Ralph walked out of the school, holding up a hand to shield his eyes from the bright mid-day sun. His eyes adjusted as he went to the tree he claimed as his, years ago. He glanced around the courtyard of the Academy. It was full by families who came to congratulated their child for completing the Academy. He ignored them all. He reached the bottom of the tree and leaped into it. He sat down on the branch with his back to the trunk and crossed his arms over his chest, watching his classmates greeted their families with wide grins. He frowned at them. There was no one there to greet him, No one to say congratulations on graduating, or inform him how proud they were of his achievements. He sighed. He knew what this graduation would be like. It was like this when he finished grade school and the option to become a ninja, a member of the police force, or member of the merchant class. He turned his gaze away from the happy families.
Tonight, he would have his own private celebration. He planned to buy some cake from the pastry chief. That would be nice. He had been saving up for that treat. He licked his lips in anticipation. He wondered if Mr. Ramsey would have the chocoberry cream cake, again. It was a mix of Chocolate and Strawberry cake with cream added in. He hummed in delight, closing his eyes, already imaging how the cake would taste. Maybe if he could swing it, he could grab some ice cream, too, from the grocery store, the one on the corner by his apartment. He frowned as he thought about his fridge. On second thought, he might forced himself to keep the smaller sizes of ice cream, so he didn’t waste it all if his fridge went out again. He didn’t know if he could afford to replace the cooling system in the fridge again if it stopped working. He couldn’t afford to get a new fridge. He hoped he could start saving up to get another apartment soon. Maybe, he could get that new utility the grocery stores and most of the powerful clans had - electricity. It would be nice to have reliable source of heat during the winter months and cool air during the hot summers.
He tilted his head back and it thudded against the trunk. He stared up into the clear blue sky, thinking about his future career. The path of a Ninja would be hard. He had heard stories from various veterans complain how hard the job was on some days, how easy it was on other days, the battles they had fought, the friends they were forced to leave behind, and how some nights they don’t get any sleep due to the hunting memories. He also knew the path of a Police Officer wasn’t easy either. They dealt with the aftermath of the Ninja who snapped. That was never pretty.
On the surface, the merchant class would the safest option. In reality, it wasn’t. The Merchants were often the victims of crimes. He didn’t know how many times he had to defend the restaurant he worked at in the early mornings hours from would be thieves or other idiots trying to pull one over on his boss. He never killed any of them, but he did hold them off until the police force arrived.
He sighed, hearing the bell ring. It was time to go back to class and figure out which team he would be placed on. The break felt too short. He glanced at the courtyard. It was packed. It would take a bit before the courtyard would clear out from families leaving and the newly minted ninja to settle down enough to return to the classroom. The team assignment process would take up 3 hours, he guessed from the amount of teenagers graduating, this year. He knew this class had a lot of clan heirs. He jumped down from the branch, thinking about the Clan Heirs.
There were almost 60 different clans in the Hidden Bark Village and half of them had heirs graduating today to become ninja. Of course, there were the protected clans. The protected clans were families who sought protection from a big clan. He didn’t know how many protected clans had heirs ready to join the ranks of Ninja, but he did know there were 5 protected clans heirs in his class.
He walked by a civilian family. He overheard the mother trying to talk her son out of working as a ninja, claiming he would have to kill people and he won’t have a normal life. He just shook his head. There were many civilians families who believed the same thing. They were right. Ninja were hired mercenaries and they did kill people, but Ninja did have a normal life for the most part. Maybe this family was the exception where they preferred their kid to be apart of the Merchant Class. He overheard other civilians families expressed how proud they were of their child graduating from Ninja Basic Training.
Ralph joined the stream of his follow classmates heading back into the school building. He walked with the crowd, his hands in his pockets until he reached the over sized room his graduating class was ordered to report to after they told their families the good news. He went to the random seat at the back of the classroom and waited, watching as the rest of the graduating class took their seats and listened to the random chatter, wondering who will he get put on a team.
