Disclaimer: Masashi Kishimoto owns everything about Naruto and all rights go to him, except my OC's.

Strangers Like Me

Chapter 10- I'll Make a Man Out of You

Anika woke up early the next morning, fully ready to start her new training. She jumped out of bed, throwing on her glasses, and got dressed in a white shirt that came just past her elbow and a black shirt on top with a pair of standard dark blue capris. It was a bit much for summer but since they were going to be dealing with water she thought it would be best to be overdressed if she got cold.

When she got to the door she put her sandals on and was reaching for the door when she heard her dad say,

"Where are you going so early?"

She turned around to see Tomo standing there; about to leave for work. He figured they were old enough to stay home alone now so he left early in the morning and usually wasn't back until right before dinner. Thinking quickly she lied,

"Umm, I couldn't sleep so I was just going to go wake up Naruto and hang out with him."

Tomo obviously didn't believe her but he knew she had enough sense to not get into trouble so he let her think he believed that and nodded.

"Okay, have fun." And with that, they both left the house, going separate ways.

Anika walked towards Naruto's apartment until her dad was out of sight and then started heading towards training grounds 3.

She wasn't surprised when she made it to the training grounds around 8:10. Other than school, it wasn't uncommon for her to be late so she was surprised to find her new sensei not present when she arrived. Looking around curiously, she found him nowhere in sight. She took the opportunity to take in her surroundings. There were a couple of posts, three to be exact, in a grassy area surrounded by woods. It took her a second before her exclaimed,

"Wait a minute, there isn't even any water around here!"

She checked around one more time before deciding that Kakashi probably had something in mind so she sat with her back against one of posts and waited.

And waited…

….And waited.

An hour and a half later Kakashi poofed out of nowhere on top of the post Anika happened to be leaning against, half falling asleep. She squeaked and jumped away, tripping over herself backward and falling onto her butt as she looked up at him.

He just looked at her with a blank stare and a short wave.

"Hello there."

She got up off the ground and rubbed her butt, wanting to glare up at him but not wanting to be rude so decided not to. Instead she asked the first question that came to mind in the most polite way possible. She just got him to agree to teacher her; she didn't want him to change his mind.

"Hello. Um, Sensei? We were supposed to meet at 8, right?" Maybe she was wrong and she had just come early by accident.

"Yeah." He affirmed, jumping off the post. Well, I guess that she didn't come early. "I had to help get a cat out of a tree." He lied, brushing off her question easily with a wave of his hand.

"Oh. Well that's nice of you." Anika said, completely believing him. She didn't understand why he was grinning at her like that. Shaking his head he said,

"Okay, first order of business, I have a question for you." She nodded as he came to a stop in front of her and looked down at her tiny frame.

To be completely honest, he had never taught anybody before and he hoped he would be alright at this. He had recently been appointed to start looking after a new genin team, that is if they passed his test, but he hadn't actually met any of them yet. This girl hadn't even graduated the academy though so technically he had no real obligation to her at all but there was something about her that intrigued him. Though small, it was a welcome change in from his usual mundane boredom or depression that usually occupied his time.

He wasn't about to help her that easily though. He already knew the answer to this question but he wanted to hear it from her. He wasn't about to help anybody become a ninja if he didn't think that they were ready. Not after what had happened with Obito and Rin. Maybe if they had all had better training, everything would have turned out differently.

"Why do you want to learn water jutsu so badly?"

Anika looked up at Kakashi as his one coal like eye bore into her, waiting intently for an answer as if the world depended on it. I don't know, maybe it did. Shaking it off, she elected to just answer to question.

As Kakashi looked down at the girl, her face turned into one of fierce determination and one of her hands balled into a fist.

"I want to be able to protect my little sister." She explained, an image of her sister standing alone and scared coming to mind. As she thought about the image, Naruto and Sasuke appeared on either side of the smaller girl and she looked back up at Kakashi and added,

"And my friends. I don't know what I would do if anything happened to them. I want to be able to protect them if anything happened."

He continued to look down at her in a bored way but internally, he decided she was good enough to train. She seemed to have some sense of the importance of friendship and he couldn't exactly test her teamwork in this kind of situation so he decided they would continue. Maybe this would be interesting. He just nodded and said,

"Anyway, on to starting your training." At that she beamed at him, clasping her hands together excitedly. He looked serious although typically bored in the way only Kakashi could though so she immediately straightened her back and became serious as well.

"So, the most simple water jutsu is probably the Uo Tsuba jutsu. It allows a jet of water to flow from your mouth and the power of the water depends on how much chakra you use. I'm guessing you know how chakra works?" Kakashi explained.

Anika took in the new information quickly before answering his question, "Yes."

"Explain it to me. I want to know how much you know before we actually start so I know where to start your training since you haven't graduated the academy yet." He stood in front of her with one hand on his hip and the other in his pocket, looking at her in the same bored way; as if he didn't expect her to know too much about the subject.

Anika was nervous. She had never done training like this before and she didn't want to seem stupid but lucky for her, she did know the answer to his question. Taking a deep breath she answered,

"Chakra is the molding of the physical energy of the body and the spiritual energy of the mind. It is then brought through the circu-circuli-"

"Circulatory." Kakashi offered. Anika nodded and continued.

