A/N: So I actually almost split this chapter in two, because it was so long, but I figured what the heck. I already cut this out of the last chapter, so screw the fact that it's 150-200% of my chapter length goal. Just don't expect updates like these all the time! :)
Chapter 3:
"Wake up!"
Izumo immediately yelped and jerked out of bed. Or, he tried to jerk out of bed. Instead, he felt his body pinned down by someone above him, and stilled at the feeling of a blade against his throat. Opening his eyes, he was confronted with the terrifying sight of the Cat mask of the woman he met yesterday, inches from his face. For a moment he could barely breathe. Had he overslept? Was the woman coming to kill him so that she didn't have to deal with having him on her squad? Izumo readied his chakra, desperately trying to think of some way to get out of the hold.
Before he could do anything, she got off him with a huff. "It's five thirty AM," she informed him.
"Okay?" he replied hesitantly, feeling at his throat. There didn't seem to be any blood.
"I let myself in through your window. The bedroom door was closed, but I opened it and stood over you for five minutes. In that time I could have stabbed you at any moment. I could also have drugged you and took you off to be interrogated. I wasn't making any particularly large attempt to conceal my presence. You should have woken up the moment I opened your window. The fact that the door opening didn't rouse you is pathetic. It's a miracle you haven't been killed on the field yet."
"Oh," Izumo said lamely. There was another test failed. "I, um, I'm much more observant when I'm on missions?" he tried.
"I hope so. Follow me."
"But, I don't have my gear on yet?"
Izumo couldn't see her face, but he figured that Cat was scowling at him scornfully. "In the field, you must be prepared for any situation. If you can't protect yourself enough to buy time to get ready for training, then you'll learn your lesson the hard way. Come."
Once again thanking his past self for being so neat, the chunin quickly grabbed his weapon pouch and arm bracers and slipped his sandals on, all in the time it took for the Anbu to exit his room. He'd be hampered by his lack of proper armor but he'd hopefully be able to get through training today.
The two of them hopped across the rooftops in the darkness, and Izumo had to perform the Body Flicker desperately a few times just to keep up with her. Judging by the line of tension in her shoulders, Cat noted his difficulties disdainfully. The two of them landed in the clearing of training ground seventeen. The woman glanced at him.
"Tell me about your proficiency with bladed weapons," she ordered.
"I've got a decent amount of experience with kunai and larger, almost sword-like knives. My partner and I have a pair that we can attach with a chain and use together."
"Hm," Cat said simply. "What about wakizashi?" She tossed him one, and he fumbled to catch it, surprised. "This is the primary weapon of Anbu. Given that secrecy is so important to our organization, we encourage the use of a single weapon type so that ninja in clans or with distinctive techniques are less likely to give away their identity."
"That makes sense," Izumo answered slowly. "Are you going to teach me the forms?"
Instead of answering, she flashed forward, stabbing her blade lightly into his shoulder. Izumo stared down at it in shock. It only penetrated an inch or so, but it was clear that she could have driven it through him completely. The Anbu member withdrew her blade and he winced in pain. "I'll show you some as we go, but the rest you'll have to learn by yourself. I've found that a steel edge tends to be the best motivator."
"Shit," he swore, and drew his own blade from its scabbard quickly.
"Hold the blade tightly, with your dominant hand on top. Yes, like that, now keep it point up." She quickly demonstrated a few basic strikes and blocks. "Teaching you real blade work will take years. All we can do in the week allotted to us is to keep hitting you until you learn how to block."
With that she came after him. Cat was, surprisingly, fairly merciful. Well, relatively speaking. She consistently moved just at the peak of his own speed, and only cut him if he dropped his guard. Still, after an hour of drills he was covered in small slices all over himself. In some ways he was grateful he hadn't worn his good clothing today, as it would just have been ruined anyway.
"Come here," Cat ordered, stopping their mock fight. Warily, Izumo did as instructed, but the woman just reached out and ran her palms over his wounds, glowing green chakra seeping into him. Surprised, the chunin realized that the woman was a medic. He hadn't met very many who also participated in combat. "I can only perform basic healing techniques, but I made sure that all of your injuries are superficial so that we can continue."
"Continue?" he asked, surprised. Izumo had hoped that they were finished with their session.
"Captain didn't tell you? Martial arts are your weakest point, so you're going to be spending the bulk of your time with me. You'll be spending four hours with me, then two hours with Monkey to work on genjutsu, and finally Captain will take you for a couple of hours to help out with your water techniques. Since we started early, there will be plenty of time left in your day afterwards for you to rest or refine your work."
"I see," Izumo said softly. He hadn't thought the Anbu team would spend so much time with him. The only person who had ever really been devoted to helping him improve had been his jounin sensei, and the man had always had his attention split between Izumo and his other teammates. There had never been any point in his life where he had such skilled teachers focused fully on him. It was a bit exciting actually.
His enthusiasm didn't last very long though; Cat saw to that. "Alright, scrub. We're going to start using chakra now that you've got the basics."
"I thought that we were focusing on taijutsu?" Izumo protested weakly.
"Yeah, that's why we've got to use chakra to enhance our strength and speed. Do you think that your opponents will just wait around for you to keep up with their movements?"
With that, Cat pushed him back, and drew her sword once more. Izumo hastily followed her example. She came at him with a vicious downward strike and he raised his arms above his head, holding his wakizashi horizontally above himself. When she made contact, he tilted his blade downward, dissipating the force of her strike and causing her weapon to slide down his. The chunin then stepped forwards into her space, sweeping out with his leg to try and trip her. The Anbu responded by shoving at him with strength that exceeded his own, and Izumo stumbled backwards. Luckily he recovered in time to stop her next slice towards him.
From there on out, he desperately enhanced his limbs with chakra to keep up with her. It seemed like every time he would get an advantage, she would push back a little bit harder, move a little bit faster. It was clear that she was far, far above his level, and just increased her own combat abilities every time he got a hang of fighting her. It was probably the most high-level fight that he'd ever participated in. Their spar had lasted two hours, and he'd managed to get one lucky nick on her arm. He, on the other hand, was covered with thin cuts that stung in the open air. Finally, Cat blurred so fast that he could hardly see her, and he felt a sword at the back of his neck. It bit in just hard enough to draw blood.
"I yield," Izumo said, before dropping to his knees. He was panting roughly. His chakra levels were alright, but physically he was exhausted. It used to be the other way around. Izumo had never really had very high chakra levels, and it had taken him an embarrassingly long amount of time to realize that they'd increased after his trip back in time. Likely, it was due to whatever 'transformation' he experienced in the World Tree's grasp. Chakra was, for the most part, exponential. It was kind of like physical endurance. You didn't have some sort of gauge for your strength, like you could lift a weight ten times and say 'this took up 7 arbitrary strength units'. Rather, you had a rough idea of how long you could work out before your strength failed you.
Chakra was similar. Through experimentation, he had found out how strong he could makes his techniques, and how many times he could use them. He hadn't realized that his overall amount of chakra had increased until the day before, when he used his Syrup Trap and it covered a greater amount of the forest than expected. It was likely that in the actual past, a workout like the one Cat had given him would have taken up the majority of his reserves. At least his time in the future wasn't meaningless, then.
"You're too slow," Cat commented. "We'll have to work on your base physical conditioning. I noticed that you were using standard chakra rather than yang chakra to enhance your body."
