Pomp and Circumstance! Scout Them Out!

As much as this seemed strange and odd for the normal academy standards, Kona was all about her current position: she was seconds away from graduating from the academy and fully becoming a Genin of the Hidden Sand!

Normally, the academy provides a final written test and then a practical exam in which they test the students in roughly three different areas, and if you pass you graduate and are assigned a team. Now Kona already knew that she was going to be on a team from a previous encounter last week, and she already met her future teammates as well...but not her sensei, which Kona found odd. Maybe they hadn't made a decision on who would teach them at that time, but had the team setup outside of that decision? She couldn't be bothered to figure it out: she had a mission to do.

See, she already passed the written exam, although she wasn't given a grade so she wasn't sure how well she did...but she had to have passed if they were going to be giving her a practical exam portion, right? Or maybe she hadn't been graded yet? Then why did she have a mission already? Kona shook her head from side to side, trying to regain her focus.

This was her first mission, which is what she thought was odd, as she hadn't gone through the practical exam yet, but she wasn't about to say no to her first mission. She was waiting in the training area near the academy as she was told, performing some stretching routines as she waited. Soon, one of her teachers were supposed to come up to her and tell her what her mission was, and she was apparently supposed to have a teammate assigned to her for this mission.

It wasn't as if she needed them, but having backup wouldn't be a bad thing she supposed.

"Ugh...come on, Teach! I can't be here all day: I still have the practical exam to do!" she groaned impatiently as she stretched her arms across her chest and then reached down to touch her toes.

"Butdoihaveto?" The words came out of the giant boys mouth, but when informed that he was to be given candy as payment, his mind swiftly took a turn for the better. He still didn't like to use his brain, but his brain worked on somewhat overtime when it was promised candy. He was told to like, go to that one place near the academy. That was alright. Maybe candy would be there. That'd be good. Candy was good. Candy was great.

However, as he left the door, he felt the lack of candy in the force. That force being his stomach. IT wasn't a nice or generous force, this was fine. He moved, admittedly slowly, from the building. His pace wouldn't even be called meandering. More sliding his feet in the sand because he was hungry. He wandered off course and 'accidentally' ended up at one of the candy shops in town, before lining his pants pockets with them. Like usual, he wasn't wearing a shirt because they didn't make them in his size.

Once he arrived at the place, there was not candy. In fact, the small lady was the exact opposite of candy. He couldn't even eat her! Well, he could, but let us just leave that there.

"smolchildishere."

He knew that this girls name is Kona but smol.

"hellosmolchild."

Kona had finished all her stretches and was half-tempted to start practicing her taijutsu when her partner showed up and...

"Oh man, not YOU again! I was hoping to not have to see you until after graduation!" she groaned at the sight of Jei, the aggravating purple-haired giant that embarrassed her in front of her other teammate and made light of her strength. Once she had recovered enough to move with a little less pain, she had begun training in her hospital room up until she was dismissed. Then she kept up training hard right here at the academy training grounds. She was hoping not to see him until they gathered for their first official team meeting, in which she would have bested him then and there.

...And he called her small...

Twice

"My name is Kona, and you know that. It's not like it's hard to say." Kona grumbled in an irritated manner. She then stared the giant down and scowled at him.

"Get!" she shouted as she ran up and kicked him in the side of the head...which was actually the side of his neck, as that was the best she could manage without leaving the ground.

"It!"

*WHACK!* Another kick to the giant's neck.

"THROUGH!"

*WHACK!*

"YOUR!"

*WHACK!*

"STUPID BIG HEAD!"

*WHACK WHACK WHACK!*

So many kicks to the neck, and yet they would continue...up until their teacher arrived.

Each kick was felt, quite a bit more than beforehand. She had gotten stronger, that was good.

"hellosmolkona"

His ability to speak like he did, some could say that it was a rather neat talent. He would have an opinion on it if he actually noticed himself doing it. He never actually considered it. He dug into his pocket while he was being kicked, and popped a piece of candy in his mouth. He had something to say and, admittedly, it was a trial to say it properly.

"i'msorrysmolkona. willstopcallingyousmol."

He meant it, from the bottom of his heart, that he'd call her small no longer. That was the idea at least.

----

The Academy teacher had sent Jei away to the building, not long ago. Obviously, the boy had arrived not long before the teacher did. That was just a simple, noticeable fact. One that would've made the teacher laugh had he not have to indulge into his authority.

"Stop, please. He might be durable, but he also has basically no concept of pain."

