Sakura: WERE STI-
Ammy: ENOUGH ALREADY! 8I
Sakura: okay...eff'in bitch...
Ammy: Hmmmm? :]
Sakura: *sweatdrops* never mind
Ammy: Okay! Disclaimer! The Naruto series belongs to Kishimoto-sempai!
Chapter 8: Chakra Training
Ammy threw a kuni at the spot Zabuza's body had rested with a growl. She noisily stomped away from the tree and went towards her fellow genin.
Kakashi put his headband back in place and sighed. "Time to get Tazuna home, let's go."
"Super, thanks!" Tazuna laughed, "Come to my place and relax a while."
Kakashi suddenly fell to the floor. The genin and bunshin ran over to him, most were worried about him. 'Guess I overused the Sharingan...again,' Kakashi thought.
A while later, after being carried by five Ammy bunshin, the real Ammy, Naruto and Sasuke, Kakashi was in a fair sized house and on a futon, covered up.
"Are you alright Sensei?" Tazuna's daughter, Tsunami asked.
"Yeah, I just can't move for about a week," Kakashi explained.
"The Sharingan is incredible, but it really takes a lot out of you," Sakura said as she sat next to his futon, "you need to think before using it!" Kakashi realized how Naruto felt when he was being lectured by Sakura since he was now receiving one himself. "It is a good thing Ammy had used kage bunshin earlier or it would have been harder to bring you here," Sakura finished.
"We defeated a strong ninja," Tazuna said with a wide smile, "we should be safe for a while."
"Who was that masked kid?" Sakura asked.
"He was a hunter-nin," Ammy explained, "I read that they are a special group also known as body erasers. They make the bodies of missing-nin vanish without a trace. A ninja's body stores secrets, jutsu, chakra and even things that will reveal secrets of the ninja's village. If Kakashi were to die, anyone with the right skills could steal the sharingan for themselves. This is why you should be careful, because you could have your jutsu stolen this way. You could also lead to your village's destruction."
"A ninja's body is a trove of information," Kakashi cut in, "hunter-nin kill and dispose of the missing-nin who have abandoned their villages to prevent that information from getting stolen. They are specialists who guard their village's secrets. Nothingness, that is a ninja's end. Even the bodies of ninja that haven't betrayed their village are burned after dying to protect all their secrets."
"So Zabuza's been cut up and thrown away?" Sakura asked, and then shivered at the thought.
[Unknown part of the forest...]
The hunter-nin was leaning over Zabuza's body, tools laid out beside him. He took a scissor-like tool and moved it close to Zabuza's mouth. "First I'll cut the mouth cloth and drain some blood, and then I can..." He came very close, but Zabuza seized his hand and said, "That's alright, I can do it myself. He pulled the wrappings off his mouth and smiled with a slightly crazed look on his face.
"So you already came back.." the boy said.
"Damn, that hurt," Zabuza said as he yanked a needle from his neck.
"You shouldn't do that. You may really kill yourself if you pull them out like that," the hunter-nin warned with concern.
"How long are you going to wear that ridiculous mask?" Zabuza asked.
The boy grabbed the mask and started removing it. "It reminds me of the old days...and it really helped for this act," he said as he revealed a feminine face. "If I hadn't saved you then, you would be dead for real," he continued.
"Next time you put me into a momentary death, don't use my neck. There are safer places to put those things" Zabuza said as he replaced the bandages on his mouth, "you are annoying...as usual."
"You're right," the boy said happily. Zabuza just stared at him. "I didn't want to scar your body...and the neck doesn't have much muscle so it is easier to put the needles there. You should be immobile for a week, though you might be able to move a little before that." Zabuza kept his eyes on the boy, "you are pure and clever, that is what I like about you." The boy chuckled, "that's cause I'm still a kid," he then stood up, "the mist has cleared. Next time we meet them...will you be alright?"
"The Sharingan will be destroyed next time," Zabuza declared.
[Tazuna's house...]
Kakashi suddenly woke up, scaring a few years off Naruto and Sakura's lifespans.
"You're awake Sensei," Tsunami said.
"We were so close to seeing under his mask!" Sakura whined.
'What is wrong?' Kakashi thought, 'Zabuza is dead...but something feels wrong...did I miss something?' He then looked at Ammy, remembering her abilities. He wanted to ask her to confirm something he was thinking about. Too bad she didn't look too happy right now...
"What do you want?" Ammy asked as she noticed Kakashi's stare. She was scowling at him.
