<span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: palatino;"><br/>His group was so quiet, it was kinda strange. The three young Genin simply watched him as he entered and greeted them. Well, Hyuga Misaki had moved to Yuhara Midori's table, either simply to group together better, or as a sign of solidarity with her new teammate reamained to be seen. Interestingly, the movement did not seem to really enhance her ability to act as bodyguard to the Hyuga heir, which was her 'primary duty' as dictated by the clan head. Still, their lack of reaction to his entrance and greeting was just...different.<br/><br/>Then again, Noboru was grouchy and had probably trained his students not to make much noise; he'd had three years to do it, after all. Though, with what he'd read from Noboru about these three, they hadn't ever been especially outgoing. That was a shame, but not necessarily bad. Meant they paid more attention to direction than not, probably. So, a good thing.<br/><br/>But what else should he expect from the Hyuga heir and his sister? The other one had been observed interacting with and spending a lot of time with them as well, so it would track that she would pick up more of their habits, too.<br/><br/>The cat would probably be a problem eventually. Unless it could be trained, but cats were notoriously difficult, especially if she had not already started. There was no indication that she had.<br/><br/>That the new genin were grouped by their social ties was a fairly smart move, he thought: without rivalries or difficulty getting along, it would make the teamwork that much stronger, and help to make each team specialized. How they would specialize would remain to be seen, but for the first ever group of graduating genin, it was a smart move. Not that the Hokage would do anything other than the smart thing. There was a reason he was the leader, and the strength he had was not just in combat prowess, but in the ability to strategize and plan and see the best path to take.<br/><br/>And so it was his job to mould this younger generation into a group who could participate in the Hokage's plan.<br/><br/>As he spoke, they all gave him their full attention, if in their own ways. Hyuga Ibiki seemed genuinely curious, but his sister was very defensive and seemed almost..protective of Yuhara Midori. Especially with how she had positioned herself at the desk, her folded arms, and the way she assessed him before he even spoke. Likely, Midori would differ to the twins in most situations, and while she likely would not like to, Misaki would differ to her brother due to duty only. That would force him into a leadership position; even now he was situated in front of the two girls. Ryuu could not quite decide if he thought that Ibiki realized that yet or not. He had the opportunity to grow into an effective leader, but he had been observed being dismissive of others outside his very small social circle.<br/><br/>From Noboru's observations, not one of the three were very social with anyone else, in contrast with most of the other students and new genin. <br/><br/>When asked to describe herself and her teammates, Hyuga Misaki pulled out of her defensive attitude and professionally and efficiently evaluated not only herself, but her brother and her teammate. Part of what he was doing was seeing their ability to observe and then relay data, but also it was interesting to watch the reactions of the other two to Misaki's words. He'd picked her first, of course, because she was known to be accurate to the point of being bluntly unkind: this would be a good indication of how they would interact with one another...<br/><br/>____ ___ __ _<br/><br/>Secretly, it pleased Midori to no end that Misaki moved to be closer to her when Instructor Ryuu entered the room. Misaki liked to act annoyed a lot, especially with her, but by now Midori was pretty sure that the other girl liked being friends with her. Even when they'd first met, she had sort of reached out in her awkward and aggressive way. Why else would she have spent time to help her train and get better? For a long time, Misaki had intimidated her, even sort of scared her a little, but Midori thought that that was a lot of her own reaction to feeling lonely. And Midori knew what it was to be lonely. <br/><br/>She thought maybe Ibiki did too. Maybe that was why the three of them got along?<br/><br/>Well, Misaki was always sort of tense around Ibiki, and more angry. The best times were when it was the two of them, though it seemed, sort of, that Misaki was less actually-angry lately, and more so because she was just used to being that way now. Soon, maybe, she would let go of that too. Midori really hoped that they would be able to get along better at some point, and she tried so hard to help them do so. Which was hard, because Ibiki was treating her less and less like family, and Midori had no idea <em>why</em>, let alone how to fix it. Because she knew that Misaki did not like it, and that was probably why she was staying angry for so long.<br/><br/>Maybe.<br/><br/>Ibiki was a pretty good friend too, though. They were her first and only friends, besides Sunako, and so the newly-minted genin really tried to take care of them, in so much as she was able. Especially since they were so much more capable than she was.