Chapter Two
"The old saying often holds true: there is a special place in hell for women who don't support other women."
Kurenai's first job was to visit each girl's parents. She had to formally request their permission in order to allow their daughters to become involved in dangerous training and missions.
Sakura's parents did well for themselves for not being ninja. Their house was modern and civilian but lovely, with fine carpets and armchairs and chandeliers. They were merchants, probably, in addition to being low level ninja.
Sakura was sent out of the room while Kurenai sat down across from Sakura's parents and made the polite request. The Haruno couple seemed naturally argumentative, her mother tightly strung and her father laid back, so they bickered for a good few minutes about who exactly got to give Sakura permission to participate in danger.
Finally, Kurenai said in exasperation, "How about you both say it?"
They looked forward. "We agree!" they said aggressively.
"We knew what she was getting into when she signed up for the Academy," Sakura's mother added seriously. "I nag her a lot and she hates it, but really I came to terms with that long ago. My daughter is fighter." Sakura's mother shrugged and smirked.
"I will be personally training your daughter in genjutsu," said Kurenai seriously. "So I will give her a good chance of surviving out in the field."
The Haruno couple relaxed, some unseen tension leaving them. "Thank you," said Sakura's father quietly.
Ino's parents lived in a humble traditional clan home behind a flower shop. The Yamanaka were wealthy, but never flaunted their wealth. Ino's father, an eerily calm ANBU interrogator, was matched by Sakura's mother, a dignified and elderly civilian woman.
They were so much more serious than their daughter. That must lead to tension, mustn't it?
Ino was sent away. Kurenai started to make the request, kneeling on tatami mats across from the Yamanaka couple, but Ino's father interrupted and nodded. "We allow it," he said simply. Sakura's mother remained appropriately silent - nothing like Ino would have been.
Kurenai must have looked surprised, because Ino's father smiled. "I want my daughter to be a fighter like I was. Besides, I wouldn't dream of trying to stop Ino, of all people, from doing anything.
"I will admit, I was surprised when I heard she would not be with my ex teammates' sons, Shikamaru and Chouji. Nevertheless, I am intrigued. She has been given the standard full fledged ninja Yamanaka ear piercing ceremony. Let's see how she does."
The Hyuuga, on the other hand - Hinata's family - totally flaunted their wealth.
Kurenai was led by a branch family retainer guard through a magnificent clan compound with walls, peaceful zen gardens, and long shoji screen lined buildings with arched roofs. Hinata was sent away and Kurenai had a meeting with her clan head father in his private office. His wife had died years ago, so it was him alone, and he was cold and dignified. He couldn't have been any more intimidating if he'd literally had ice running in his veins.
Kurenai could see how Academy Hinata might have been steamrolled by such a father.
"Hinata is allowed on dangerous missions," he said without preamble, before Kurenai could speak. "Just as she was allowed to go to the Academy with commoners. Long ago, Hinata showed signs of being weak. She had a spar with her younger sister Hanabi. Hanabi won, so Hanabi is my clan heiress, not Hinata.
"Hanabi will never be allowed the risk of dangerous away missions, but Hinata is free to come and go as she pleases."
Kurenai remained solemn. "... Very well," she said at last. She turned toward the door and then paused. She turned back to a faintly surprised Hiashi and said, "I see more fire and potential in your daughter than you do, Hiashi-san. I hope to prove you wrong about her supposed lack of strength."
She left Hiashi sitting in puzzled silence.
Kurenai walked out of the office and found Hinata sitting outside. She'd heard the whole thing. "Thank you," she whispered to Kurenai, her eyes pained.
Kurenai nodded. "It is true," she said simply, told Hinata where the training field was that the first team meeting would be held, and left.
After that, it was many weeks of fenced off green training fields with her students.
Hinata did the main bulk of her individualized training with Kurenai, surprisingly enough. Her sister was busy with clan heiress training, her father had no time for her, and her cousin Neji was so vicious that the thought of asking him for help with training made her shudder just a bit. So she would take Hyuuga main family scrolls and practice them with Kurenai, alternating between eye improving exercises, Gentle Fist katas, and spars with Kurenai and later Kurenai clones.
