Hi everyone! Thank you for reading my story up through now. Also, thank you to everyone who has taken the time to leave me reviews. They are really encouraging and they help a lot. Please, if you can, keep them coming. I was in kind of a mad scientist mood while I was writing this one; there are several scenes I thought were hilarious but I understand if you're just left there, looking at your laptop wondering WTH just happened. Tallman0029 and I are planning to have our stories cross reference each other, so I'm currently in the process of brow beating him into publishing another chapter. I'm doing everything I can to keep the plot rolling, but chapters will probably be shorter until he publishes his next chapter so I don't run out of material. I don't want to go on hiatus; I just go started! If you have any questions or comments, feel free to PM me. Now that my rant is over, please enjoy chapter 10.
It was right around dawn that Beki was awoken from a deep dreamless sleep by timid knocking at her door. Unable to reply with more than a grunt, the door opened a crack. Hinata's form could be seen beyond, her long, baggy tshirt nightgown visibly rumpled and her hair mussed. It was obvious she had been roused without warning as well.
"Beki," Hinata's voice was smaller than normal, barely above a whisper. "Your father is waiting for you outside.
"What the hell," Beki growled into her pillow. "We aren't supposed to train until eight!"
She knew better than to keep her father waiting, however. Many years ago Beki had tried to sleep in after he'd summoned her, only to be roused by the traumatizing cold bucket of ice water he emptied over her head in a long slow stream. Another time she was awoken by being wrapped in her sheets like a mummy and thrown in a bathtub full of the same frigid water. When her eyes threatened to droop shut again, the hair on her arms and neck stood on end, anticipating the incoming of unbearable cold. Her rest ruined, she literally rolled out of bed onto the floor and walked on her hands and feet to the closet.
Her unusual form of travel attracted Hinata's attention. Her roommate opened the door all the way and took a seat on the side of Beki's messy bed. She watched sleepily as Beki stood begrudgingly and began tossing items out of her dresser onto the floor.
"Why do you think he's taking you so early?" Hinata mumbled behind half closed eyes.
"If I know him, it's not going to be good," Beki stripped off her pink and white striped nightgown violently, angrily shaking it off of her arms as she spoke. "He's probably going to make me hike into the middle of nowhere, strap a friggin oxcart to my back and make me haul it all the way back here."
Hinata had slowly sunk back into the warmth of Beki's bed, filling the cozy imprint her friend had left behind.
"Should you eat something?" She slurred into the pillow.
"No, I'll just end up throwing it up on my shoes," Beki pulled on her red sports bra and black compression leggings. It would probably get warm later on, but she needed the protection of full leg coverage knowing her father's history of training location choices. "He's usually nice enough to have a bento stashed somewhere along the way. I mean, he makes me find it first, and it's usually strapped to a tree limb or buried under a false bottomed rock, but he still feeds me."
Beki's comment was met with soft steady breathing. She looked over to see Hinata curled up and fast asleep in her bed. A dark gray sleeveless wrap shirt with a blue wave pattern caught her eye. It was cotton, and would compensate for her ventilation issues later in the day. She had the bright idea to sew shoulder pads into her wrap shirts because of how often her father made her haul carts and overstuffed hiking packs. They were a godsend, but made her look like the lead singer of a hair band. This look was strengthened by the fact she didn't have time to brush and braid her out of control mane. She tossed the blankets over Hinata as she walked downstairs, hurriedly tossing her hair in a messy bun. As she walked to the front door, she passed the hall mirror and caught her reflection. It's going to be a bad day when you start training looking like you just finished it, she thought.
Seiichiro was patiently waiting outside watching the sun slowly make its ascent in the morning sky. He heard the thudding of his daughter coming down the stairs. There was a lot he took pride in, but how she fumbled around like a freshly animated corpse had been a source of annoyance for years. As a shinobi, he had tried to drive home the importance of being able to rise and be alert instantly. However, as a shinobi and as a father, he had always had to drag the girl kicking and screaming to the academy every morning. For the longest time he thought that she didn't want to be a kunoichi or that she hated school. Long after she graduated, he realized that no matter what the day would hold, Beki would never be a morning person.
With that thought in mind, the door swung open and he was faced with his daughter. She looked as dead as she moved. No matter how much sleep she got or how much water she drank, she always rose with dark bags under her eyes and skin as pallid as snow. The look she gave him could curdle milk.
"Good morning, Sunshine," Her father suppressed a smile at the glower she gave him in response. "Are you ready to train?"
"Yes, daddy dearest," She hissed as she stumbled along the drive towards the gates. "I swear to heaven and hell if you make me pull an oxcart I'm going to run you over with it."
"If you can catch me while pulling an oxcart, I will gladly lay down in the road," He smirked and Beki rolled her eyes.
