A New Day Dawns Crimson

Coren sighed, staring into his mirror.
Releasing his Restrictions isn't supposed to affect his body, yet here he is, staring into the pitch-black Byakugan eye that should be paler than Orochimaru's skin.
Running his hand over it, Coren sighed.
The seal he'd been designing in his Mindscape had been one to hide his eye; it wouldn't take out his ability to use the Byakugan, but it would make it look like his eye was the same as it had always been.
Yeah, if explaining how he had the Byakugan would be tough, he could only imagine explaining why he had the Byakugan, and why it suddenly turned black as pitch.
Coren pulled on his mask after applying the seal to his face; thankfully, the seal made itself invisible using high-level chakra fluctuations and the manipulation of wind chakra, so he didn't have to worry about black ink being on his face all day.
Though, with his mask on, he didn't really have to worry anyway, did he?
In any case, Coren, with his mask on, donned the remaining parts of his apparel and walked down the stairs of his home.
"Took ya long enough," Anko said, her voice tinged with annoyance. "I heard you wake up a good five minutes ago; what took ya?"
"I was making myself look pretty," was his joking response. "What's for breakfast, my fellow sociopath?"
"Frog livers and worms."
"Bacon pancakes!" Lilligant's voice yelled out from the kitchen.
Coren tilted his head slightly.
"...Do you mean bacon and pancakes?"
"Nope! I'm makin' bacon and I'll put them in your pancakes!"
"..." Coren tilted his head to the side even further, making Anko wonder whether or not his spine or his sanity would give way first.
"...Lilly?"
"Yeees?" she asked, poking her head out of the kitchen.
"I will love you forever if you give me some of them pancakes."
"Deal!"
With that, her head disappeared into the kitchen again.
"What, no love for the snake-woman?" Anko asked, her tone tinged with mock hurt. "That wounds me."
"Are you making bacon pancakes, Anko?"
"Well, no, but-"
"ARE YOU," he said firmly, "MAKING BACON PANCAKES, ANKO?"
Her eyes widened slightly.
"No, sir."
"Then that's why."
Taking his seat, Coren scratched the back of his head and smiled from behind his mask.
"Please pass the morning's papers," he said sweetly.
Anko did it without hesitation.
There was one thing that she'd forgotten today that she swore never to do again.
You never get between and man and his bacon, his pancakes, or the holy mixture of the two.
Ever.

---

With a belly full of bacon pancakes (A.K.A. The Holy Grail of Edible Substances), Coren practically flew across the rooftops, giddy as could be.
He slid to a stop at Team 7's meeting place.
Unsurprisingly, Kuro was the only team member there; of course, with Coren being ten minutes early, that was pretty standard.
What was surprising were the people standing next to Kuro.
"Sir?" Coren said, grinding to a halt. "What's the Hokage doing here?"
Minato chuckled, scratching the back of his head.
"I, uh... Came here to help deliver some news." With that, he gave a look to his red-headed wife/companion, Kushina.
Coren tilted his head quizzically, which appears to have started being a character trait.
"...I see. Should we wait for the others, then?"
Minato nodded.
Coren took his usual spot in front of Kuro, standing ram-rod straight.
Even if Minato weren't here, Coren would still be uneasy; he liked Kushina, and she seemed nice, but someone as important as the Hokage's wife really set his senses on edge.
Hanako was the next to arrive, as per usual, which meant it was only a minute or so until Jacob arrived.
His entrances were always rather sub-par, though Coren couldn't really say that was a bad thing.
As long as he doesn't run in screaming about how he can shoot lasers from his eyes or something, Coren was pretty much golden.
...What, a man can hope, can't he?

Unedited:

Rushing in, a bright grin on my face, I yelled out "Yo, guys, you'll never believe this new technique I learned-"
I stopped, then noticing our company.
"...Is somebody super important dead? Or is there, like, a war or something?"
Why the Hell was the Hokage here...?

Kuro turned to the Hokage, who nodded to him.
Clearing his throat, Kuro began "It would seem that I've been given a rather high-class mission; I'll be taking part in it for the next month, and because of this, I will be unable to train you three."
Hanako frowned slightly, as did Coren.
Was this going where the group's psychopaths think it's going?
"As such, until my return, you will be in need of a new jonin sensei; one who can train you just as well, if not better than I can."
Coren locked eyes with Minato, who smiled.
...No way.
"Why are the Hokage and his wife here?" Coren asked, cutting to the chase.
"That would be because I'll be your new teacher," was the expected response.
What wasn't expected, though, was for it to come from Konoha's Red-Hot Habenero, Kushina Uzumaki.
Again, Coren's head tilted to the side quizzically.
"...Come again?"
"I would, but that would involve leaving first," was her snarky reply.
For a moment, Coren thought on that.
"...Well, can't argue with that. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance again, Kushina."
She smiled slightly.
"...Damn, that was just your first name, wasn't it?"
She nodded.
"...Balls."
With that, Coren sighed, shook his head, then went silent.
"Alright then," Minato said jovially, "I'll leave you to it. Kuro, come with me; I'll explain the details of the mission on the way to the tower."
"Yes sir," was the ex-ANBU-captain's quick reply.
As they walked away, Kushina pulled on a pair of black, fingerless gloves, turning to the trio with a slightly terrifying grin.
"So, who's ready to train?"

