Open RP post for Inuzuka Hana

[puppypile]

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[puppypile]

"Because your sensei's greatest joy is hearing you complain, obviously he wouldn't put you in a position to finally end your complaints for awhile. He has even more reason than the mission desk clerks, silly. He listens to you more frequently." Hana just smirked at the pose Kiba had struck, reaching over to poke him lightly in the ribs. "Shinobi are sneaky, Kiba. Maybe not you, maybe not most of our clan, but as a general rule? You have to expect them to do underhanded things."

Hana had learned that the hard way. It had been in small part drilled into her as clan heir, but mostly she just had years of experience taking people at face value. And then being wrong about things. The Inuzuka were straightforward enough, why couldn't everyone else be? Hana looked forward to many things about leading the clan, but village politics were not among those. There was only so much preparation Tsume could offer, seeing as she was no more politically inclined than her daughter.

She grimaced as Kiba spoke of his teammates' aspirations, telling him, "I'll need to go for jounin soon too. Our clan doesn't care, especially given my veterinary skills, but the others won't have any respect for a clan whose heir is still a chuunin well into her twenties."

Hana grinned then. "I shouldn't encourage all the brawls in the streets that would result if anyone said that to our faces." No one should ever insult an Inuzuka where her clanmates could hear.

[fangoverfang]

Kiba grunted at the poke, flailing his hands out to lightly smack her hand away as if the movement might have persisted. He was sure his sister wouldn't have resorted to attacking his ribs in a tickle fight in the middle of a conversation, but like she said....underhanded, sneaky tactics.....

He didn't want to talk about sensei and his rampant bullying so instead he stomped - not entirely unlike a moody toddler - over to the examination table and hoisted himself up to sit on it's edge, legs swinging idly.

But then he grinned, forgetting all about his own woes to share in his sisters mirth at the idea of knocking out the lights of anyone who'd insult the way the Inuzuka did things. "Heh, yeah. No-one would be dumb enough to. I don't see why should have to make jounin just so people will respect you anyway, they should respect you without the promotion."

[puppypile]

When Kiba's sulking turned to smiling defense of his sister, Hana grinned back at him before turning away. She knelt, beckoning Akamaru over, and spent a moment scratching his ears before actually doing anything resembling an exam. She leaned forward to rest her forehead on the big dog's. "Because other clans and people have ridiculous notions of what makes a good leader, and I have to deal with them, not just with my own much more sensible family." Shooting Haru a grateful smile as he nudged her shoulder with his snout, she laughed. "My whole family is more sensible, not just the humans."

In spite of the laugh, Hana was no less intent on training harder. She'd buried herself in her specialty lately, and it was time for more missions. She wouldn't make her clan look bad. Not for anything. Most of this generation's heirs were good people, a lot of them her brother's yearmates and close friends. Hana didn't expect problems with them, but they weren't the only ones who'd be able to exert pressure in the village.

"Special jounin, at least," she allowed, an unspoken 'like Mom,' following the statement. "I should be able to manage that pretty quicly given my tracking and medical skills." Lifting her face to look back up at Kiba, she smiled again. "I wouldn't mind training for the jounin exams if it meant a team of kids afterward, though." If anyone knew just how much Hana enjoyed looking after the clan youngsters, it was her brother. She'd started with Kiba, and then just moved on to everyone younger than him. They were family, and they'd be her responsibility someday. They were hers to help train and look after.

She bared her fangs in a far less gentle grin, remarking, "Then I could be the evil jounin sensei who sends my students sulking to their sisters."

[fangoverfang]

Kiba had grinned back at her when she mentioned kids, but the smile soon disappeared on the back of more teasing, turning to a flat look of the utmost displeasure.

"You wouldn't," he huffed, but he was confident in his words. He and Hana might have looked and seemed on first impression quite opposite from one another, but at their base they were siblings and Hana, like Kiba, would have preferred to be respected and liked than anything otherwise. Kiba enjoyed having a rally of friends, he liked company and he liked to be respected by his fellow shinobi, so he continued, "Sensei doesn't know how to train me and Shino, so he lets our clans do it for us, then preaches to us about teamwork and tells us to be aware of our surroundings like he's had a part in how we've progressed.." Kiba upturned his nose at that, screwing up his face with distaste. "If you were a sensei, you'd make sure your team trained with you regardless of what talents or affinities they had. Even if they were a leftovers team like mine, you'd find some similarity and train them using that, right? Train them hard and good, so they respect you and each other, and so that they turn into a team rather than just a bunch of shinobi who have to work together."

