Lessons of Experience
Chapter 11: Insights at the Edge of a Blade
By: BukkakeNoJutsu
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Disclaimer: The Naruto series is not mine, but Kishimoto could totally borrow San from me if he wanted to. He'd just have to okay it with San first. Good luck with that.
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For most shinobi of the elemental countries, the usage of edged weaponry was purely pragmatic. The typical ninja generally learned the simplest and most effective ways of killing with a blade.
What use would there be in learning about various subtleties, such as historical and cultural contexts concerning a given weapon art? Many shinobi, including the Seven Swordsmen of the Village Hidden in the Mist, followed this widely accepted tendency. After all, what use is subtlety for a ninja like Hoshigaki Kisame who wields a semi-sentient chakra-devouring sword that is taller than most men?
San of Konohagakure was unlike most ninjas.
The wizened old man knew that most ninjas were only looking for instant gratification concerning battle effectiveness, and were disinterested in anything much more in depth. This is why numbers of medic-nin were always notoriously few, and numbers of fuinjutsu exponents even lower.
That was also why San, with all his worldly wisdom and eloquence, often referred to most ninjas as "stupid fucking idiots."
It wasn't that the approach in training only the simplest and most effective techniques didn't produce good ninjas. It did. Unfortunately, this narrow-minded focus tended to stunt a person's growth in the long run.
San was not interested at all in mere battlefield effectiveness. Decades of field experience already ingrained in him an effortless and frightening efficiency.
No, San was interested in absolute mastery of edged weaponry. To San, this entailed becoming an expert in various subtleties. This was why it was a necessity to teach Uzumaki Naruto about the origins of the fighting art they both practiced and the reasons for why it existed.
Even an idiot could copy a movement if given enough repetitions. To San, there was no skill in it. He knew that there was much more to the path of mastery than learning a sequence of movements. More than knowing movements, a person had to understand the mindset of the art they practiced. It was better to understand the essence of an art rather than it's base mechanics. If one focused purely on the base mechanics, one could not improvise, improve, and ultimately master an art. If a shinobi was keenly in tune with the spirit of his or her art, then the base mechanics of their extrapolations and improvisations would more often than not be just as effective or even more effective than what they were originally taught.
In battle, you had to improvise.
From firsthand experience, San knew that one was not always fortunate enough to have access to an outrageously powerful weapon like the famed swords of the Seven Swordsmen of Kirigakure or the Nidaime's Raijin.
Shit, often on the field you'd have to make due even without basic supplies.
A ninja had to be sharp enough to use any tool, any advantage that could come their way against a sea of disadvantages.
One of San's most memorable examples of battlefield improvisation occurred when he had run out of kunai and was only armed with a single sword. In order to protect the life of a wounded comrade and being too far away to physically engage the enemy, he had used a child's discarded paper airplane, reinforced and weighed down with chakra, as a deadly projectile. The enemy nin was briefly distracted by a swiftly approaching whistling sound before the top half of his skull was just as swiftly separated from the bottom half.
Watching Uchiha Sasuke barrel towards him with his chakra blazing, San surmised that the angry young man didn't know a damn thing about subtlety.
Feeling generous, the old man felt like sharing.
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There were times where Uzumaki Naruto utterly loathed the three minutes it took to prepare instant ramen.
This was one of those times.
By the time a bowl of instant ramen would be ready to eat, Sasuke's little temper tantrum would have already been snuffed out by an icy cold dose of reality provided by San.
The simple actions of pulling out a thermos and applying hot water to dry noodles could cause him to miss something.
Missing the opportunity to watch San in action was something Naruto had no intention of doing. Despite seeing the old man's skills on a daily basis, watching San with a sword was something the young blond boy had never gotten tired of.
It was hard to describe, but it had an entirely different feel from when San played around with knives.
Naruto once tried voicing his observation to San, and the old man chuckled. It was not the kind of humor that suggested the old man was having fun at the expense of his student, but rather that he was amused by an inside joke Naruto did not yet understand.
He explained, "Boy, playing with knives is a game for young men. It's all mobility and viciousness. Swords are perfect for an old bastard like myself, so I can be lazy as well as vicious at my advanced age."
They both laughed at that.
San with a sword was anything but lazy, Naruto thought. A good word to describe it would be "perfect."
The old man moved only as much as he needed to. He didn't need to flip around and fling fire all over the fucking place, but he could if he wanted to.
San with a knife was brutal and nasty, but with a sword in hand he was picture of calm and poise, and just as deadly.
It was downright annoying to deal with. His movements were deceptively simple, but they were perfect in both timing and distance.
Naruto knew that any holes that appeared in the old man's defenses were simply illusions. San would purposely leave openings with his postures, casually inviting attack. For his opponents, targeting anywhere else made absolutely no sense. In reality, San was baiting an opponent into attacking an area he could easily defend, and where he could attack and counterattack without overextending himself.
