Disclaimer: The Naruto Universe: I don't own it.
Author's Note at the end of the chapter.
Ninko, Chapter 10: Of Looming Dangers
Team Four returned to Konoha late in the afternoon, their D-rank completed after four days of laboring on one of the many farm's dotting Hi no Kuni's expansive land.
Upon entering the village proper, Naruto could feel the change in atmosphere as though it were day and night. Instead of looks of welcome, he received suspicious glances. It was distressing, to feel more appreciated abroad with a family he'd never heard of before.
When he was younger, the isolation between himself and the villagers was far more problematic. When the winter's chill made him ill, or some random calamity reared it's head, he'd been left alone to fend for himself. As he grew, his body was less likely to grow ill, and the various scrapes and bruises often healed themselves over the course of the night. Nevertheless, it was a sobering experience, even for a child his age: to know that he was alone. The only one actively concerned with his well being was the Sandaime Hokage, and for obvious reasons the aged shinobi was distanced from the blond-haired boy.
And at it's core, that is what he felt whenever within his 'home'. Distance. Though he may walk the streets, he may as well be miles away. He'd almost grown to relish the negative attention he received - the glares, the dismissals - it was predictable. He could rely on. Those hesitant eyes, though, alight with fear and hate and pity, and countless other things he couldn't hope to identify...
..those eyes terrified him.
Even now, a shinobi of Konoha, they frightened him. It was why he avoided crowds and restaurants, why he trained himself to exhaustion and then locked himself away in his apartment.
With eyes like those; watching, waiting, probing eyes, he knew not what his fellow villagers were capable of.
"Will you be able to do it, Akane-san?"
The question prompted a frown, and the raven-haired woman tightened her grip on her obi unconsciously. "That's...not a fair question to ask, Hokage-sama."
"And yet ask it I must," Sarutobi replied firmly. His hands were folded on his desk, and he regarded Team Four's Jounin-sensei, Namiashi Akane with a soft sigh.
"I can't say for certain, Hokage-sama," the woman ventured at last, breaking through the silence that had settled over the room. "I've never taught children before. Though they may be genin, their development is...unpredictable."
Nodding reassuringly, Sarutobi smiled slightly. "They certainly are an unpredictable bunch, are they not? It is impossible to tell what heights any of these new genin may reach, which is why I don't relish this decision," the Hokage admitted frankly.
"But why my genin? Certainly an older and more experienced genin team would be better suited..." the woman trailed off uncertainly. Her stance was rigid, but her words were chosen tactfully. It was clear she had a problem with his request at it's core that wouldn't be addressed as things were.
"There are very few complete genin teams available for this task, you know this. With the situation with the Kyuubi, the skirmishes with Iwa and the Uchiha massacre, most of the genin teams are missing members of have been dissolved and merged with current chuunin," the Hokage explained, easily. "You didn't need me to tell you that, though. If you have an objection, speak up."
"I don't enjoy the thought of sending my kids to the slaughterhouse for the sake of a political statement. They're children."
'Her kids? For her to become so attached so quickly...I hadn't expected this.' "I don't make this decision lightly, Akane-san. There are risks associated, but the benefits-"
"I refuse to throw them to the wolves to tout Danzou's little pet project!" Namiashi Akane interrupted, her voice impassioned and her eyes alight with flame. "They're worth more than some political clout for that crippled bastard!"
"I remember the Third War." Akane continued, her voice fiery. "I remember watching my classmates and teammates die in droves. They were shinobi, yes, but they were also children! And they died as children: crying and afraid as death loomed over them, weeping, begging for their mothers!"
The jounin's countenance was dark as she paused. Her words were far more subdued, yet her face revealed nothing. Her emotions were on a tight leash. "I do not want to see the same for these kids. They haven't a clue what lies beyond the outskirts of Konoha, the shinobi world will eat them alive. I won't send them needlessly into the lion's den."
"You've made your point, Akane-san," the Hokage said, and his face was somber as he let out a sigh. "It is necessary."
The wooden doors opened and closed with an echoing crack, and Sarutobi sat alone in his office once more.
"Alright, Naruto-kun! Break time's over!"
The genin groaned, but reluctantly got to their feet.
After their last extended D-rank outside the city, Akane had given her genin the weekend off to rest. The Monday afterward, she had approached them with a surprise: they'd been given a week free from D-rank missions, since they'd more than fulfilled their quota.
Three hours had passed, and Naruto had long since realized their 'vacation' would be hell.
Standing up shakily, Naruto could hear the thump-thump-thump of his teammates scaling their respective trees, and dimly he felt jealous at their progress. Tree-walking had been one of the first exercises he'd been instructed in: it was reasonably chakra intensive, it developed control, and he couldn't kill anyone with it. When Bandage-san had his masked friends train him, the crippled shinobi had made it clear that he did not trust the blond jinchuuriki, and that such trust would have to be earned.
