Kaoru wasn’t exactly sure what to think of his new teammates, or this challenge. Then again, none of this was really standard procedure.

The bijuu had been talking in his head the entire morning, and the one time she shut up to take a nap he found he could be a person again. It was a strange feeling. He was scared as hell to have to prove himself to the village, but he’d been training at this for so long. He wouldn’t let anything get in his way this time.

For once, he actually spoke: “That’s right, it’d take us at least five minutes just to get to places like the watchtower, the seven swordsmen compound or the harbor.” He figured the sensei would be of someplace with significance, if they had to figure out her location from a riddle. She wouldn’t be hidden somewhere where clues would be useless. That left, within a reasonable distance, the three places he had mentioned.

Kaoru knew that the riddle held the answer to where their sensei was hidden, but he didn’t particularly care about words. For one, he had a hunch about the seven swordsmen compound. Kaoru was convinced that waiting around for Keisuke to find a bunch of words wouldn’t help anything. Besides, he was determined to prove himself as a Genin – the Mizukage’s words could only stave off the comments of the entire village for so long. He had to be strong.

He observed the spectacle with the cats and fish with calculating eyes, making note of his teammates – and wondering on what planet they would work together. As it stood, he was the last person to leave, but he wasn’t really interested in playing with the felines wandering outside. 

Without the sinking weight of the narrator inside his head, Kaoru felt almost happy, free for once. He smiled, waved at Nori, and called, “I’ll go to the seven swordsmen compound! Tell me what you find!”

The grin felt foreign on his face, clumsy. It disappeared when he left to run to the compound, sprinting as quickly as his legs would allow. He wasn’t entirely sure of the location of the building, but Kaoru had definitely seen it before – and thankfully he hadn’t gotten lost. 

Adrenaline coursing through his veins, feeling more elated than he had in years, Kaoru knocked on the door to the building and bounced around, waiting for somebody to answer. He didn’t really consider who would answer the door, or what they would say when they saw the village failure at their doorstep, but he was too excited to even think about it.