Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Naruto characters. All of them belong to Masashi Kishimoto. Rei Kitsuna, Kristi Kitsuna, and Hige Inuzuka are mine however.
Chapter 8: Chuunin Exams?
After the wonderful ice cream that Hitoshi-sensei bought for us, I went home and looked at the scrolls some more. When I was scanning them, I saw three that caught my attention; The Searching Winds jutsu, Wind Dragon jutsu, and one where it combined wind-based chakra and taijutsu. The last one gained most of my interest since my area of expertise at the moment is taijutsu, so I decided to look into it.
"The scroll says that the wind-based taijutsu was a preference of members of the Kitsuna clan. They would summon chakra to their limbs, empowering their moves. The hands were used the most, as it could become more like an edged weapon, such as a sword or kunai." Ooh, that's amazing! I'm gonna practice this one first! I'll start whenever I have time, hopefully tomorrow. With that thought, I went to bed for the night.
I walked slowly to the lake, my team's usual meeting spot. I rubbed my eyes several times before I plopped down on the soft grass beneath me. I was extremely tired. Three pairs of eyes looked down at me. "Rei-chan, what are you doing? We didn't come here to sleep." "Tsubaki-chan, I know that! I'm not sleeping." Hitoshi-sensei laughed at our antics, "Calm down, we're not here to argue. I'm here to talk to you about the chuunin exams. They are going to begin in three months time so I have to incorporate a lot of training within that time span. We most likely will stay in the village for training, I may get a mission for us every now and again, but our main focus is on training, especially as a team." He emphasized that by looking at each of us. "When do we start sensei?" "Now. Stand up Rei-chan, we're running around the village to increase stamina, let's go!" He began running; I stood up quickly and followed Tsubaki-chan.
Panting was all that could be heard for ten minutes. We ran five laps around the entire village and we were all dead tired! Except for Hitoshi-sensei of course. I don't know where he gets all that stamina from. "All right! Now we'll work on ninjutsu. We seem to be lacking in that area at the moment, but not for long." He looked to me and Tsubaki-chan. Hige-kun is very good at his water ninjutsu when he uses it.
"Okay, so I know your chakra is wind-based Rei-chan, what about you Tsubaki-chan?" Hitoshi-sensei had his attention on Tsubaki-chan. She looked kind of nervous. "Umm, I'm not sure, am I supposed to know?" Sensei smiled, "No, not really. Here, hold this in your hand." He handed her a square piece of paper. She looked up, confused. "What is this sensei?" "It's chakra paper. Just summon chakra to your hand and watch." She did as he said. When she opened her hand, a burnt looking piece of paper was left. "You have fire-based chakra. That's easy to work with." He nodded in approval, and then he looked to me. "I don't know too many wind jutsus, did you find anything in your scrolls?" I nodded, "Yes sensei, I actually have one in mind." "Okay, that's good. Work on your jutsu. Hige-kun, practice your jutsus as well while I teach Tsubaki-chan a few fire jutsus." "Hai sensei!"
With that, I walked a little further down the lake, where I had more room to practice, just in case something went wrong. I began performing hand signs in a sequence that was foreign to me. Then, I left my hands at the last hand seal, the bird. My eyes set in determination; I concentrated on the surrounding air. I could feel the static power of the surrounding chakra. A form soon began to form in the wind and within another minute, a dragon made of wind winded around me. Sweat was pouring down my face with the strain of the jutsu; my hands began to shake. A strong gust of wind pushed me to the soft ground, and I landed in a huff. I looked up to see that my wind dragon had dispersed. Sigh, "This is going to be harder than I thought." This jutsu required more chakra than what I was used to using. I nodded to myself; this was just the kind of challenge I needed to inspire me.
I looked to the other side of the lake to watch Tsubaki-chan and Hitoshi-sensei. Tsubaki-chan was facing the lake, with a hand positioned at her mouth. Within seconds, the lake was lit up beautifully with a huge fireball. Hitoshi-sensei looked impressed and walked off towards Hige-kun. Tsubaki-chan kept practicing the fireball jutsu.
I rose to my feet and began practicing my new jutsu. After about an hour, I could sustain the jutsu for around three minutes. I could get it to move as well, but not very far yet. Hitoshi-sensei began walking towards me and I got excited. I could finally show him my progress! He smiled when he saw how excited I was getting. "Okay, show me what you've worked on so far." I nodded and performed the now familiar sequence and concentrated. Surrounding my body was a giant wind dragon. It began to fly into the sky and I made it do tricks. Sensei was looking up as the dragon did flips and glided gracefully against the horizon. I could feel my control begin to slowly slip away so I had the dragon go to the middle of the lake, where it dispersed in a huge gust, creating a large, rippling wave that headed to the edge where it gently lapped against the grass. He looked at me with approval and called the others to my side of the lake. The moon had long risen in the sky, so I figured it was time to leave. "Great job today you three, you worked really hard. For the rest of this month we will be working on ninjutsu. We will also work on our stamina in the mornings until the chuunin exams begin. Now go home and get some rest, you'll need it for tomorrow." With that, we all went home for a well-earned rest.
Today is the day that marks the second month of training. I hurriedly ate breakfast and went to our training grounds, the lake. I was the last one today it seems, as my team turned their heads towards me. "Morning!" I couldn't wait to see what we'd be working on this month. "Morning. This month we'll be working on your own strengths. Tsubaki-chan, you will be focusing on genjutsu, but may incorporate other things. Hige-kun, since we focused on your strength last month I want you to spar with me for awhile, work on your taijutsu." Hige-kun nodded at this as sensei went on, "And Rei-chan, you will work on taijutsu as well. You said you had a specific kind in mind already?" "Hai sensei. It's taijutsu that was favored by my clan." He nodded at that, "Very well, when you think you have a good amount of control with it come see me." I nodded and walked to my side of the lake. I already memorized what I needed to do to control my chakra and the stances required for it to be the most effective. I slowly dropped into a relaxed stance and pulled chakra to my hands; it'd be easier if I started with one of my limbs instead of all four. Once I felt enough chakra, I added my element to it, wind, and I could see the chakra around my hands. Slowly, the chakra began to sharpen. When I felt it was done reshaping I saw that the chakra surrounded my hands in the shape of the head of a kunai. I stood still for a few minutes, memorizing how it felt to have chakra around my hands, and changed into a more aggressive stance. I began an imaginary fight, going through the different stances and attack positions I saw drawn on my clan's scroll. After a few hours of this it became second nature, and I flowed through the moves gracefully, just as my wind dragon does through the sky. I sensed someone coming from my right; my sensei. I recalled my chakra and looked over to him; he looked surprised. "That was very good Rei-chan, you've exceeded my expectations." I smiled gratefully at his compliment, and then he continued, "How did you know I was coming? You looked very preoccupied." Oh, that's what he was surprised about. "Well, I've been training my senses at night, before I go to sleep. I've learned to recognize chakra patterns from several people, mainly you, Tsubaki-chan and Hige-kun." He looked impressed again. "That's very good Rei-chan, only the most advanced ninja have learned to recognize chakra patterns." Now this surprised me, it came naturally. Then he shook his head, "Anyway, it's getting late, time to head home." I looked around and just realized that my two teammates had left already. When sensei disappeared in a puff of smoke, I walked towards my house.
For the next month we ran around the village a few times, which quickly became easy, and I would go through the moves of my clan. I sometimes sparred with Hige-kun and Hitoshi-sensei, even one on two spars at some points. The third month was quickly approaching and the three of us became even more excited and nervous, if that was possible.