And Kurenai may not have been a taijutsu specialist, but she was good in a hand to hand fight. Her taijutsu specialized in weaving around blows, quick in and out attacks while she never let herself be touched. She did not block directly, but moved around the blows.
This was the perfect exercise for Hinata's Gentle Fist. Gentle Fist used the Byakugan to see into a person's chakra coils. With soft taps, they closed a person's tenketsu points along the coils, thus blocking chakra and inflicting massive internal organ damage. This meant that even if you blocked a Hyuuga physically, their attack still succeeded in some way. Enough blocks and the Hyuuga could take out their opponent's entire arm, thus leaving that opponent vulnerable to more devastating attacks.
But Kurenai never blocked. She never let herself be touched at all. Hinata realized the more she sparred that Kurenai-sensei had just been playing with her the other day. In a true training spar, Kurenai-sensei was extremely hard even to touch. She was the perfect sparring partner for a Hyuuga, and threw many a surprise genjutsu into the works to continually test Hinata's Byakugan eyes.
In theory, Hinata should have been doing swimmingly, but instead as usual she was flagging. She got clumsier the longer she fought. She flailed and flagged and then finally gave up altogether. The longer this went on, the more depressed she became.
Kurenai was trying to talk her through this one group session, and Ino and Sakura overheard. "That's weird," said Ino, frowning, puzzled. "What's going on?"
Hinata swallowed. "I'm just weak," she whispered, and told them about her father and sister.
"Well that's shitty!" Ino said indignantly.
"Yeah, your Dad sounds like a dick," said Sakura sympathetically.
"But - it's true," Hinata murmured painfully, looking down. "I am weak."
Kurenai had been listening with quiet compassion. But at last she spoke. "Part of your problem, Hinata," she said, "is a simple lack of self confidence." Hinata looked up. "The longer you fight without winning, the more discouraged you get. The more discouraged you get, the more mistakes you make. The more mistakes you make, the easier you give up. The easier you give up, the more downcast you become."
"So - it's a willpower thing?" said Ino curiously, beginning to sound above Hinata and exasperated. Hinata bristled despite herself.
"Maybe it's a little more complicated than that," said Sakura slowly and cautiously, eyeing Hinata's changing expression. "Come on, Ino-pig, we've bickered with Hinata-weirdo. We know she's not as easy to walk all over as you might think at first."
Ino paused. "Huh - true," she said thoughtfully, and Hinata relaxed, warmth filling her. "So what is the problem?" They all turned to Kurenai.
"I think the reason why Hinata gets defeated so easily is that she's used to thinking she is no good," said Kurenai carefully. "Now, I do see a peculiar block concerning you, Hinata. You have potential, but you are always holding back. This is where the myth came from that you are no good - a myth you still believe to this day. That myth is the source of your problem.
"It's not that you're not good, Hinata. But why do you hold back?" she asked, genuinely puzzled. "Because that exact block is what is keeping you from becoming the best, as you wish to be."
Hinata's eyes were wide. She swallowed and looked down. "I'm too compassionate," she admitted, ashamed. "In spars, I just… don't like hurting people."
She expected for that to be the end of it. She did not expect what came next.
"Wait, so - you think that by going easy on someone, you're helping them?" said Ino disbelievingly. Hinata looked up in surprise. "But that's not the way it is at all!"
"Yeah," said Sakura, giving Hinata an odd look. "We spar with our friends to help them improve. If you don't try your hardest against your friends and family, when the chips are down, they could die."
"Obviously," Ino added, grinning.
Hinata just sat there, genuinely surprised. "I'd… never thought of it like that before," she admitted.
"If it helps, Hinata," said Kurenai, "fight me like you're helping me, not hurting me. You'll be helping yourself improve in the process. And you're good - so stop telling yourself that you're not."
Hinata went at it with this new frame of mind, and it was amazing how quickly she improved, smiling in disbelief and delight more and more over the following weeks as she moved rapidly into higher level fighting techniques.
