Part 1

Chapter 9

Sayomi's POV

Months passed by quickly. I didn't even notice it because we were all so busy with our training. Not even the changing seasons made us stop for a second. The only real marks that told me how much time passed were our birthdays. First it was Akatsuchi's birthday in January, and I remember that day particularly because it was his sixteenth birthday and the first time I found out he was actually a year older than Deidara and me. Kurotsuchi proposed we buy him something because it's his sixteenth birthday and we agreed, leaving it to Kurotsuchi to come up with a present. And she surprised us all when she gave Akatsuchi a yellow scarf, saying it's from the three of us.

"A scarf? Really, un?" Deidara muttered but Akatsuchi loved the idea and we all felt relieved. Kurotsuchi, I think, the most.

Deidara's fifteenth birthday was in May and it was only when his birthday came that we realized how close our Chuunin exams are. We ate ice-cream for his birthday because it was the first hot day of the year and talked about all the rumors we heard about Chuunin exams.

Yet even my birthday, which was in July, came and went, and the Chuunin exam was nowhere on the horizon.

We started becoming impatient around Deidara's birthday, but after my birthday passed we wanted answers. Yet Onoki-sensei told us to wait a little longer, that the Chuunin exam is in preparation and we have to keep our focus on training.

That didn't really console us but we had nothing else to do but train.

So in the span of ten months all we did was train. We went on eight more missions outside of the village but they were all disappointing. We didn't get anything as interesting and exciting as our first mission, but we were still grateful for them just for the sheer opportunity to leave the village for a bit.

In those ten months we mostly kept training by ourselves. Akatsuchi was either training with Onoki-sensei or with Kitsuchi since he was one of the best Doton users in the village. He even told us Kurotsuchi would join them when she wasn't with her own team.

Deidara was in the Explosion Unit with Gari but would sometimes come train with Onoki-sensei and Akatsuchi, expanding both his Doton and Bakuton.

And me? I was by myself for the whole time.

Okay maybe not for the whole time. We still met in the morning to train taijutsu together but for the rest of the day I would be by myself. I would go in the forest and there train myself in my Shadow jutsu. I would begin every session with meditation, and after a while I got so used to meditating that I would do it on missions if I had the opportunity. Through meditating I came to a better understanding of my unusual chakra, and to a better sense of control over it. In order to use my shadow in jutsu I had to mold my chakra in it and then essentially control my chakra and with it my shadow. It all came back to chakra control even though I now moved past the basics of it.

One more thing meditation helped me with was clearing my head in order to think of possible jutsus.

That day when Onoki-sensei told me I'll have to come up with jutsus all by myself I was both angry and concerned. Yes, Deidara told me that should be easy because Yin release concentrates on imagination so there's no limit to jutsu I can come up with. But I wasn't the creative one out of the two of us. So later I sought him out, trying to get him to maybe share an idea or something.

"I mean, you're the one who comes up with new things." I gestured towards his sculptures. "I don't do that, I'm not you." He kept observing me, hands crossed. "Good thing you're not me, un."

"Huh?"

"I don't do 2D art." He pointed at my shadow.

"Well yeah, but neither do I. I'm not…I've never…" I flailed my arms around, trying to express myself.

"Have you tried it?"

"No. But constructing new jutsus isn't easy! That's jonin level skill, if not kage level."

"I've made a new type of jutsu and I'm not a jonin, un." He argued.

"But I'm not you!"

"I don't remember you being stupid either!" He looked annoyed but I was feeling frustrated from the whole idea so I kept going at it.

"Do you think this is easy? Not even the Tsuchikage can help me with this! Both you and Akatsuchi have your own units, your own special sensei, while I'm supposed to do everything by myself."

"So what?"

"So what?! I just told you!"

"You won't be able to solve it if you keep acting like a four-year old! You've never whined before, un."

I got angry on him. Both because of the 'whining' part and because he couldn't see the depth of my problem. He reciprocated, but only because I couldn't see how easy the solution was and that was pissing him off.

We kept that argument going for a while. We didn't talk and the only time I saw him was on our morning taijutsu sessions where we would go at each other full speed and strength. Akatsuchi had to interfere a couple of times because we wouldn't stop on taijutsu but would draw our kunai at one another. Then Akatsuchi became angry because both of us refused to end our sparring sessions with the mandatory Seal of Reconciliation. So the violent fights between us continued and more than once I slipped up and got a kick or two from Deidara, for which I always made sure to pay him back.