He's up to something, she thought. His snark levels are through the roof this morning. Whenever her father had something truly insidious waiting for her, he couldn't help but poke at her leading up to it. It was like he was patting himself on the back for something that hadn't even happened yet; applauding his own genius. To her surprise, instead of heading off for the forest, her father led her into town. Her suspicion mounted with each block they traversed closer to the center of the village.
What is he planning? Beki had broken a sweat already, her nerves a mess. Was he going to try to drown her in the hot springs? Knock her out and leave her in an abandoned building tied to a chair? Give her a key to a mysterious basement under a house somewhere in the city and leave her behind never to be seen again?
When he stepped through the entry of a diner and motioned for her to enter, the hair stood on the back of her neck and she had the pressing urge to flee. Of course, to an outside observer, this would seem ridiculous. She cursed under her breath as she pushed aside the noren to enter behind him. Too many times she had been forced into one of her father's traps by the peer pressure of bystanders. There would probably be some horrible potential arranged marriage waiting for her, a bunch of relatives she hadn't seen since she was five, or a really grizzly tattoo artist waiting for her. Her danger meter might be off; she had just woken up and had only had about four hours of sleep. Seiichiro might just be treating her to breakfast for once.
When he took a seat at a book across from the shadiest bastard she had ever seen, she knew she should have trusted her danger meter and ran for it. Now that she was inside and they were looking at her expectantly, she sank down into the booth beside her father. The man was in his late twenties or early thirties, with pallid skin and sunken cheeks that gave him a cadaverous look. He wore dark sunglasses with dorky round lenses, even though they were inside and the morning sun wasn't bright. He wore his Konoha headband like a do-rag that covered most of his dark hair. He wasn't physically intimidating the way her father was; even though he was above average height he was a whole head shorter than her father and about half his width. There was a quietness to him that she found unsettling. Years of experience with her dad taught her to be leery of watchers and listeners.
"Have you been waiting long?" Her father broke the silence with the nonchalance he was famous for.
"Not long," the man gave her father a pleasant smile and turned his attention to her. "So you're Haruka."
Beki blinked in surprise, now fully awake. She turned on her father with the speed and viciousness of a rattlesnake someone had poked with a stick.
"Dad!" She hissed.
"On all the official paperwork, your legal name is listed, Beki," Her father waved over the waitress and ordered them all coffee. "She seldom uses her first name, Ebisu."
"That's a shame," Ebisu frowned. "It's a lovely name."
"She doesn't like it because she's named for a relative," Her father explained.
"If by 'relative' you mean someone who has been dead for over two hundred years and is famous for burning people alive," Beki grumbled into her hands. It was too early for this shit. If she didn't know her father would grab her by the seat of her pants the second she tried to, she would have bolted already.
"Ebisu is a highly qualified trainer of young shinobi here in the Leaf," her father ignored how she had buried her face in her hands. Her breath came out in low growls. Unphased, he reached past her and fixed his coffee with sugar and cream.
"Your father has told me he's concerned about some of your basic skills," Ebisu folded his hands. "What do you feel your strengths and weaknesses are, Bekako?"
This was the classic brand of humiliation her father threw over her like a wet blanket. He would bring her around high brow types and the who's who of a village, only to talk to and about her like a child. Part of her wondered if he hoped someday it would all suddenly click, and she'd say all the right things to the right people. Unfortunately for him, at this rate it was more likely that she would snap, like a cord stretched too thin for too long, and kill everyone in the room.
"Well," Beki said after heaving a deep sigh through her hands. "I graduated, so I can't be that bad at basic skills. I would say my weakness is that I have limited field experience on missions of greater danger than a C rank, and my strengths are putting up with my father and tolerating shitty coffee."
Ebisu turned his attention to her father, not acknowledging her snark with even a raised eyebrow.
"Could you elaborate on what skills you would like me to target, specifically, for the next quarter?"
My god, Beki thought. Quarters? It's like meeting with an accountant.
"Like the girl said, she doesn't have much field experience," Seiichiro sipped his coffee. "I understand she can't be deployed under Konoha jurisdiction, but anything you could do to simulate field experience would be appreciated."
Beki stirred half and half into her coffee. She had hoped that this would be over soon and maybe she could go home and go back to bed, but the way the men were sitting gave her the impression she would be parked in that booth forever.
"Now, without going into any details about secret village techniques or anything, what kind of jutsu can you use, Bekko?" Ebisu had turned the gaze of his black beetle lenses back to her.
She suppressed the urge to roll her eyes and sigh, and replied:
"Water based ninjutsu, the standard stuff," she tapped her fingers on the table. "I don't think I'm that bad at taijutsu...genjutsu are a no."
"Any reason why?" Ebisu cocked his head.
"It's messed up," Beki swirled her coffee. "If I'm gonna beat someone in a fight, I wanna do it with my fists. I don't want to get inside his head and crap. I wouldn't want that done to me."