And earn it he did, through blood, sweat and tears. Where once the Bandaged Elder thought of the boy as a threat...
...well, now he was considered "an adequately trained, somewhat dependable threat," as the man had described it on their last meeting.
He was broken from his reverie when his sensei tossed a kunai in his direction. An instinctive roll brought him out of harms way, with an objection on his lips.
"I told you break time was over, Naruto-kun. Now, pay attention," his sensei advised, before collapsing into a pile of dry earth.
'A bunshin!'
Immediately leaping into the air, Naruto's short flight was terminated by a jarring kick to his back, sending him back to the ground gracelessly. Turning his fall into a roll, Naruto ignored his shoulder's protest as somersaulted to his feet.
He heard his sensei's feet touch the grass, rustling like a breeze as she cushioned her fall with chakra. Fluidly, the boy turned while plucking a kunai from his pouch and flung it towards his sensei.
Or, at least, he tried to.
The three-or-so meter gap he'd expected between himself and jounin was less than a foot, and the woman caught his wrist mid-throw. Turning his spin against him, she used his arm as a lever to flip him over her hip and to the ground. His elbow and shoulder protested the treatment, and he landed with a groan.
"Well, you did better. You managed to get the kunai clear of your pouch this time."
As the boy dragged himself to his feet, the woman continued.
"Your taijutsu is abysmal. For your age, it's fine, and for a genin, it's average. However, you'll be hard pressed to even hold of a ninja above your skill level if you can't hold your own in hand to hand. Your reflexes are good, but your strength is lacking, primarily due to your age. We'll have to make up for that with technique," pausing, the raven-haired woman helped her whiskered genin to his feet. Though the boy was addled by the fall, the way he hung on her every word was...somewhat disquieting. He'd expected a child his age to be somewhat more...spastic.
"Until you grow a bit more, you're not going to be throwing any knockout punches, and your reach is a great deal shorter than even your peers. Instead, I want you to consider a different type of taijutsu," the woman continued at last. "Something a bit more...strategic."
Pausing, for a moment, the woman frowned, before walking where her other two students were practicing their tree walking. Each had progressed at a respectable speed, making it nearly to the top of the tree multiple times, if the kunai marks were any indication. At this point, they had the exercise down, the only thing that cause them to fail was wavering concentration. A break would likely due them good.
"Yo, Miyuki-chan!" Akane shouted, startling the Hyuuga as she began her run up the tree. Abruptly, her foot broke through the trunk and she flailed her arms, kicking off before landing in a stumble.
"Not funny, Sensei," Miyuki responded with a glare.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever. You need to pay may attention to what's around you, a shinobi is never caught of guard, blah blah blah. Anyway, I want you to spar with Naruto, taijutsu only."
"That's not a particularly fair match-up, sensei," Miyuki replied smoothly, her eyes flicking towards the slightly battered blond.
"Eh, we're shinobi. We don't play fair."
"Ouch! What was that, Miyuki-chan?!" her blond-haired teammate asked with a shocked look on his face.
Miyuki cut the flow of chakra to her eyes, and the enlarged veins receded almost instantly. "It is the Juuken, a style of taijutsu exclusive to the Hyuuga clan. It focuses on attacking tenketsu as well as internal organs, disrupting chakra flow and even outright destroying an opponents heart or arteries."
Though described in a detached manner, Naruto's eyes grew increasingly larger, and when Miyuki finished they were the size of saucers. "Wow, that's so cool! And the Byakugan allows you to spot the body's tenketsu, right?"
"Yes...that's correct," Miyuki replied uneasily. 'He didn't know what Juuken was, but knew of the Byakugan's ability to see tenketsu? The knowledge of the two usually comes hand-in-hand.'
"Alright, but how does Juuken work?" the boy queried, stretching out his arms.
"Like I said, it attacks the tenketsu and disables chakra flow," Miyuki replied, slightly confused. 'Did he already forget?'
"Yeah, yeah, you already said that!" Noting the confused look, on his teammate's face, Naruto elaborated. "That's what it does, but how does it do it?"
Nodding at last, the girl held up her hand. A blue glow was emitted from her palm, enveloping her fingertips to the point where it covered the entire inside of her hand. Rotating her hand, though, she demonstrated that the chakra wasn't emitted from the back of her hand nor the backs of her fingers. "What you're seeing now is far more dramatized than you are likely to see from an expert. The damage Juuken inflicts doesn't come solely from the force of the moving hand, instead it comes from lances of chakra sent into an opponent's circulatory system. Alone, that chakra can disrupt jutsu and close tenketsu. Targeted to specific areas, it can 'follow' the criculartory system and attack organs and other tissue directly. A master of the style would be able to destroy an opponent's heart with a single finger." To demonstrate, she held up her index finger.
