The stones turned cherry red into the fire that we dropped into a pot of water to make stew.
The hunger of the three days no stops run of a few weeks before when we got separated by our sensei and needed to lose pursuers. The need to grow. The rage at the sheer violence that permeated this world I ended up in.
...
The burning sensation of muscles in the middle of training, the scorching hot feel of sensei' punches grazing me. I felt the change more easily this time, my neutral chakra growing hotter and climbing up from my stomach, looking for fresh air to consume.
Carefully and slowly, I controlled the output, constricting the fire so that the only direction it could grow into was my arms. It reached my palms, and the leaf sizzled.
I opened my palms without letting go of the feeling, and my palms were cherry red, with the smoldering remains of the leaf on them. With a smile, I smothered the Katon chakra.
It didn't require me less effort than wind, but I had received tips from Shin, that for his pyromaniac joy was a fire natured shinobi. I had to make do with scrolls from the library for both my water and wind natured training.
Sure, the first was my natural affinity and for the second I had made liberal use of what Asuma had explained to Naruto in the manga.
I still had to begin with Doton and Raiton, but I had time before shit started hitting the fan. I still had three months of patrol duty, during which I wanted to finish the second stage of elemental training for both wind and fire.
Then I would go with Raiton, trying to find a way to perform elemental combination techniques on my own on the side.
"Daiki!" A voice sounded through the woods. Hana. I correctly identified her. I dispersed my mist and flickered next to her.
She threw a punch on reflex to the sudden apparition. Following my routine, I nimbly dodged and smacked her on the ass.She squealed in surprise before actually growling at me.
"Stop sneaking up on me to..!" she interrupted to swing a solid punch at me.
"I don't sneak up." I flippantly answered.
"And you should always cover your rear."
I answered with an evil grin. Not that I was into fourteen years old, but these people needed a sexual revolution. If every woman was so uptight as I saw in the manga getting laid randomly would be very difficult.
Well, there are always whores. I reassured myself. It also disturbed me greatly that almost every single man in Konoha was a pervert, at least basing myself on the manga. Then, let us put it. The life of a shinobi, or kunoichi, grants someone the perfect ass.
Well, unless you're an Akimichi. I corrected myself. I remembered that Jiraya's motivation to take seriously his training had been 'getting all the girls', I could relate, easily.
"Is he still flirting?" Shin asked, appearing perched on a branch over our heads.
"And failing at it." I happily added. Enjoying the scandalous blush on Hana's face. Teens. I snorted, dodging another punch.
"You can play later, we need to return home, sensei received a missive through a monkey summon." Shin quickly cut us apart.
"A monkey summon? That means directly from the Hokage right?" I asked. At their nods, I flickered over to the camp, quickly sealing away my possessions.
"That explains why a messenger managed to find us, he is a scary old man after all."
"Don't be disrespectful!" Hana scolded me.
"Do you see a lot of sixty years old shinobi walking around? His age is a testament to his skill." I quickly answered.
"Where is sensei?" I then asked.
"He moved south with Hai, Ma and Ru, it will be... fifteen clicks by now, but we have a clean road thanks to him, so we'll catch up quickly," Hana answered.
I finished gathering my things and we were bloting through the branches. "You can't just call them like that because they are the Haimaru brothers." I objected. Alpha, Beta and Gamma worked wonderfully.
"Well, they are her ninkens." Shin butted in.
He earned himself a nasty glare from me. Alpha was a good name. If only to remark that he was smarter than the other two.
"You do realize that technically this will be a failed mission, yes?" I swiftly changed the topic. By their sudden frowns and protests, I guessed that they didn't make the connection, so I elaborated.
"We were supposed to go 6 months incommunicado, with sensei to supervise, swiping through whatever shit we found. They were making us a six units hunt squad, and once we climbed the ranking ladder high enough we would have been asked to become hunter nin."
"That's why we wouldn't have had to pass the chunin exams to be promoted?" Shin acutely pointed out "So that we could stay off the bingo books?"
