A wave of sand rises up to slap the balloons out of the air.

Hm, gonna be hard to get around...

Is she reacting at all to Hisame being visible?

Still waiting.

He doesn't want to taunt her because then she might stop wanting to be his friend...

He doesn't know any cool shinobi techniques...

How quickly does her sand react to him if he starts sneaking up behind her?

Instantaneously.

He scrambles back.

"You'll have to try harder."

He frowns, backing up, to whisper with his new team.

Elieyha will have a pretty long gap to respond to them in.

She doesn't take advantage of it.

Going on the offensive would undermine things, after all. Besides, this is less work for her.

It's really hard to get three five year olds to come up with, let alone agree on, a clever plot, especially when none of them have any chakra training and two of them just met their nominal leader.

Hisame gets impatient; Sasuke gets snarky; Naruto gets frustrated.

Their 'plan' ends up being rushing her from three sides.

Meh. Close enough.

He's expecting they won't get very close.

Still, they all three give their best.

That's what counts in the end, right?

Naruto's groaning, but also laughing when he loses, while the other two are just pouting.

"How are you doing that with the sand?"

"All the jinchuuriki of the One Tail can control sand."

"So you can't teach it?"

"Probably not. Never tried."

"Is there stuff you can teach us?"

"I cheat and use sand for most things, so." Shrug.

"Maybe all four of us can bug me and Sasuke's brother for lessons."

"He probably knows stuff."

"He's a chuunin, so he should."

"Should and could provide no shade."

She laughs. "That a Suna saying?"

"Yeah."