---

Coren ended up getting strapped with over eighty pounds of weight strapped across his back for his training, which was to scale a waterfall with one arm tied behind his back.
If it weren't for his hyper-healing, he would've died of blunt force trauma to the back of the head by now.
Hanako had to do a similar thing, except she was standing underneath the waterfall, being forced to stand up straight despite the immense amount of force that the cascading falls hit her with.
Finally, Jacob's training was pretty much an all-around, where Kushina would have his training jump around more than a jackrabbit on speed.
At one point, she had him running around a small track she'd made disturbingly quickly, all the while throwing everything she possibly could at him.
Where she got the kitchen sink was anyone's guess.
After that horrendous ordeal, she had him grab a seventy-pound sandbag, and had him lug it to the top of the waterfall.
While this wouldn't normally be hard, he also couldn't carry the bag with anything besides his neck muscles.
After nearly dying of asphyxiation for the first four times, she decided that that training wasn't really up his alley, so she gave him a short break.
This was around the same time that Coren painted the rocks near the waterfall a stunning crimson as he cracked his own skull open after falling yet again.
Hanako also managed to collapse under the force of the waterfall around then, nearly getting washed away into the rapids before Kushina yanked her out of the water.
"So," she said jovially, tossing the group into a nice pile. "What do you think of my training? Hyuuga first; I wanna hear his thoughts."

Unedited:

"What the Hell did you throw at me!?" I screamed out, clutching the parts of me that hurt (which is all of them). "My head feels like it's splitting, my neck has the kind of rope-burn that you don't want to explain to your doctor to save your pride, and I'm almost dead! Seriously, not only all of that, but you strapped seventy pounds to my larynx; I shouldn't even be breathing right now, you mentally-damaged woman!"
Trying to rein in my anger at this crazy redhead's antics, I sighed, clutching my throbbing head.
"Honestly, though, I'd hate to be Coren even more than me; mind talking about your experiences next?" I asked, desperate to change off of the enraging subject of my splitting headache.

Kushina smiled.
"Oh no, you don't decide what order we go in. Hanako, you're up next."
Hanako cringed as she heard her name.
"...Even my hair has bruises, and as an expert in human anatomy, I know that that's not even physically possible. My entire body is a zone of unnatural pains of which the world has never before seen, and I really, really wanna go curl up in a corner and cry, because while I've never had pains in my breasts before, I've also never been hit chest-first by a raging waterfall. Please, for the love of all that is good and holy, stop letting me talk; the movements of my chest moving from the expanding of my lungs is enough to make me want to just curl into fetal position, which I would if I was capable of moving my left leg, which I happen not to be."
Kushina blinked, a tad bit surprised.
That... Was quite a bit of detail.
"...Uh, yeah; Coren, you're up next."
Coren just shrugged.
"Give me five minutes and I'll be up for the second rep."
And at that, everybody collectively called bullsh*t.
"...Honestly, the only thing that is really damaging is the fall, and even then, I can heal from that pretty quick," he said, starting to explain. "My arms are screaming for sweet, sweet mercy, but mercy is nothing more than a synonym for stupidity in this day and age. Put in short, if I have time to cry for release, I have time to work harder."
With that, he stood up on his feet, which surprisingly were perfectly fine; probably because his arms took all the problems.
"Now then, either you can push my training up so that it leaves me feeling like those two, or you can find me on the cliff-face."
With that, Coren started walking away.
"...Coren, that was especially badass," Kiyome said, suddenly reminding the boy that she existed.
"I know."
With that, he leaped onto the waterfall's stone walls, starting to climb up.
Suddenly, the hairs on the back of his neck stood completely straight, and he launched himself upwards with chakra.
He barely avoided a kunai that hit right beside his head, filled with enough chakra to shatter the stone and sending him flying away from the wall.
He crashed into the floor with a yell, the rope bindings putting his arm in just the right position for his arm to get dislocated from the impact.
"Oh?" Kushina said, twirling a kunai in hand. "I thought you said you wanted it harder."
Coren spat out what appeared to either be a tooth or chipped piece of his skull (he really couldn't tell at this point), and stood up.
With a tearing motion, he relocated his shoulder and tore off the bindings.
"Let's see you do that twice," he hissed out.
And then, when he tried to climb, she did do it a second time.
And then a third time.
And then a fourth time.
It stopped being funny to Kushina and Hanako around the twelfth time.
However, going by Jacob's reaction every time that Coren landed face-first into the solid stone, it was never going to stop being funny for him.
Around the thirty-sixth time, where he actually managed to make it halfway up the waterfall with only chakra in his legs, Kushina remarked
"Is he always this damn stubborn?"
Hanako just turned to Jacob, content with letting him answer.

Unedited:

I turned to her, my expression incredulous. "Have you met the man? He's as stubborn as me and Hanako are in pain, and he'll keep going until one of two things happen; the first is that he either dies or he loses a limb, the latter only taking him out of the battle for a half-hour, and the second thing is that he actually makes it up there, and is all like 'woo, yeah, I did it!' or something along those lines."