Hinata ended up becoming, with years of practice with her clan already under her belt, an extremely high level Byakugan and Gentle Fist user, more smiling and confident. She was fast, graceful, soft, precise, and deadly - she could make someone vomit blood with a mere touch. Her vision was acute. She didn't lose her heart or her smile, but she became a more determined fighter. She even began participating better in clan spars back on the mats inside the compound sparring room at home, surprising her father and her sister, infuriating her cousin, and she became slowly less timid and more fiery - quiet, but fiery. She had realized she could rival and compete with the ever fiery Ino and Sakura, and that bolstered her significantly.
Her next goal, she thought to herself firmly, was to begin mastering the Hyuuga main family Jonin level secret arts. Kaiten, the One Body Blow, and Divine Sixty Four Strikes were at the top of her to-do list. But that time had not come yet.
Ino trained with both her father in his private clan estate training room and Kurenai out on the fields.
"I want to become a higher level Yamanaka fighter," she told her Dad determinedly, and a small, rare smile formed over her father's face.
"... I thought you'd never ask," he said.
So she alternated between training with her father's clones and practicing with Kurenai's clones. She had already mastered leaving her own body and taking over another's, but even there were several weaknesses, so her father said. She could only take over one person at a time. It had to be in a straight line. And the two bodies remained connected, so if one were hurt, so was the other.
"For a Yamanaka like myself?" said her father, matter of factly, without even undue arrogance. "None of those factors apply."
"Kurenai-sensei said even the chakra in the technique is weak," Ino admitted, pained. "She pushed me back out so easily. Have I really been so obsessed with Sasuke?"
Her father said nothing, which said volumes in and of itself.
Ino's fists clenched and she became angry with herself - determined to do well to make up for her lost time.
So she began: She had to master not only hostage mind takeover, the technique she had already been working on, but body takeover. In other words, she had to learn how to control other bodies without leaving her own, a higher level ninjutsu but one more useful in a battle type situation.
Then, once that was mastered, said her father mercilessly, she had to master multiple person, from any angle, with greater chakra power and with no harm done to herself - no matter what she commanded the people she was controlling to do.
Ino looked horrified at all that work. Then she thought of Sakura-forehead-girl and Hinata-weirdo. She became fiercer. "Damn right I can do this!" she shouted, and they began.
Ino's problem was the polar opposite of Hinata's. She lost her temper too easily, got impatient and frustrated, broke a technique to start shouting and kicking in midair. Her ever calm father often had to get very sharp with her, which was his way of yelling.
Kurenai-sensei, when Ino practiced with some of her clones, just looked quietly disappointed. That was almost worse.
"What's the problem, Ino-pig?" Sakura asked one day in a team meeting, smirking, needling Ino.
Ino growled. "I don't know!" she shouted to the skies, and saw Hinata staring at her skeptically. Ino sighed and looked down. "I just… I keep thinking I had years to figure this shit out. But I was too obsessed with -"
"A guy," Sakura and Hinata echoed, and they all became depressed.
"I can't believe I let anyone else become the center of my life," said Ino. "It's so - not normally fabulous me!"
"I think that was a lesson for all of us," said Sakura sadly. "It's like Kurenai-sensei said. We have to be the main character. Some guy can't be the main character. Not even if it's a guy we like."
"And you know what you're doing, right, Ino-pig?" said Hinata, matter of fact and tough, eyebrows risen. "You're still making him a major character in your story right now."
Ino stared. So did Sakura.
"You just need to learn to keep calm and work hard, power on through," said Hinata. "That's the way for you to get stronger. Not to always be thinking about some boy. You have to learn how to keep calm."
"True," said Sakura. "From what I've read, that's all chakra control and power is, too. Half of it's in the body, but the other half is in the mind."
Kurenai watched from a distance, unnoticed, in approval. They were starting to figure problems out for themselves, amongst the three of them, and that was good.