"That might be something worth addressing," Ebisu said to her father. "Refuting one form of jutsu completely only makes you that much more vulnerable to it."
"I agree, but there's not much affinity to it," Seiichiro explained. "At least on my side of the family. I don't know much about her mother's side, but Beki tends to take after my side in general."
"Well, I think I've learned everything I need to set up a plan," Ebisu rose and bowed. "I'll contact you once I've arranged a schedule."
Beki waited until after he left to give her father "the look". It was a combination of rage, disbelief, sadness, frustration, humiliation, and betrayal. That's what it felt like on the inside. On the outside, it looked like a pout with furrowed brows and eyes that were somehow sad and dangerous at the same time. Her father laughed and drank his coffee.
"He's highly recommended, Beki."
"He's a chump. He can't even get my name right," She folded her arms and tried to minimize contact with her huge father in that tiny booth seat. After dodging his elbows for a few minutes she gave up.
"Look, if you're under his direct supervision, you can train with the Leaf shinobi your age," Seiichiro waved the waitress back over and ordered them some breakfast. "I know it sounds contradictory, but having a jounin's direct supervision will open up a lot of doors to you."
"Bull," She growled into her eggs.
"One way or another, I'm paying a small fortune to retain him, so you had best grin and bare it." Seiichiro downed the dregs of his coffee and dug into his eggs.
"You know, you could have let me know I would be meeting someone," Beki complained. "Give me some prior notice, so I could look decent."
"I thought he should see the 'real' you," Seiichiro teased. "From there you can only improve."
"When you're old, and you can't do anything for yourself anymore, I'm going to remember this," Beki threatened over a spoonful of rice.
"Child, I will die long before I'm feeble," Seiichiro laughed bitterly into his breakfast. "That's exactly why I push you so hard. That way you'll live long enough to get married and have kids you'll name after your wonderful father."
"No more family names," Beki grumbled.
…
"So you don't know anything about this Ebisu guy," Beki watched Hinata as she ate her breakfast. Hinata would never say so, but having someone watch her eat and asking her questions was making her uncomfortable.
"I've heard his name around," Hinata shyly bit into her toast. "I think he trained Naruto before the chunin exams, but other than that I don't know anything about him."
"Great," Beki knocked over pepper shaker in frustration. "Well, any day now he's gonna send over a training schedule and I'm basically his responsibility."
Hinata suppressed the need to clean up the spilled pepper. She knew it wasn't an especially destructive action, but Hinata wished Beki wouldn't lash out at her physical environment when she was angry.
"Maybe having someone acting like your sensei would be a good thing," Hinata was unable to ignore it any longer. She dusted the spilled pepper into her napkin and continued. "He's a well recognized adult from my sensei's generation. If you get on well with him, it will probably open doors for you in terms of training opportunities."
Beki pouted. Hinata knew she was seeing reason, and Beki wasn't happy about it. Later that day, Ebisu's schedule arrived. Hinata had never heard so many swear words strung together in a cohesive sentence. If she hadn't been so repulsed, she would be impressed.
"Training is every day at like 5 AM," Beki practically screamed. "And then there's a follow up training session at 5 PM. WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?!"
It may have been the lack of sleep, the stress of meeting her new sensei, the fact that she had only had frosted animal crackers for lunch, or that Pluto had just aligned with Mars, but Beki's brain quit. Right there, in the middle of the living room floor, Beki laid down on the floor and curled up into the fetal position. Hinata was immediately concerned by the soft whimpering she gave off and sat down on the floor next to her.
"Shhh, Beki, its going to be okay."
"No it's noooot," Beki groaned softly. "He's taken the two best parts of the day from me. Sleep in time and dinner time."
"Maybe it's just temporary, and once he knows where you're at skill wise you'll train with him less," Hinata suggested.
"No Hinata, he's evil just like my dad," Beki stared off blankly at the wall. "If he finds out something is important to me, he'll use it against me."
"I'm sure that's not true," Hinata was struggling for a way to get the 15 year old off her rug.
A silence fell between them. Hinata could physically feel Beki relax as she rubbed her back. In a voice as full of conviction and doom as a seasoned war veteran, Beki said:
"I bet he kicks puppies."
Hinata lost it. She wasn't sure if it was the paragraph long, swear riddled rant Beki had been on earlier, or if it was this last line, but she couldn't take it. She laughed long and hard, the kind of laugh it's hard to catch your breath from, and then you end up laughing so long and hard you laugh at how long you've been laughing. Beki looked up at her in horror. Hinata realized Beki had probably never heard her laugh this loud, and the look on Beki's face just fueled the fire. Hinata laid back on the rug and laughed so hard her sides started to hurt.
There was a knock at the door, which neither of them answered. Neji stuck his head in and concern immediately drew his face.