Kushina frowned.
"While I do admire that kind of tenacity, it'll only end poorly if he doesn't know when to give up."
She quickly tossed another kunai, which jettisoned Coren right in front of her.
"If I can win, then I won't give up," Coren responded, having heard what she said.
"And if you can't win?"
"Then I'm not trying hard enough."
Coren stood up, dusted off his coat, and walked back up to the cliff-face.
"I'm gonna make it up this time," he said casually. "This time, I won't hold back."
He started running up the wall for what was around the 38th time (how is he still alive) and activated his Byakugan.
Now then, every other time, the way he avoided her kunai was by suddenly and chaotically dodging from side to side, which made it so she missed more times than not.
This time, he whipped out his katana and cut it out of the air, staring right into Kushina's eyes.
At that moment, Coren noticed her eyes subtly change. The pupils turned to slits and they changed color to crimson.
In return, he pulsed chakra into his eye, the pitch-black eye of the Byakugan contrasting with the white porcelain color of his mask.
They held that position of eye-contact for several seconds, before Coren launched up the wall, leaving a slight crater where he was standing.
Or so it appeared at first.
The reality of it was that Kushina threw a kunai so fast that the two other members of Team 7 didn't even see it, and Coren used the explosion from it to launch himself upwards.
"Clever," Kushina dryly noted.
She threw out a whole bunch of other kunai, which Coren either batted out of the air, used as a means of propulsion, or with two of them, sent them flying right back at her.
He actually managed to almost make to the top of the waterfall, where all he had to do was take three more steps, when suddenly, Kushina completely disappeared from sight.
Then, she axe-kicked Coren in the chest so hard that when he was sent flying downwards, a sonic boom tore through the area, shaking the very foundations of the solid stone area, tempered by water of the course of millenia.
When she walked up to Coren, who really deserved to be no more than a red, bloody splotch on the ground.
Blood was dripping from his mouth as he pulled himself onto his hands and knees.
She was about to soccer-kick him into unconsciousness when something made her freeze.
Coren's porcelain mask was broken, and she could plainly see his face.
He looked up at her, and his black eye was in plain sight.
The seal had been washed off by the water.
"What... The Hell...?!"
Coren coughed hard, blood splattering on the stone as he stood upright.
With a few gut-wrenching cracks and shattering noises, he had reset all of his bones in the right places. Now, as long as he doesn't run into any walls, it should heal fine.
"Seriously?" he asked between raucous coughs. "I get obliterated physically and still stand up, and you're more focused on my pretty little eye?"
Coren twisted his neck suddenly, the cracking noise reverberating even over the sound of the waterfall.
"I can keep going," he said firmly.
Kushina sighed, shaking her head.
Then, she walked over to him, and poked his forehead.
"...Balls," he muttered, falling backwards onto his back.
"You, Coren Keitaro, are the biggest idiot I have ever had the pleasure of meeting."
She stared at his prone form; he had absolutely no control over his body whatsoever. Hell, even breathing was probably an arduous activity, and that couldn't be comfortable.
"You dodged pretty much all of my attacks, except when I actually aimed for you," she said, plopping down next to him. "You're good, but you're not at my level kiddo."
"I'm... Pretty damn close," he rasped out.
"Shut up, Coren; your lungs are compromised, so speaking'll only make you drown in your own blood."
That got him to get quiet fast.
"...Your team seems promising enough," she said with a sigh. "You've got a rational mind who makes the plans," Hanako of course, "You've got the bruiser who can take pretty much anything thrown at him," Jacob, "And you've got the guy with the tenacity of the living dead, who won't stop until every single cell in his body is working against him."
As she stood up, she scratched the back of her head.
"I guess you're what happens when you take away a workaholic's limits."
With that, she walked towards the other members of Coren's team.
"You all passed my first test; we'll be taking the next one tomorrow. Carry Coren back to his home; I imagine that walking is about as impossible for him right now as backflips are to the both of you."
And with that, she disappeared into the darkness.
"...Well, that was fun," Coren rasped out sarcastically. "I can't wait for tomorrow."

Unedited:

"...You are the most insane person I've ever been stuck hanging around with, and with Hanako having DID, that's saying something."
I pulled Coren up, propping him onto my shoulder.
"So... Where's your house, anyway?"

Hanako helped Coren up by grabbing his other shoulder as the boy chuckled.
"Second star on the right, and straight on 'till morning," he said jokingly. "Seriously, though, we're not far; just follow my directions..."