Kakashi was silent, still thinking.
"What is it?" Naruto asked.
"Hunter-nin usually destroy the body right where they fall," Kakashi said.
"So what?" Sakura asked.
"Did we see how the body disposed of?" Kakashi asked.
"How would we know?" Sakura sighed, "that boy took the body with him."
Ammy sweat dropped. For being the smartest of the group, Sakura had just missed a painfully obvious point.
"What about the weapons used to kill Zabuza?" Kakashi asked.
Sasuke made the connection due to his extensive tool studies. "No way..."
Kakashi looked to Ammy, "what did you hear after the needles hit?"
"I felt his chakra vanish instantly...but a metallic clicking was coming from his neck for a few moments after they hit," Ammy said. Kakashi nodded a bit.
"What does that mean?" Tazuna asked.
"Most likely, Zabuza is still alive," Kakashi said.
"What the hell?" Naruto yelled.
"You checked and said he was dead!" Sakura yelled.
"Judging by everything I now know, it was a temporary death," Kakashi said, "Ammy's hearing confirms that. When the spine is severed, which is the preferred method of senbon using assassins, the pulse should abruptly stop as well, but it didn't, meaning he was still alive. Also, that kind of attack wouldn't instantly stop the flow of chakra."
Kakashi then started to explain everything else. "The needles that were used on Zabuza have a very low chance of killing a person. Hunter-nin know of the human body structure, putting one into a temporary death is as easy for them as killing. He carried Zabuza, a much heavier person, and used a weapon with low fatality. These two points mean his objective was to save Zabuza, not kill him," he said, "we can't ignore this possibility."
"Aren't you looking into this too deeply?" Tazuna asked, "hunter-nin are supposed to kill missing-nin."
"We can't be too lax with all this suspicion," Kakashi said, "we should prepare just in case Zabuza is alive...Even if he is dead, Gato may have hired more ninja." Kakashi noticed Naruto was shaking in excitement. 'He's happy that Zabuza might be alive still.'
"How do we prepare before it is to late?" Sakura asked, "you can't really move."
"You guys will be trained," Kakashi said with a light chuckle.
"Training?" Sakura asked, "What is a little training going to do? Our enemy is someone even you struggled against!"
"Trying to get us killed?" Inner Sakura yelled.
"Sakura... you guys are the ones who saved me while I was struggling," Kakashi said. "you guys are growing rapidly. Especially Naruto. You've improved the most."
'Well, he does seem a bit better than before but...' Sakura thought.
"Well, this is just some training until I get better, you still won't be able to defeat him without me," Kakashi said.
"If Zabuza is still alive, what is stopping him from attacking us while you are down and we are training?" Sakura asked.
"The death state he was put into makes it so that the person's body shuts down and it takes a while to return to normal," Kakashi explained.
"So we train until then," Naruto said, "sounds like fun!"
"That's not fun," a kid said, appearing out of nowhere.
"Inari! Where were you?" Tazuna asked excitedly.
"Welcome back grandpa," the boy, Inari, said as he took off his sandals and walked over to the table.
"Inari, say hello to these people," Tsunami said, "they are the ninja who protected grandpa."
The boy looked at the five ninja. "Mom, they are going to die."
"What did you say, brat?" Naruto yelled.
"Nobody can win against Gato," the boy said grimly.
Ammy chuckled slightly and walked up to the table. She leaned in close to his face, her eyes hardening into a cold glare as she stared Inari in the eyes, freezing him to the core. Her nails dug into the table, leaving faint trails in their wake. "Kid, I've been killed twice by better people than some old fool who can't do the dirty work on his own," she hissed quietly before she went over to a window to watch the water. The only other person who had heard her was Sasuke. Inari took a good look at the ninja in his house and scoffed, mumbling about dead idiots.
"You brat! I'll-" Naruto yelled as he made to rush the kid, but Sakura stopped him. "Why are you getting angry at a child, you idiot!" Sakura yelled.
"Hey Inari! Listen!" Naruto yelled, "I am the super hero who will one day be an incredible ninja called Hokage! I don't know about this Gato guy, but he has nothing on me!"
"Are you stupid?" Inari said, "there is no such thing as a hero." Naruto tried to rush the kid again, but Sakura stopped him once again. "If you don't want to die, you should leave," Inari said as he turned away. Ammy jumped out of the window to make herself comfortable under a tree nearby.
"Inari! Where are you going?" Tazuna asked.