"-system. There are…351…? Chakra points in the body and the most common way chakra is controlled is through hand signs."

As Anika finished Kakashi still looked bored but on the inside, he was slightly impressed. She was smart for her age and could remember things well, that would come in handy. I mean, she was what, 9 right?

"Very close. The only thing wrong with that statement is that there are 361 chakra points in the body." Anika looked up at him guiltily and confessed,

"I'm not good with numbers."

Kakashi nodded and asked another question, "Have you used chakra at all yet during school? Or is it just still basic shuriken and kunai training?"

"We've started learning about chakra but we haven't tried using it yet." She replied, curious as to what they would do next. She wanted to do water jutsu! She wasn't about to pull a Naruto and be reckless but she was starting to wonder if they were ever going to get around to it.

"Okay so for today we're just going to focus on chakra control then. We'll start with something simple." He looked around until his eyes (or eye really) settled on a low laying branch. Perfect.

"See this branch?" he pointed out, coming to stand next to it. She followed after him hurriedly, stumbling over her feet clumsily. He stared down at her chuckled lightly as she caught herself and looked up at him with wide eyes and a blush of embarrassment.

The branch came up to about her waist and went out horizontally about ten feet. Kakashi tested how much weight it could hold and then turned to Anika.

"Okay so based on your previous show of coordination in the short time I've known you; I'd say you couldn't walk the length of this tree branch without falling. I'm going to let you walk across normally once and then I'm going to show you how to concentrate your chakra into your feet so you won't fall." He explained before moving away and gesturing towards the tree.

Anika came forward towards the base of the tree branch nervously, glancing up at Kakashi a couple of times. All he did was watch her stonily so she just gulped and took a deep breath. She could do this; making a fool of herself was a small price to pay in order to learn water jutsu. Climbing up onto the branch, she stood up shakily with much effort and after she felt comfortable standing she started to the other side of the branch.

She wobbled horribly and didn't even get halfway across before falling in a heap onto the ground with a loud yelp. Kakashi made no moves to catch her and when she asked him why he shrugged and replied,

"If you didn't get hurt, how would you learn?"

'That's probably a good reason,' the girl reasoned and rubbed her shoulder that she had fallen on, 'still hurts though.'

"Okay, now what?" Anika asked ask she came to stand in front of her sensei.

"Get back up there but don't walk." He said, gesturing over to the branch. She did as she was told but he held her in place this time.

"Okay so I want you to concentrate. Focus your chakra into your feet. I'm going to let go of you now. Judging by how clumsy you are if you don't fall over, you've got it. Maybe later we'll even move on to climbing trees upward." Kakashi explained before giving her some time and then letting go of the girl.

Anika, meanwhile, was listening but was mostly trying to focus. Once he let go she was surprised when she barely wobbled and began to walk across the branch fairly easily. As she jumped down at the end she turned back to him with a beaming smile.

His one eye showed a tiny bit of surprise. To be honest, he did not expect her to pick it up that quickly.

"Okay. Try it a couple of more times just to make sure that you've got it." He said, his voice not betraying his surprise in the slightest.

After doing what she was told, Anika was brought in front of her silver haired sensei yet again.

"Alright well because you seemed to understand that so quickly we're going to move on to tree climbing. Now this isn't just normal tree climbing. You're going to be climbing the tree with no hands. Understand? "

As he explained this, she watched as he demonstrated for her. She watched as he climbed a good 20 feet up the tree they were using and upside down a branch.

He came down and she gathered her chakra in her feet again and tentatively put her foot to the tree. She only got about 5 feet before she got scared of how high she was and lost her concentration, falling to the found with a thud.

With a huff of indignation she got back up and tried again, getting further up the tree this time and sitting on a branch before calling out to Kakashi,

"K-Kakashi-sensei? Is this h-high enough?"

"No, go higher!" he called from his stop under a nearby tree reading a book he had brought with him. She looked down (she was probably about 10 feet?) and stuttered out,

"B-But Sensei…It's s-so high already…"

It was then he looked up at her and noticed the anxiety on her face, resulting in him rolling his eyes.

"You're not scared are you? Ninja jump from tree to tree all the time. You need to get over a fear of heights sometime. Better sooner than later. Go higher."

Anika nodded and gulped, focusing her chakra and began to go higher.

If I don't look down this isn't so bad…She thought. She took slow, deep breaths and before she knew it, she forgot how high she was. That is until it was time for her to come down. Taking more deep breaths she jumped from branch to branch quickly until she hit the grass.

"How was that?" she asked.

"Pretty good. Now do it 10 more times. I want this to become second nature to you. Chakra control is the basis of everything you do as a ninja and if you don't have that down perfectly and you run out of chakra in battle because you don't know how to use it correctly, it will kill you." Kakashi elaborated, still not lifting his gaze from his little green book.

After finishing the tree climbing training, Anika was tired. She leaned against the tree and caught her breath as Kakashi came over to speak to her.

"Well, I didn't think you'd be able to do it ten more times. Good job. It seems you have excellent chakra control. Your stamina could use a lot more work though. That will be all for today."

"Hai! Thank you sensei."

"You're welcome Anika." With that he gave her a smile and was off. She caught her breath for a few more minutes before deciding it would probably be a good idea to go home and see what Hitsuji and Naruto were up to today. With that in mind, Anika rushed home.