Kakashi: Where is my book? *pokes with stick*
Me: Would you believe atop the tallest mountain in the world?
Kakashi: No.
Me: The deepest trench in the ocean?
Kakashi: No.
Me: Darnnit.... okay.... I hid it...... it's been disguised within a false cover of the book Twilight...
Kakashi: *frozen shock* Oh dear goodness....
Me: mwahahahahahahaha
P.S. Sorry it took me so long to get this up! Exams have been a real mind smasher! Enjoy!
After seeing what Syna had just done, the other Jonin were a little more reluctant to take a step towards her. Most were still wary of her as a newcomer to the village; they had very little trust for her considering who she had claimed to be, and this didn't exactly deepen their trust in her that she could disappear and reappear to slit their throats before they knew it.
Syna didn't call for another volunteer instantly. She withdrew a kunai from a pouch tied around her hips, twirling it in her fingers before clenching it tightly in her fist. Raising her chin, she spoke loudly and clearly for them all to hear.
"The Silver Shadows have perfected this technique I just showed you. It is deadly, with a very long range of attack. However it requires a vast amount of concentration in order to complete, as well as chakra. The technique I'm going to show you is perfect for picking up on that chakra and exposing the attacker before they reach you. The distance that it gives you of visibility when they approach you is entirely dependant on how you manipulate your own chakra though, something I cannot help you with. I can only show you the technique."
Syna tossed the kunai up in the air. As it approached the peak of it's height some distance in the air, Syna pressed her fingers together in a single jutsu. At first it appeared that nothing had happened, but as Kakashi narrowed his eyes a little he picked up on the slight wave in the air. A slight shimmer. As the kunai came back down just before her, it became all too visible as the light rays reflecting off the metal blade bent at odd angles, streaming out in all sorts of directions until it embedded in the ground at her feet. The shimmering stopped.
"What you need to do is build up chakra is your fists. Unless you've trained for an incredibly long time then your going to need a hand sign, which I'll show you. Once chakra is built up in your hands, you have to focus it to circle you and create a sort of field about you. If a Silver Shadow enters the field you create then they'll become visible. It isin't a guarantee on your safety," she chewed the side of her lip momentarily, "But there is always a possibility it could save you."
Murmurs picked up on the wind around them, but as soon as Syna started talking again they fell silent. One by one she had them split off, teaching them the hand sign like they were young genin again. It felt almost strange, learning a new jutsu. It had been a rather long time since any Jounin, especially the teachers like Kakashi, had ever had to learn how to perform a new jutsu.
Building up chakra in his hands came easily for Kakashi once he had perfected the hand sign. It was the same as building up chakra for his lightning blade, the chidori. The trick part came when he had to focus it to encircle around him.
Soon enough it was early afternoon. He hadn't even realised how much time had passed until he saw the sun had already passed by overhead. Technically their lesson was over, and the Jounin slowly began to disperse with a few mumbled "thank-you's" towards Syna, before soon enough there was no-one in the empty training ground but her and Kakashi. She looked calm and composed as a slight breeze ruffled a few strands of hair from her bun. She took one look at Kakashi when he walked towards her, throwing him one of the nastiest eye glances she could. Guess she was still sore about that whole 'peeping-tom' misunderstanding this morning.
"You know you look like you just got dragged back through a bush," she told him.
"I feel I am hardly able to help that," he replied as he strode over to where she stood, hands folded neatly across her chest. Her eyes followed him, and he felt the strange sensation that he should watch out for his nose again.
"Actually I think it's an improvement," she chuckled. "The rest of you matches your hair."
"What's wrong with my hair?" Why did they always attack the hair? It was always the hair and the mask with woman. Sometimes he couldn't help feeling a little defensive about it.
She clapped him on the shoulder, "Nothing at all. Now come on, I'm starving and I want a break before more forced labour."
Syna had started to walk away from the training field. Kakashi sighed, and made movements to catch up with her stride. She was absently staring off into the trees, maintaining a silent atmosphere, until suddenly she cut it off, "Yes Kakashi."
"Hm?"
She turned her eyes on him. "I am still mad about this morning."
"Ah." He was going to actually ask her about that. Though it had been accidental, she seriously had not taken it all too well.
Grinning, she kicked a loose stone out of her way, "Yes, ah. Don't worry though, I completley understand it was an accident."
He breathed a sigh of relief.
"Still--"
Syna gave him a devilish grin and disappeared. Kakashi froze. Why did he not feel so comfortable anymore?
