those mattered. You couldn’t motivate her as you would a normal kid--and what she was motivated to do, you couldn’t stop her from doing.

It was highly likely they’d all fail to become genins. Ritsuka had the talent but wouldn’t function well in a three-man team unless something brought him out of his shell and tamed his inner rage. Mikage would mess up the paperwork or miss the final. She’d excel in one area and barely pass in others. She needed some friends to keep her on track. As for Suichi—his stupidity in many common sense situations and his habit of sliding into despair made it likely he be kicked out the academy and not even get a chance as genin. But his chakra capacity was huge, well above average (of course nothing like Naruto’s since he had no demon in him). And when Shuichi was happy and invested in being a ninja, his jutsus and skills were incredibly impressive. But his inconsistency and unreliability would likely damn him unless somebody got him focused.

I hate ability going to waste. Ino once told me that was because I wasted so much of my own. At the time, I took it as just another nasty jab from Ino, but lately I’d been wondering if maybe I had let my own hang-ups and problems, my own trauma at being alone in the world screw me up.
It’s so easy to see the problems you can’t see or stop in yourself in others. I could see three orphans like myself heading down the wrong path. Not everyone is a Naruto or a Sasuke—capable of success with almost no social contact or support.

I decided to head over to Shuichi’s place—the kid most likely of the three to blow off school today. I was only two blocks from his apartment when a cloud of blue butterflies appeared in front of me and flew into the alley between a Laundromat and an office building. Shit—Shino! Blue butterflies are rare—only Shino or someone from his clan would have a bunch around and be able to have them fly in a coordinated ball like that. I ducked into the alley, nervously. As much as I had enjoyed my punishment in that bondage swing for letting Shino get me off, I didn’t want to give Ibiki any reason to be angry with me and go from play “punishment” to something more realistic.

Shino wasn’t in his ANBU costume, but his normal “street” clothes—a ridiculously big and baggy coat with a hood. To my surprise when I got close, Shino took off his mirrored shades. He had beautiful eyes. He looked at me seriously, not saying anything, and I suddenly worried that for some reason Shino might be interested in me romantically. Some guys are like that—they only decide they want you when you are completely unavailable. Guys like that are often gay, but they just don’t know it yet and are trying to convince themselves they love women, but the women are just—inexplicitly—never able to return their love.

“Hey, you ok?” asked Shino.

“Yea, I’m healthy, and although Tsunade retired me from active duty as a ninja, it’s not a big deal.”

Shino scowled but didn’t say anything.

“Uh, well, thanks for asking about me. I’m off to check on my favorite brats from my short-lived career as a teacher.”

“Need help?” asked Shino.

It was weird of him to offer, but then again Shino was just weird period.

“Ah, sure,” I said, “I’m going to go check on the ones that probably are going to skip—it’s parent-teacher day at the academy—but it would be nice if you could drop by the academy and check up on Aoyagi Ritsuka. Ritsuka is an orphan like me, and parent-teacher days seriously suck when you have no one. It’s hard for me to reach him since he’s very suspicious of women. His mom beat on him before she died along with his brother in fire a few years ago.”

“Will do,” said Shino and vanished with a puff of smoke.

I made my way out of the alley, confused. I didn’t have time to reflect on it, however, since a bundle of energy came hurtling down the street at me—Shuichi. I intercepted him, sending both of us crashing down on the cement.

“Oh, Sensei, sorry, but I—“

I didn’t let go my grip, “Was on my way to school and was running late?”

Shuichi’s face turned as pink as his hair, and he tried to squirm away.

“Hey, I got fired, you know, I’m not your sensei anymore or even a ninja.” Shuichi stopped struggling, and his big purple eyes got huge in his face, showing his shock. “But I sort of miss everybody. I’d like to go say hi to folks, but I’m not supposed to hang around the academy anymore. So I was wondering if you would say hi to the other students for me.” I paused, let my eyes tear up, and let out a big sigh, hoping I wasn’t overdoing it.

Shuichi threw himself into my arms, hugging me, “You’re my sensei, you’ll always be my sensei!”