"You noticed that?" Izumo asked, confused. That wasn't the kind of thing that people could just tell.
"I'm a sensor," the woman clarified. Ah, that made sense then. "Are you not capable of using yang chakra efficiently?"
"I mentioned yesterday that I can't keep it consistent enough to be a medic. I've never really tried using it to enhance my body during combat. I figured that if I lost control of it unexpectedly I might create major openings."
The woman nodded. "That's going to hold you back," she said, sounding bored. Izumo kind of felt bad for her. He imagined that she was being judged based on his results as well.
Yang chakra could be used to enhance one's physical attributes more potently than normal chakra. Because it was the half associated with the 'body', it was useful for things like taijutsu and medical techniques. The best martial artists were all masters of yang chakra manipulation. It was very similar to elemental ninjutsu. Someone who didn't have an affinity for lightning manipulation could still use lightning techniques, but the attacks would be weaker and take more chakra than a master's.
"You're not going to be able to participate in high-level combat without using yang chakra, unless you can seriously overcompensate with normal chakra. That will limit your effectiveness," she hummed. "Whatever, yin-yang isn't what I'm here to teach you."
"It's not?" he asked.
"No. I need to get you up to task with your martial prowess—a not insubstantial task, mind you. If you end up more of a ninjutsu type, that's fine as long as your fighting abilities are sufficient."
"Right," Izumo agreed. After that, Cat spent her last hour working him on strength and agility drills, after being kind enough to heal him (of the wounds she inflicted in the first place). While he cooled down and stretched, she loomed over him.
"Alright, you have a half-hour break before Monkey comes and works with you. I'm going to collect you again tomorrow. I suggest you be better prepared this time." With that, she disappeared in a blur and Izumo was left panting on the ground.
Soon after she exited the training grounds, Monkey strolled into the field. He was carrying to-go boxes that smelled delicious, and the chunin hoped desperately that the man would be willing to share.
"Hey," the Anbu called over, friendly. "I thought you'd be hungry after the wringer that Cat put you through."
"You're my favorite person in the whole world," Izumo blurted. Monkey laughed.
"Yeah, I figured," he said before handing over a box. It was full of breakfast food, which was understandable given that it was currently late-morning. "Go ahead and eat up! We're going to be working on genjutsu so you'll have time to digest."
At the reminder, Izumo lazily brought his hands together. "Release," he said softly, and the Monkey in front of him disappeared. The food (thank Gods) was still there. The Anbu member stepped out of the trees to his left and cocked his head at the chunin.
"How long did you know that you were in an illusion?"
"Since you walked into the clearing," Izumo said. "Really, I was just afraid that breakfast was a genjutsu and I didn't want to break it," he admitted.
The Anbu member laughed, sounding surprised. "I thought that your exhaustion and the distraction of the food would keep you from noticing."
"Nope. Speaking of which, you can release the other one, too," Izumo replied, waving lazily towards his left, where he sensed the buzz of a genjutsu, irritating in the back of his mind, like a mosquito hovering behind his ear. There was a pause before the surroundings in the direction he'd indicated wavered and then subtly shifted to the side.
"That was a double-layered illusion," Monkey mused. "It's pretty impressive that you noticed it so quickly, especially since it was so subtle. Why didn't you release it yourself?"
"I didn't want to waste the chakra," he admitted. "Cat already wore me out pretty decently. I figured I should pace myself."
"Hm," Monkey hummed. "Not a bad idea, actually."
"So you're going to work on genjutsu with me?" Izumo prompted, setting his empty Styrofoam box to the side.
"Yeah," the Anbu agreed. "Go ahead and cast one on me."
Izumo nodded and made a few hand signs, being careful to keep Monkey from seeing them. Silently, he cast the False Surroundings technique on the other man. The Anbu glanced around himself curiously, before pointing out the flowers to their right. "Those were purple before, right?"
"Yes," Izumo confirmed. They should look blue to the man now.
"And… I think those bees are an illusion. Wait, I know it." Monkey turned to glance at him. "You've got sound to it too? That's good. I'll leave it active for a bit. I have to see if the illusions lose consistency or fade over time. In the meantime, how are you doing? I heard that your friend was injured."
The chunin frowned a bit at the small talk. It was probably another test. Genjutsu didn't take very much chakra to maintain; rather, they depended on mental acuity. If Izumo let himself get too distracted, then the illusion would start to fail. "Kotetsu is alright," he said carefully. "He's going to be in rehab for a while but there's no reason that he shouldn't be able to get back to active duty eventually."
"That's good to hear. Does he know about all this?" Monkey asked, gesturing around them. Izumo presumed that he was referring to the whole Anbu-candidacy thing.
"Ah, no," the unmasked man admitted sheepishly. "It all seemed so incredible, and I wasn't sure that it wouldn't be distressing to him."
"I would think that something this big wouldn't be the kind of thing that you should hide from your boyfriend," Monkey probed.
Izumo choked a bit, swallowing the wrong way. "What! No, things aren't like that with me and Kotetsu."
"Really? I apologize. It's just that you're both each other's emergency contacts…"
The chunin opened his mouth to defend himself further, before realizing that his hold on the illusion had slipped. The flowers were still blue, but the bee was floating in the air, static and no longer buzzing. He frowned. "That was a dirty trick," Izumo accused.
Monkey chuckled. "Forgive me. I needed to see how well you could hold up under distraction. This was very informative."
"I thought you were the nice one," the chunin grumbled.
"Don't believe people based on your first impressions, then," Monkey suggested wryly. "Or as the captain—excuse me, the former captain—would say: look underneath the underneath. Release," he said lightly, and Izumo's illusion shattered.
After that, the two of them spent about half an hour going back and forth, trading off at putting each other under genjutsu and then releasing it. "Hm, there's something a little off about your techniques. They slowly lose vibrancy and consistency over time, almost like you're losing your grasp on the yin chakra."
"Yeah, I've noticed that myself. It's one of the reasons I don't generally rely on illusions except for temporary stopgaps. It's not nearly as bad as with yang chakra, but-"
"Wait, what was that?"
"Um," Izumo replied. "It's not as bad as with yang chakra?"
Monkey tilted his head to the side in contemplation, before snapping his fingers like he had a sudden realization. "Tell me what you know about the yin-yang."
Izumo furrowed his brow, a bit surprised by the sudden quiz. "Yang chakra is associated with the body. It's useful for things like medical techniques and fighting, while yin chakra is associated with the mind, and is primarily used in genjutsu," he started. Monkey waved at him to continue. "Um, while pure yang and yin chakra are rarely used in ninjutsu, there's a whole branch of techniques that utilize them, and yin-yang release is considered something like a sixth chakra nature."
"Go on," Monkey prompted.
"Yin-yang release, unlike yin release or yang release, uses a mixture of the two chakra types. Yin-yang ninjutsu combine chakra shape manipulation with yin-yang manipulation. We're actually introduced to these techniques in the Academy, though most genin wouldn't realize it," Izumo took a deep breath. He was clearly in 'lecture mode' as Kotetsu called it. "The three basic techniques taught in the Academy are representative of all yin-yang ninjutsu. The substitution technique is mainly oriented with the body, and so uses yang chakra primarily. The transformation ninjutsu uses a balanced amount of yin and yang chakra, being both a physical change and illusory. The clone technique is primarily yin chakra, almost to the point of being a genjutsu. The three are supposed to give students an introduction to yin-yang ninjutsu, which make up the bulk of most ninja's techniques."
