Raito and Karasu sat in a clearing, simply practicing their weapons mastery.
Raito had grown since he'd left Konoha. He'd grown to almost 5 feet 5, and his white hair had grown long. His eyes, which had always been white, had bags under them from the constant mission he'd participated in. However, the most important thing he'd grown in was his shinobi capability.
His teammate, on the other hand, had grown tremendously. Karasu and Raito had been amicable when they were younger, but that had changed as they were put on a team together with their now-dead teammate, Rin. Karasu had earned the nickname, Crow's eyes, as he used Crow's as summoning creatures. His black hair, but white eyes, made for a fun contrast. Karasu had most importantly replaced Rin as the team's medical nin.
The two teammates stood around; they were supposed to be looking for new teammates but neither really wanted to. Raito was simply too tired, and Karasu didn't want to go into the village by himself. Karasu, after throwing another set of shuriken, looked at his teammate, whose eyes were closed. Raito was still perfectly hitting the target with his kunai and shuriken, but it was clear the boy's eyes did not want to stay open.
Karasu said, "Raito! Take a nap, bro."
Raito's eyes opened, and he immediately collapsed. Then he listened to Karasu. Immediately, the white haired boy fell to the ground and slept. For hours, the black haired boy watched his teammate sleep and rested himself as well. There was no reason for him to practice without Raito.
When Raito awoke, it was halfway into the afternoon. Raito got up, dusting himself off, and looked for Karasu. Karasu had left only a few minutes before to grab food, and within a few minutes returned.
The two enjoyed their sushi in silence. However, once they were done, they had to face the elephant in the room.
"We need to find someone, someone who complements, obviously."
Karasu nodded solemnly. Rin had complimented the two of them perfectly; she'd been good at medic ninjutsu and an extremely effective taijutsu fighter. Raito's ability to use deceptive genjutsu and extreme wind capability balanced out Karasu's own fire jutsu and his summonings helped them with travel. However, she'd died, being killed by a stone jutsu that neither of the living teammates had heard of.
Karasu replied, "We should spar. Figure out what our abilities are again. It's been almost a month since you or I fought anybody. We're not rusting, but we sure as hell aren't improving."
Raito sighed and said, "Yea, then we'll write them down and try to find someone with as little overlap as possible."
Karasu nodded his head and did a kip-up from his position lying down. Raito simply stood up from sitting and cracked his neck. He'd recovered completely from his previous tiredness but his eyes were still baggy. He had a feeling that they would stay that way for a long time.
The two genin stood across from each other, dirt as far as the eye could see, and the distant statue of Inazuma stood tall. Raito got into his almost instinctual taijutsu stance, the Precision Fist. In the blink of an eye, the two genin dashed at each other.
Karasu threw a punch with his left arm. Raito simply moved his head to the left of the arm and used his own left arm to punch the boy in the gut. Karasu moved a couple of inches back and threw a back elbow at his teammate. Raito once again dodged and, this time, jumped into the air, shooting three kunai at Karasu. The black haired boy was pierced by the kunai, only to dissipate into a murder of crows.
Karasu then appeared multiple feet away from Raito and began molding hand seals. Raito landed and did the same.
At the same time, they yelled.
[Light Style: Infinite Spectrum Jutsu]
[Fire Style: Wings of Flame Jutsu]
Karasu's eyes widened as he saw colors he didn't know were possible. Raito barely avoided the tens of wing-shaped flames that barrelled towards him. His arm was singed but he only needed one hand to use his next jutsu.
[Light Style: Instant Doubling]
A white flash appeared behind Karasu before the boy could even dispel the genjutsu he'd been put under. Karasu grinned maniacally as the kunai came to his throat. The bunshin he'd been using disappeared.
[Earth Style: Inner Decapitation]
Raito's face dropped as he felt a hand dragging him under the ground. However, before his hands were pulled under, he managed to perform a substitution. Once again, the two opponents were face-to-face, only a few feet apart.
Raito asked, "When could you use Earth Style? I thought you had an affinity with fire?"
Karasu grinned, a wide, mischievous grin, "The Crow's showed me. They told me that they have Earth and Wind affinities. So I learnt the jutsu with their help. It's extremely taxing, though, like you said, I don't have an earth affinity."
Raito nodded solemnly before getting back into his stance. Karasu did the same, using the basic Konoha taijutsu stance. Dato hadn't developed his own, and so Karasu had just mastered the one they'd been taught at the academy.