As time passed I only become more and more frustrated, my argument with Deidara fueling that additionally. Then one day I realized what he actually meant with his words. He experimented and came up with a new way of utilising his Bakuton. It was because he wanted to expand his art even more. That's what pushed him forward.

I wasn't an artist. I never claimed my jutsu was art. That was Deidara. I was his support. I had to become powerful because I needed to support him. Which meant I had to come up with powerful jutsus no one's ever seen before.

That's what finally urged me forward. Or, as Deidara would say, that's what inspired me.

First thing I experimented with was something I already did before but completely forgot about it. When Tsukiko tried to kill me with her Doton: Earth Fissure I saved myself with my shadow by imagining it to be a hand that would hold on the lamp post.

I started from there, building it up and realizing I really had a lot of freedom in controlling my shadow as long as I'm good at controlling my chakra. If I wanted it to grab branches and pull me up it would listen. If I imagined it all thin, wrapping around my kunai and throwing it away, it would do it. The more I meditated the better I became, and the more I used my shadow in fighting.

I knew that since Yin and Yang weren't in the elemental circle they had no weaknesses. Technically, Yin release wasn't weak against anything, though I knew that's never true. Every jutsu has its weakness, or at least something that can be used to its disadvantage. I had to be aware of them in order to prevent my enemies from finding out.

It soon became very clear what could weaken my Shadow jutsu. Sun was the first thing that I realized had an effect on my jutsu. Noon proved to be the worst, making my shadow nearly non-existent. That could be taken care of if I fused my shadow with other shadows in the area. I already did that once, when I used shadows of trees on the edge of the clearing to make sure Onoki-sensei doesn't see my shadow moving behind his back. Back then I did it only so he doesn't see me, yet now I came to the conclusion that my shadow would have failed if I had instead made it go straight across the clearing. So, careful mapping of the area I was in in order to figure out how to move my shadow across became crucial. The range of my shadow, when it wasn't noon and when I didn't merge it with other shadows, was fifty meters at best. If I merged it, I could go up to two hundred meters. Though, that was only for my shadow going in a straight line. If I wanted it to cover the area, the range would decrease greatly.

That's when I encountered another drawback, which also happened to me once before. If I didn't have a visual of where my shadow was going it wouldn't listen. I couldn't make my shadow go straight across the forest because I could neither follow my shadow with my eyes nor did I have a clear visual of the path in my brain. But after memorizing the layout of the entire village I didn't even have to be able to see to guide my shadow where I wanted. So training my memory proved to be an efficient solution.

That was two problems solved. Third problem was the duration of my Shadow Bind. At first I could only do it for five minutes, but after a while I could prolong that time. Of course, the more I prolonged it the more chakra it would consume, but I knew my chakra reserve wasn't small ever since I tried medic ninjutsu and sensei there told me my reserve was optimal for a medic ninjutsu.

Though my chakra wasn't optimal for medic ninjutsu, but whatever.

After I've learned all that I decided I need to try new forms of jutsu. But another problem appeared then, because I couldn't progress in that department without anyone to try my jutsu on.

Or maybe the real problem was that I didn't want anyone to help me with that but Deidara, except that we were kinda hating each other right now.

In the end I decided there's no reason to be angry on him because I was in the wrong and he only told me what I needed to hear. Next morning I woke up earlier, taking a seat on the rock fence of his balcony and waiting for him to exit. I almost fell asleep waiting for him like that, because it really was absurdly early in the morning. When he finally did exit he stopped, his hand on the doorknob, returning my stare.

"What?" Now when it came to it I really had no idea how to word my proposition.

"Uuh…do you maybe want to-I mean, do you maybe have time-"

"Spit it out already, un."

"Do you have time to help me with my training?" I blurted out. He raised his eyebrow. "I need to try a couple of jutsu on someone."

"Well well well…" He smirked and I sighed. I knew he would torture me for this. "So you do admit I was right?"

"You were right." I muttered.

"And?" He came closer and I made a face. "I promise I won't whine anymore. Happy?"

"Fine, I'll help you, un."

"This won't be the only time I'll need your help, though." I thought I should mention it.

"Figured." I smiled.