---

The trio arrived at Coren's house rather slowly, though that could probably be blamed on the fact that none of the three were really in any shape to move in the first place. They'd followed Coren's direction, and it lead them here.
"Thanks you two, but I think I can take it from here," he said, moving away from the duo.
While he did move like a walking corpse, he could at least move on his own, and that was a plus.
"I owe you guys one, so feel free to call it whenever," he said cheerfully.
Hanako sighed, shaking her head.
"You're the only person I know who..." She trailed off for a moment, thinking. "Hell, can I even use just one of your actions as a reference?"
"Trust me, Hana-chan; I'm one of a kind."
With that, and what sounded to be a 'thank God' from Jacob, the door behind Coren opened, revealing the fair, red-haired Lilligant.
Despite her hair being a slightly different shade and being shorter than Kushina's, the sight of that red still sent a shiver down the trio's spines.
"...Coren, did you train yourself into a coma again?"
Coren chuckled nervously.
"...Well, I never lost consciousness. That's good, right?"
Her face was steely; her poker face would leave Kakashi broke in a card game.
"Inside. Now."
Coren limped his way inside, but not before turning to his teammates.
"See you guys tomorrow; hopefully, our new sensei doesn't axe-kick me hard enough to make a sonic boom."
All of a sudden, crickets began to chirp, making Coren sigh.
"Even the bugs agree that that's not happening..."
And with that, Coren ducked inside the house, whereas Lilligant's steely expression gave way to a tired one.
With a sigh, she said "You two should get on home. Coren'll be fine here; this wouldn't be the first time he's hurt himself this bad..."
Hanako looked a bit confused.
"What d'you mean? Does he always train this hard?"
Ah, good ol' Hanako; always fishing for more and more info.
"You kidding?" she asked tiredly, rubbing her face. "Three days of the week, I find him completely unconscious and almost dead from chakra exhaustion. Sometimes, I just wish he'd hold back, y'know?"
She shook her head.

DM's Note:
Is there anything you'd like to ask Lilligant?

"Uh, if you don't mind me asking, how do you know Coren?" I asked.

Lilligant frowned.
"I'm his psychiatrist; I've been working with him for two years now."
She sighed, rubbing her eyes.
"Anyway, I have a lot of healing to do to that idiot in there, so this's good night."
With that, she closed the door.
Hanako sighed.
"She's 'prolly got the right idea. Let's go to bed for the night; we can pester Coren about his busty psychiatrist tomorrow, alright?"
Not even waiting for an answer, Hanako made her way home.
Why couldn't she seem to get a single normal day...?

---

Coren sighed, pulling on a spare shirt.
He looked over at the sleeping Lilligant in the chair beside his bed for a moment, but then quickly walked out of the room.
According to the calendar, she was working a double-shift before he came home, and she spent a good three hours dragging his body back into working condition.
Yeah...
"...I'll need to pay you back for this," he muttered.
He reached to grab for his mask, but sighed when he remembered what happened to it.
"You owe me a hunter-nin mask, you red-headed lunatic..." He trailed off, shaking his head.

---

"First one here?" Kushina asked, surprised. "After yesterday, I thought you wouldn't even be able to move."
"I'll just take that as a compliment."
Coren leaned up against a rock. He'd come half an hour early partially because he felt like it was important, and partially because he was curious as to how badly she would be able to obliterate his body.
Surprisingly enough, though, she doesn't seem to be doing anything important, or even physically straining.
She was eating.
...
"...I woke up half an hour early for this?"
Kushina looked up, probably catching the bored expression on Coren's face.
"...Want some?"
"No, thank you. I already ate."
"...You're lying."
"...Should I even bother asking how you can tell?"
Kushina shook her head, shoving the rest of her food towards him.
"You're stupider than I thought if you think you can survive my training without food."
Coren frowned.
"Why bother eating if I can't keep it down?"
Kushina just glared at him.
"That's not gonna work."
She tapped her finger on the food, before standing up.
"..."
Coren sighed, shaking his head.
It has to be the red hair; only Kushina and Lilligant seem to be able to make him do things like this.
Sitting down, he started eating.
"That's what I thought."

---

Hanako arrived on time, moving sluggishly.
When she arrived, she Kushina alone, and she seemed to be stretching.
"Where's Coren? He's usually here first."
Kushina just pointed up.
A loud scream gradually made itself more obvious as Coren plummeted to the ground. His entire body was flailing wildly, and he landed headfirst, a noise of crunching bone sending a shudder down Hanako's spine.
"...Are you okay?"
Coren tore his upper body out of the stone, looking like he'd just gone three rounds with the Devil itself.
Or two with Kushina; one could hardly tell the difference.
"I'm... Fine," he muttered, wiping the stone bits out of his lacerations. "Kushina-sensei thought it best that I train while waiting for you two, and took it upon herself to assist me."
"In other words," Kushina cut in, "I kicked his ass."
"...Yeah, that's about right."
Jerking his head to both sides, sending reverberating cracks through the air, he groaned again.
"Are you ready for today's training?"
"Is it even possible to be ready for this?" was he answer.
Coren just chuckled.
"The weights are over by the waterfall. Hope you have a nice bath."
She groaned.
Waterfall training again..?
Damnit...

Unedited:

The morning of the training, I made one of rare smart decisions I make every time I get my ass handed to me.
I probably shouldn't eat any breakfast; I'll just throw it up during the training anyway, so what's the point?
Damn Kushina's abnormal training program.
...Then again, chances are, that's normal for her.
...She's freakin' crazy, isn't she...?