So Ino tried that - keeping calm and not thinking about anything but powering through the task at hand. She became calmer and fiercer, the look in her eyes dangerous once she got going. And she improved, mastering each task her father had set her in turn.
Ino became the mistress of dangerous grins and wild actions.
She could take over anyone's mind, but also anyone's body - and for the body technique, she did not have to leave her own. She could do it on several people at once, and from every angle, and she could make them do anything with no harm done to herself. Even her techniques themselves became stronger. She was like a spider weaving a web, controlling flies on her strings. She could make anyone do anything.
The latest technique she had mastered was mind connecting. She walked onto the training field with her team one day and suddenly her voice echoed in all their heads at once. They paused in surprise as she grinned. You like? I can mind link and talk into other minds. You can even talk to each other through this thing without making a sound. And I can freak out someone one of us is attacking, making them think they're hearing things.
Imagine how useful that will be.
They grinned in return.
Ino's next steps were to learn mind sensing and mind reading. But that time had not come yet.
Sakura trained solely with Kurenai, for obvious reasons. Only Kurenai-sensei could teach her what she needed to know. Sakura, like Ino, trained with Kurenai clones.
Sakura's task was to master all manner of sensory genjutsu and quick kill attacks. First, she had to trickle chakra into the victim's cerebral nervous system. Next, she had to make a detailed, imaginative sensory sensation - a mirage so realistic it seemed real - come to life inside them, with as few flaws as she could think of. Finally, she had to kill them while they were distracted.
She practiced on Kurenai clones, not only attacking them with her own genjutsu but learning how to find and break out of Kurenai's genjutsu without freaking out at the first sign of trouble. She had to be intelligent, imaginative, and detail oriented, and her chakra control had to be exact.
Sakura's hardest problem was forming the correct, serene, mercilessly strategic ninja mindset. Her teammates as well as her Sensei helped her through this, correcting her gently, in smaller ways over a longer period of time.
"You have to stop underestimating yourself and following the rules," said Ino. "That's your biggest problem."
"A bit more inner calm and mercilessness wouldn't hurt either," Hinata added. "And that's coming from me."
They were understanding instead of condescending and that helped. Soon Sakura became calm, still her clear headed and sometimes humorous self, but more fiery and determined.
She became less immature, and more like a true, calculating ninja.
She quickly moved from regular genjutsu and quick kill attacks, and into multiple person genjutsu and timed genjutsu. She passed out a lot at first, but slowly her chakra power became stronger, as did her capacity for breaking out of any illusion. She became a master of all mysterious mirages and illusions. She could make two people kill each other, as Ino could, without a second thought. And, like Ino, she did - with Kurenai clones. She was never smirking and satisfied like Ino was, but that never made her any less deadly serious.
Her next quest was to master limb and head control for things like binding, sleeping genjutsu that put the cerebral nervous system into shutdown, direct cerebral nervous system damage, and psychic attacks. She was determined to keep improving. But that time had not come yet.
The four women also sparred with each other in team meetings almost constantly.
Kurenai sometimes would pair two girls up, or sometimes would pair one girl up against herself and go easy on them, alternating between easier taijutsu and easier genjutsu. But the really interesting times were when she had all three girls fight her at once.
Then, she felt, she could let a bit more of her true abilities shine through.
They always had team training meetings in that same training field: grassy clearing, forestry, three wooden posts, brook nearby. There, they would have their battles. Sakura, Hinata, and Ino would fight Kurenai at roughly a quarter of her full power - and it really did take all three of them, especially at first.
Sakura was focused with her hands in a hand seal, perspiring, brow furrowed. Kurenai swept at an illusory Sakura instead of the real, invisible one - and fell right into Hinata's Gentle Fist tap. Half of Kurenai's body froze up, and from an odd angle Ino waved her hand and did body control from her own form - forcing Kurenai to kill herself with no harm done to Ino's own body, but that was normal, they were used to harming Kurenai clones -
And the Kurenai before them disappeared.
"Damn!" They began looking around. "An illusion hiding a clone!"