"Very comprehensive," Monkey praised. "But it wasn't exactly what I was looking for. Do you know about the yin-yang itself?"
"The yin-yang?" Izumo questioned, confused.
"I didn't think so. It's not exactly common knowledge anymore, which is a shame. Some believe that it originated from Eastern philosophies, from the continent across the Great Ocean. Others think that knowledge of it was spread by the Sage of Six Paths himself." Monkey reached down and drew a circle in the dirt with his finger, and separated the two halves of it with a sinuous line. "One half is yin, and the other yang. They are two halves of the same whole, separate and opposing, yet they complete each other. Body and mind, male and female, light and dark, expanding and contracting… the list goes on and on. Essentially, the concept is that there are certain things that cannot exist without the other. We use the philosophy to describe chakra."
"I suppose that I understand," the chunin said pensively. "Chakra is often stylized as a combination of physical and spiritual energies. It makes sense that yin chakra and yang chakra are like two parts of a whole."
"Good!" Monkey said brightly. "But that's not all of the philosophy." He reached down and drew two small dots in the large part of the two commas. "Scholars say that in every yin there is yang, and vice versa. No good can exist without a little evil; darkness cannot exist without the light, etcetera."
"Okay," Izumo agreed, following the logic so far.
"Yin and yang chakra are similar. Pure yin chakra will eventually destabilize itself without the presence of yang. Even though we teach that genjutsu, for example, is a pure application of yin chakra, every illusion must have tiny traces of yang to be truly effective. The dot in the symbol, so to speak.
"It seemed strange to me—when you spoke about it yesterday—that someone with chakra control as good as yours wouldn't be able to keep the mythical palm technique going for long periods of time. It's essentially just a pure expression of chakra control. People either are skillful enough with yang chakra to use it or they aren't. I haven't heard of someone being able to do it half-way like you. The fact that you're doing something similar with genjutsu, even to a lesser extent is telling to me. I think that your control is actually so good that you separate the two chakras completely. If you can manage to mix them correctly, your illusions will be much more potent."
"Really!" Izumo cried, excited. "What about yang chakra? Do you think I could use it to enhance my taijutsu?"
Monkey shrugged. "Only time can tell, really. It's very possible though. Do you want to get started on it?"
The chunin nodded enthusiastically. Changing the way he used chakra was difficult, kind of like finding out that you'd been using a pencil the wrong way for years. Instinct and muscle memory kept trying to get him to go back to the way he'd used techniques before, and he'd lose control over his illusions by forgetting to include yang chakra. Still, he could tell that his genjutsu were much more convincing and harder to break out of.
By the end of the two hours, Izumo was beaming. Monkey had been a very skilled mentor. It wasn't easy to spot a subtle mistake like the one that the chunin had been making, especially without advanced sensory abilities like Cat possessed. He might have gone his entire life without correcting that mistake, assuming it was just a natural lack of talent on his part (and in fact, he had spent the entirety of one lifetime thinking just that). At twenty-eight, Izumo had basically hit the ceiling of his ability to grow as a ninja, and had long since come to terms with it. He hadn't improved so much from one training session since before he was even a teenager. The chunin was a bit high with the glee of finding out that he wasn't entirely hopeless.
Monkey chuckled good-naturedly. Apparently his good mood was contagious. "Keep up the good work, buddy, and you'll be getting full marks from me at least. If I'm not careful, you'll be taking my spot on the team!" the man joked lightly. "Our time's up for today though. Follow me. The captain wanted me to take you to a new training ground for his part."
That made sense to Izumo. The captain was supposed to be helping him with his water techniques. There wasn't exactly any water in training ground seventeen. The two of them made their way through the forest, to what the chunin recognized as training ground twenty-four. This one normally contained a fast-running river that was useful for practicing water walking. The chunin gaped a bit when he entered it. In place of the flat ground, the earth was plateaued fifty feet in the air, creating a roaring waterfall where the river travelled perpendicularly across the raised earth.
"Captain's waiting for you up top!" Monkey said cheerfully, before giving him a friendly slap on the back. Izumo staggered a bit, but the Anbu was gone by the time he turned back to him. Alright then, nowhere to go but up. The chunin hopped up the edifice, using chakra to stick to the sides. When he got up to the top, he saw that the feline-masked man was indeed waiting for him. The man stood silent, only acknowledging Izumo with a slight nod. After a moment, the chunin felt awkward in the silence.
"Uh, I'm here, sir," he said, trying to start a conversation.
"Yes," the captain agreed. "How are your chakra levels?"
The brunet took a moment for self-evaluation. He'd done his best to pace himself throughout the day, and it seemed like it had paid off. "I'm probably about halfway through my reserves right now. I used a lot of chakra with Cat," Izumo explained.
"That's sufficient," answered the Anbu. "Don't forget that you have to last through the week as well. I needed to make sure that I wasn't going to push you too far."
That was logical. Chakra levels actually recovered fairly quickly with a good night's rest. Fortunately, it wasn't like physical workouts, where you would build up lactate in your muscles and get sore for days. The main exception, however, was if a ninja went too far and got into chakra exhaustion. Exhaustion drained the body so much that vital organs began to lack the chakra they needed to function. The body then went into emergency mode, essentially, and all chakra available (even days after the event) would be sequestered for vital processes. It could take up to a week to recover from.
"You are able to continue training?" Captain asked.
"Yes, sir. I'll be fine."
"Good," nodded the Anbu. "Step out onto the river then."
Izumo did as directed, and ended up downstream from the other man. He was probably about ten feet from the edge of the waterfall, with the masked man a further twenty feet from him. "Are you ready?" the man called out.
The chunin tensed. He'd hoped he would get some instruction in what they were doing other than knowing that it was related to water techniques. Even Cat had shown him a few of the basics before attacking him. Nevertheless, he nodded. The captain made a hand sign, and immediately Izumo felt himself sink into the water. Surprised, he didn't manage to right himself in time before he was swept over the edge of the waterfall.
"Ah!" he yelped, but was luckily able to twist around in time to land on the water's surface lightly.
"Come back up, please," Captain ordered.
Grumbling a bit, the chunin slowly climbed up the cliff face. "Do you know what just happened?" the man asked.
Izumo might not have known, except for the fact that he was aware that they were meant to be working on water ninjutsu. "You saturated the river with water chakra? Since the water was under your control, it interfered with my chakra keeping me buoyant."
"Indeed," the other man confirmed. "Good analysis. What do you need to do to counter the effect?"
"Probably use water nature transformation myself to stabilize the river around me."
"Right again. Are you ready for round two?"
"Yeah," Izumo said, and steadied himself on top of the water. This time, when he felt the captain's chakra come in contact with his own, he transformed his chakra into water nature and mixed it in with the chakra below his feet, almost like he was preparing to use it for a ninjutsu. Unfortunately, he forgot to account for the fact that the water itself was moving, and so the liquid he controlled soon went over the edge, him along with it.
It wasn't enough to just take control of a small portion of the river, since the water was flowing. If they'd been on a lake, having power over a column of water would be sufficient to keep the other man's chakra away from him. Because the liquid in the river was continually moving, he couldn't keep his chakra static. The fluid saturated with his chakra would naturally move over the edge of the cliff, and be replaced with water under the captain's control, which would then push him to the waterfall. Izumo frowned. He'd either have to continually emit water natured energy or wrestle control from the Anbu.