In the classroom discussion over the formation of a Ninja Team, Ralph learned there was two males and a female with their teacher as a random. It was obviously with so many clan heirs in the graduating class, his team will have one. The Clan Heir could be a female. There was almost 20 teenage girls who were clan heirs. His eyes darted over to the list on the board where it gave the list of students in the class, starting from the ones who did the best in each subject down to the worst. He hovered in the middle of each of the subject. He kinda planned on that. He didn’t want to show off his knowledge or skills yet.
The female name sitting at the top of each subject was Kikyo, the heiress of the Orion Clan, and second place was Abasi, the eldest son and heir of the Nara clan. Ralph knew they would be put on a team together. However, he didn’t know who would their third member. He mused it might be one of the other orphans he grew up with, Thomas. Ralph didn’t know how he had managed to survive this long. Thomas had been struggling with the various subjects the ninja class had to learn. Ralph had personally thought Thomas would have dropped out and went to the Police Force or the Merchant Class to earn a living. Apparently, not. Either way, Ralph hoped Thomas managed to survive his missions and achieved what he wanted out of life.
Their teacher stepped into the room with a large rolled scroll. He walked to the podium. Ralph straightened up in his seat. His heart pounded in his chest. It was time for him to know which team he would be assigned to. The teacher unrolled the scroll and called out a loud voice, “When I call out your name, please, remain seated. Your teacher will be here to collect you shortly. Team 1 is Dustin Carpenter, Mary Cook, and Curt Urameshi. Your teacher is Kanya Flora.”
Ralph’s leg bounced as he listened for his name to be called. He barely kept still in his seat when he heard, “Team 17 is Ralph Barkson, Lilian Sakura, and Enzo Smith, led by Raizen Watanabe.”
Ralph froze. Raizen Watanabe? That name sounded familiar. He frowned, thinking about where he had heard that name. Raizen. Ralph hummed as he ignored the rest of the names being called out. Raizen. Wasn’t he the ninja who singled handy took out a battle squadron in the last major war? Raizen had earn the title of War Demon in the aftermath of that battle. If so, that would be awesome.
A loud knock on the door echoed through the classroom. Everyone fell silent as they turned their attention to the door. It slid open. A woman with dark brown hair stepped into the room and called out, “I’m here to collect Team 1. I’m Kanya Flora.”
Ralph watched as the team members stood up and walked toward her. They disappeared through the doorway. It was time for another round of his past time - Hurry up and Wait. He turned his thoughts to the other members of his team - Lilian Sakura and Enzo Smith.
Enzo Smith, Ralph thought, was from a civilian family. There were two or three other Smith Families within the Village who worked as Blacksmiths so Ralph wasn’t for sure which Smith family Enzo was from. He got above average grades on the various tests and mock missions they had to pass during the Academy’s basic training. Enzo came from The Blacksmith family, specializing throwing weapons. Maybe if Ralph was lucky, he could get a discount from the Smith family for shopping there with their son. Of course, he knew better to count on it.
Lilian Sakura, on the other hand, had a lot of information on her. She was the Heiress from the one of the most powerful Clans within the Bark Village with 6 to 8 protected clans under their umbrella. Lilian was the 5th smartest young lady in the class. Ralph didn’t know much about her. She lived on the far side of the Village from him and the only time he had interacted with her was during the mocked missions and other class activities.
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Meanwhile, in a large meeting within the Government Tower, Raizen groaned, silently, as he was assigned his team. He really didn’t want to take on a team, but he wasn’t given a choice. When the Village Elders noticed they would have a huge problem on their hands if they didn’t get ahead of it, The Village leader ordered 5 years ago that all available ninja was to take on a team. Plus the pay was good. The Team Building assignment was a B rank mission so the pay was higher then it used to be consider to be a long term D rank mission.