They all shrieked as a blast from a wind ninjutsu - Kurenai's hidden specialty unknown even to most Jonin - bowled them over from across the field, shoving them against the nearest tree.
They learned painfully over the following months: Kurenai was good at everything. She could do wind ninjutsu, she could do weaving taijutsu, she could clone herself, and of course she was a genjutsu master.
"I am a new Jonin," Kurenai admitted to them once. "Very young to make it to so high a rank. So I suppose I'm out with something to prove. My father, the Academy headmaster, tried to protect me from a rank as dangerous as this one… because I'm a young woman. I guess I want to prove to him, as well as everyone else, that I really can do this.
"When the Hokage suggested an all woman team… I meant, I spent years trying to get comfortable with my curvy body, trying to find my place in the fighting forces as a woman. I couldn't just say no."
They listened curiously, learning a bit more about their Sensei.
Kurenai would also, as promised, put them through mock team missions and collective strategy exercises. They would have to get through her clones and reach something, or they would have to make it across a training field while keeping something away from one of her clones, or they would have to protect one clone from another.
This meant they had to strategize amongst themselves through Ino's mind link. They had to predict each other's movements. They had to think fast and they had to think on a fly. Sometimes she even gave them an unusual mission, and had them craft a clever trap together or use their mutual skills to hide in the training field's surrounding forestry together. She even took them out on a couple of mock survival missions out in the forestry surrounding Konoha village's circular wooden wall.
They worked especially hard because they were also eating a lot and working out a lot in their off time.
But the results began to pay off. They moved, as Kurenai had promised, like a strong, enduring, and well oiled fighting machine - deadly serious and reading each other's movements perfectly.
There was a lot of complaining about the D rank missions at first, perhaps because of how much they were improving.
"We're learning all these amazing skills and our first missions are menial, around the village chores?" said Sakura in loud exasperation.
"Here, here!" said Ino fiercely.
"I did think my abilities were worth a little more than digging potatoes," said Hinata, frosty and displeased, her arms crossed.
Kurenai looked at her Genin in something like amusement. They were standing outside the Academy. They had just come from the mission assignments room, where the Hokage village commander and a Chuunin ranked ninja had given them their first mission - digging potatoes for a village local.
"Clients come to the village with missions, and those missions are separated into ranks," Kurenai began. "Based on level of difficult. Rookie Genin like yourself start out with D ranks - indeed, menial around the village chores. You are the lowest rank, so you get the easiest jobs. But also the ones no one else wants to do.
"Yet this serves a deeper purpose," she continued. "It gives you time to solidify your teamwork and build up your skill set. With these, you have more time to train with me, right? And think of these missions as an extension of our teamwork and strategy exercises. They are real life, easy missions to help you practice using your abilities together.
"Treat these D rank, around the village missions as you would training. And if you do enough of them well, you get elevated to a C rank - an out of village, violent mission with no other ninja involved.
"Remember, above all else, you are getting paid. Clients pay the village and the village pays you. Even if a D rank doesn't cost very much money. That's how Hidden Village military bases work in peace time, ladies, when we're not fighting for our countries. Fire Country is counting on you, as is Konoha village."
So, reluctantly, Hinata, Ino, and Sakura got to work. They babysat toddlers and dug potatoes, they walked dogs and did herb gardening, they cleaned up public parks and rivers, they tracked down lost pets, they got groceries and supplies for villagers from neighboring villages…
And they used their abilities and increasing team cohesiveness to get things done. The Hokage was impressed as they kept completing missions in shorter and shorter periods of time, more and more successfully.
"Do you know," he said one day from his head table in the mission assignments room, the Hokage being a little old man in baggy red and white robes with a silver goatee and wood pipe, "you all are completing more missions than anyone else. In shorter times, too." He smiled at them as they beamed. "And from Kurenai's and the other Jonin reports, you are the team that is by far working the hardest in training as well. Elder Koharu told me she suspected an all female team would start getting things done. It was her suggestion."