"To look at the ocean from my room," Inari said, then left.
A few minutes later, Naruto was headed to Inari's room to give him a piece of his mind, but heard the boy crying and left him alone.
[An hour later]
The four genin and chakra exhausted sensei were in a small clearing with a few tall trees.
"We will start the training now," Kakashi said, crossing his arms.
"Hell Yeah!" Naruto yelled, pumped up to Naruto level excitement.
"Before that, we need to talk about chakra," Kakashi said, sounding absolutely thrilled.
"Chakra? What's that?" Naruto asked. Ammy gaped at him.
"You're and ninja and you don't know what chakra is? What did you learn in class?" Sakura yelled.
Naruto chuckled, "I used to sleep through the hard lessons."
Kakashi ran his hand down his face. She looked to Sakura, who gave Naruto a lesson on chakra. Naruto wondered about why she labeled the scroll 'beautiful young girl Sakura's lesson on chakra,' not really paying as much attention to her lesson as he should have. She shoved it into his arms and told him to read it later. Naruto looked like he was ready to enshrine the first physical object that Sakura had given him.
"I didn't completely understand that, but it has something you learn with the body, right?" Naruto said, pissing Sakura off.
"Naruto is right, for once," Sasuke said, "we can already use chakra and ninjutsu."
"You aren't using either of them properly," Kakashi stated.
"What?" Naruto yelled.
"Listen...releasing chakra means bringing out physical and spiritual energy and mixing them within your body. Based on what jutsu is being used, the type and amount of chakra used is different," Ammy explained while reading from a scroll, "you guys aren't using it right. Even if you release massive amounts of chakra, it's worthless if you have pathetic control and the jutsu fails. It is also a waste of chakra and it will prevent you from fighting for too long. You will just become a next to useless meat shield. You still don't know how to limit the chakra to what you need for the jutsu, that is control."
"So...what are we doing?" Naruto asked as he scratched the back of his head, not listening well again.
"Simple, you will receive training to gain more chakra control," Kakashi said.
"What are we going to do?" Sakura asked, mildly worried.
"Tree climbing," he said.
"Tree climbing?" Naruto was confused.
"Yeah," Ammy said simply with a few sparkles around her face.
"What kind of training is that?" Sakura asked. 'W-where are those sparkles coming from and why are they there?'
"Listen until the end!" Kakashi said sternly as he lightly slapped Sakura's shoulder, "you are going to climb only using your feet. No hands, no arms, no legs, no teeth, just your feet."
Naruto was smiling, thinking of how fun it sounded. Sasuke was mildly surprised. "How?" Sakura asked.
"Watch," Kakashi said. He stood with his arms at his sides and inhaled, then exhaled slowly. The ninja bolted for a tree, then ran up the tree in a spiral, as if it were the ground. The genin were all surprised at this feat.
"He's climbing," Naruto said. "Straight up and with only her feet," Sakura finished. Ammy smiled. Sasuke just stared.
"Understand?" Kakashi asked as he flipped down off the trunk and stood on a branch with his back to them, then back slid on it so he was upside down on the branch, "gather chakra on the bottom of your feet and climb up the tree. This is something you can do once you have proper control."
"How is learning to climb trees going to make us stronger?" Sakura yelled.
Kakashi looked down, er, up at them as he leaned against the tree from her branch, "this teaches you how to control chakra and to bring out as much as you need for this. As you should know, this is the most important part of using jutsu. This is kind of difficult even for me, an experienced ninja. The amount of chakra needed is small and has to be done properly. It is also said that the bottom of the feet is the most difficult place to gather chakra. Simply put, if you learn this, you should be able to use many different jutsu because of your increased control."
Naruto was shaking with excitement.
"You also, as a result of this, develop the stamina needed for proper chakra control," Kakashi said as he stared at Sakura, "depending on the jutsu, control of chakra can be difficult. In battle, you are often in motion while using jutsu, making it even more difficult to focus. From this training, you develop the stamina needed for the control," he pulled out four kunai, "talkin' all day isn't going to accomplish much. This is something that, as Naruto said, you learn with your bodies."
He threw the kunai to the feet of the genin. "Use those kunai to mark how high you up the tree you got and then try to surpass it," the scarecrow said, "you guys will need to run up the tree like I did so make sure to get a good running start. Also, return those when you are finished with them. I only have eleven of them with me."
"This is nothing!" Naruto yelled, "I could do this for breakfast cause I'm the most improved!"
