Chapter Two
Survival Training
After the first week of training decided to pay a visit to the twins to watch them train with their parents unobserved. He felt a small surge of pride at being able to spy on his former student as she and her husband worked with the children and therein lay the problem.
Hidan was clearly not meant to teach taijutsu, or anything else, to anyone. He just threw the children right in and expected them to get it. Usagi clearly had learned, though Baki couldn't see how, since Hidan threw temper tantrums when they didn't move right or readjust their positions.
His fierce tongue lashings forced bold Usagi to improve herself since it was as plain as day that she adored her father and worked hard to please him, even though he paid entirely almost too much attention to Jashin and very little to her.
Jashin on the other hand needed someone to show him step-by-step, he also needed a teacher who didn't explode every three seconds to berate him, which shot his self-esteem all to hell.
Temari at least was patient with the children and offered fair constructive criticism and praise where it was due. But taijutsu had never been her strong suit, well it had never been any of the Sand siblings' strong suit. They were all long-range fighters and Temari favored her wind jutsu which would at least explain why the children had excellent dodging reflexes, since they had learned to get out of her way early on.
Feeling like he'd seen enough for now to learn how to remedy the problem with the twins, he than turned back to Suna. Tomorrow he would be observing Tsuru.
The day dawned unbearably hot and windy and Tsuru was impatiently pestering her father to train her, since Yugure was out on a mission. The Kazekage however was much too busy, since he would be sequestered in long tedious meetings over a possible peace treaty with Iwagakure, finally frustrated, she went out and trained by herself, half of it was instinctive due to the sand demon's blood running through her veins the other half was learned.
Unfortunately, she got bored quickly and ended up goofing off most of the day instead. He realized than, that she was difficult precisely because she was a high energy child and while she had all the energy she needed, she desperately needed the perfect balance of structure to keep her focused as well as something challenging and time consuming to hold her interest.
Other interesting things of note was her sand tail, which acted like one parts defensive and offensive weapon, one parts prehensile limb, helping her to climb, hold things and wrap around things and one parts mood indicator which swung, twitched and curled, though her face was so open, he didn't need the tail to figure out what she was feeling.
The second thing he noticed was that she loved to climb. She climbed a lot pulling herself up like she was part monkey and part cat, presumably because she couldn't use wall walking jutsu yet, but it seemed to be a thing of enjoyment and as it was building up her muscles, he wasn't gonna curb it anytime soon. Baki still needed to observe her training with the Kazekage and Yugure, but that would simply have to wait.
Baki soon had them moving out into the desert, reminding them rather to pay attention or they would get lost, after awhile he told Jashin to pick the direction and they traveled towards the west as Jashin's keen eyes took in everything, trying desperately to figure out a way to find landmarks.
"Don't bother with landmarks, they all get swallowed up in the dunes." Baki reminded him.
"And besides, I just need you to pick a place to set up camp."
Jashin frowned a little. "Alright sensei."
They soon found themselves taking up camp by a large cliff, while Baki began teaching them how to set chakra traps and alarms alongside a few small land mines, since there were no trees. It was a higher level technique that he was teaching them and most ninja didn't learn it till they high level Chuunin, but Baki had always turned out excellent teams and he had every intention of pushing them as hard as he had pushed all the rest.
Plus with Tsuru's large chakra reserves and Jashin's brains it would be easier to teach them how to do it and Jashin help his little sister figure it out on her own. Unfortunately, Baki seriously underestimated the animosity between the twins. Jashin was not likely to help his sister out with much of anything and Usagi despised and bullied her older brother relentlessly. Baki had had to break up several fights between them already.
After dinner was made, Baki began telling them about the geography, which was very important for them to know. He told them that River Country lay to the west and to the southwest, with its deserts and hot, arid canyons was Earth Country and more importantly, Iwagakure and farther out, Kusagakure. He explained that navigating Wind Country was all about memory, since there were no paths and few shinobi dared to come out here to attack them since most did not know there way around.
"Now can anyone of you tell me which way Suna is?" He asked.
"It's northeast of here." Jashin answered.
"Good job Jashin." He said, ignoring the way that Usagi mimed her brother behind his back. He sighed inwardly, it was time to teach little-miss-foul-mouth some responsibility.
