Nozomi stretched her arms up into the air as she yawned. She could feel the warmth of the rays of the sun on the palms of her hands. She could not have loved the feeling of the rays on her skin more even if she had been frozen over. She opened her dark blue eyes which reflected back a near black color which made her a strange one to living out in this area of the dessert. Even the way she dressed was different from everyone else. Her long, thin black pants waved slightly in the light breeze along with her black hair which she gladly put into a ponytail to keep from getting into her eyes. Her fishnet undershirt showed under her tight black shirt that gave her the look of someone from outside the dessert.
Nozomi’s hand fell to her side as she closed her eyes and allowed the warmth to soak into her skin as she always did. She loved living out in the dessert even if it was a place that made her heart ache.
“Kotaro…,” she whispered into the air. “I’ll make you proud today!”
She looked behind to her foster parents’ house and smiled when she saw that they were outside waving goodbye to her. She waved back and took off towards the Kazekage’s office where she would receive her orders. She knew exactly what her mission was because she had requested it. She knew that it was more like a favor that she had asked of the Kazekage that she would have never thought would come to pass, but it did and she was more than happy to be doing this.
“She should be here any time, now…,” growled a redhead from a bench in the hallway of the Kazekage’s office building. He glanced up at the clock on the wall and snorted. “Knowing her, anyway….”
Another teen rolled his eyes. He knew that his brother was concerned. That girl was always early and with her not being there over five minutes early like usual meant that the redheaded boy would just get edgy.
“Come on, Gaara,” the teen said with a smile. “You can’t keep your mind on her all the time!”
Gaara turned his jade eyes to the teen, a fierce glare on his face. “Kankuro… I do not think about her all the time.”
“Right,” Kankuro replied with an amused tone. He knew his brother was just bluffing as always. There was no denying that Gaara had a thing for this girl. Kankuro did too, but he knew better than to tell Gaara that….
The front doors slammed open and a voice yelled, “Time for the mission! Let’s get the orders and go!” Gaara and Kankuro glanced over the Nozomi who was pointing into the air. After a second, her hands dropped to her side and the smile that had been on her face was replaced with her usual straight face. Kankuro laughed as she walked down the hallway and stuck her hands in her pockets. “It was worth a try, right?” she asked as a small smile emerged.
Kankuro continued to laugh at Nozomi who was laughing a bit at herself. She was just trying to lighten things up as usual.
“Nozomi-san, Kankuro-san, Gaara-sama,” came the voice of someone who had just entered the hallway. It was a male Suna Jonin who was holding out a piece of paper. “Your mission forms are here. Come and get them so you may get on your way.”
Nozomi watched as Kankuro retrieved the forms from the Jonin. She couldn’t help but feel lucky to be on a team like this one. A puppeteer, a master of sand techniques, and a great animal trainer, all on one team, working together. Such an honor it was to work with the Kazekage’s sons. Originally, their sister, Temari, was going to take the place of the third and final member on this team, but she died two years before they were assigned.
“You ready to get on the move, Nozomi-chan?” Kankuro asked as he stopped next to her. She could tell that he was rather annoyed by her daydreaming, but he would never say such things in front of his brother, Gaara. That guy was overly protective of Nozomi’s feelings, and he wasn’t silent about it.
Nozomi shrugged. “If you guys are ready to go, then let’s move out. No time to waste.”
Gaara stood up and approached the two conversing Ninja. “We should look at the orders before we head out.”
Nozomi nodded. “Right.”
Mission: Retrieve the animal in question and train it before the Chunin Exams begin. Make it combat ready and able to defend itself.
Time Limit: Until the Chunin Exams start.
That was the basic summary on the scroll in Kankuro’s grasp. It would seem simple, even to the three Ninja heading out to a Hidden Village three days away from their own Hidden Village, Sunagakure, but it was really going to be a lot harder than they would have imagined. Something like this was never taught in Suna’s Academy.
It wasn’t the training of the animals that wasn’t taught. Kami knew that no one out in that dessert knew how to train animals other than Nozomi. It was something else. Something that no one was trained, even remotely, in.