"Pick a tree and put your skills where your mouth isn't," Kakashi said, knowing a good challenge was the perfect motivation for the young Uzumaki.
Naruto gathered chakra to his feet, as did the others. They all ran for a different tree. Naruto didn't focus enough chakra and bounced off the tree to fall on his head. Sasuke ran up a few feet before his chakra blew him off the tree. He quickly swiped the kunai at the tree to mark his progress. 'I didn't think it would be this hard,' Sasuke thought, 'too much chakra and you break the bark...too little and you pull a Naruto.'
"This is easy!" a happy voice chirped from the trees.
Sakura was sitting on the highest safe branch of her tree, her kunai embedded at about chest level. She has chuckling and sticking her tongue out at her teammates and temporary sensei.
"Looks like Sakura is the best now..." Ammy said, hoping to goad Naruto into working harder.
"You're great Sakura-chan!" Naruto yelled happily while Sasuke ignored the pink haired girl. Sakura slumped her shoulders, depressed that Sasuke had brushed her off again.
"Not only is she smart, but she has great chakra control and okay stamina," Kakashi said, "looks like Sakura is closest to being Hokage, unlike someone I know," he teased. He then looked at Sasuke, "I guess Konoha is better off without the Uchiha if Sasuke is an example an Uchiha's 'genius' shinobi. A clanless girl is beating you easily."
"Shut up!" Sakura yelled, "you'll make Sasuke-kun hate me!' he sighed, thinking that Sakura was way too hung up on Sasuke.
'Naruto and Sasuke have incredible chakra reserves,' the jōnin thought, 'if this works out well, they could become quite powerful.' He stopped hanging on the branch and fell to another one, which he used to safely land on the ground. "By the way Ammy-chan, why aren't you training?"
"Oh I'm about to." She grinned rolling up her sleeves and holding the kuni up, parallel to her face. She ran up, and in one fell swoop reached the top of the tree and sliced the tip off. She returned to the ground with a flip, landing next to Kakashi and handed him the sprig that she cut off and the kuni. "Here." Sakura and Naruto gaped while Sasuke stole a long stare towards her. She giggled.
Ammy went off to the side to sharpen her taijutsu, ninjutsu and tool use, hating her own uselessness in the last two battles. Something else bothered her as well. Her chakra reserves seemed to have been more than halved since the last time she could mold chakra. Whether it was a side effect of having her chakra sealed for a year and a half or something else, she didn't know.
Inari was watching from a distance, thinking of how they were wasting their time.
[A building somewhere in the forest...]
Gato and two tall men walked into the room, the men being Gato's samurai bodyguards.
"So even you, Demon of the Mist Zabuza, came back defeated," Gato said, "guess Mist ninja really aren't that useful after all if you can't even get revenge for your men." The samurai moved to draw their swords. Haku tensed, ready to stop the attack. "One moment," Gato said, halting his men, "You don't need to stay quiet...maybe-!"
Haku grabbed Gato's arm and crushed it, breaking the bones. "Don't touch Zabuza with your filthy hands," he threatened. The samurai drew their katanas to defend their master, but Haku took their katanas before that and held them to each man's throats. "You shouldn't do that," Haku said, "I'm angry..."
"One more chance!" Gato yelled, "fail again and I will have you chased out!" Gato and his men stormed out.
"You didn't have to do that," Zabuza said, showing a kunai in his hand.
"I know," Haku said, "but we can't kill Gato yet. We will only be hunted again if we cause trouble. We have to be patient"
"You're right," Zabuza said.
[Back with team 7...]
Naruto fell down once again. Sasuke had barely made any progress since his first attempt, maybe a whole foot if he was lucky. Sakura was lying down at the base of her tree, exhausted and marveling at her teammate's stamina. Ammy was lying on the grass, curled into a ball, snoozing lightly, fatigued from the excess training. Sasuke glanced toward her 'She looks cute sleeping. Peaceful.'.
'Naruto isn't getting anywhere,' Sakura thought, 'he should give up soon.'
Naruto turned away from the tree angrily and started to walk away. 'I knew it. He's too easy to read. Huh?' she thought as Naruto walked up to her.
"Umm, Sakura-chan?" he asked, "can you give me some tips?" Sakura just stared at him, then blushed a bit before explaining her methods.
'That kid is going to get more and more powerful,' Kakashi thought as he felt his chakra, 'his potential for chakra is above Sasuke's and many of the ninja I know of and it is all thanks to Kyūbi and his father.