"Thank you, Hokage-sama," said Kurenai, smiling warmly and bowing. The girls were proud of themselves, as they had hoped amongst themselves to get a higher level mission soon, but they were more happy for their Sensei. They could tell the praise meant a lot to her.
"If I may ask… what are the other teams that passed, Hokage-sama?" Sakura asked, and Ino and Hinata also looked curious.
"Ah, checking up on your classmates?" The Hokage chuckled. "Only natural, only natural. Teams Seven and Ten are the only other teams that passed the final Genin exam. Most of the rest of your classmates have dropped out of the forces entirely."
For a moment they felt cold, and very alone - even Ino.
"Not every Jonin is as nice as me," said Kurenai softly, her eyes sympathetic. "And not every graduated rookie is as good as you. Genin and Chuunin rank have steep dropout rates."
"Team Ten," said the Hokage, "is Nara Shikamaru, Akimichi Chouji, and Aburame Shino, under my son Sarutobi Asuma. Team Seven is Uzumaki Naruto, Uchiha Sasuke, and Inuzuka Kiba, under Hatake Kakashi."
The girls froze.
"Hatake Kakashi? The legend?" said Kurenai curiously.
"Yes, they are his first team. But I am disappointed. He is putting in the bare minimum and giving them no attention at all." The Hokage frowned. "I can't force him with his own team, so I'm not sure what to do about it. He certainly hasn't been working those boys as hard as you've been working your girls."
The three girls looked at each other. Hinata, said Sakura's voice seriously in all three minds, you have to find them.
Understood. There was steel in Hinata's inner voice.
Yeah… Let's see how they're getting on… Pay them a little visit… Ino smirked humorlessly, her icy blue eyes deadly.
They were not exactly planning on the visit being a friendly one.
Hinata found Team Seven with her Byakugan eyes. The three girls hid with their new skill, and watched. Simply watched.
It was a mess. Sasuke refused icily to speak to anyone. Naruto annoyed and nagged at Kiba until at last Kiba lashed out in a fit of temper. Then Sasuke looked annoyed even though he'd done nothing to stop whatever was going on. Kiba and Naruto, temperamental and egotistical, fought and bickered.
They stood there at their meeting spot for hours, and got no training done. But where was the famous Kakashi?
At last, he appeared, making some stupid excuse about being late. He was a tall, slim man with a cloth face mask and a mess of silver hair, hitai ate slid down over one eye. From the way Kiba and Naruto yelled at Kakashi and the way Kakashi seemed amused, it appeared he was always late.
Then Naruto said, "I hate Tuesdays because I have to get up at 5 AM to meet your stupid ass that won't get here until 11 AM! I hate mission days!"
"Yes, yes," said Kakashi. "Come on, team, let's go get our mission."
Then they just left.
The girls knelt there in the underbrush for a while after the boys were gone. It's like they haven't matured at all, said Ino in shock. And they're not training at all either. Hokage-sama was right.
Their Sensei is hardly impressive, said Hinata skeptically. No matter how famous he is.
But did you hear what they said? said Sakura, staring in horror at the spot where Sasuke had been. They take out one mission a week. Then complain because they have to get up early because of it. We've been getting up to train and do missions both every single day. Can you imagine if I, with my lack of skills and ninja knowledge, had been put on their team?
I just… thought how we do it was how everyone did it, Ino admitted.
They didn't even notice us. Though I suppose their Sensei must have, Hinata mused.
Ino suddenly stood, stepping out of the brush. She tossed her hair. "Come on, girls," she said. "We were always better off without them."
Ino, Sakura, and Hinata had learned to have high ninja standards under a strict Sensei. And so Team Eight parted ways from Team Seven in the final, most permanent sense.
On the day they took their team picture, they all had a fun afternoon out together.
Kurenai took them for a day on the town. They went shopping, had coffee and ice cream, went to a late night concert. Then they came back to Kurenai's house and before their sleepover, complete with peanut butter, balloons, games, and glitter, they had a professional photographer take their photo.
They each put a framed copy on their bedside table: all four of them laughing and smiling together, making victory signs at the camera.