"What happened?"
Beki, in that same dead serious voice declared:
"Neji, I broke Hinata."
"N-No," Hinata managed to squeeze out between laughs. "It's just that face you're making, and the way you said that."
"What, that Ebisu kicks puppies?" Beki asked.
"Who kicks puppies?" Neji's face was dead serious.
Hinata looked at Neji, and then at Beki with their stone cold serious faces, and broke into another laughing fit. After considering a moment, Neji held out a hand to Beki, his eyes never leaving Hinata.
"We should go."
"Yeah…" Beki took Neji's hand and he hoisted her off the floor. They watched her the whole way to the door and left her there on the floor, laughing her head off.
…
Beki had a hard time deciding whether or not to make an effort for her first training session with Ebisu. She was sure he would be trying to figure her out, testing the bounds of both her skills and her wits. Her options were thus: try to impress him and look like a chump, or be comfortable and look like a chump. She chose the latter. Following her own lead from the breakfast debacle, she arrived at the designated training yard in the ugliest damn sweatshirt she owned. If she had a colorblind grandmother, she would have knit this thing for her for Christmas. Beki had seen it in a secondhand store in the Mist Village and decided to rescue it. No one else would ever appreciate it for the damned beautiful disaster it was.
One could almost call it striped, but the stripes broke into another color at random. It featured an angry magenta, a dirty mustard, a washed out purple, and a rainbow yarn of all the colors combined. It was so horrid looking, her father denied she was his daughter if she tried to wear it around him in public. The look of shame and disgust on his face made the 300 ryo she had spent on it a worthwhile investment.
Ebisu was going to test Beki, and the Sweater was going to test Ebisu.
She arrived five minutes before the requested time. Ebisu had his back to her as she approached. The way his head was hung, Beki assumed he was reading notes.
"You're late," He said flatly.
"I'm actually a little early," Beki shrugged.
"My students are expected to perform to a higher standard," Ebisu raised his head, but did not turn around. "From now on you'll be fifteen minutes early."
A power struggle, eh? Beki smiled to herself. He had never worked with a teenage girl before. This would be fun.
"Today we will be assessing your speed in relays-" Ebisu turned to face her. Beki smiled. The Sweater had broken him.
"What is that…monstrosity?"
"What are you talking about?" Beki's face was the picture of innocence.
Ebisu gestured with his hands in exasperation.
"That…thing. You're wearing. It looks like someone vomited their lunch on a sheep and they made…that out of it."
Beki's eyes watered. She reached down and held the hem of her sweater in her hands, gently caressing the ribbed edge.
"It's my favorite sweater," Beki sniffled.
"It's awful," Ebisu snarled. "And completely impractical. If you don't have appropriate training gear, you'll get some today. My time is valuable, Bekko, and I will not allow you to waste it with this nonsense."
He's a real nut buster, Beki thought. The Sweater was only mildly distracting, and the tears had left him unaffected. She evaluated her options. Her best bet for now would be to follow along with his training until he let his guard down. All the while, she would have to watch for weaknesses to exploit.
Ebisu worked her like slave driver. Her dad was brutal physically, but Ebisu was relentlessly barking orders at her. Her father was relatively quiet, letting her figure out her mistakes the hard way. If she did something wrong, Ebisu would make her do it over and over and over again until it was perfect. She was glad she had dressed comfortably and that her hair was up in a bun, because by the end of the morning she was drenched in sweat. After he debriefed her on her results, he handed her a piece of paper.
"What's this?" Beki panted.
"That's your new meal plan, Bekako." Ebisu folded his arms. "Based on the information your father gave me and the results of your testing today, you're approximately seven kilos overweight. This meal plan will optimize your diet for the kind of training we will be doing."
Beki stared down at the distressingly empty paper, anxiety rising in her chest. Coffee wasn't even on the list, let alone any of the tasty food she had been enjoying in the Hyugas' house. He had essentially put her on a diet of plain brown rice and unseasoned fish. As she skimmed the list, her eyes caught on a familiar nemesis. At least three times a week, Ebisu had designated she have natto. Beki decided in that moment that she hated him, and it was her life's work to be his undoing. She would undermine him at every turn, find everything he loved, and destroy it.
Ebisu took her silence as assent, and gave her a nod.
"I'll be seeing you later this evening, Bekiko."
Beki chuckled softly, imagining all sorts of dark fates for her new sensei.
"See you on the other side, Ebisu sensei."
"Excuse me?" He looked at her, puzzled.
"That's how we say, 'see you later' where I'm from," Beki smiled.
Ebisu thought a moment, nodded silently and walked away. It was midmorning, all the birds were awake and the world was full of song. He paused a moment when he detected a dark chord disturbing the melody. He shook his head. He had to be imagining it. Who was out here to be laughing that maniacally?