"Usagi, you're going to take first watch, and then I want you to wake up Tsuru. Tsuru, you're going to wake me up for the last watch. Now go get some rest."
Yawning and stretching, the other two retired to their tents and settled down for the night, while Usagi put out the fire and grumbled under her breath.
Baki smiled to himself in the dark, the Sea of Dunes would be the perfect grounds for increasing their stamina and it would hopefully tire them out at night so they wouldn't bicker so much, let alone play jokes. Little did Baki realize how wrong he was.
He slept peacefully for most of the night, waking up once when he heard Usagi shaking Tsuru awake to take her shift, then things settled down into sweet tranquility and all was well until he became aware of something scuttling on his chest. His eyes snapped open and to his horror he saw a tiny red and blue scorpion, the deadliest species in all of Wind Country a mere fraction of an inch of his nose.
He froze. The Royal Scorpion was aggressive and quick to sting. Its venom paralyzed muscles and organs and required an antidote in no more than half an hour and they were hours away from Suna and none of his students knew how to inject him with a needle yet. Baki stayed absolutely still and prayed that none of his students would come bursting into the tent and startle the arachnid. He wouldn't be the first shinobi to fall victim to it and he wouldn't be the last and he could only hope that one of his students had remembered the way back to Suna.
Then he heard snickered outside the tent and he slashed at the offending creature, watching with relief as it turned instantly into sand. Baki was absolutely furious!
Tsuru and Usagi were clutching their stomachs and laughing uproariously as their sensei stormed out. Those little brats were going to pay.
"Aw! You should have seen the look on your face!" Usagi howled as she leaned up against the tent to support herself.
Tsuru was laughing too hard to say anything at all, her face had gone bright red and tears were rolling down her cheeks.
Just wait till he told them what they were gonna do. Baki couldn't wait to see the look on their faces.
"Tsuru! Usagi! You are both in charge of setting up and cleaning the campsite for the rest of our stay here!"
Usagi stopped laughing. "What?"
Two hours later, the campsite had still not been properly cleaned up to Baki's satisfaction, even Tsuru's sunny disposition was waning.
"What's wrong with it this time?" Usagi asked.
"When a shinobi cleans up their camp, they must leave no trace that they were ever here." Baki explained patiently to the whining girl and then proceeded to tell them what needed picking up and what needed proper disposal.
Finally he was satisfied by the girls' efforts and had Jashin lead them farther away from the Sea of Dunes. Today he was going to teach them how to hunt for water and water sources.
He led them to an old, dried up river bed and taught them how to dig for the roots of flowers and plants that bloomed during the deserts occasional flashfloods.
Then he began teaching Tsuru how to meditate so that she could connect with her own element and seek out water beneath the ground, or how to sense out a rare oasis.
He taught them how to treat it with so they wouldn't have to worry about getting ill and even if they were truly desperate, how to convert their own urine into water with a combination of jutsu and chemicals.
He was not surprised to see how grossed out they all were, but reminded them, that water was precious in the desert and that an unknowledgeable person was more likely to die from dehydration than starvation.
It had been four days since they had started and now with their food rations beginning to run out, it was time to teach them how to hunt for food on their own. Non- poisonous snakes, roots and tubers, reptiles, insects, birds and small mammals were on the menu, much, he noticed with mild amusement to his young students' dismay. Much to Baki's dismay was the fact that Usagi could not hunt to save her own life, so he set her to work to gather plants.
Jashin and Tsuru however, worked together to catch things and Baki had to do most of the cooking. He showed them how to prepare things so that they would be edible and to teach them how to be stored properly. None of them wanted to eat much of anything and a few times Tsuru gagged, though she did manage to hold it down.
After two weeks had passed, it was time to head back to Suna. Baki was feeling a little more pleased with his new team, since they had done decently on their first foray into the deadly wilderness of Wind Country.
There were a lot of things that needed to be improved on, such as Usagi's lamentable hunting skills and Tsuru's ability to seek out water sources, something the twins would have to learn by other means. But all in all things had gone well and he was eager to take them back out again, since it was a necessity for all the children, shinobi and civilian alike of Hidden Sand to learn.