Training continued with a zero slowing down policy as per Kakashi's orders. The boys seemed to fall into a sense of rivalry, both of them trying to one-up each other in everything they did. Whether that be eating, tree climbing, getting up early, you name it, they would fight over who could do it better. Satya herself was more focused on surviving her training.
"Satya, I'm going to make a change to your training" Kakashi stated. Satya whipped her head towards Kakashi after looking at both boys climbing trees.
"No more physical work?" Satya said hopefully.
"Sorry, but no" Kakashi said simply, and Satya deflated.
"But, we are going to focus more on fighting with ninja tools. Building up your durability, strength and stamina to overall improve your hand to hand combat will take too long and won't take into effect before Zabuza strikes" Satya shivered at the mention of Zabuza.
"But fighting with ninja tools will circumvent this" Kakashi finished. Satya considered what Kakashi was proposing, and after a bit of thinking, she found his logic to be genius, really. An average teenage girl would never be able to beat a normal man in his prime, but give that girl two swords and things become very different. In that sense, Satya could abuse the power gained by fighting with a weapon to negate her physical deficiencies. Maybe she wouldn't be fast, or strong, but she'd be armed. An attacker unarmed would have to be wary of the weapon, even if she is slow, because she didn't need to land a big blow with the weapon to get good results, and power wasn't needed nearly as much if said weapon could just cut through the person.
"Of course, We are still going to improve your physical capabilities, but hand to hand combat will be ignored, for now," Kakashi stressed that last part out.
"ARRRRGGHHH" A certain blonde shinobi yelled as he charged up a tree. Satya turned around to watch as Naruto climbed up and up. He still was far from the top of the tree, but he had made good progress, and it had only been a day.
Sasuke was sitting on a branch above all of them.
"Satya, try not to faint from exhaustion" Sasuke called in a coy, arrogant yet playful voice from up above. The smirk hid a sense of encouragement as well, almost as if Sasuke was daring her to prove him wrong because he wanted her to get better. Sasuke wondered if Satya would understand this.
Apparently, she did.
"So long as you don't fall from that oh so dangerous tree" Satya replied with a knowing smirk. Sasuke just tsked and rolled his eyes, but it was futile because he was still smiling a little. She seemed to get the underlying message, and didn't take offence to his comment. Had it been Naruto, he would have thrown a fit. No one seemed to really understand Sasuke's way of thinking, no one but Satya.
Satya could literally feel Kakashi smiling through his mask. Training went on, and Satya began sparring with kunai knives. She would do a warm-up consisting of exercises like push-ups, squats and such before she practiced with her kunai. The kunai was light so she could swing fast, and it didn't drain her stamina very much. She also practices throwing shuriken and kunai. And of course, when she got too tired to continue, she'd heal herself as much as possible to speed up her stamina recovery time. That way, she was training her medical ninjutsu and by extension her chakra control, as well as her bodies physical capabilities and her skill with ninja tools.
Whenever she was unfortunate enough to have to spar Kakashi, she always left the battle feeling like jello, mostly because Kakashi did not go easy on her. But she was improving, that much was certain.
Satya ducked under a swipe from Kakashi and unleashed a flurry of fast-paced kunai slashes. Her sensei thrust his hand to her right side, and she tried to intercept, but as it turned out, it was merely and distraction to expose her left side, and it worked. A kick followed, and she was sent on the ground.
"Never focus all of your attention on one thing" Kakashi scolded as she got up and launched three shuriken at him. He caught each one.
Satya felt Sasuke's eyes on her, and suddenly she felt an overwhelming urge to do better.
"If I won't get better for myself, then I should at least get better for my team," She thought. She needed to cover them more, wanted to. Sasuke wanted her to get better, and probably believed she could, so she could not let them down, Sasuke most definitely included.
Satya threw a kunai at Kakashi while running at him. Kakashi blocked the throwing knife with the shuriken he caught previously. Satya jumped to the side, launching two more kunai. Kakashi simply sidestepped them, but Satya rushed forward. She slid on the ground and tried to hit a kick to Kakashi's hip. Kakashi caught her leg, but Satya tried to stab his arm. His other arm caught her striking arm, but Satya had one free hand with a kunai and went to stab him again. With both arms occupied, Kakashi let go of both and hopped back. Satya threw both kunai at him, which got dodged once more.
This all continued for hours and days. The three genin pushed themselves to their limit each day, and each day their limits increased. Satya's sleeping became much easier, mostly because she was just too tired to be afraid or worried.
Tea time was still an everyday occurrence, hell it happens more than once every day. She had a cup when she woke up, one after dinner and one before bed. Apparently, this was not normal, which was news to Satya.
"What are you, addicted to tea or something," Sasuke said in a mocking tone, hands in his pockets.
"What, are you a coffee person?" Satya asked.
"I'm a training person," He said simply.
"Your a bore is what you are," Satya said with a sip, and Sasuke rolled his eyes, flicked his hair and looked away. But still, he was smiling. It was ever so faint, every so tiny, but it was there. He enjoyed the banter. These were the things he never got to do. His family was taken away when he was too young to have light banter with someone, and he wondered if having a family when you were mature was like this. Playful banter, playing on each other's personalities because you would know each other, having fun for the sake of being together. He couldn't talk to Naruto like this, or Kakashi sensei, but he could go back and forth with Satya for hours if he really wanted.
"And your so weak you can't last more than 15 minutes before dropping to the ground," Sasuke said as he sat down at a table where Kakashi was playing cards with Tazuna.
"And you can't even get high up enough on a tree to drop down to the ground in the first place" Satya retorted.