---

Arriving at the training grounds, I noticed two things.
The first was that Coren looked like he was doing an impression of himself after the Chunin Exams interrogation, and the second was that Hanako was under the waterfall again.
"What happened to Coren? He looks like he went through the nine levels of Hell equipped with nothing but a toothpick!"

Kushina smirked.
"Oh, nothing big," both she and Coren said.
She spared a quick glance to Coren, but quickly refocused on Jacob.
"So, are you ready for your training?"
His painful cringe was enough of an answer for her.
"Then let's get to it."

---

Apparently, Kushina had decided the earlier night that since Coren was murdering himself in training, Hanako and Jacob should pick up the slack.
She didn't seem to care that much about the whole 'we can't possibly do all of that' thing, though.
Right now, Coren was using his limited medical jutsu skills in order to heal the now-unconscious Hanako.
"I thought you three were the best in the entire Chunin Exams!" she yelled out exasperatedly.
"Chunin Exams do not equate the ability to withstand the force of a waterfall for an hour," was his quick response.
She sighed, shaking her head. "Great, two weaklings and an immortal idiot..."
"I heard that."
"That's the point, moron."
Coren sighed.
He turned to look over at Jacob, who ended up having to take Hanako's place under the waterfall.
"Yo, you okay over there?!" he called out.

Unedited:

"Mind... Your own... Damn business...!" I growled, straining to keep my body from breaking. "Don't you... Have better... Things to do? Like... Hopefully dying!?"

Coren shrugged.
"I'll get right on that after I finish with Hanako."
With that, he turned back to said girl.
"I'll need to take a few classes over at the hospital to work on my healing skills," he told himself.
Until then, though, it was time to train.

---

"There," Kushina said cheerfully, looking over the groups. "And how was the training session this time?"
Coren let out a pained groan, clutching his chest.
"The heart exploder technique isn't supposed to be used on allies!"
She frowned, putting her hands on her hips as she leaned forward.
"That's because normally, people don't survive it. I thought you wanted to make this training hard; that's what you said, isn't it?"
Coren went quiet.
"I really need to learn to keep my mouth shut."
Kushina turned to the other two.
Hanako's body looked very prune-y from all of the water, but besides that and the very evident exhaustion, she seemed fine.
Jacob actually seemed pretty fine; she mentally made a note to make his evasion training harder. That Byakugan made him nearly impossible to surprise.
"Well, that's day two complete. Any questions?"
Coren raised his hand.
"Yeah; is there a reason the Hokage hasn't informed the genin that have graduated that they did?"
Kushina tilted her head quizzically.
"...I meant about the training, but no, I don't."
"Damn..."
Coren then shrugged.
"Alright then. I'll be heading on home; I'll see you tomorrow for the third day of Hell?"
Kushina frowned.
"...You didn't even bother correcting yourself."
"I have no reason to."
With that, Coren ditched the group completely, leaving.
Kushina sighed.
"He didn't even stay to listen to the good news," she said, annoyed.
Turning to the other two members of the group, she said
"Tomorrow, you three will be taking another mission. I have no idea how long it'll last, so pack accordingly."
With that, she disappeared too.
Hanako was quiet for a moment before turning to Jacob.
"...Are we even gonna be mission-ready by tomorrow?"

Unedited:

"Honestly?" I rubbed the back of my neck, sighing. "I got no idea. I mean, I'm sure we'd be fine if we went two days without experiencing Hell on Earth, but if it's a high rank, we are so boned."

Hanako sighed.
"You've got a point. I'm off to go drown my sorrows in bottled water and go to bed, mainly because the bars won't give me any booze."
She started walking away, but sighed again.
"Here," she said, tossing something over her shoulder. "It's a potion. I based it off Taki's Hero Water, not that you know what that is; drink it if you ever need to get healed fast."
With that, she left.

---

Coren sighed, standing outside of Minato's office.
He had questions, and that blond had the answers.
...Tonight would be a long night.

---

Hanako sighed, pulling herself out of bed again.
Her body was a flaming cesspool of pain, but she'd gotten used to it by now.
"Today's the day of your second mission that isn't a D-Rank. What're you hoping for?"
Hanako mentally shrugged.
"No idea, Kuro."
"I'm, uh, kinda hoping for something boring."
"You're always hoping for it to be boring, Ranpu. I hope it's exciting; I haven't been able to get my blood pumping for a long time."
"Do not forget yourself, Kuro," Hime said, her calm tone threatening.
"...Yes ma'am."
Hanako sighed.
Well, at the very least, she was never lonely.
She grabbed a set of clothes, feeling every creak and groan in her overly-sore body.
"...Stupid waterfall."
"Tell me about it," Kuro said sarcastically. "Seriously, at least a fight would've been exciting!"
"Well, maybe we need to train a bit, before we can fight anyone?"
"I must agree with Ranpu; the training is necessary, whether we enjoy it or not."
"Could everybody just shut up? You all know damn-well I'm not a morning person..."
"And yet all facets of yourself can't wait for the moment to rise from bed; explain that psychiatrist!"
Hanako sighed, palming her face as she walked into the shower.
Not even five minutes in, and she already knew that today was gonna be a long day.