I nodded. "It looked like these six months were our examination."
"But then why stopping us?"Hana asked, rightfully confused.
"It can't be cheap keeping sensei off the roosters for much longer." After all, while the bulk of the money to the Hokage Tower came by a vast number of D and C ranks, it was high ranked shinobi and A-ranked missions that brought the advertising and the following best jobs, even the S ranked, but those couldn't be discussed.
"So, sensei is spearheading the road for us." I recapped, following the trail he knowingly left. "Is this because the message made him regress to his hyper-protective behavior, or because we are needed in Konoha asap?"
Nobody answered since the answer to both questions pointed out that something happened. In the shinobi' world, that usually meant bad news. And I had an idea about what exactly had happened.
...
We had reached Guy sensei by midday, the man was just that fast. And then we had run straight towards the village, cutting through whatever happened to be on the way.
We run over the roofs of a rural little village, we severely crippled a very unlucky group of bandits which was likely made up by academy dropouts. We went ahead with food pills and I condensed water from the air into our bottles.
We didn't sleep or stop to take a shit, for a whole week. Our group of seven, with sensei opening the way, was like a battering ram through the glass that was the vast forest of Hi no Kuni. By the fourth day, my teammates started getting sloppy with their chakra control, leaving marks on the branches, or faltering here and there.
The Haimaru brothers and sensei righted them up every time. For the first two days and nights, I kept up my natural chakra training. Changing from neutral to water, then going back to normal. Then fire, wind.
Then I sprouted a killing headache and I kept myself at a steady pace, letting my mind numb down, so that I was only focused on following the orange leg warmers of Guy. We proceeded in silence, for two reasons: one, not wasting breath, two not announcing our presence to others in the area.
I think we crossed a road upon which a jonin sensei was walking with his team, escorting a caravan. Probably Guy had exchanged communication with sign language, because their sensei didn't intervene.
There had been some rain on the fifth day, which managed to awaken me a little, and with a twitch of my chakra I filled to the brim our supply of water. Surprisingly or not, it looked like the 'just keep going' state aided my Suiton. It was something to look into.
On the morning of the eighth day, we stopped at the gate of the village, and while sensei was signing in our return, I swiftly dragged medical chakra on my legs, relishing in the fresh sensation.
They weren't rested, and the mental fatigue was still there, but at least running through half of Hi no Kuni at high speed with my weights on had still been an effective training. The Haimaru brothers were the ones that reacted better to the intensive workload.
But then, they always had only to train their bodies, since their techniques were all Yang based, and Hana was the one to provide the Ying component.
A whole week with a silent Guy sensei was a strange as fuck thing for everyone. Nevertheless, every dream must vanish when one wakes up.
"My youthful students!" He started.
"I'll race you to the Hokage's office, where we have been summoned! Ready? Go!" And he was off.
Hana was dead on her feet, so I most gracefully circled a bit of healing chakra through her legs. While I was treating her, Shin whined.
"Why do you always heal her first?"
"Because she has nicer legs." I answered with a croaking voice. A week of silence will do that to anybody. Hana was so tired that she didn't even punch me, choosing to glare at me hatefully instead.
I chuckled and moved over to Shin, only numbing down the pain. Then we too followed our sensei to the Hokage Tower. While on the roofs, I stole a glance at the Uchiha compound. Wooden planks over the windows, paper doors still broken.
I sighed. I was a great sustainer of personal freedom, meaning that everyone was entitled to their choices. But goddamit Itachi, what's the point of doing that?
We reached the lobby and nodded to the secretary, who watched us with a blank expression but nodded nonetheless, directing us to the office. It wasn't necessary to point out that his secretary was an Anbu, tasked with raising the alarm in case of an attempt of attack.
I managed to contain a snort. As if anyone could wish to face the Sandaime.
Even with the Anbu ninjas without a doubt hidden around, the total of five shinobi, and three very big dogs, the Hokage's office managed to not look overcrowded.
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