The explosion struck before he had time to do anything about it. It would have been practically impossible for him to do anything about it anyway. The paper bomb didn't come flying at him from any angle. It exploded right behind him, on the back of his shoulder where it had been somehow attached without his noticement. There was a slight ringing in his ears, before a blue smoke cloud surrounded Kakashi and threw him to the ground. It wasn't strong enough to injure him, but the shock of it certainly knocked him off his feet in a billowing cloud of blue smoke, which hugged to him and the air around him tightly for a while until the wind picked it up and began to diffuse it into thin wisps.
Kakashi hacked a little, coughing some of the blue smoke out of his lungs as he got back to his feet. His senses had returned, and he hadn't been injured at all by the explosion.
He turned to the sound of laughter, seeing Syna standing now only a few feet away again, having returned when the area was safe from the blast. "I love that kid Naruto," she declared to him. "He has the strangest items in the deep depths of his pockets."
Naruto? Kakashi froze. Naruto!
He looked down at his hands in front of him, and was instantly greeted with a sight he was fearing to see. He was covered in the same blue hue as the smoke from the paper bomb that Syna must have attached when she clapped him on the shoulder. It wasn't just his clothes that were now stained. He knew the paper bomb she must have obtained from his cheeky prankster student, and knew full well it was likely to take days to scrub the blue from his skin.
With one hand on her hip, she leaned forward to poke him in the chest, "Now it feels like we're even for this morning." Tilting her head to the side a little, she grinned mischieviously. "You look so dashing in blue."
He didn't even have an answer for her; only his shoulders slumping and head falling forward in an resigned accept of deserved punishment answered as a reply. The worst part of it was he didn't even know how she managed to get one of Naruto's paper paint bombs! Surely she hadn't managed to get one in the time between this morning and now from him... and the only other way was that she had been carrying one that he had given her since yesterday. He decided from now on he would forbid his students from using the paper paint bombs again...
Syna was chuckling to herself, trying not to break down in hysterics. Kakashi dreaded the moment he would have to look in a mirror to assess the full amount of damage. Stifling another laugh behind her hand, she asked, "Would you like to make a stop off anywhere so you can clean up before anyone sees you?"
"If you wouldn't mind."
Syna laughed, and with a giant grin plastered on her face she held out an arm, letting him lead the way out of the training ground with her following close on his blue heels.
Less than an hour later they were standing again just outside the training ground. The sun was slumped even further into the horizon. Another hour or so and it would start it's descent behind the horizon.
Kakashi, now in fresh clothes that weren't blue (though the visible skin that had been caught by the blast was still a nice light shade of blue, as was his hair) stepped out into the open on the training field first. "The ANBU should be here soon."
"Yay." Syna had been slightly disheartened after discovering the fact that Kakashi only seemed to have instant ramen for her to tackle into at his apartment. The only thing that seemed to cheer her back up again after such a disappointment was when he had reappeared after half an hour of scrubbing with the failed attempt to rid the blue in his skin.
Kakashi paused for a moment, waiting in the low rays of the sun to see if he could spot any of the ANBU members. They should be here right about now.
A slight haze of movement alerted him to their presence. He looked back to Syna, who was leaning against a tree in the shade of it's thick foilage and waiting for him to tell her to do something. Her gaze was of a relaxed and carefree expression that most would think meant she was just waiting for something to happen. Her eyes however were sharp, and probarbly meant she had noticed the slight haze as well.
"Walk out into the field. The ANBU will meet you out there."
"And you?" she asked when Kakashi turned to head in the direction opposite of the training ground.
"I'll still be watching."
She grinned. "From the shadows so no-one sees that lovely new blue coat?"
Kakashi couldn't help but chuckle himself. "It will make the others too jealous." She grinned, and left him so she could walk out into the centre of the training ground. He waited until she was a decent distance away, before the shadow clone that she had just been talking to slunk against a tree and fell into a restful disuse. The real Kakashi had already been waiting for Syna and his clone to appear, hidden amongst the trees on the opposite end of the grounds alongside other ANBU. Quietly they had waited pressed into the shadows of the trees or lying low in the shrubbery, their thick black coats shrouding them with extra cover. Lady Tsunade had firmly expressed that she wished for none of the ANBU to reveal their identity to Syna at any point; and that most assuredly included Kakashi. So before leaving the apartment he had substitued himself for a clone, allowing himself to appear in normal clothes with Syna while the real him was waiting in full ANBU gear.
