[h3]   [/h3][hr][h3][color=indianred]Natsuko Rinha[/color][/h3][hr][sup][i]Morning ||  Land of Lightning: Daimyo’s Residence[/i][/sup][indent] [/indent]
The morning was nigh unbearable after Hachiro’s sob fest. Reality was finally sinking in: Team Six was about to be free of Hachiro, possibly forever. While Natsuko knew she should be thrilled that she would soon be free of the cheeky boy calling her new names every day, she also knew that nothing about this morning felt happy, and when the boy greeted Kazuhiko with the same wail and tune, she almost wanted a hug herself. However, on account of her pride and Koharu crying silently, she kept it to herself, even as they were making to leave.

“Bubye Sensei, Koharu, Kazuhiko, Ugly,” Hachiro blubbered from behind, earning him a soft gasp from his mother and some chiding from his father. 

His words, however, brought forth Natsuko’s first grin that morning, and she whirled around to wave back at him. [color=indianred]“Minoru’s my sensei, not yours, kid! Find your own!”[/color]

“If he were my sensei, I’d be a better genin than you!” Hachiro shot back. 

Natsuko opened her mouth to shout something ruder back, but Minoru was quick on the uptake, spinning her around and pushing her along. So, closing her mouth, she exhaled, then followed her teammates along, trailing a bit behind them as she stared down at her feet silently.

A few minutes later, though, when she realized that the quiet had been stretching on for a bit, she brought back her grin full force. Running up and hooking an arm around Kazuhiko, she peered up at his face as he tried unsuccessfully to dodge away from her, spluttering.

[color=indianred]“Hey hey hey, looks like you’re not the only one crying, Haru!”[/color]

[color=lightsteelblue]“Wh—Natsu—I am [i]not[/i] crying,”[/color] Kazuhiko asserted, stopping in his tracks to glare Natsuko down with a frown.

[color=indianred]“Really? Not even a little? I thought I caught a bit of a glimmer in your eye there,”[/color] Natsuko said, grinning.

Shaking his head, Kazuhiko sighed, then turned away from her to start off ahead at a faster pace than before.

[color=indianred]“Hey, woah, are you upset? Don’t be upset! Kazuhiko! Kazu-kun! Please? Ka-zu-hi-ko-kun. Ka-zu-cha-a-an. Hey, I like that! Kazu-chan! Wait for me!”[/color]

[indent] [/indent][hr][hider=Jutsu]
[hider=Ninjutsu][indent] [/indent][list]
[*]Wind Release:
[list][*]Gale Palm: a technique where the user increases the velocity or density of wind to form a powerful gale capable of knocking over a person.[/list]
[*]Dark Release:
[list][*]Kusunemasu [Needs Practice]: A basic technique that allows a Rinha to absorb chakra from others and use it as their own. They can do this through direct physical contact or from a distance 
(Limits: distance-restrained, more concentration required without direct contact)
[/list][/list][indent][/indent][/hider]
[indent] [/indent][/hider]
[indent]   [/indent][hr][h3][color=lightsteelblue]Kazuhiko Taketori[/color][/h3][hr][sup][i]Afternoon ||  Land of Fire: Konohagakure — Main Gates[/i][/sup][indent] [/indent]
When Team Six arrived back in Konoha, Kazuhiko was surprised to hear Azumi’s voice call out to them, and he was even more surprised when he saw that his parents were waiting with Azumi. Standing next to each other, the height difference between the two was accentuated, and their expressions were fairly placid compared to those of the two beside them.

Misami Asukai, Kazuhiko’s mother who was over a head shorter than his father, stood stoutly, waving at him with the polite smile he’d come to associate with her. From the look of the tidy bun atop her head and the simple, lavender dress she had on, Kazuhiko guessed that she’d come straight from the daycare. She’d picked up the job soon after he became a genin, and from what he heard, she loved it.