The former was likely far too wasteful to be the intent of the exercise. In order to use water chakra to keep his area steady, however, Izumo would have to release the water from his control behind him and then gain dominance over the liquid in front of him, with the captain's chakra lightly fighting him the whole way. Overall, the exercise was much, much more difficult than he'd anticipated, and required a far higher level of control over water nature transformation than he'd had to exert before.
"This is a very clever drill," Izumo complimented the captain, once he reached the top of the plateau.
"Thank you. The former Captain taught it to me."
"I thought that Kakashi's affinity was for lightning?" Izumo asked, confused.
"Kakashi is at least minimally proficient in all chakra transformations. It's how he can maintain his reputation as the man who knows a thousand techniques."
"Right," Izumo mumbled. The man was younger currently than the chunin had been in the future, and yet he was more skilled than Izumo could even imagine being. It was pretty humbling.
The two ninja spent the remainder of their time similarly. Needless to say, by the end Izumo ended up soaked from head to toe. Every time he would get the hang out the technique, the Anbu would increase the pressure of his chakra, sending him sprawling. Izumo had at least learned to jump off the side of the river when he lost control, rather than go tumbling down the waterfall. The captain's training style was very similar to Cat's, in that as soon as he started becoming acclimated to the difficulty level, it would get ramped up just beyond his grasp.
Currently, Izumo was lying flat on his back on the ground, trying to catch his breath. The other man loomed over him casually. "That's all for today, I think. You can have the rest of the day to yourself. I would suggest that you don't train too much by yourself, since you'll need to be at your best tomorrow. Have a good day."
The Anbu disappeared before he could respond. Izumo dropped his head back on the ground with a thunk. Could the masked ninja try walking away like normal people for once?
It was only mid-afternoon, and the chunin didn't want to waste the whole day away resting. The first and last parts of his training had been painful, both physically and mentally. He didn't feel like he had improved much in either his taijutsu or ninjutsu. With Monkey, however, it seemed like he'd been growing in leaps and bounds. Izumo allowed himself a break to rest, before pulling himself up and sitting cross legged.
Monkey had given him quite a bit of praise for his illusions, once he'd started mixing his yin chakra correctly. Izumo remembered what Cat had told him in the morning, about how his inability to use yang chakra in combat would hold him back. Since he had improved so much with the use of yin chakra, the chunin thought he might be able to get its counterpart down as well.
Izumo closed his eyes and meditated, feeling the chakra at his core. Splitting the yin chakra from yang was fairly simple; he'd been doing it for years and had practiced quite a bit with Monkey. The tricky part was combining the right proportion of yin and yang together. If he used too much yin chakra it was wasteful and acted more like normal chakra, too little yin and the yang chakra eventually destabilized. It was slightly different than what he'd done earlier. For genjutsu the bulk of the chakra was yin, with which he was more skilled.
When he was just splitting the energies and recombining them, he was hardly losing any chakra. As long as he didn't use it for anything, Izumo would be able to continue essentially all night long. The chunin wanted to practice the correct combination of yin with yang until it was second nature though; he had to be able to do it in an instant in order to strengthen his limbs in combat. He had the petty urge to surprise Cat in the morning with his new skill. Overall it was a very tedious process, but one with which he was well suited, given his meticulous nature. Split the chakra, recombine it, and see how long he could hold it. Then, he would try a slightly different mixture, and repeat the process, over and over until it finally clicked.
Unable to resist, despite knowing it would use up his reserves unnecessarily, Izumo spread the yang chakra throughout his body and moved. The ground blurred past him, and he flew forward. Feeling cocky, he thrust his fist forward, and gaped as he punched through a tree all the way to its heartwood. Izumo let out a loud whoop of happiness, and flitted around the training ground a few more times.
Eventually, the chunin remembered something that Kotetsu could always do that had made him green with envy. His partner had always been very good at using yang chakra, and so was much better with the Replacement and Body Flicker techniques. The two ninjutsu used yang chakra almost exclusively, after all. Izumo had never tried this before, but… keeping his hands carefully at his sides, the man twisted his chakra and felt himself fly forwards at speeds he'd only imaged before.
"I did it!" the man called gleefully. Performing techniques, even basic ones like the Body Flicker, without hand seals required a mastery of the fundamentals behind it. For an elemental ninjutsu, that would mean mastery of both shape and nature manipulation to the point where the hand signs weren't needed to concentrate one's chakra. Yin-yang jutsu were the same in concept. Izumo had been using the Body Flicker for over a decade, and was intimately familiar with the feel of the technique, but had always required at least the ram seal to focus enough to perform the yin-yang manipulation necessary.
The brunet released the hold on his chakra, allowing it to dissipate. He couldn't afford to waste too much. The chunin flopped backwards on the ground, this time laughing instead of tired. Intellectually, he'd understood that yang chakra was much more effective for combat than normal chakra, but it was one thing to know it in theory and another to find out in practice. Izumo had moved faster and hit harder than he ever had in his entire life, and used only a fraction of the total chakra he would have needed to do something similar without yang manipulation.
He understood that he was still a long ways away from even being a proper Anbu member, let alone from being strong enough to handle the insanely powerful enemies he'd have to deal with eventually. Still, for the first time since coming back in time, Izumo felt like he had a chance. The feeling of dread that had been haunting him for the last few days lifted, just a little, and all of the sudden the world didn't seem so doomed anymore.
The chunin was distracted from his thoughts by the growling of his stomach. Glancing at the position of the sun, he realized that a couple of hours had passed while he wasn't paying attention, and it was almost past time for dinner. Plus, he'd only been able to eat the one meal that day. Izumo slowly stood up and made his way over towards the village proper. Before he could make it though, he was accosted by a cry of:
"Hey! Izumo! Over here!"
Running towards him was an orange-clad, enthusiastic genin.
"Naruto? What are you doing out here?"
"I've been training," the boy responded brightly. "It took me forever to get untied from the log and then I just figured that I'd get some practice in!"
"Tied to a log?" Izumo asked, confused.
"Yeah! Kakashi-sensei is a total jerk! He tied me up and then left me-"
Suddenly, another voice cut the boy off. "Hm? Were you talking about me, Naruto?" Both the chunin and the genin gaped over towards the tree line, where the aforementioned jounin was slumped casually against a tree, reading a small orange book. Izumo's eye twitched a bit at the sight of it. Was the man reading pornin front of children?
"Sensei! Have you been there the whole time!?" Naruto shouted.
"Maaah, there's no need to be so loud. Of course I've been here the whole time."
Izumo wasn't entirely sure why the man had apparently tied the blonde to a stump, but it didn't surprise him that Kakashi hadn't actually left. The former-Anbu was so concerned about his squad mates that he wouldn't let them test a new recruit by themselves. The chunin doubted that the man would leave a small child unattended, especially one that he was responsible for.
"Why didn't you untie me?" cried the genin.
"I believe firmly in the teaching philosophies of self-sufficiency," the lazy man drawled.
"Teaching what nows? Why don't you just say what you mean," growled Naruto.
"He means that you learn things better when you do them yourself," Izumo interjected quickly.
"Oh, well then why didn't he just say so?"
Seeing that this conversation was going nowhere fast, the chunin decided to change the subject. "I was just going to get dinner, Naruto. Do you want to join me?"
"Ramen!" the boy shouted enthusiastically, grabbing his hand and dragging him towards the stand.