On top of that, his wife couldn’t work anymore with their little one on the way and the village made it so the pregnant women made the choice to stay home once they hit their last three months of pregnancy straight through the time their child reached 9 months of age. They got paid to do that. Some of the women after that choose to re-enter the Ninja force after a three month period of training. There were some women who re-purposed their skills in helping other working mothers in babysitting the kids.
Even now, it still took Raizen by surprise how tight knit the village community was, especially the Clans with their networking skills. It used to be feuds between clans over the smallest things like whose restaurant was better or clothes was better made. After the last major war involving the White Hall Family, the closest alley of the Hidden Bark Village, they had to band together and rebuild. Many women didn’t like the fact, once they turned 18, they were forced to have at least 3 kids during their prime years, but they could take their time in fulfilling that mission.
There were a few cases where a woman would end up leaving the village for an extended period of time and returned with orphans. Hell, he personally been on missions where he found some street orphans cast out of their homes for one reason or another and he gave them the option of returning with him and having a family. They jumped at the chance of having a family and able to learn the same skills he had.
However, if the orphans didn’t have the unique ability to get the skills every Ninja had, they still had other opportunities like entering the Police Force or working in the Merchant Class. There were cases like that among the orphans he had brought back to the village. What wasn’t known to the general ninja population was the bonus involved if there were orphans brought back to the village because it would open the door to killing innocents with children or kidnapping children. The orphans, if brought back to the village, had to agree to a session with the village therapist: a member of the clan with unique ability to mind-walk or a truth teller clan member - to see if the orphan was really an orphan or a victim in a greedy ninja’s plans for extra money. The Village Elders and the Leader tried to work every possible angle in order to make things as clean as possible. Raizen knew there were a case or two where a ninja did return with two orphans and after the therapy session, the ninja was arrested for unjustified killing or kidnapping and disappeared. He had a rough idea on where the guilty ninja went - the underground prison. He didn’t know what happened there, but he really didn’t want to know either.
He shook his head, clearing it of those thoughts. He looked at the folders he was handed, noticing he would be teaching a clan heiress, a civilian, and an orphan. He opened the first folder. It was the Clan Heiress, Lilian of the Sakura Clan.
Raizen frowned as he thought of what he knew of the Sakura Clan. They were originally Tea Makers. He opened the folder and saw he was right. The Sakura clan were Tea Makers before they became a more prominent clan of the Village. Lilian was the great-granddaughter of the Elder who helped bring the Clan into the Bark Village three decades ago when they arrived on this side of the barrier. They were from an small island from the coast of Japan, on a vacation when they crossed. Raizen’s eyes widened. Lilian was the 3rd generation immigrant from the Outside World. That was really interesting. The Bark Village doesn’t get immigrants from the Outside World, usually. Most of the time, people would go to the nearest village and end up staying there once they figured out what happened to them. If the Sakura Clan was able to settle in the Bark Village, it meant they found a portal near the village and came across a patrol before they were led to the Hidden Village.
The Sakura Clan quickly became intro graded within the Village and helped create the Sakura district by offering just more then Tea Houses. Granted the Tea Houses became highly popular over the years, but the expansion of the Clan allowed them to grow at much faster rate. Both of Lilian’s parents were ninja. Lilian’s father was 2nd generation ninja while her mother’s bloodline had been in the village for centuries.
Raizen scanned the rest of Lilian’s profile. She appeared to be in the average range of the class, only excelling in the Kunoichi arts, once she learned the importance of the skill. He closed her file before he opened the next one - Ralph Barkson. He blinked once he saw the picture. A smirk crossed his face. It was the teenage boy from the restaurant and read over the profile the teacher provided. He knew what Barkson meant.