Natsuru Rinha, Kazuhiko’s father, stood tall and lanky beside his wife, his hair brushed back to hide his thinning locks. Though he smiled as well, his was almost indectable compared to Misami’s, all but flat yet able to communicate a semblance of happiness anyway. Predictably, Natsuru was standing on the other side of Misami, putting distance between himself and Azumi, and seeing this made Kazuhiko’s heart drop a pitch. While it was no secret that his sensei’s wife was a Hyuuga, knowing and seeing were two very different things. It was easy for his father to dodge the topic at the dinner table, but now that he came face to face with reality with the knowledge that Kazuhiko was spending a decent amount of time at Minoru’s house, Kazuhiko wasn’t sure what to expect. Natsuru knew that Kazuhiko knew of their feud with the Hyuuga, knew that he knew he bore the weight of earning the title of clan head and making their branch of the family the main branch once again. And, since Kazuhiko had known all this from early in his childhood, it’d been a long time since Natsuru had had to speak seriously with his son, and Kazuhiko wasn’t too keen on listening to anything about the Hyuuga at the moment.

When he was young, his parents’ word had been his gospel. He had no figures to look to, no other perspective to think from, so he’d internalized his father’s beliefs and prejudices. On one hand, they’d helped: He’d learned to work hard from a young age to earn a place at the top and make his parents proud. On another, though, he learned to doubt his parents; unlike what his father liked to suggest, the Hyuuga seemed as honorable as the Taketori, if not more so. From what Kazuhiko had seen of Azumi and the Hyuuga heiress, Mariko, the Hyuuga were not as fixated on ranks and debts, on notions of symbolic honor and owed favors. 

In a way, the Hyuuga were almost happier, despite their family system. Their successor was chosen, and they hardly gave the Taketori a second thought. While Kazuhiko had tried to tell himself that they could easily have been hiding their internal struggles from him, he knew Azumi and Mariko, and both struck him as honest people. Honorable people. Believing that they were lying to his face, that all their interactions with him had been duplicitous, would be a low move—a dishonorable one—and so went the struggle between heeding his parents as he’d always done and skirting the truth around them. After all, letting his father know that he went to Minoru’s house precisely because Azumi was there was virtually unthinkable, and this thought gave him a strong pang of longing for the comforting atmosphere of Minoru’s house.

[color=lightsteelblue]“Father, Mother.”[/color] Kazuhiko bowed respectfully, then straightened. [color=lightsteelblue]“What brings you both here?”[/color]

“We’re here to celebrate your first mission, of course! Good job, Hiko-chan! Mom’s so proud of you!” Misami said, enveloping Kazuhiko in a hug that he relaxed into after a beat.

From beside her, Natsuru nodded but otherwise didn’t move. 

[color=lightsteelblue]“Thank you for coming, Mother, Father.’”[/color]

Kazuhiko bowed again, then glanced at Minoru and Azumi, who beamed at him from where they stood. Their smiles seemed a bit wider than usual, and Kazuhiko took this as indication that Azumi had come for a reason.

[color=lightsteelblue]“Can I meet you after? I’d like to debrief the mission with my sensei,”[/color] Kazuhiko said, looking to his father just as his mother did.

Natsuru met his eyes with a hard, flat gaze. “I would have thought you debriefed on your way back,” he said, but when Minoru added on, Natsuru relented. 

“Okay, dinner will be waiting,” he said.

With that, his parents headed away, bidding goodbye to Koharu’s uncle and thanking Minoru, Natsuru averting his eyes from Azumi entirely. Thankfully, they were succinct people, and their farewells took little time.

A glance to his right saw Natsuko idling beside Minoru and Azumi, tracing shapes in the dust with her feet. From what Kazuhiko knew of her family—and there was quite a bit to know, given her various siblings and their paths—her parents had a lot on their plate. Knowing what other Konohagakure ninja were doing was a perk of being in his family, he supposed, given his father’s penchant for dwelling on other peoples’ lives, but there were benefits too. In this case, Kazuhiko knew Natsuko had a sister getting promoted up in the Konoha police this week, so perhaps that was where her parents had decided to focus their attention. 

While he wanted to communicate that he didn’t mind and neither should she, he figured she probably didn’t want anyone to bring it up. Natsuko was the kind of person who would rather swim for the end of the earth than try and talk about a hard topic, and Kazuhiko knew that she’d probably crack a joke the minute Osamu left.