The teacher wasn't actually sure, but he was sure if this went on much longer, the boy might start hurting more than the average pain the boy had, and break something.

Not to mention, in a fight between the two, Kona would likely win by default. You can't beat something you can't hit, and in this case, Kona was impossible for the young boy to hit.

"Right. You are to stake this building out from the inside, and capture anyone who comes into the place. Understood?"
----

"understoodbossman" Was his only response.

"I'm sure he'll be just fine, Teach." she grumbled and pouted. She was quiet though as the teacher explained what their mission would be and where it was taking place. It seemed like a simple stakeout in a rather nearby building.

"Wait, what? That's all mission is? Bust up anyone who walks into the building? That sounds awful simple, Teach..." Kona wasn't grumbling about the mission being easy, as much as she was confused why they picked the two of them for something like this when they could have easily got a team of Genin to do it and she could have gone on with her exam. But maybe it was because it was so simple that anyone could do it that they had two students doing it instead? Maybe the Genin were all really busy with other missions?

"I'm not sure why we are doing this, but I won't let you or the village down, Teach!" she clenched her hand tight with determination. "We won't let you or the village down! We got this!" You could see the passion in her eyes, and she was already marching ahead when she noticed that her lovely dopey giant was kinda just standing there.

"Ugh!" she simultaneously groaned and sighed. "Come on you big dummy, we have a mission to complete!" she grumbled as she attempted to drag him towards the building.

The teacher left shortly after, leaving the two there.

Jei looked down at the Kona and blinked. Mission he understood, but with little small Kona? He knew she went nyoom. That much was fact. That much he knew. She went almost as nyoom as the candy went into his mouth. That was pretty nyoom. He had to admit. He let her drag him towards the building, literally walking in tune with her impatient steps.

"konagonyoom"

He spoke this as a simple fact, as though he were stating their skills. He didn't know that she had gotten faster since last time, as he just knew that she went nyoom before. He knew he had gotten like, twice as strong. He was as strong as three teammates. Maybe four. Not five though. Five was too much. Five was like, a lot of candy and therefore a lot of people. That was the logic, as unrelenting as it was.

"amstrongest."

He used his free hand to dig into his pants and shove more candy into his mouth, as that was the only thing he felt like he needed to do. Candy was good and yummy; and this Kona was a pretty good person as well.

It took them only a few minutes to reach the building, but in that short time Kona managed to become even more irritated at her purple-haired comrade. He said something that didn't even sound coherent really, but he pronounced her name correctly and didn't call her small, so at least that was something she supposed.

However, they had just entered the building when she was REALLY ticked off: he bragged about being the strongest again. Boy, for being so dumb, did he ever know to press Kona's buttons. She stopped pulling him and whipped him around to face her.

"Listen here, you weirdo! You may have bested me a couple weeks ago, but there is no way in hell you are better than me now, not after all my extreme training! I'd beat you right here and now to show, but there is no way in hell I'm messing up my first mission. I'll show you who's strong after our exams, just wait!" she barked at him, finger pointed to and in his face the entire time she was speaking.

"For now, we have to make sure we stop anyone from getting in here, which shouldn't be that hard as long as we pay attention to what's going on." Kona then looked around the rather empty building for a place that would be the best to view any activity from, and after a couple moments she looked up and saw that the rafters of the building were rather solid...or at least they appeared that way.

"Okay, I think I found us a good spot." she informed Jei before grabbing his arm and hopping off the wall and onto one of the solid rafters, then pulled Jei up and onto the rafter right next to her, leaving him in a sitting position. She looked around real quick and noted that she was correct, which made her smile: it was rather easy to get an open view of the building from up here. As an added bonus, it would be difficult for anyone to notice them upon entering the building, so this spot was almost perfect.

Kona then looked at her purple-haired comrade, who seemed a bit cramped due to his freakish height. "Alright, so here's the plan: I'll watch from this side in case anyone tries to get in by breaking in through a wall or by that window over there, and you can watch the front door, okay?"

He let the smol kona yell at him. He wasn't going to hold back here soon. He knew at the exams, he couldn't hold back. He knew this in the back of his head, but that didn't make him any happier about it. He wasn't innately a brutal child, he hadn't learned much yet. He had such overwhelming skills in taijutsu that no one has really looked twice at him. He could kill most people in a single hit if he hit them full force. That for sure included the smol Kona.

Especially the smol Kona.