As he was being pulled away, Izumo turned towards the figure at the tree line. "You're welcome to join us, as well." The other man just hummed and didn't move, so the chunin assumed that he wasn't coming. He was quickly proven incorrect though, because when he and Naruto reached Ichiraku's, the jounin was already seated, waiting for them.
"Oh, were you two going to come here as well?" the man drawled as if they hadn't invited him earlier.
"Sensei! You know that we were," accused Naruto. When the boy wasn't looking, the jounin winked at him with his visible eye. Izumo hid a smile behind his hand. He couldn't really blame Kakashi for winding up the genin; the blonde was adorable when he was flustered.
As they ordered, Izumo dug in with delight. Ramen was salty and unhealthy, but it was also packed full of carbs and protein (if you ordered it with meat) that were necessary to regain chakra and stamina. He'd probably eat it more than he should if he kept hanging around Naruto, but for now it was beneficial. The chunin was listening with one ear as the genin prattled on about how he and his team overcame Kakashi's test.
"And then sensei poked me in the butt!" he cried, indignant.
"What?" Izumo said dumbfounded, snapping his head towards the jounin. Suddenly the conversation had his full attention. The man looked visibly embarrassed, even with barely a sliver of his face showing.
"You make it sound so dirty, Naruto," the man mumbled. "It was the Thousand Years of Pain," he said to Izumo. Ah. The 'technique' was a bit of a practical joke amongst Konoha ninja, albeit an inappropriate one. There were wild rumors about how it started (the most popular being that the First Hokage defeated Madara Uchiha using a super powered butt poke).
"Whatever," the boy said dismissively. "We all know you're a total pervert anyway Kakashi-sensei."
The man chuckled a bit nervously, scratching the back of his head. Feeling bad for the guy, Izumo distracted the blonde. "Hey Naruto, do Teuchi and Ayame know about how you passed your exam?"
"Oh! Good point! Thanks for reminding me, Izumo," Naruto beamed.
While the kid was distracted, Kakashi turned to him. "You're very good with children, you know. Have you ever thought of becoming a sensei?"
"Don't try to pawn your genin off on me," Izumo replied drily. The jounin raised his hands in the air defensively.
"Heh, you caught me," Kakashi smiled. "How did your training go today?"
"It went pretty well," the chunin said. "I have a few tricks up my sleeves now for C- um, our female friend." He wasn't sure that he should be using Anbu call signs out in public. The former captain just nodded approvingly. "My water transformation training is going a little slow though," Izumo admitted.
"You'll get it eventually," Kakashi encouraged.
"It's just a question of if I get it in the next week," countered the chunin.
"I have faith in you," the man said, simply. It warmed him more than any glowing comment could have, surprisingly. "But I really ought to go while Naruto is still distracted." With that, the man wiggled his fingers at him before disappearing with a small poof of smoke. Izumo realized that he hadn't even seen Kakashi remove his mask to eat.
"Woah, where did sensei go?"
"He went home, Naruto. And actually, I should be doing the same. I need to get some rest."
"Oh, okay Izumo! See you later!"
Shaking his head in amusement, the chunin exited the ramen stand. Slowly, a smirk made its way over his face. Cat said that she was going to get him up again tomorrow. He needed to prepare a few surprises for her then.
"Wake up!"
Izumo flailed, rolling over quickly and grabbing at the kunai he'd placed under his pillow. By the time he'd gotten to his feet and ready to defend himself, Cat's wakizashi was pointed at his face. He slumped, disappointed. "You disarmed all my traps."
"Yeah," she confirmed. "It was a lot better job than yesterday. You might not have gotten killed. You've got a good series of alarm traps around your bed this time so I couldn't wake you up with a kunai to the throat again. Still, you forgot to account for the fact that I could just ignore the alarms and get to you while you were still rousing yourself."
Sighing, the chunin nodded, accepting the criticism. It was constructive at least, so he knew what to improve upon for the next day. "Back to the training ground, then?"
"Indeed," agreed Cat.
This time, Izumo was fully dressed in combat gear, so getting to the clearing was much more pleasant. The two of them drew their swords and started their match. Cat started out slow, to get him warmed up, and when he wasn't desperately trying to keep himself from getting hurt, the back and forth motion of the spar was exhilarating. Gradually, the Anbu member sped up, until they were going as fast as they were at the end of their session yesterday.
When he felt confident that he was ready, Izumo carefully formed the correct ratio of yang chakra and blurred towards Cat far faster than she could have any reason to expect. The woman was clearly surprised, but rather than get the upper hand, Izumo found himself speared on her sword, or at least he would have if he hadn't used the Replacement Technique instinctively. Thank Gods he figured out how to perform it without hand signs the day prior.
Both the chunin and Cat gaped for a moment at the log impaled on her wakizashi, before she shook her head, snapping herself from her stupor. "You idiot! Don't do that!" Cat sounded like she was scowling. "Did you intentionally lie to me about not being able to use Yang chakra just to get the upper hand?"
"No!" Izumo protested. "Monkey helped me with my yin chakra and I realized that I'd been doing yin-yang transformation the wrong way for years. After that I practiced to get yang down. I'm still not great with it, but it's good enough for sparring."
"Monkey got you to a level where you could perform techniques like that in one day?" she mused. "Maybe I don't give him enough credit as a sensei."
Izumo deadpanned. Maybe she could give him a little more credit as a student?
"Still," she continued. "This isn't a real battle. You shouldn't pull out new techniques without warning me. It's hard for me to keep my lethal instincts in check and if you'd been a hair slower you might be dead right now," scolded Cat.
The chunin flushed in embarrassment. He knew that. The concept wasn't specific to Anbu training; all ninja techniques were dangerous and friendly sparring matches weren't places to fool around. He'd just been so determined to get the upper hand for once after she carved him up so much the day before that he'd let his ego get in the way of his better judgment.
"I apologize," he said seriously, bowing at the waist. "It wasn't right for me to do that."
"Hm, whatever. Just don't do it again. I'm more excited at the fact that you're not completely hopeless."
The corners of Izumo's mouth twitched. "To be honest, ma'am, so am I."
He must have surprised the woman, because she laughed and then slapped a hand to her mask. After that, Cat seemed a bit warmer towards him, although that didn't make her at all more merciful in combat. She was something of an expert at using yang chakra to enhance her body, and she had a lot of tips for him about how to maximize its effect with minimal drain on his reserves.
By the end of their session, the two of them were flying through combat at a level that Izumo had never been able to sustain- had never even dreamed of being able to sustain. By the time Cat called a stop, the chunin was definitely banged up (it felt like his bruises had bruises) but he was grinning from ear to ear.
"I never thought I'd say it," Cat began, "but you might just be able to pull this off. Don't let that go to your head, though."
"No ma'am," he confirmed.
"Alright, alright. I've got stuff to do. Be good for Monkey. The man's apparently a miracle-worker." The last part was muttered under her breath, but Izumo felt that he was still meant to hear it. The chunin sat back against a tree, breathing deeply and smiling. Maybe he could actually do this.
He couldn't do this. Izumo was floating on his back at the bottom of the waterfall. He briefly considered just sinking to the bottom and letting himself drown. It might be more merciful than allowing himself to stupidly think that he had the potential to actually succeed in Anbu. It was day six of his weeklong training and he wasn't any closer to besting the Captain than he'd been when he'd started.