Her sadness—or lack thereof—brought to mind his own conflicted feelings about Hachiro. While he was sad, factually speaking, the mission had started and ended pretty much exactly how its instructions had detailed, and Kazuhiko felt that formulated sadness couldn’t top any scale. On the other hand, though, he also couldn’t say he didn’t feel a twinge of something deeper when Hachiro had hugged him, his face so covered with snot and tears that he ended up leaving a partial print on Kazuhiko’s shirt. Kazuhiko had both wanted and not wanted to share in the group’s sadness, and that lack of decision had resulted in some mixture of sadness and resolution that bored on artificial itself. While being sad would have made sense, the facts didn’t line up for it since they’d chosen the mission.  So Hachiro himself was a surprise, but from day one they’d known that they were to be separated.

As he looked between Koharu, who was apologizing for her Uncle, and Natsuko, who looked on with a uncharacteristically stoic expression, Kazuhiko found himself wishing it were tomorrow, when he could seek out Azumi’s listening ear in private. For some reason, talking to her about things like this helped him better reason things out and lessen mental burden he sometimes thought he was imagining.

[indent] [/indent][hr][hider=Jutsu]
[hider=Ninjutsu][indent] [/indent][list]
[*]Lightning Release:
[list][*]Thunder: creates arcs of lightning that the user can direct towards a target.
[*]Thunderbolt [Needs Practice]: creates arcs of lightning that can hit multiple targets at once.
[*]Lightning Strike [Needs Practice]: creates a strong arc of lightning that can hit multiple close targets or be extended to hit a faraway one. 
[/list][/list][indent][/indent][/hider]
[indent] [/indent][/hider]
[h3]   [/h3][hr][h3][color=indianred]Natsuko Rinha[/color][/h3][hr][sup][i]Afternoon ||  Land of Fire: Konohagakure — Main Gates[/i][/sup][indent] [/indent]
Natsuko’s parents hadn’t come, but she hadn’t told them to. Azumi probably did, or at least left a note they promptly ignored. After all, they were busy with her sister’s promotion. Mie had finally finished her probationary time in the police force and was finally earning her badge to become a full-fledged Konoha officer. It was a formal ceremony—one that called for flowers and pictures and hugs—and Natsuko suspected her parents had gotten too wrapped up in spreading the news to remember her return. A D-rank mission was hardly comparable anyway, so no, Natsuko was neither mad nor surprised. Her parents had other children, and it wasn’t like she never got attention. Getting attention for checklist Genin stuff wasn’t in the books was all.

Forcing herself to perk up when Koharu finally freed herself of her uncle, a big man who seemed so utterly different from the small girl that Koharu wouldn’t have pegged them for relatives in a million years, Natsuko hesitantly closed the distance she’d put between herself and Azumi. She knew from experience that Azumi could match her one for one in antics, so pulling tricks around her wasn’t the best idea. Thankfully, Koharu distracted her with a poke, turning her and Kazuhiko around to ask whether they could hang out.

[color=indianred]“Maybe? Of course! You heard me, Kazuhiko, free up that weird schedule of yours. We’re going on an adventure!”[/color] Natsuko said, jabbing at the taller genin, who glanced between her hand and face with a confused frown.

[color=lightsteelblue]“Yeah, I have time tomorrow,”[/color] he said, glancing in Minoru and Azumi’s direction. [color=lightsteelblue]“Should we clear it with Minoru though?”[/color]

[color=indianred]“Don’t be a party pooper,”[/color] Natsuko asserted, then focused on Minoru and Azumi as they finished up their conversation and turned towards the genin. Natsuko frowned a little at the strangely happy smiles on their faces, but that and Azumi’s odd hand placement were explained in a single sentence. Her jaw dropped, and she stared at Azumi’s stomach, then glanced between Minoru and Azumi to check that they weren’t pulling some sort of prank, only because the statement was so left field.

[color=indianred]“A baby?”[/color] She glanced at her teammates, who looked equally surprised, then grinned. [color=indianred]“Oh my god! That’s so cool! I’m going to be an aunt! A team aunt. A genin aunt. Whatever, an aunt!”[/color]

Pumping her hands, Natsuko dove at Koharu, hugging the girl as Kazuhiko looked on, mouth still open as he glanced slowly between them all. 

[color=indianred]“Dibs on helping with naming! And babysitting! Oh, have I got things to teach her. Or him,”[/color] she said, shrugging, then held up her palms. [color=indianred]“Good things! Good things of course. I’m a bundle of manners, just ask Minoru!”[/color]

Natsuko looked to her sensei pleadingly, eyes wide.

[hr][sup][@Sunflower][/sup]