"This requires a great deal of precision, however, and I am currently not capable of such a feat," Miyuki admitted frankly. "Instead, to attack tenketsu I use multiple fingers and my palm," at this, she unfolded her fingers once more. "There is a limit to how much foreign chakra a Juuken strike can contain. The limit can be gradually surpassed through training, or through limiting the surface area of one's attack, so it all enters the targeted tenketsu point. This, however, requires pin-point precision that likely only Hyuuga Hiashi possess. The only other parties I'd expect it from would be the younger elders, who haven't had their finger dexterity eroded by age."
The boy nodded, frowning as he digested all the information his teammate had provided him with. It gave him a few things to consider. "Why are you telling me all of this?" the blond queried delicately. "The more I know, the greater chance I have at finding a weakness."
The Hyuuga smiled slightly. "The proper answer would be that your efforts would bear no fruit. The Juuken is a perfect style, and has led the Hyuuga clan to it's position of dominance."
"Yeah? Well what about the less proper answer?"
"Mm, that would be that we're teammates, and we should look out for one another," the lavender-eyed girl replied. "Furthermore, there are other shinobi with knowledge of the Juuken, and anything you discover could just as easily be discovered by another. Weaknesses aren't created, they're discovered. Better you discover them than an enemy shinobi."
Nodding, Naruto jumped to his feet. "Well, then I'll be sure to find every weakness in that style, Miyuki-chan! Dattebayo!"
"Good to hear it," the Hyuuga replied with a bit more warmth than was her custom, "Naruto-kun."
She was a bit taken aback by his vitality, though. 'I didn't fully close any of his tenketsu, but it's odd that someone our age would be able to shake off strikes so quickly regardless.' When the Hyuuga activated her Byakugan, she found that the tenketsu she targeted had already dilated once more.
"Ready when you are Naruto-kun."
The boy paused, taking a deep breath before nodding. "Ready."
At once the two both exploded into motion. Aware of the danger of his teammates strikes, Naruto shifted his focus from her torso to her extremities. Smacking his teammates right hand aside first, he attempted to slip into her guard, yet he lacked the time to plant himself for a strong punch before she danced out of range.
Moments strung together, and soon the clearing was filled with their labored breaths. They traded blows, with Miyuki gradually increasing the speed of her strikes as Naruto attempted to establish a flow.
Naruto attempted to keep his sensei's advice in mind, and tried to focus on his teammate's arms instead of her torso. Trying to attack her through a hole in her defense was unlikely. However, if he were to make such a hole, it would be far easier. However, his teammate was no fool, the moment he committed to disabling one arm, the other was brought to bear. Even now the boy's left hand was an angry red, and it was doubtful he'd be able to uncurl his fingers.
Miyuki didn't simply allow the boy to analyze her style, though. She pushed him on the defensive, and scored numerous glancing strikes to his arms and legs, and two light brushes against his stomach. His movements were labored, now, as his movements became more sluggish, more of her strikes landed. The result was predetermined. It was fate.
Unwilling to simply let nature run it's course, though, Miyuki enacted a strategy of her own. Dodging to the side of her teammate's strikes to her arms, she kicked out with leg, hooking her foot around Naruto's ankle and sending him stumbling. A firm strike to the outer thigh and his leg buckled, and the blond fell to the floor in a heap.
In the end, it was quick. Lasting little more than a couple minutes, for the two shinobi it had felt as though time had crawled by.
"You did well, Naruto-kun," Miyuki remarked, giving him a moment to recover before offering to help him up.
"You went easy on me," Naruto replied, though his voice was devoid of annoyance or malice. Clearly, the fact hadn't injured his pride overmuch.
"It's a training exercise, neither of us will learn anything if the match is over in a matter of seconds."
Naruto's eyes were alight with mock insult. "Are you saying you could take me down 'in a matter of seconds'?"
"It's possible," Miyuki admitted coyly. "And with that tenketsu in your leg sealed? Probable."
Naruto scowled, opening his mouth to retort before he heard the voice of his sensei shouting from a nearby clearing. "Yo, Naruto-kun, Miyuki-chan, get back here, it's time for lunch!"
"Lunch?" Naruto queried with a smirk. "I'm starvin'!"
Jumping to his feet, Naruto half limped, half jogged toward where his sensei had called from, while his teammate watched his progress critically.
'Moving already...such a strange boy...'
A/N: Another chapter of Ninko down, complete with a bit of foreshadowing for future events! If you're a bit confused about the scene with the Sandaime and Akane, that's intentional. It will be explored later, but I'm sure a few of you can hazard a guess.
Short chapter this time, and I wasn't able to get it out during the week like I had wanted. This chapter will likely replace Mondays, and I'll probably have Monday's up by Wednesday or Thursday, but I give no promises. Work-load is starting to increase a bit.
Anyway, please read and review, your insight is greatly appreciated, be it criticism or praise.