The session with the other two Anbu members were going swimmingly (no pun intended). Cat had gotten him to a point where using yang chakra was as instinctive as breathing. Obviously, she was still far more skilled than him with a blade. For her, swordplay was an art, while Izumo just swung steel to protect himself. Still, she'd grudgingly proclaimed him proficient earlier today, warning him that he still had a long way to go as far as his physical conditioning was concerned.
His time with Monkey was practically like playing. The two of them would joke around and work on genjutsu with each other. They often had challenges like who could have the most complex illusion, or make the most vibrant colors, or the most unique sounds. The Anbu member had always been friendly towards him. On top of that not many people specialized in genjutsu and Monkey was enthusiastic to have someone to experiment with.
His successes with the other two ninja arts were only further punctuated by his utter failure to make significant progress with his water ninjutsu. At first, the captain and Izumo had thought that he was improving. Unfortunately, they'd quickly realized that he was just getting so much better in the other areas that he wasn't wasting chakra anymore and had a lot more to spare on his practice sessions with the feline-masked man. Izumo hadn't actually been progressing, but instead was overcompensating by using too much chakra rather than increasing his mastery of water nature transformation.
Well, that wasn't exactly true. Izumo was certainly getting better, it was just very slow. It felt like he'd hit a wall, or more literally, a waterfall. Even the captain was beginning to show signs of being affected by it. When the chunin made his way up to the top of the cliff, the other man looked tense.
"Let's try again," the Captain said stiffly. Both of them were feeling the press of time against them. Technically, Izumo assumed that the man could accept him onto his squad or give him more time even if he didn't pass the test, but the chunin was sure that benching an entire team of Anbu while one member trained was both inefficient and expensive for the village.
"Mah, now let's not be too hasty," a voice said. Izumo turned, already recognizing Kakashi's distinct tone. As expected the man was lounging comfortably against a tree, but at least his distinctive orange book was missing from the guy's hand.
"Kakashi," the Anbu said pointedly, as if stressing the fact that he hadn't said 'captain'. "The recruit and I are on a limited schedule. We can't afford to take breaks."
The jounin scratched as his chin. "Aw, my cute little apprentice. I thought that you respected my opinions," the man mused, sounding like he didn't care either way.
The Anbu captain slumped a bit. It was the purest expression of emotion that Izumo had seen on the man to that point. "Alright. What do you suggest?"
"Well, has your approached worked thus far?" Kakashi asked lightly.
"No, you know it hasn't," the Anbu grumped.
"Then why are you trying to keep repeating the same failed exercise over and over?"
Izumo could hear the captain sigh loudly. He didn't blame the man. There wasn't anything wrong with Kakashi's teaching style, but the chunin could see where it would get vexing very quickly.
"I suppose we could take a different approach," the man murmured. "Kamizuki, I'm going to take a small amount of water and pass it towards you, and you'll have to take control of it with your own chakra and pass it back to me."
At Izumo's nod, they started the new exercise. In the beginning, it seemed easier, but Izumo soon found out that the scale was just different. It was the same general idea as the practice that they'd been doing for the past six days, although a bit more cooperative and less likely to end up with him soaked at the bottom of a waterfall. The chunin could see his mentor getting stiffer and stiffer as he began repeating the same mistakes that had plagued him in the first drill. Out of the corner of his eye, Izumo saw the jounin flip his forehead protector up for an instant and examine him with his sharingan.
"Kakashi," the captain said finally, sounding exasperated. "Do you have any advice?"
"Hm?" the man replied. "Oh I'm just a bystander. How will you ever learn to be a good teacher and mentor if I always give you all of the answers?"
That seemed to finally break the normally unflappable man's resolve. He threw his hands up in the air in exasperation. "Alright, Kamizuki. Our time is up. Keep practicing. Maybe you'll get a breakthrough."
Izumo thought that he would have better luck if he could convince the eccentric jounin to help him instead, but when he glanced over at the tree line, the man was already gone. The chunin sighed. He couldn't really do much by himself because at their core, the techniques he'd been practicing required two people. He still half-heartedly went over a couple of water ninjutsu that he could perform, hoping for a miracle.
It wasn't long before he headed home. Izumo was glad that he didn't end up running into Naruto on the way to his apartment, because he wasn't sure that he could handle all the boy's cheer at the moment. The man trudged upstairs and opened his door, closing it behind him before tensing. Something was wrong. He grabbed a kunai and gripped it tightly in his hand before heading into his living room. Was this another test from Cat? Upon entering the room, however, Izumo saw Kakashi standing and examining the paintings on his walls, looking like he owned the place.
Suffering a strange sense of situational-vertigo, the chunin glanced around, checking that it actually was his apartment and that he didn't somehow wander into the jounin's. After confirming that it was in fact the right room, Izumo relaxed a bit and called over curiously.
"Um, can I help you?"
The other man turned around to face him and smiled brightly, or at least appeared to behind his mask. "Yes! I was hoping that you could make me some tea."
"Tea?" Izumo repeated dumbly.
"Tea!" the man agreed.
"Well… yes, I suppose I could," the chunin said slowly, brow furrowed. Naruto complained about his sensei being strange, but Izumo had always just assumed that those were the complaints of a child about his teacher. Maybe the boy had the right idea of it. "Do you have any preferences?"
"Oh no, just make whatever you like best," Kakashi said distractedly, tracing his fingers along his cabinets. Izumo suppressed the urge to break out the cleaning supplies and sanitize his apartment under the scrutiny.
The chunin made his way into the kitchen and stared blankly at the pot as the water heated. He thought that after everything that had happened to him, there wouldn't be anything that could surprise him anymore, but the future sixth-Hokage showing up in his apartment and asking for tea had him completely wrong footed. When the water boiled, the brunet quickly poured it into mugs and added the tea bags. As a career chunin he wasn't making enough money to get the really good teas, and he only drank it for the caffeine anyway.
"Do you want any sugar or milk," Izumo asked as he reentered the living room.
"No, this is fine," smiled Kakashi. Everything about the man seemed catered to be as pleasant and inoffensive as possible. Izumo admired him for a moment. He couldn't invite himself into another man's apartment for tea and look so at ease. The man sipped the liquid through his mask (to Izumo's bemusement) and sighed. "Ah, this is excellent," he complimented.
"Um, thank you." His response almost sounded like a question to his ears.
Kakashi moved his cup in a circular motion, watching the tea as it spiraled in the glass. "Isn't liquid so interesting? Unlike earth, it's constantly in motion, but unlike air it will sit contently until something else acts on it." At the end of his statement, the man tipped his cup over, the tea pouring out. Izumo jerked and stood up, but the jounin had placed his other hand under the stream and the liquid collected above his palm in a globe.
Suddenly, the chunin realized that this was no social call. The white-haired man was giving him a lesson of sorts. He struggled to remember what the masked man had been saying. "I suppose I've never thought much about it," Izumo admitted.
"Hm, look again," the man urged, replacing the tea in his cup and tilting the glass to the point where the water was at the edge of falling out of it. "What do you see?"
Izumo stared intently at the drink. "It's hot, steaming even. The water quivers in time with your breathing, but doesn't fall over… In fact, at points the liquid even moves above the cup a tiny bit, but doesn't fall over."
Kakashi nodded. "Indeed. Why is that?"
"Well," the chunin mused. "Water is naturally cohesive. It sticks to itself because it's a polar molecule. It has positive and negative partial charges that are attractive to each other."