As soon as Syna stepped into the centre of the field she tilted her head up. She knew they were there. The earlier haze of movement had alerted her to their presence, and soon enough this was confirmed as they settled down gently in a cricle around her.
"I guess I should just get straight into the lesson." She pulled a stray hair back out of her face, and continued, "I understand all of you would have been present this morning, so I shan't bother to teach the technique to you again. I'm going to show you something different. A technique that all but 'S' rank and ANBU level shinobi would find impossible. So I will stress the importance of this technique."
They braced as she slammed her hands together, forming a familiar handsign. With a puff of smoke there was soon two of her standing in the centre of the black cloaked circle. Her, and a clone, though it was near impossible from a glance to tell which was which.
"I want you all to throw as many kunai at both of us as you can," ordered the Syna on the left.
The Syna on the right added, "Do not stop until I command you to. Whatever happens, you do not stop until you are told to. Understand?"
The ANBU bobbed their heads in a signal of understanding, and readied themselves with kunai in their hands. Both Syna stood in the centre of the circle, both calm and composed with closed eyes. The ANBU braced ready for their movement to avoid the attack, eyes sharp for anything.
"Begin!" Syna ordered.
The barrage of kunai plunged straight at both clones. However after the first round of kunai had been thrown, it became obvious that neither of the two in the centre were going to go anywhere. They made only slight body movements to avoid direct strikes into the head, heart or vital areas of the body. However the rest of the kunai bit deeply into the skin, sinking through the flesh and drawing blood across her stomach, legs, arms, shoulders, back and anywhere else she let them strike.
The stangest thing was that both of the Syna's in the centre of the circle were bleeding, each from a number of different wounds, none identical in placement. One of them had to obviously be a clone, but now they were uncertain of which it may be. Surely the clone would have by now disappeared, as they usually did when struck. However both stood impossibly still and real. The ANBU ceased their attack, unsure of what to do. If they continued then there was the chance that they may kill the real one of the two.
"I told you not to stop until I told you! Continue!" one of the Syna's yelled.
They hesitated for a moment, before they drew out more kunai. They were ANBU; specially trained as assassins not to think about things twice, and to take action where others wouldn't. Most other shinobi would have declined to continue at injuring a fellow shinobi like this, even at their own command. Kakashi however, hidden in the midst of the others, felt a great sense of reluctance. Sure he had been given an order to kill her by the Hokage if needed, but that didn't mean that he wanted to. Especially not like this. He aimed again, with the great accuracy into the ground at her feet instead of for her when they began to fire again.
After continuous rounds of kunai biting deeply into both figures before them, one of the Syna's finally held up her hand. "Okay! Enough!"
The attacks ceased instantly, and Syna dropped her hand. Both of them were breathing heavily, bleeding from more wounds than possible to count. The blood loss made both of them pale, and desperatley fragile looking. In all honesty, it seemed like neither of them would live for very long, both clone and the real Syna.
The Syna on the left huffed, standing a little more straight. "Good job. I needed both me and clone to be injured, in order to emphasise this technique to you. It could alter the tide of a battle."
She pressed her hands together. This time the hand sign she performed was unfamiliar, and so fast that even Kakashi's trained eyes for speed had difficulty following her hands. Pressing them tightly together, a sharp crack appeared in the centre of her hands. It was a thin light mist that surrounded her alike to the ANBU's black cloaks. They watched, seeing the thin spray coat her in the opaque mist. What happened next was almost unbelievable. The blood from every single one of her wounds seemed to seep away from her body and into the mist, tinging it a deep red. As each wound began to disappear, more of them began to appear on the second Syna, now recognised as the clone. The new wounds were exactly the same as the ones that disappeared on the real Syna.
When the mist finally dropped away, Syna stood before them as healthy as she had been when she stepped out onto the training ground less than ten minutes ago. Her almost mutilated clone disappeared with a puff of smoke.
"That technique is another reason the Silver Shadows are so difficult to defeat. They use up to three clones in a battle, and each can sustain injuries to give a false impression of being the real person. Meanwhile when the real person themselves becomes too injured, they transfer their injuries to their clone and it disappers."
Syna's eyes flashed, "However, they can only use three at a time, and once one has been used in a battle then it cannot be recalled. The chakra it uses is immense, so Silver Shadows favour avoiding the use of their clones if they can help it. But if they sense that they are in danger in a battle and use a clone, they can become almost unstoppable."