So Deidara agreed to be my lab rat whenever I needed to try my jutsu on someone. I trusted in his judgement now more than ever.

We met that afternoon in the forest for the first time and I was really excited because the jutsu I was about to try had been on my mind for a while now.

He was standing away from me and I put my hands in the rat seal, connecting my shadow to his.

"That again?" But then I removed my hands from the seal, keeping my eye on the shadow. My improvement was visible to me as soon as I undid the seal and my shadow didn't retract from Deidara's. That's what I was aiming for. I needed to expand the Shadow Bind so I didn't have to keep my hands in the seal all the time.

As I waved my hands around, testing whether the jutsu was holding out, I noticed Deidara imitated my movements.

"What the hell?" I burst out laughing, seeing his annoyed face. "Since when are you able to control me?" Was I really controlling him?

I did one step backwards, then one forwards, he following my every move. I moved my hand to my shuriken pouch, pulling one out.

"Oi, you might want to rethink this, un." I saw he also pulled a shuriken out since his pouch was on the same place as mine.

I stopped, thinking about this. "So as long as my shadow is connected to yours your body will do everything I do. But if I pull out a weapon to use the trapping to my advantage - you pull it out too."

"Yeah and I bet if we both throw them they would cancel out." I looked at my shuriken and then at him and he sighed, reading my thoughts.

I flicked the shuriken at him and he followed my movements. He was right, the shuriken cancelled each other in the air.

"Told you, un." I retracted my shadow by once again doing the rat seal and then undoing it.

"No matter. I just wanted to see will it work."

Next time I tried something else on him. Well, more like I took a massive gamble.

"You want me to do what?" Maybe he didn't hear me clearly.

"Throw kunai at me." I yelled and saw him taking out two. "I didn't say two!" But he already threw them at me. I did a rat seal, extending my shadow just a bit from my body. When the kunai were close, I raised my shadow strip straight into the air, biting my lip and hoping the whole thing will work or else I'll get stabbed.

But it worked. Shadow swallowed the two kunai and they didn't make it to me. I exhaled from relief because I really thought they would get me at one moment. Then I saw Deidara coming closer.

"You alive?" I smiled, not a scratch on me. "I thought the kunai passed through your shadow, un."

"No, they went in." I moved my shadow back. "That's what I was going for. I'm really glad it worked."

"See, I told you if you'd just use your imagination you would come up with something." I grinned.

"So it's good?" He nodded.

"Thank you." He looked away, maybe because of the embarrassment from praising me so forward.

"Yeah, now can I get my kunai back?" I pressed my lips together.

"I…don't think that's possible." He gave me a look and I burst out laughing. "I'm sorry but once they're in my shadow I can't get them back."

"Great. Maybe try working on that, un."

Next time I told him to fuse kunai with his Bakuton.

"You can do it, right?"

"Yeah, I learned how to do that. It's a form of nature transformation, un." He said, concentrating on his kunai while I built my shadow wall.

"Incoming!" He warned me and I looked at the shadow wall, my lips ready to make a victorious smirk as I swallow this kunai also.

But then I saw the tip of the kunai exiting the shadow and I barely had time to cover my face with my arms before the kunai pierced my right forearm, exploding upon contact.

I was thrown a few meters away, feeling my arms burning and the kunai still stuck in my flesh. I pulled it out, throwing it away before I exhaled, letting my arms fall on the ground. That proved to be a critical mistake because as soon as my arms touched the ground the pain coursed through me, the burns making me scream out in pain.

"Goddamit Sayomi." Deidara crouched next to me, raising both of my hands in the air. I continued to lay on the ground, closing my eyes tight and feeling tears welling up.

"How bad is it?"

"You'll need to get this treated, un."

"Yeah but how bad is it?" I opened my eyes, seeing him inspecting the other side of my arms. My answer soon came in a shape of blood trickling down my elbows and staining my pants. I put my head back on the ground, blinking away tears in my eyes.

"It really hurts."

"Come on." He stood up and I looked at him, telling him with my eyes to spare me a bit but he shook his head.

"You want to have permanent burns on your arms? We need to get to the hospital, un." He pulled me up, leading me to the hospital by tugging on my arms to keep them away from my body in case I decide to lean on them again.

We continued to walk like that through the village and I tried to fight both my tears and my blush, but not like anyone thought anything of it since my burns were visible and I was still bleeding profusely.