"Right," Kakashi agreed. "Now why does it do this," the man tipped the cup over a little more, and the tea once more fell into his hand, "if it wants to stay together?"
"The force of attraction between the water molecules isn't unbreakable. If another force—in this case gravity—is stronger, then it will move. In fact, in this case it's so small that you can hardly see it, but the falling water actually sticks to itself so well that it will pull out a little bit of tea that wouldn't escape the cup just due to gravity itself."
"So what you're saying is that water follows the path of least resistance?"
"I suppose so," Izumo confirmed. "That's what makes it so difficult to use water ninjutsu. You have to convince it to go in a direction that it doesn't want to."
The jounin just hummed and sipped at his glass. "You do make fantastic tea," Kakashi beamed.
Izumo gave him an unimpressed look. "You're not going to tell me the answer, are you?"
"I would think that after seeing me with Naruto and my cute Anbu apprentice that you wouldn't have to ask that question by now," the man demurred.
The chunin huffed grumpily but stared down at his own teacup. There must be a trick to this. Okay, Kakashi felt that he had all the information he needed to put the puzzle together, and Izumo was determined not to prove him wrong. He'd assumed originally that it was just a matter of practicing his chakra transformations, but maybe he'd been thinking about it the wrong way. He doubted that the jounin would be in his apartment giving him tips if all he needed to do was practice more. What if he was doing something fundamentally incorrect, like he had with yin-yang transformation?
"Water follows the path of least resistance, which is why it's hard to force it to go against that path," the chunin muttered. Kakashi nodded encouragingly. "For some reason it was important that the tea goes over the lip without falling, and that it does fall when acted by a greater force, maybe even that it pulls other water with it…"
Izumo turned the information over in his head, trying to figure out how it all fit together. It was almost like playing with a puzzle and rearranging the tiles in different ways to see how their edges matched up. When the answer finally occurred to him, the chunin gaped at the other man, gob smacked.
"That looks like the face of an epiphany!" Kakashi chirped.
"Water follows the path of least resistance!" Izumo cried. "It's difficult to force it to move the way I want it because I'm forcing it. I'm pushing it and pulling it, trying to make it take the shape that I want. I should be convincing it that it wants to take that shape."
"Bingo," the jounin said.
The brunet ignored him. "Water has other properties, like its adhesiveness, that encourage certain movements. It's called water nature transformation for a reason: because my chakra should be taking on the characteristics of water. If I can coax it to move rather than pull at it…"
Izumo's hand hovered above his tea, and he reached his chakra down into the liquid. He seeped the energy into the water, mixing with it, doing the best he could to have the chakra becomewater. Finally, when he was convinced that he had it down, he slowly raised his hand. His chakra was like water, and when he 'pulled' it upwards, the rest of the fluid followed, until he was holding a globe of water above his hand just like Kakashi's.
The brunet stared at the tea. It was so easy, so simple. It was like he'd only been doing water ninjutsu halfway his entire life. Izumo replaced the tea inside the cup and set it down on the table with a clatter. He collapsed back against his chair, staring blankly at the wall. For years he'd assumed (just like with his yin-yang transformation) that he's simply been bad at water ninjutsu. It was one of the reasons that he'd developed the Syrup Trap. The technique didn't require any fine manipulation, but was still extremely useful. How long… how much time had he wasted making negative assumptions about himself when he could have been training and growing stronger? Had he been the only thing holding himself back?
"I feel like an idiot," Izumo groaned.
"Don't be so hard on yourself," Kakashi said, uncharacteristically serious. "Not everyone has the privilege of being instructed by geniuses. I wouldn't be nearly the shinobi that I am today if I hadn't had the Fourth as my sensei." The man paused, taking another sip out of his glass. It didn't even leave a wet mark on his mask. "Our village is built around teamwork. It's part of the Will of Fire that the Third preaches. Someone should have noticed your mistakes sooner. It's our responsibility as much as yours."
The chunin suddenly had a vivid memory of the Third apologizing for not seeing him reach his fullest potential.
"But Izumo," Kakashi smiled. "You don't have to figure this stuff out all on your own now. You're part of a team, and we've all got your back."
Izumo suddenly felt the urge to throw himself at the other man and give him a hug, and mourned the fact that he wasn't a child anymore and that it wouldn't be proper. Grasping for something to say, he weakly stated: "Um, I'm not actually a part of the squad just yet."
Kakashi waved his hand dismissively. "Semantics."
The chunin shook his head, disbelieving. "Kakashi, thank you. Really. If it hadn't been for you…" Ninja didn't just give away knowledge and tricks freely. Most exchanges were reciprocal, but Izumo didn't have any sort of technique that he could possibly teach the jounin. Plus, anything that he did have, the man could copy effortlessly with his sharingan.
"Let me make you dinner," he blurted. Food was the next-best thing after knowledge, Izumo supposed.
"Oh, um… if you insist." The other man finally looked less than completely at ease, his uncovered eye darting around the room.
"I do! Please, stay here."
Izumo leapt off the couch and scrambled into his kitchen, searching for food. He had a feeling that Kakashi would find an excuse to leave it he took too long, so he just made a quick stir fry with chicken and vegetables that he found in his refrigerator, cooking white rice on the side. Before long, he called out into the living room. "Food's ready!"
The chunin put out a couple of plates and dished the meal onto them. Once everything was set, two glasses of water in front of the plates, silverware to the side, he sat down. Izumo glanced up at Kakashi and his breath caught. At first, he was surprised by the fact that the other man's mask was down, but that only lasted a moment. What really caught him off guard was how attractive the jounin was. The man looked somewhat plain when only a sliver of his face was showing, but now Izumo could see almost all of it, and it was a really nice face indeed.
"Erm. When I eat at home I take my mask off… I thought it would be rude to leave it on here," the jounin explained awkwardly.
Realizing that he was staring, Izumo blushed. "That's fine! It was just your face- Not that there's anything wrong with it!" he insisted, mortified. "In fact, there's nothing wrong with it at all. On the contrary, it's a very good looking face- I'll just shut up now." The chunin took a forkful of the stir fry and shoved it in his mouth. At least the food tasted nice.
Kakashi tilted his head to the side a bit, studying him a bit, before grinning. The expression had a lot more of an effect on Izumo with his mask off. He felt his pulse pick up a bit. "I didn't realize you thought so highly of me," the man said slyly.
"Oh shut up," the chunin grumbled. "Eat your food."
Obligingly, the older (but younger in absolute terms?) man raised a fork to his mouth and took a bite. He hummed in surprise. "This is very good!" Kakashi exclaimed. The rest of the food disappeared into his mouth at a rapid pace. Izumo looked on in disbelief. He supposed that the other man was used to eating all his meals in one gulp so that no one could see under his mask.
"Uh, there's more in the pan if you want."
"Yes, please!"
Izumo chuckled, but the silence afterwards was a bit awkward. "So, I suppose a lot of people have seen your face then, if you show it to anyone who cooks for you?" he asked, mostly to fill the void.
"Actually," Kakashi mused. "You're the first person in years—outside of my Anbu team—who's made a meal for me."
"Really!" cried the chunin. That would explain the desperate eating earlier. If no one cooked for the man… and Kakashi didn't really seem like the culinary type… Well, Izumo imaged there was a lot of takeout in the jounin's life.
The white-haired man scratched at his cheek sheepishly. "Um, is there a polite way to say that everyone I've ever loved is dead?"