A few minutes later, she walked out of the shower, rubbing down her hair.
"You awake?" her father's voice asked from outside her room.
"Awake? Yes. Decent? No."
Hanako sighed.
"I'm up."
"Alright. Breakfast is on the table."
She heard his footsteps fade from earshot, and she sighed again.
With her abdomen this busted up, if she could even keep the food inside, she'd be surprised.

She picked up her empty plate, feeling a lot less nauseous than she expected.
"So... You ate rather slowly today," Inoichi commented.
"Yesterday's training was... Hard," was her soft reply. "Moving hurts a little."
Inoichi nodded. "I can recommend a masseuse, if you want. I've heard there's a Hyuuga from the main branch who uses his Byakugan for that sort of thing."
"No, thanks;" she said with a slight smile. "I've got a mission today, so we'll have to put a pin in it."
"...A mission?" Inoichi seemed to be sitting a bit straighter now. "Are you sure you're up for it? The Chunin Exams were a week ago, and you seem tired."
"I'm fine, I'm fine," she said, waving her hand playfully. Even though it hurt, she said "I'm not so sore that every movement hurts; eating was just a bit uncomfortable."
He furrowed his brow. "But you just said..."
He went quiet for a moment.
"...Whatever you say," he said, leaning back in his seat. "Just watch yourself; I'd rather you didn't kill yourself out there."
"Trust me, dad; if blood is spilt, I think I can safely assume it won't be mine."
He nodded.
"In that case, you'd best head out for your mission. Punctuality is important."
She nodded back at him.
"Alright. Take care of the dishes."
With that, she walked away.
She almost reached for the spare key, but then remembered how she didn't need it.
Lock-picking is a pretty useful trait, after all.
Then, without another word from her father, she was gone.

---

Coren sighed, tapping the front of his right boot on the ground as he leaned against the gate.
He tried asking Minato a variety of questions but, as I'm sure you can guess, the guy wouldn't give a straight answer.
He just got ridiculous riddles and none of it all made any sense. If Coren didn't know better, than he'd think Minato'd been screwing with him the whole time.
Unfortunately for Minato, he didn't know better.
Prick.
"You're here early," his red-headed sensei said with a smile.
"I've been here for four hours," he calmly responded. "Problem is, Big Boss hasn't."
Kushina's smile faded a bit.
"...Wha?"
Coren's gaze fixed behind Kushina before he nodded.
Before Kushina could turn around, the Coren she'd been looking at dispelled, wind bursting away from it.
"...A wind clone, huh?"
She turned around, facing the original.
"That's a pretty hard to control technique there, Coren."
He shrugged in response.
"It's useful, though."
"When'd you get the time to train for it?"
"There's always a bit of time between the days, as dusk or dawn begins, that none are awake. Times like those are simply too good to let be wasted."
She frowned, crossing her arms. "Shouldn't you try to rest more, not train?"
"What need does one have for rest, when one heals at the rate I do?" Coren walked past her, standing where his clone had been. "In any case, I'd rather have a technique at the expense of an hour's sleep than I would not have the technique at all."
She sighed, shaking her head.
"Fine, I'll drop that subject. If you don't mind me asking, though, how'd you know when to come? The clone said he'd been waiting for four hours, so why'd you pop up now?"
Coren smirked.
"Luck."
Kushina was about to call BS, but then he looked past her, just as the clone did.
This time, though, the one he was looking at was Hanako.
"Good morning, both of you."
Coren nodded in greeting, and Kushina smiled again.
"Well, that's makes three of the five. Wanna place bets on how long it'll take for them to get here?"
Coren shrugged.
"Jacob'll arrive pretty soon, but I've got no idea on the fifth. Last I checked, this is a three-man cell with a jonin-teacher."
"Oh, don't worry; you know the person coming."
Coren sighed.
Well, that meant it was probably Anko.
Balls.
Where's Jacob, anyway?
Hanako's later than usual, so he should be arriving pretty soon...

Unedited:

"Hey hey hey! What's on the agenda for today?"
I walked towards the group, smiling.
"What's our mission? It's not another escort mission, I hope; our last one didn't end as well as you'd think."