Ralph was an orphan who never got adopted. Barkson was the common name of all orphans who never found their forever family and some of the Barksons and Barkdottirs consider themselves to be family, tied together by the fact they are orphans, forced to rely on their skills to survive, and were more willingly to help one another instead of the clan families. Ralph was no doubt forced to leave the orphanage when he was 13 when he entered Ninja Training. The orphanages were more willingly to help the future members of the Police Force or the Merchant class — which was stupid in Raizen’s opinion. The Ninja work force had more benefits for an orphan then the Police Force or the Merchant Class, but he knew to each, his own.
The new team leader let out a sigh, thinking about Ralph and the other orphans. The policy in place for the last 14 years involving expanding the family hurt the orphans didn’t have relatives to go to when something happen to their parents. Plus, it didn’t help them when ninja returned with new orphans. Those new orphans found new homes at faster rate then the rest of the orphans. He hoped the policy involving women to have 3 kids would change soon. The team he was suppose to start training today would be forced to start training their own teams when they reached 20. He sighed. The last major war the Village helped the White Hall House in, they were still recovering from that. He hoped it would be a very long time before the Village would be dragged into another war, helping the White Hall House to win. He hated dealing with the Village politics.
Raizen went through the rest of Ralph’s profile, quickly noticing there was a pattern to his reports. At the beginning of each year, he would do extremely well then start to back off, causing his grade to slip and sit in the middle of the class for most the school until the last couple months where his grade would raise. Ralph was smarter then he was trying to show, playing the grading system where he would have the look of being average when he was not. Raizen’s smirk grew more pronounced. That was very ninja like.
He closed Ralph’s profile and went to the last student, Enzo Smith. He knew of a Smith family. They lived in the same district as him and his wife did. Maybe it was the same one. He glanced at the picture and he frowned. He usually remembered the folks he lived nearby with, but this Smith kid was different. Maybe he lived in a different district. Enzo Smith’s parents were civilians, apart of the Merchant class, and in fact, just like his family name suggested, were blacksmiths. They lived on the edge of town where majority of the trade traveled through. That was a smart move for this Smith family do, trying to get most of the foreign trade.
Enzo’s grades were below average. That was expected, given his family’s class. However, when it came to weapons, he excelled. That was also expected. He was probably ordered by his father to make sure the weapons were in working condition by trying them out in various actions. He could be a difficult student to train, coming from a civilian background.
Raizen snapped the folder shut and held them in his hand as he waited for the order to leave the Assignment room. The rest of the Teacher Team stood, still looking over their team profiles. Some of the team was new to the teaching role. They only been out of training themselves for the past year or two. Usually, the Village Elders would have waited another couple years before requesting them to take teams, but once word spread that the gradating class was 60 strong, they all knew the Village Elders had to do something.
Running footsteps alerted the Ninja in the room to their visitor before they burst into the room. The new Ninja’s face was red and panted, heavily, clutching the door frame. Raizen raised an eyebrow. Apparently, this ninja needed to revisit the training grounds if he was out of breath. Most ninja wouldn’t have been out of breath until they reached the hour point of fighting.
“Fight in the Urameshi Distrinct,” the Ninja managed to get out. Everyone tensed. The Urameshi were known to enjoy a goof fight when they could. Raizen just hoped it wasn’t those three again. “Zack Urameshi, Alexander Urameshi, and Samuel Urameshi are fighting, again.”
“FUCK!” Kakashi Urameshi cursed and darted out of the room. Raizen burst out laughing. He knew the three newly minted adult ninja without a team would have all kinds of problems. He had trained Alexander Urameshi up until 2 months ago and that boy was always looking for a good fight. He made sure Alexander didn’t meet his cousins unless it was on a fighting mission. They would have been a great help during the war. It was shame they weren’t born before the war happened. Hopefully, they survived until the next one.
It seemed like Kakashi was supposed to be keeping an eye on them until they get sent on their own missions. Maybe he should have warn Kakashi to drag Aqua, Alexander’s teammate, with him when he went to break up the cousin fight. She would be a great help with that task. Better Kakashi then him, Raizen smirked as the Teaching Team was dismissed.