Once he was dragged up to the rafters by Kona, he let himself be dragged up. Hmm. She was a nice girl but something bothered him immensely. Mainly the chunnin exams that were going to happen in the future, that he'd have to participate in. He couldn't nap through them like classes, otherwise the he would just ignore them. After listening to the plan, he'd do something he never does normally.

"I held back when i booped you last time. i didn't want to break you. you're strong and nyoom, but..."

He hopped down from the rafters, and stood in the doorway. He reached up, which allowed his arms half extension, and grasped the top of the doorway. He let out a small groan as he lifted the front of the building to prove how strong he was. He was the strongest.

"am born strongest."

He held the building for a moment before placing it back down, and doing a slight hop back up to his position in the rafters, showing off some accidental taijutsu skill.

"you're fast. will always be faster than me. but strong? that's me."

Kona wasn't sure if he understood the plan or not, as the look on his face was that of one who was lost in their own thoughts, and she was a second away from groaning and then yelling at him to get his attention, but he actually spoke up and was easily understandable...which meant it was even easier for him to irritate her.

"held...back...held...BACK! YOU DID WHAT AGAINST ME!?" Kona was near frothing at the mouth, and was about to jump down after the tall annoying freak when he...LIFTED UP THE BUILDING?! Kona could barely grasp the fact that such a thing was happening as she steadied herself upon the rafters of the now somewhat moving building.

He...he can lift something that heavy? With such ease?! But...he's so lazy! There is no way he performed any training within the past two weeks, and yet he managed to get even stronger? What...how was that even possible? More over, how was that even remarkably fair? Kona had been kicking her own ass ever since she joined the academy, and she finally started seeing the results of her incessant training, and yet someone like him could just walk up and perform feats behind her imagination with no effort at all? HOW was that even FAIR?!

She felt it brimming within her, and her giant rival kept talking, but she didn't respond. She felt it on the cusp of brimming over, her heart wrenching within her chest, and it felt like a pain to breathe.

Don't do it, Kona. Don't you DARE do it! You promised yourself that day when you left the orphanage...

No matter how hard things get, you will succeed, and most importantly...

You will never again shed another tear!

It took her a moment, but she managed to get a grip and regulate her breathing, although she did end up coughing a couple of times. She then looked up at the man who was still finding himself slightly uncomfortable up in the rafters due to his ridiculous size, trying to adjust to a comfortable position after returning from his display of strength. She looked him directly in the eyes, and while the flames were still there, it was more of a smolder.

"Just...watch your half of the building, okay?" she forced out with false anger behind the words, and she turned around and perched on the wooden beam as she looked back and forth to make sure she didn't glance over any possible movement.

He nodded. He knew that this would get a bad reaction, although he didn't except to make her react like she did. huh. Kona apparently had lots of problems. He didn't know much about that, admittedly. He had a rather easy life, all things considered. He never got sick. He never had to deal with the loss of a father, because he wasn't there in the first place. Neither was his mother. They both wandered off after losing him. He supposed he knew something about being sad and such.

He hopped from the rafters and placed himself in the doorway, taking up all of it. He had some words to say.

"i'as born with this amount of power. 'ave always hold back. if no, then people i hit are kill. i shouldn't harm people."

Jei wasn't innately a bad person. He was just a child who had an abnormal amount of power and was sometimes scared. Often actually. This was hidden behind a lazy and angry facade that he didn't mean to put up, but if he didn't, he would become a star. He'd become this great, fantastic thing that he really didn't need to be. That was the problem with what was happening here. She understood how strong he was.

"i almost brokeyou. i didn't mean to. i just wanted you to stop attacking me at the time."

He sighed, and had not much else to say.

"if my dadhadbeen here to teach me how to controlthisstrength i'd be better."

Jei didn't shed a tear. This wasn't the time for that, it was time to sit in the doorway and not let people though.

Well, on thing was for sure: Kona was less enthused now than she was earlier today. In all honesty, she was actually starting to look less forward to her future days as a genin on a team of shinobi, and only because of that freaky giant boy. It would just be a constant reminder of the same thing he reminded her of now twice: people are not born equal, and as a direct result, life just isn't fair. She was born weak, and he was born strong. For years, Kona had worked hard and long to trump that fact, to show her parents, to the world that she could be a splendid shinobi. However, she also knew she was doing it for herself, as a testament that she was in fact right about her own claims.