"Hay is for horses," Kuro chimed in playfully.
Not that anyone heard it, of course.
"Oh, I heard about that," Kushina said, her tone oddly cold. "Trust me, I made sure to look around this mission. We're not gonna run into him."
Coren raised an eyebrow.
"Sounds to me like you two have a past. He always been a manipulative prick?"
Kushina turned to him, glaring at him.
"That's enough of this discussion. Anyway, the mission we have is to help concrete relationships between Konoha and Suna."
Oh.
Oh sh*t.
Suna and Kushina did not mix.
She'd heard about the way they treated their jinchuriki, and she was not happy about it.
This had the potential to become a war between nations.
"Restriction 117: Release."
Coren blinked once, his mind shifting.
"And what will we be doing?"
His voice took a more calculating turn, which only Hanako caught.
Crazies recognize crazies, after all.
"Not much; we'll be in Suna for around a month, doing D-Ranks and trying to be good to the people there."
She said trying, as if it were an effort that she might fail at.
"Do, or do not; there is no try," he calmly stated.
"One must try in order to do."
"To try is to attempt; to do is to succeed." Coren crossed his own arms over his chest. "We do not attempt, and we do not fail; we do what needs to be done, or we don't. Nothing more."
Kushina's brow furrowed.
"...You know, you're really getting on my nerves."
"And you aren't the first to tell me that."
"I'll bet I'm the first hot red-head to tell you it."
"And you'd lose that bet."
Coren looked beyond Kushina one more time, and damn near choked on his tongue.
"Speak of the Devil and so he shall appear."
Kushina turned around, before smiling.
"Wow, Lilly; we were just talking about you."
Coren tightened his hand into a fist.
"Calm yourself," 117 whispered to him. "Now is a time for collected thoughts."
Coren closed his eyes a moment, before opening them.
He was calm again.
"Hello everybody," Lilligant said, giving a slight bow.
"There's no need for that!" Kushina said with a laugh. "We're all friends here, right?"
Coren frowned, glaring with enough force at Kushina that she broke eye-contact.
"You were chosen for this mission?" he asked calmly. "I can't say you were who I was expecting."
"Kushina requested for me personally," she responded with a smile.
"...Did she now?"
As Coren locked eyes with said jinchuriki, she flinched.
"Those eyes..."
She shuddered, breaking eye contact a second time.
"...In any case," he said, taking a deep breath, "I suppose I'm glad that it's you. It's been a long time since you and I got to hang out for more than five minutes segments at the beginning and endings of the days."
Lilligant smiled.
"Yeah, I 'spose your right."
Coren looked over the group.
"It's probably best to begin introductions now. You already seem to know Kushina, so next is Hanako Yamanaka."
Hanako bowed slightly.
"It's a pleasure; Coren's told me a lot about you."
Lilligant raised an eyebrow.
"Liar."
"...Okay, so he doesn't talk about you," she said with a sigh, rising. "It's still nice to meet you." She offered Lilligant her hand.
"The pleasure's mine," she responded kindly. "I've actually heard a lot about you; your father and I used to work together when you were eight."
Hanako flinched.
"Don't worry though," she said, laughing, "I don't go talking about what parents say about their kids, 'else I'd have to tell Coren's embarrassing childhood stories, and I don't think I'd live to see tomorrow if I did that."
When Lilligant turned back to Coren, she noticed that he was practically stabbing Kushina in the eyes with a 'this is all your fault' look.
"...Next is Jacob Hyuuga," he said calmly, not taking his eyes off the back of the jinchuriki's head.
Lilly smiled, offering her hand to the boy.
"Another person I've heard a lot of. It's a pleasure to meet you, Jacob; if I remember right, it was actually you two who helped Coren home on his first day of Kushina's training."

Unedited:

"Yeah, that was us; he was a real mess after we got him home but, being the one who took care of him, you probably know that better than either of us."
I took a look at Coren, thinking he might be a bit uncomfortable with that memory, but he was still glaring at Kushina.
"...On a separate note, it's a pleasure to meet you again, Lilligant."

"Uh, could we get a move on?" Kushina asked, trying (and failing) to sound impatient.
"That would be a good idea," Coren said glibly. "Perhaps then I could inquire with our sensei the finer details of this mission."
Kushina let out an audible gulp.
Lilligant sighed, shaking her head.
"Y'know, you two are acting a lot like when you and Anko met, Coren. Y'know, just with less booze and more clothes."
That right there made everybody do a spit-take, save the speaker and Coren.
"I would ask you to clarify the context of the situation with everyone else, but somehow, I think that story will only embarrass me further."
Lilligant smiled.
"Then I'm doing my job right."
Coren sighed, shaking his head.
This would be a long mission...

---

The group had been leaping through the trees for the better part of the day and, with Lilligant keeping a lid on the tale of Coren and Anko's meeting and Kushina keeping an even tighter one on the contents of their mission, the trio was left quite bored, though the third (and most handsome) one was so for an entirely different reason.
Coren had taken an oath of silence after leaving the Konoha; or, at least, with how much he spoke, you'd think that. He asked Kushina once what the mission was, but when she said she couldn't say yet, he went silent as Death.
That was what caused Jacob and Hanako's boredom; the complete and utter lack of conversation.
Sure, they could talk to each other, but that's boring. Kushina and Lilligant were holding a discussion that couldn't be heard, despite them being less than ten feet away, and something told the two of them that interrupting them was not the smartest of the given choices.
"So, uh... Jacob," Hanako said awkwardly, "How's the weather?"
"Oh sweet Eris, don't you dare answer that Jacob," Coren said, concern tinging his voice as he broke his oath. "It's a horrible, horrible trap."
Hanako took on a confused expression, before Coren pointing his finger at her.
"I'M ONTO YOU!" he screamed out uncharacteristically, before dashing ahead to the two accompanying jonin.
"...What the Hell was that?" asked Hanako.

Unedited:

"Who really knows? It's 'prolly just Coren being Coren," I said with a shrug, looking at the two jonin ahead. "What do you think they're talking about?"