<br/><br/>It was so very like Misaki to point out how she would target them when she was evaluating skills; to Midori, it seemed like Misaki was always looking for everyone's weak point. What was unlike her was the way she sort of paused before moving on to talk about Midori. Well, that, and that she thought that Yuuhei was still an infant. An infant could hardly fling himself onto her stomach with as much flair and velocity as her cousin could, but she was also pretty sure that Misaki hadn't ever really seen him, though she probably had heard him screaming her name when she came home sometimes. His high-pitched little voice was deceptive.<br/><br/>She'd never known that Misaki thought she was 'highly intelligent': the praise made her flush a little and stare at her friend. The comment about targeting Sunako (and she <em>knew</em> that Misaki knew the cat's name) was surprising but also not: it was very Misaki, anyway, and easy enough to let go.<br/><br/>By the time Misaki looked back at her, Midori was still staring at her, and a bit flushed, but as soon as she realized her friend was feeling bad for her words, she smiled slightly, enough to let her know that she wasn't hurt by what was said at all. Most of that she already knew, anyway. Except that Misaki, who was so <em>amazing</em> at everything important, thought she was intelligent, and that she was good at not getting too close when fighting. Which she'd always thought was a bad thing, but it didn't seem that Misaki thought it was bad.<br/><br/>"That was a very thorough assessment, thank you Misaki. Yuhara Midori, do you have anything to add?" the small girl blinked, returning her attention to Instructor Ryuu.<br/><br/>How could she follow that up? Misaki had covered almost everything. Frowning a moment, Midori sifted through his original question. Observations. She had observations about her friends, though some seemed sort of personal: like Misaki being sort of mad at Ibiki but probably it was really that she was hurt by how he acted. And how Ibiki seemed like he was confused by Misaki being angry with him, so he was mostly frustrated at her. Those were things that she thought Instructor Ryuu didn't need to know, and if he did want to now, he could figure that out for himself.<br/><br/>So.. observations. Yeah, okay. She could do that.<br/><br/>"I think, Instructor Ryuu, that Misaki covered most of the technical parts, and she's really good at analyzing skills and weaknesses. For observations, because you asked for some of those too, I know that Ibiki only eats nutritious food, and nothing really fun or frivolous, so I haven't figured out what food he likes yet. Misaki likes hanami dango the best. But they both like to train with other people, doing sparring, except that it's hard for them to find peers who can do a good job at that..."<br/><br/>She paused a moment, "I think katas are boring too, though." especially since she <em>still</em> had so much trouble with them and had to do them more than everyone else to keep at a passing level at the Academy. <br/><br/>"Also, Ibiki is very formal, and I think has an easier time talking to more important people," like his father, who Midori found to be super intimidating, but she was polite and was mostly sure that she had never done anything to actively annoy the man. "And Misaki is always honest, and sometimes seems unkind when she is really just not worrying about disguising her meaning, which is a good thing in some situations too. Misaki is more quick to actively defend, while Ibiki is more prone to wait and observe more before choosing an action..." It was hard to put into words what she meant, but even when she first met them, Misaki had been quick to defend herself by pushing back at everyone, while Ibiki had been curious but very reserved and observant.<br/><br/>"What about you, then?" Instructor Ryuu was hard to read, but now that they had been talking, he seemed very interested and focused, and much less..weird.<br/><br/>"I'm not really... not really good at interacting with my peers, but I do pretty good with adults, I think." she nodded once for emphasis, still not sure if she'd done that right. All of it was things she'd observed, or thought she'd figured out about her friends from their behavior, but she'd never actually said it out loud before. Maybe they wouldn't like it?<br/><br/>Now it was her turn to glance at her friends, Misaki and then Ibiki, to see if they were upset by her words.<br/><br/>For a moment, she thought maybe Instructor Ryuu was waiting for her to say more, but he nodded after a second of thought, "I see. Ibiki, is there anything else you'd like to add? If not, I'll move ya right along to the physical evaluation. We'll run down to the forrest, and you'll be tasked with defeating me. The evaluation will begin the moment we enter the training grounds. Your objective is to retrieve the object I have tucked in my pouch before your time is up. So.. anything ta add before we go?" he leveled his gaze on Ibiki, making sure to give the boy a chance to speak up if he were somehow put-off by the lack of a chance to truly add anything to either side of the situation...<br/><br/></span>