Raito internally wondered how to push his developing dojutsu further. He'd been developing it with the help of his clan, and mostly his mother. He knew that dojutsu could not come in full most of the time, and that reworking chakra networks in the eyes would take a while. So he decided to push his eyes to the extreme.
He made the rat hand sign, and immediately, chakra entered his eyes. This time, though, he kept the chakra flowing to his eyes.
Constantly, he saw light moving through the air and realized, if he could use the dojutsu in battle, he could become unstoppable. However, before he could even move, he fell to his knees. His body collapsed under the overuse of chakra. Immediately, he was reminded of just why he didn't keep the technique on.
Karasu began to laugh and said, "Does that mean I win?"
Raito grunted and sat back up. Karasu came towards Raito and looked at the boy's eyes. Then the green chakra flowed out from his hands. Raito could feel the warmth of the chakra strengthening his eyes and repairing them.
Raito said, "Thank you, crow. Now, who would compliment us?"
"We're both extremely specialized as of now. I'd suggest someone with two affinities or more to join. However, we'll be hard-pressed to find someone like that."
As the two were talking, a group of genin came into the clearing, giggling and talking about the cutest people in their graduating class. Raito's ears perked, and he looked at them.
The genin's headbands shone with underuse, so Raito assumed they were the first of the Dato academies' students. Karasu sat next to his teammate and pulled out a scroll for them to write their abilities on. He was completely unbothered by the giggling children.
The group of genin eventually noticed the two children, who were their age. One of them, a taller girl with brown hair and yellow eyes, spoke.
"We're meeting our sensei here. Who are you two?"
Karasu grinned, "We're figments of your imagination. There was a genjutsu at the entrance of this training ground. You guys clearly already failed your sensei's test."
Raito scoffed, giving away Karasu's lie.
"You all are in the graduating class, right? It's nice to see you all so happy. We'll leave you all, and your sensei be."
Raito was made to stand when a booming voice rang through the dirt clearing.
"Wait, Raito-san! I want you to teach these greenies how weak they are."
Karasu turned slowly and looked at the man who wore a jonin vest, specially designed to keep dirt off. It was the jonin vest of the Dato village, all the dirt around got on stuff so they tried their best to design dirt-resistant gear. Under the vest, a sparring gi, blue in color, sat comfortably on the broad shoulder of the man.
Two other jonin stood next to him. One was a woman, wearing the same vest, but the normal shinobi attire underneath. Her pupils were white, and so Raito deduced she was an Arashi. The other jonin was a small limbed man with glass over his eyes and a very sad face.
Raito replied, "No, we have to go find a teammate."
"A teammate," repeated the female jonin.
The loud one with a gi, grinned and said, "Raito-san, I am Hakuji. I have a perfect girl ready to be a kunoichi for you."
Karasu replied, "We don't need a girl. We need.." he looked down at the scroll to see Raito had written all his jutsus on it, "We need a strong ninjutsu user who can stay long range and be our medic nin."
Hakuji made a thoughtful face before pointing at one of the newly graduated genin.
"Aoi Kento! I think you can solve these problems." Hakuji turned towards Raito, "We had an extra student pass the exams. So we need to give one to a team anyways."
The crowd of children split, and a girl with dark brown hair and brown eyes walked forward towards Raito and Karasu.
She spoke quietly, "I can use lightning style and Hakuji-sensei thought that I could grow into using water style."
Raito nodded, and Karasu spoke, "Good. Come with us, we'll have to test this so called ability of yours."
The three genin walked away from the training grounds and immediately Karasu began to speak to the girl. Aoi was quiet, and replied well, but Raito was concerned for her initiative. Karasu was the one asking all the questions, and that was not normal. Then the thought that Karasu liked the girl crossed his mind. Raito didn't say anything but slowly fell behind the other two, and watched their interactions.
Without a doubt, Karasu was quickly falling for the girl. Raito grinned. There would be teasing about this later.
They went to another training ground and after Karasu wrote down his own capability on the scroll, Raito watched Karasu test Aoi. Aoi was a surprise to Raito, she was not quick, not as quick as him, but she had a special dojutsu. Her dojutsu allowed her to see through the skin and watch people's muscular movements.
Karasu tested the ability which was called Magan. Her eyes could see through trees and with enough chakra pumped into them, they could see chakra itself. Raito himself was writing everything he saw about his potential teammate down for his father. Presumably, a report on the girl was already at his desk, but another would not hurt.
It had only been a week since his father had assigned him to find a new teammate, and they did. He didn't yet understand how little that could matter.