Before Jacob could finish his sentence, he noticed something odd.
Lilligant wasn't next to Kushina.
"Oh, not much," she said playfully, suddenly right next to him. "Nothing you two'd find interesting, at least."
Hanako almost flinched when she popped out of nowhere, but suppressed it.
"Trust me, if it breaks this infernal silence, I think we're good with anything."
Lilligant laughed melodically, shaking her head a bit.
"Fair enough. It was about Coren."
Hanako frowned.
"...I thought you said we wouldn't find it interesting. Coren's, like, the exact opposite of that."
Lilligant's frown wavered for a moment, but only barely. She turned forward again, looking at said boy, who seemed to be having a conversation with Kushina now.
"...Has he told either of you about his past?"
Hanako tilted her head slightly, but shook her head.
"That's what I thought." She sighed, looking now at the azure sky. "He used to be a fun kid, y'know; he would go out, make friends, and he'd never shut up."
She closed her eyes for a moment, a smile gracing her features, although it was a sad one.
"Sometimes, I can still see that kid; the eccentric, intelligent idiot that existed before. You ever see anything like that?" she asked, turning to look at them. "Where he stopped being... Him, and smiled, at least once?"
Hanako closed her eyes a moment.
"...We've seen him smile once," she said quietly. "At least, only once that didn't look so damn scary. It was during the Chunin Exams; when he came up with the plan to take on Gaara no Subaku."
Lilligant nodded.
"See? He just doesn't smile much anymore."
Hanako looked at the boy in question, still talking with Kushina.
...
"...How much can you tell us about him, without breaking that whole 'doctor-patient confidentiality' thing?"
Lilligant sighed.
"That's really his story to tell; I promised not to go giving it away." Hanako's brow furrowed.
"But-"
"BUT," she said, suddenly cutting off the blond, "That doesn't mean I can't nudge you towards asking yourself. If there's something you want to know, you ask him, alright?"
Hanako nodded.
"I'm headed off to join in their conversation," Lilly said after a moment's pause, "I need to make sure that Coren isn't threatening Kushina with intense bodily harm for putting me on a dangerous mission."
She chuckled a small bit.
"He never did lose how protective he was of me, even after it all..."
With that small tease, she leapt forward, now standing with the other two.
Hanako sighed, looking at the three of them.
"...Next time we get to an inn, let's ask him, alright?" she asked her teammate.

Unedited:

I sighed. "Fine, fine, but you're gonna be the one to ask, though, and for two reasons. The first is that you're a girl, and he probably doesn't hit girls as hard as boys. Second, because I really like not being incredibly scarred over 90% of my body."

Hanako frowned.
"Y'know, for a brief moment, I thought chivalry was still alive. Then I met you, and you prove over and over that it's deader than the horse this joke's beating. But fine; I'll be the one to ask about it, if you're so-"
Hanako suddenly went silent. Looking ahead, Jacob could plainly see why. Kushina had signaled for them to stop, and was looking around cautiously.
Coren had his hand on his sword, and Lilligant's own was in her pouch.
"Problem?" Coren asked calmly.
"Just making sure we're alone before I start talking about the mission," she responded with equal calm.
Coren tensed slightly.
It's about damn time.
After she relaxed a bit, Coren asked
"What kind of mission? From the way you're acting, it sounds like covert ops."
She nodded, turning to look at her team.
"It's certainly a covert operation, to say the least." She pulled out a scroll, tossing it to Coren.
He quickly read it over before closing his eyes and the scroll.
"...Are you sh*tting me?"
Lilligant was about to smack him and tell him to watch his mouth, but then he handed her the scroll.
"...Wow, for once, I think I can agree with that," she said, eyes wide.
Next, it was passed to Hanako, who read it aloud.
"Hired Village: Konohagakure no Sato."
"Client: Temari of the Sand, from Sunagakure no Sato."
"Rank: A."
At that, she paused, reading and repeating it three times.
"The details explain why the high rank," Coren said calmly.
She nodded, beginning to read aloud, though the shock was still evident in her voice.
"I, Subaku no Temari, daughter of the Fourth Kazekage, formally request the assistance of Coren Keitaro."
Hanako paused again, and Kushina gestured for her to continue.
"Few details can be given through this due to the high rank of this mission, but it does pertain to the jinchuriki of the Ichibi no Tanuki, Gaara no Subaku. I hope to receive your assistance."
Hanako blinked a few times.
"...Why would she be requesting you specifically?" Coren shrugged.
"If I had to hazard a guess? It's because I beat Gaara in the Chunin Exams. She did say it pertains to him specifically."
Kushina nodded.
"This's the point that you choose whether or not we accept the mission or not. I'd've asked you back at the village, but jinchuriki are a rather sensitive subject."
Coren nodded.
"You would know about that especially," he said off-handedly.
He turned to the group.
"Well, you heard her. You know full-well that I don't make decisions like these without my teams opinions, so what do you two think?" he asked, looking specifically at Hanako and Jacob. "You're being sent on a high-ranked mission with few details that has to do with the container of one of the nine Demon Lords, where we were requested specifically. The question here is:
"Do you want to go?"