She pressed her palms together, and another clone appeared in a puff of smoke. "Of course, there are some limits. If you strike the original enemy in a fatal area, such as the heart, neck or head, then they will be stopped. The matter is knowing which is the clone or not. There is a way for you as ANBU to recognise which are the clones, and which is the real enemy."
Performing yet another unfamiliar hand jutsu, she raised her hand towards the clone. A faint glimmer began to surround the clone, the slight haze of a greenish colour. "The clones give off a faint amount of chakra, which if you use this technique makes it visible for the rest of the time it remains called forward. This technique may save both you and other shinobi."
She folded her hands across her chest, "However I must express how much chakra this technique uses, and how extremley difficult it is to control. There is no way a normal shinobi can control the chakra in order to perform the technique, which is why I am showing it to you. It may be up to you to help keep the others alive."
Devilishly she grinned, with the custom humour that seemed typical of her as Kakashi had learnt since first meeting her. "Now just make sure you guys don't tire yourselves out too much. After all.... I think Lady Tsunade has arranged for this training again tomorrow. Now let's begin."
It was late into the night, at least three hours after sunset when they finally called it a night. Most of the ANBU members had completley depleted their chakra in practising the new technique, and so far there had been very limited results. It was obvious the amount of training that would be necessary for them to perfect the technique. Secretly both Kakashi's alertness about Syna for her chakra level, and respect for her control of it, had severley increased.
He left with the other ANBU members, letting his clone collect Syna.
She greeted his clone with a bright big grin. "Hello blue bell!"
He pouted visibly behind the mask. "Did you treat the ANBU well?"
"Like they were on a tropical relaxing holiday. Now I'm starving, so escort me to a meal if you please."
Kakashi smirked, "Only if you cook. I'm afraid I will not go out in my current condition."
"Gee I didn't realise you were so self conscious. Okay okay. I'll cook... as long as it isin't instant ramen!"
"We have a deal."
"Good for you blue bell."
It was late at night. Dawn would be in another four hours. Kakashi had taken the second shift of the night after Iruka, who had seemed the most reasonable choice to ask that wouldn't laugh in hysterics when Kakashi approached him in his current condition. Though Iruka had barely managed to stifle a few girlish giggles, he had agreed to take first watch.
Kakashi was now leaning in the shadows of the tree outside Syna's house. There was little movement, and at somepoint during the day someone had come to fix the glass window that he had shattered last night. Though it was opened slightly, purely as a fact to spite Kakashi after another of his 'break-ins' he believed.
It seemed like nothing would happen at all that night. The calm cool night air was light against whatever of Kakashi's skin wasn't covered, and his temporarily blue hair was gently ruffled in the breeze. He was almost calm, when he felt the sharp trigger of chakra prod against him and he jerked up into a standing position. This could only mean one thing.
Earlier that night he had set up a silent chakra barrier to surround the house. Almost undetecable unless you knew it was up, invisible and sensitive if someone were to cross the barrier. After what he had seen today, especially the ability Syna had to instantly trasport herself without detection, Kakashi wasn't as naive as last night to not leave some sort of barrier around her house. She could have easily snuck out last night and escaped from the village, and he cursed the fact he had so underestimated her. Tonight he wouldn't make a slip up like leaving her the ability for escape.
The trigger that had been set off signalled to him that indeed she had tried to pull a fast one and escape the home without noticement. The barried held a grip on her for another two hundred feet, relocating her a few rooftops away. She was easy to find, not bothering to cloak herself since she thought she had escaped from his hawk view. It was definately her, the golden waves reflecting the silver moonlight. Instantly he was on her tail like a shadow, leaving behind more clones just in case this itself was a clone.
He followed her, keeping in the darkness. She didn't notice him, continuing forward back to the training grounds beside the forest surrounding Konoha. It was an easy area for escape, or even to meet up with secret infiltraters to the village. Kakashi frowned as he tailed her. This was definately suspicious, especially after a day where she had basically depleted majority of their best and strongest fighters of the village in order to teach them new techniques. If she was a spy... then now would have been the perfect time that she would iniciate an outside attack.
Kakashi reached into his pocket, drawing out a kunai. Well if it came to it... tonight might be the night he killed her.
_______
TADAAA! I know it took ages, but I had exams, and all that jazz..... so forgive me? Please?
I give you virtual cookie if you review!