Kiba's look had turned sour, sore and burned by his situation, but when he realised that his sulk had clawed its way back onto his face, he shook himself free with a little jerk of his head, wrenching his grin back where it belonged.

"You'd be a great sensei."

[puppypile]

Hana couldn't help the gratified smile that spread over her face at her brother's compliments, the quick, "thanks," in response, but she sobered quickly. "You're not a leftovers team," Hana declared firmly, looking straight at Kiba. "None of you. You aren't as obvious a combination as, for instance, the traditional Ino-Shika-Chou combo. That makes it harder to figure out roles, but the three of you are all good people. If you haven't become a real team, someone isn't doing their job right."

She turned back to Akamaru, running a hand over each of his legs to feel for any joint issues. Hana lifted and checked each of his paws, continuing, "You're worth a lot as shinobi, individually and together. I actually think you and Shino could balance each other well if you weren't always sniping." She didn't blame Kiba entirely for that. On the contrary, she thought everyone involved on the team, especially their sensei, played a part in developing sometimes unproductive dynamics. Inuzuka wanted to be part of a group. She was well aware of her clan members' typical faults, but she also knew their strengths, and if a leader could harness that headstrong stubbornness properly, there was no one more loyal or dependable.

She continued with the process that was so routine by now that she doubted she'd have to ask Akamaru for anything. He knew what was going on in the usual exam as well as she did.

Hana finished a very basic physical exam, but left the requisite chakra scans for after lunch. She got back to her feet, going to the desk. Removing everything from her bento, Hana neatly divided it up. A third for Kiba, a third for herself, and a third for the dogs to share to tide them over till their next meal. A quick sniff was enough to rule out harmful ingredients like garlic or onions; Hana was very careful about what she fed any of the family dogs. "Here, eat this," she said, handing Kiba his share. Her own dogs had dishes in the corner of her office, and Hana got down a plate for Akamaru. She sat in her own chair after taking care of everyone else, but spun it around to face Kiba rather than the desk.

[fangoverfang]

Kiba watched closely as Hana carefully mapped out each part of Akamaru with her hands, quiet and studious, entranced by watching her work as he chewed her words over.

...Speaking of chewing. Kiba graciously accepted the offering, immediately taking a huge bite as if he hadn't eaten for weeks. His mothers cooking was getting to be something close to excellent in his books, and whether it was family bias or not, Kiba didn't really care.

With a hamster-cheek full of food, the Inuzuka boy mumbled a noise of thought, then swallowed before he spoke up, "Sure Shino's got potential, but he's such an asshole." He upturned his nose again, eternally frustrated by even the mere thought of that particular Aburame. He wasn't entirely sure when their relationship had started to sour so much from their reasonably amicable days in the academy, but since their team had formed Kiba had found an inherent dislike for the way Shino worked almost as strong as the dislike Shino found in him. They picked at each other incessantly, both bidding for the next opportunity to one-up the other in an endless cycle that caused a rift in their team dynamic right from the get-go. "He's so fucking stuck up, and he's got his bugs shoved so far up his ass I'm pretty certain he's one step away from marrying the little fuckers. He pisses me off on purpose just so he can show off with them. I'm all for working through differences, as much as the next guy, but Shino is impossible to work with."

He paused to lick his fingers, scowling at his hand like it was the cause for all his problems of late.

"And as for Sakura... She's great, but she just doesn't gel with either of us battle-wise - and even out of battle it's kinda tense! She makes fun of me, and when she's not defending sensei's shitty teaching, she's siding with Shino to gang up on me." He dragged his hands down his face and groaned. "I don't see the point in our team. We just don't work, and if sensei has been trying all this time to make it work he's done a god-awful job of it."

[puppypile]

Continued here!