Yes, this was family, this was what he lacked.
Fast forward a week, and Naruto, as well as Sasuke, reached the top of the largest trees in the forest. That was a fact Naruto would just not let them forget.
"See how Awesome I am! Zabuza going down for sure!" Naruto exclaimed, but Inari begged to differ.
"You don't understand, Gatou can't be stopped, why won't you listen!" Inari exclaimed.
"Because I don't care who this Gatou guy is, I'll take him out no problem!" Naruto said as he pumped a fist in the air. Inari huffed and then groaned with frustration before leaving.
"What's that kid's problem!" Naruto exclaimed.
"Idiot, Tsunami already told us his issue" Sasuke replied.
The three genin were alone in the house, as Tsunami and Tazuna went shopping, and Kakashi followed for protection. Inari was theirs to watch, but Inari made it clear that he didn't want to see them.
"Yea yea, I know, but come on!" Naruto exclaimed.
"Shut up dobe, you wouldn't know what it's like to watch your family be murdered," Sasuke said with venom.
"Well all I know is that we all had messed up stuff, but none of us are crying about it!" Naruto said, although Sasuke took this as Naruto belittling his pain. Sure Naruto didn't know much about Sasuke's condition, but he still would not stand for his pain to be belittled.
Satya stepped in before Sasuke had a chance to wring Naruto's neck.
"Maybe we aren't crying now, but we all were when we were eight. I know I was" Satya said that last part darkly.
Everyone was silent.
"So...What happened to you guys?" Naruto asked quietly.
"I don't have to say a thing," Sasuke said in a monotone voice that said "Drop it now"
Satya wondered if she could say what happened to her, without crying. She hadn't put what had happened into words since she had explained what happened to the Anbu who questioned her. That was when she was five. But it seemed Sasuke didn't want to talk about his problem.
Satya glanced at Sasuke, and Sasuke noticed. Her glare read "I know, I get it". He didn't want her sympathy, but he couldn't say he hated the idea of another person knowing his pain.
"Well, My family, and my clan, was….murdered when I was five," Satya said softly.
Satya saw Sasuke clench his fists tightly.
"Oh...I'm sorry," Naruto said awkwardly
"Don't be, you didn't do anything to make it happen?" Satya said.
"Yea, but still…" Naruto trailed off.
"I don't blame Inari. He went through something terrible" Satya said.
"He should be more worried about avenging his father," Sasuke said. It sounded like he was speaking about both Inari and himself to some degree. "What good is wallowing in your own self-pity? The kid should be avenging his family at all costs" There was a good deal of passion in that last statement from Sasuke. And Satya knew what he was getting at, at least to some degree.
"At eight years old? Come on" Satya replied.
"If he really cared that much, he'd avenge them at all costs" Sasuke growled. His fists never loosened.
"Well I don't know about all this avenging crap, but all I Know is I got sick and tired about crying, so the little brat needs to start sucking it up!" Naruto exclaimed. It was interesting to see Naruto call someone a brat, as he was usually called one himself.
"So you're telling me that at eight years old both of you guys acted any better than him?" Satya accused, and they were silent.
Was there really anything they could say? Of course, at eight years old all three of them were nothing more than little kids with a pain they couldn't comprehend.
No one was there to help them, to save them from their pain. Satya wondered, how her life would have changed had there been people around to help her? Better for sure, but by how much?
Maybe no one helped her, but they had the power to help Inari.
"Wouldn't you guys have wanted someone, anyone, to help you through your issues/ Maybe we didn't get that luxury, but we can give that to Inari, we can help him, if we can just take down Gatou"
"That's not the mission" Sasuke replied.
"And it was the lack of any mission ordered that kept us from getting any outside help. Besides, we are already outside the mission parameters. A genin squad shouldn't be taking an S rank mission like this." Satya fired back.
"Well, I ain't quitting!" Naruto answered.
"If we are going to face Zabuza again, then we are already ignoring the mission in a sense, so at this point, we have no reason to stop."
Sasuke knew she was right. He would have loved for somebody, anybody to have helped him. No one could have, but he had hoped back then that someone would help. Now here he was, with the chance to help a kid like him. He was kind of obligated to take it.
Sasuke sighed. "Fine, I'm in"
"Me too! If he can't suck it up, then I guess we'll just have to make it easier for him!" Naruto exclaimed.
Satya smiled. "So it's team 7 vs Gatou, I like our odds"
"I like my fist in Zabuza's face!" Naruto exclaimed. He seemed to be getting more and more pumped at the prospect.
Overall, they had improved greatly. Satya's combat speed and combat skills improved heavily, and her kunai work with Kakashi yielded great results. Satya also got to train her medical ninjutsu as well. She healed herself and the boys when she could, and it was valuable training. She also pored over the pages of her ninja books, so she taught herself a few new concepts.
Naruto gained some much-needed chakra control, and Sasuke was already thinking of ways to use his new chakra mastery for battle applications. The squad had buckled down and really improved, and Satya felt confident, in herself, and in her team.
They wouldn't settle for Zabuza, no, they'd only stop when they had made Gatou pay. And they'd do it together.
On the eighth day of their time in the wave country, all three of them accompanied Tazuna on the bridge. They were taking a day off, mostly because they had been working themselves to the bone and Kakashi predicted that Zabuza would make his move soon.
Evidently, he was correct. Upon reaching the bridge, the group quickly noticed that all the workers were on the ground, many of them wounded, and some even dead.
"Wh-what, what is this!" Tazuna exclaimed.
"No way," Naruto said.
Thick mist pooled around all of them, laced with chakra, and they all knew what that meant.
He was here.