Medic ninja treated my arms, opting to slather them in some stinky cream before wrapping them up in bandages. She told me the burns should go away in a week or so. If I'm lucky, that is, since the explosion got me at point blank.

Then she asked me how I got them and I said I had to try out something for my new jutsu, and I knew it was a gamble. Though truth be told I was pretty certain it would be a success just like the last one, but it seems my shadow couldn't swallow something fueled with chakra.

So much about me swallowing up enemy jutsu.

She also told me to take it easy with my arms for a while but I kind of forgot about that. Next morning I was just on time to practice taijutsu with Akatsuchi, since Deidara was nowhere to be seen.

"What's with the bandages?" He asked.

"Nothing. Let's get this started. I have to get back to adjusting one jutsu." He nodded and for a while my arms didn't pose any problem to me. That was mainly because I only ever used my legs in taijutsu, a thing that didn't change ever since that first sparring with my new teammates.

However, in such a fast taijutsu I usually acted on my reflexes and not as much on my brain so of course it didn't even cross my mind that I cannot use my arms for blocking.

So I did exactly that. I blocked Akatsuchi's leg with my arms, screaming in pain as soon as his leg touched them. His kick was also really powerful so all factors came together and I fell on the ground again, biting my lip and pulling my arms close.

"Akatsuchi you idiot!" I saw Deidara attacking Akatsuchi who had no time to be confused about me because he had to protect himself from angry Deidara. "Can't you see she's hurt you dumb golem!"

"She told me it was nothing!"

"Why would she be wearing bandages then, un?"

"I'm fine, I'm fine." I steadied my breathing, cursing medic ninjas for not healing me instantly. How will I resume with training if I have to watch out for every single thing?

I sat up, seeing they were still fighting but I was more interested in my aching arms. I saw red soaking through the stark white bandages but I decided not to go to hospital again. Yeah I had to take it easy but I also had to train. I couldn't just take a break until my arms are fully healed. So I went to the two of them, who immediately stopped as they saw me approaching. I exhaled, and put my hands in a stance.

"But you're bleeding, Sayomi." Akatsuchi pointed but I didn't budge. "Don't go easy on me." I said, even though my arms hurt like hell and I knew if I say to them to hold nothing back, they really won't. I had to force myself to learn to endure pain.

Which proved to be a really bad idea. By the end of our training I was on my knees, looking at my bloody bandages and biting my lip as to not cry. I did endure the whole training though, I just wasn't sure will that bring me any good or wreck my arms even more.

And I think it was the second time I was going to the hospital that Deidara brought my attention to something.

"Huh?"

"I'm serious, un. No matter what part of the day is, your shadow is always directly underneath you." I compared my shadow to his, seeing he was right.

"That's…weird." It was even weirder because I haven't noticed it at all.

"Must be because of your training." I nodded. It was the only possible explanation.

My arms remained wrapped in bandages for more than a month but I didn't stop with my training because it was summer and I knew Chuunin exams were close. My decision did have consequences though, and my forearms now had permanent light pink scars. There wasn't anything I could do about that but it didn't matter to me since being scarred was one of the risks that come with being a shinobi.

That was the last major thing that happened over the course of those months of training. It was beginning of August when Onoki-sensei summoned us to give us news about Chuunin exams.

"The preparations are complete and the exam starts next week. I hope all of you trained yourself the best you could." We nodded.

"Do remember you are my students and as such you have to be on the top. I expect all of you to become chuunin by the end of this. The tradition is that your jonin sensei has to treat you to a meal once you become chuunin, and then again when you become jonin."

"Will you treat me to a meal once I become Tsuchikage?" Deidara asked, his lips in a smirk and I chuckled.

"If you become Tsuchikage I'll put one of your clay birds on my head instead of my Tsuchikage hat." Onoki-sensei said, and I saw he was giving his all not to roll his eyes.

"That's a deal you Old Geezer, un!" Akatsuchi and I burst out laughing while Onoki-sensei shook his head.

I could see already how he'll regret his deal with Deidara one day. It was just a matter of time.

Next couple of chapters will be about their Chuunin exams so that'll be fun. I'm actually really excited about it even though that means more fighting scenes and those take me a long time to write properly.

Thank you for reading and for reviewing, also keep up the latter because it makes me so happy to hear feedback from you guys. New chapter will be out next week, as usual. :)