Izumo's face fell. "No, not really," he said quietly. The other man looked like he regretted killing the mood, so the chunin continued. "My entire family died, either in the Third War or during the Nine Tail's attack. When I was a kid I used to have parents and aunts and uncles… even an older brother." Izumo rarely talked about this stuff, but Kakashi didn't prompt him to continue.
"We all lost someone that day," Kakashi said softly. Izumo nodded in agreement.
They both kept eating in silence, but it didn't feel awkward anymore; rather, it was comforting knowing that the two of them understood each other's pain, at least to some extent. When all the food was gone, the jounin lingered for a moment, but then cleared his throat.
"I think I'd better get going," the white haired man said.
"Wait," Izumo requested, moving around the table so that they were face to face. A hug still seemed to strange to initiate, so he wrapped his hand gently around Kakashi's bicep and squeezed lightly. "I really appreciate what you did for me tonight… If you ever need someone to cool you a meal, or you get tired of eating alone, you're welcome here any time."
The jounin smiled at him, but it was something far softer than his usual bubbly ones. Those always felt a bit like they were just for show. Kakashi's expression now felt like it was a secret for him, a reward almost. Izumo couldn't help but smile back. "I'll keep that in mind," the white haired man promised quietly, before pulling his mask up and hopping out the window. Izumo hadn't even realized that it had been open the whole time. Cat would've skinned him for being so unobservant.
He closed the window and moved towards the kitchen. Izumo started washing the dishes, but then cocked his head. Focusing chakra into his hand, the chunin watched as the water slowly warped around it, easily forming shapes and patterns that he'd never had the fine control to make previously. Izumo smiled. He definitely owed the copy nin.
"If you need a little more time, we might be able to convince the Captain to give you another week… or maybe just a few days," Monkey said beside him, nervously. He'd already been tested by both Monkey and Cat, and passed with flying colors. Or, he'd impressed Monkey. The female Anbu had just pronounced him 'acceptable, barely' with a hard pat on the shoulder. Izumo figured that was as close to 'flying colors' as he would get from the woman.
"You don't have to be perfect at ninjutsu," Cat refuted. "Neither Monkey nor I use many of them. I mean, obviously it would be better because you aren't nearly as good as either of us at taijutsu or genjutsu, but still-"
"Cat! You're not helping," Monkey scolded.
"I'm just trying to tell him that he doesn't have to do perfectly," the woman defended herself.
"Hey!" Izumo interrupted with a chuckle. "Don't worry about me. I'll be fine."
They both gave him skeptical looks. (He'd gotten good at interpreting their emotions only from their body language.) In truth, he was a little nervous. He hadn't done more than manipulate a teacup's worth of water, but he did his best to be confident. Izumo knew the theory, and had worked all night on making the nature transformation faster and faster. There was no way he'd be as good as the Captain overnight, but he was certain that his improvement would be drastic, and hopefully enough to impress the stoic man.
When they reached training ground twenty-four, the feline-masked man was already waiting for them, arms crossed loosely across his chest. In contrast to the previous day, he looked completely at ease, having regained his cool. "Kamizuki, are you ready?"
Izumo nodded. He was almost at full chakra levels.
"Alright, do you want to try the water passing exercise we did yesterday?"
"No, let's go with what we've been doing the rest of the week."
The two men made their way onto the river. The captain had a natural advantage because he was standing upstream. Izumo would have to wrest control of the liquid from him fast enough that it didn't reach him. Immediately upon stepping onto the river, the chunin expanded his chakra as far out in front of him as he dared, coaxing it to take on the properties of water. It mixed with the liquid far better than his previous attempts, at least. Izumo quickly let go of it when it reached a point behind him, conserving his strength.
Soon he felt the other man's chakra-water make contact with his own. He had to convince the water that the other man controlled that his way was the path of least resistance. Getting hold of the liquid was difficult, but not the impossible task it had seemed even one day earlier. Izumo was so focused on his task that he hardly noticed that he'd stopped letting go of the river behind him.
Instead, he rose steadily higher and higher. Because he wasn't releasing any water, the amount that he held control over just increased. Eventually he was standing atop a dome of fluid, perhaps ten feet above the Captain. He was quickly going to overreach the amount of water that he could hold; his chakra was draining swiftly. Suddenly, Izumo realized that he was in a favorable position. Smirking, he had his chakra convince the water that the best way to go was outward, and it exploded down in all directions, including towards the Anbu member.
The man held his hands out in front of him and the deluge parted harmlessly around him. Izumo put his hands on his knees, panting, but the other man didn't attempt to submerse him anymore. Instead he was staring at the chunin, head cocked in contemplation.
"I knew you'd be fine," a familiar voice said cheerfully.
Izumo jumped a bit at the feel of Kakashi's hand on his shoulder, but he'd gotten fairly used to people showing up unexpectedly during the last week.
"Ah, I couldn't have done it without your help, Kakashi-sensei," the chunin replied teasingly.
"Maaah, don't call me that," the other man said, sounding a bit embarrassed.
"So you did help Kamizuki," the Captain stated, looking less puzzled.
"Oh, what gives you that impression?" The jounin asked innocently. The Anbu didn't bother to respond.
"So… do I pass?" Izumo asked, ignoring the byplay between the other two men.
"Your skill with water ninjutsu is… acceptable," the Anbu confirmed. Izumo heard Monkey let out a whoop from the shore.
"I did it," the chunin breathed. "I'm actually in Anbu now? No more tests?"
"No more tests," the Captain agreed. "Report here tomorrow, same time, and we'll get you outfitted and inducted properly. For now, enjoy the rest of your day."
The man disappeared, but was replaced quickly by Monkey, who bounded across the river to grab him in a one-armed hug. "Alright! Boy, you had me worried there for a second."
"Well you should have believed in me, then," countered Izumo.
"You could have told us that you had an ace up your sleeve, you jerk," Cat drawled drily.
"Now where would be the fun in that?" Kakashi chimed in. The two Anbu gave him (what Izumo imagined to be) dirty looks. The man chuckled, before making a shooing gesture at them. "Scram. Don't you have places to be? You can't take Izumo out drinking until you can show him your faces, and that's not until tomorrow night."
The other two Anbu grumbled but offered congratulations one more time before jumping off into the trees. At least Izumo could follow their movements now as they left. He turned towards the jounin.
"Kakashi… I can't thank you enough."
"Oh stop," the other man flapped his hand. "It seems like all you've been doing is thanking me. I'm just glad that my spot is going to be filled by someone capable."
Izumo beamed at the white-haired man, touched by the comment. He never dreamed that anyone—let alone the man himself—would compare him positively to the copy ninja. "Well, can I at least offer to make you dinner again?"
The man's one visible eye sharpened, and what seemed to be a smug grin overtook his face. "Kamizuki, I thought you'd never ask."
A/N: This chapter is something I've been desperate to write for weeks, which is probably why it ended up so long. It pairs my love of exposition with my love of finding creative explanations for fantasy-physics (in this case, chakra).
About the part with the "thousand years of pain": Kakashi's only original technique is supposed to be the Chidori, so I figured 'well, someone had to teach it to him'. The headcanon grew from there.
No clue when the next update will be. Definitely not before next Tuesday. I have a rough idea of what I want to get done in the next couple of chapters, but the specifics weren't neatly planned out in my head like this one was. Hopefully this will last you all for a bit though!