I was touched—hell, I felt like a jerk, and a real tear formed in my eye. I hugged him fiercely and said in an honestly husky voice, “Thank-you Shuichi, that means a lot to me.”

“Hey, Sensei,” said Shuichi, his face lighting up with joy, “I know how you can go to school. You can come today as my guardian. It’s parent-teacher day! Please, please say you’ll come with me!”

I grinned at him, “Yea, sure, it’ll be fun!”

Shuichi then exploded with happiness in that infectious way he has. The whole walk to the academy he was dancing back and forth, jumping up and down, throwing kunai at various targets, and talking nonstop. I just let myself enjoy watching his happiness and be pulled along. I gave him a few tips on kunai aim as well, but I’m sure those went in one ear and out the other. There was no way I could abandon Shuichi to look for Mikage. I’d just have to check up on her later. I half-listened to Shuichi as we made our way to the academy. When he’s super excited, it’s best to just let the words flow over you and wait until he slows down a bit. But to my shock, he suddenly stopped telling me how great he was at escaping ropes and threw in the question, “Is it true, Sensei? Did you really fight the great Copy-Cat Ninja?”

“Well, I don’t think you can call it fighting, Shuichi. I got my ass beat up and ended up in the hospital. I took a blow to the head, so I don’t remember much of it. Did they teach you about the importance of not getting hit in the head yet?”

“Oh, yeah! Ebisu-sensei gave us a big talk on it! You don’t remember things when that happens. But, Sensei, you fought Kakashi and didn’t die—you must be really good! Why aren’t you a ninja anymore—did Kakashi permanently hurt your chakra?”

“No, no, I don’t know that I even fought him; the only thing I know is he broke a rib of mine. I was in fight with someone else.”

“So it’s true you fought an ANBU ninja, one of the ones that does assassinations and tortures people?”

“Ebisu-sensei had better do a lesson on what ANBU is, I see,” I said.

“But it’s true you were in a fight with an ANBU ninja, and Kakashi had to come in and help the ninja?”

“Yes, I guess you could say that, but, Shuichi, I can’t talk about even the little I do know. Almost everything associated with ANBU must stay secret for the safety of Konoha.”

“I know that, Sensei! I’m going to be ANBU someday! Yesterday, in class Ebisu-sensei . . .” My little pink-haired friend went back into babble mode at this point. Soon after we reached the academy and were swept up in the whole elaborate ritual that was parent-teacher day. Mikage wasn’t there, but Ritsuka was. I didn’t see Shino until Shuichi and I were leaving school together, off to get some udon. I stopped to talk with more students and parents wanting to watch Shino and Ritsuka. They talked a bit and headed off to the park—that one I was going to have lunch with Ibiki in on that day that turned out to be my last as an academy teacher. As they went, blue butterflies fluttered above them. That Ritsuka would go somewhere with a stranger was unusual. `Way to go, Shino!’ I thought as I finally let Shuichi drag me off to go eat udon.

Two hours later, stuffed and feeling the need for silence, I dropped Shuichi off at his apartment and headed back to Ibiki’s. I hated to leave the brat alone in his apartment. No wonder he talked too much—for a social kid like him, being alone must be hell.

My desire to adopt Shuichi, Mikage, and Ritsuka was back. The problem was that living in a house with kinky guy like Ibiki wasn’t exactly compatible with being a guardian to three young ninjas-in-training. Ibiki like to chain me to things naked, not exactly the sort of thing that ten to twelve year olds should be witnessing.

Hell, was I living with Ibiki? Was I supposed to pay him rent? Oh, shit, I’d forgot about Tsunade’s order—I needed to get some kind of job or register with the department of unemployment. Maybe I was already in trouble for not doing either yet. I snorted—trouble, oh yeah, the wrath of the dreaded department of unemployment—how completely unfrightening. But thinking about fright, I checked my watch. It was a quarter to six. I started to run. After that whole business with Akamaru, I wasn’t going to disobey Ibiki. I was going to be a good girl—well, at least until I got bored with that.