The thing that irritated her most though was that he didn't have to even try. Had he been born strong and trained hard to get where he was now, that wouldn't have bothered her at all. At least he would have had to work for something...but no, he just was. No effort, no training, no sweat or tears or blood...just was. To think there were people in the world who were just that naturally gifted really made it very hard to want to struggle and do your best, knowing it wouldn't be enough to even compare.

...and he not only didn't listen her, as he jumped back down, but he kept on talking...

Okay, that was it.

Kona hopped down and turned to face his back. "Look here, I'm getting real sick of you. You show up and shove your strength in my face more than once, are a lazy sack of crap, and you won't even listen to me when I come with a strategy. I hate you...I hate you so much! I hate you so much, I'd rather not be a shinobi than be on a team with you! I wish you would just...wait, did you hear something?"

Kona had been on a raging tirade, but that all ended abruptly when she thought she heard a noise from within the building that had didn't come from her or the giant.

Sensei had found their way into the building, without the two particularly noticing. He wasn't impressed with their arguing but stayed silent as soon as Kona spoke something. It seemed like Sensei would have to intervene here in a moment.

---

"you don't get it. i don't want to do the whole ninja thing. i'm just doing it to get food to nom on. i'd rather not hurt people. it's bad to hurt people. you just want to hurt people and be mean."

Jei got up, though, and blocked the entire doorway to disallow exit. He had let them in, but had no plans to let them out. He did, in fact, take up literally the entire doorway, and was currently thinking about what that mean Kona smol child said. meanie pants. She didn't get it. She didn't understand what having the power was like, especially in Jei's case. He felt like she thought it was all good, and no bad. She was wrong. She was wrong because she didn't know what it was like. She didn't know what he had to do to not murder her every time he would ever attempt to touch her. It's like that first training. She didn't understand.

---

The sensei showed himself shortly after, a frown on his face.

"If I hadn't been your teacher, I might fail you. However, I will admit. I do like the development here. There's bad blood now. I have a feeling, once you get over it, we'll be in a better spot. For all intents and purposes, I pass the two of you to become genin."

Kona was doing her best to listen and search for the source of the noise, but she wasn't spotting anything, but it didn't help that her tall and obnoxious future teammate was still talking. Most of it sounded the same as before: he was strong, it wasn't his fault, he had to hold back, yata yata yata blah blah blah. This guy was a broken record! She had heard all this already, but it didn't change the fact that she hated him for his natural gifts and dumb speech pattern.

However, one thing did change: he said she liked to hurt people. This wasn't entirely true: Sure, she liked to hurt people who hurt her first, but other than that she just wanted to better herself as a ninja. Enjoying being in a brawl was just something she acknowledged might make it easier for her, since shinobi do perform combat for the village.

"You're wrong, I don't just like beating people up, but that's not important right now: Teach told us to capture anyone that comes in here, and I know I hear something and-"

And she was cut off...by Teach. Great, just great. The stupid dumb lug couldn't just do what she asked without egging her on. Couldn't just do the mission without pissing her off, and now look what happened. Here was Teach, coming to check up on them, and they were nothing but a disappointment. Kona's blood was boiling at this point: not only did she fail the mission she was given, now there was no way she would be able to go back to her exams and pass them now that Teach couldn't rely on her to do something so simple, AND it was all this giant moron's fault! She was a nanosecond away for charging at him with her newest technique, one that wouldn't matter if she was stronger than her or not...when Teach spoke up.

All that passion and rage simmered down a bit when she was informed that this WAS her final exam, and that even though they really blew it, he was going to pass them both. She was...officially a genin! Finally, after all these years at the academy, she was an official shinobi!

She got a wide and devilish grin on her face at the announcement of her successful pass of the exams. Now that she was officially a shinobi, even IF she was on the same team as that lug-headed loser, she would be under the wing of someone better than her...someone who's job it was to train her and only two others, not a whole class. It was finally time for her to shine.

"Thank you so much, Teach! Don't worry, I won't disappoint you ever again!" she said with a salute before turning to face the tall freak.

"As for you..." she said with the same grin as earlier, if not wider, and with eyes that were crackling with life. "Don't think you can keep getting in my way. Soon enough, I'll match your strength, just you wait...and when I do, I'll challenge you again. I look forward to the day when I make you eat dirt!" she clenched her fist tightly, then stood up proper.

"As for now...outta my way, Treetrunk! I've got training to do!" and with that, she zoomed under the gap between the floor and his arm, and outside the building. Her destination? The training grounds!

-Kona, Out~!-