It was devious, and deeply appealed to the prankster within Uzumaki Naruto.
Essentially, you were screwed if you tried to attack or not.
For all intents and purposes, San might as well be wielding a magic wand instead of a sword, considering how he caused bellies to open and extremities to disappear.
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Naruto's mentor was quite used to feeling the sensations of hate and killing intent being projected towards him. After killing enough people and paying enough attention, San was able to differentiate between various types of hatred and killing intent as if he were a connoisseur of fine wine.
There was the standard "You killed my sibling/parent/teammate/squad/lover, prepare to die!" type of hate.
There was also the self-destructive "I hate you so much I'll take you down at the cost of my own life" kind.
There was even the type that seemed too challenging to encapsulate with simple words as in "Fuck you, you fucking…fucker…arrrghh!!!"
The Uchiha boy was filled to the brim with hatred and anger, but, oddly enough, not all of it was directed towards San. It was as if Uchiha Sasuke was gearing up for a marathon of hate and the white-haired man in front of him represented only the first three blocks of it.
To be honest, San couldn't help but feel vaguely insulted as he casually dodged a number of small fireballs containing shuriken.
It all made sense given the boy's history though.
Uchiha Itachi massacred his entire clan, save for his younger brother, to secure his title as the undisputed king of all psychotic assholes.
San acknowledged that the boy had better reasons than most to hate so fiercely, but it seemed as if the boy had internalized that trauma, and hollowed himself out to feel nothing but hatred. Although he was no Yamanaka, San had a sinking feeling in his gut that, if left unchecked; this would not end well for the Uchiha boy or for Konohagakure.
He had seen this and similar situations far too many times in the past.
This would not do at all.
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Uzumaki Naruto was entirely correct about not having enough time to even start preparing a bowl of instant ramen.
San made his move while an airborne Sasuke, wielding fistfuls of kunai, was in the midst of an impressive looking taijutsu maneuver.
The wiry old man simply evaded and ended the fight with two whirling cuts.
The first cut drew a line through both of Sasuke's eyes and the bridge of his nose. Before Sasuke could even feel his sinuses filling with blood, San last cut passed though his throat.
Moving again instinctively to avoid the blood spray, San observed the last Uchiha in Konoha as he gripped his throat helplessly and collapsed to his knees as if trying to will himself to stay conscious.
He could not succeed.
Naruto finally exhaled a breath he did not know he had been holding in.
The blond boy made his way to his teammate, and nudged his convulsing body with his foot.
"Hey Gramps! Aren't you gonna heal him or something? 'Cuz he could die, right?"
The concern was blatant in Naruto's voice.
"Yes. Yes he could," replied San simply observing, but making no move to help the Uchiha.
The older shinobi's reply did nothing to assuage Naruto's worries.
"Old man…"
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Sasuke's life flashed before his eyes in bits and pieces. It was full of little moments he tried to forget, things like the scent of his mother's hair, or a lullaby she would sing, or the times his father would tuck him in at night after telling him stories of heroic ninjas.
Some memories were quite random like having breakfast with an aunt whose name he could not quite remember, or training with wooden kunai or tag with his older cousins, or snippets of arguments or jokes.
He saw some times he desperately tried to repress like the times he remembered admiring and loving his older brother with the purity only a child had and the times he watched his family die while in the embrace of Itachi's genjutsu.
The Uchiha then relived some moments from the recent months and years of his life. He could remember ignoring his loneliness, and trying to fill the deadness he felt inside with anger.
"So this is what my life of an avenger amounts to… …not a damn thing" thought Sasuke bitterly as the stream of memories abruptly ceased.
Although he was no longer flashing through his life, there was still a sensation of forward movement. He was moving towards a light in the distance, and as he sped closer he could see the silhouettes of the members of his long lost family. They seemed surprised, yet overjoyed to see him. Voices he hadn't heard in years called out to him.
He was continuing onward and as their features became clearer, soon they would be close enough to touch if he reached out to them.
Then he woke up.
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Sasuke sat up and wiped the liquid from his eyes expecting to find blood. He felt like a wound from which a scab had been ripped, but only water appeared on his fingertips. Sasuke didn't even know when he had started crying or even the last time he had wept. It felt like it had been years.
San's gravelly voice rang out.
"That was no genjutsu, boy. That's what happens sometimes when you come awfully close to dying."
"Why?" asked Sasuke, close to sobbing now. "I-I could almost touch them again."
San wiped the sweat off his brow with his forearm.
"If a bone gets broken, and doesn't heal right, it'll come out all crooked. Sometimes the answer is to re-break the bone so it can heal proper and turn out stronger than before. People are like bones this way."
San affixed the Uchiha with a steely-eyed glare.
"If you try to forget and make yourself numb, you will never heal. You'll turn into another walking-tragedy in the making, doomed to repeat your past either as a victim again or playing the part of Itachi for someone else."
San looked to both Naruto and Sasuke this time.
"We've all got to learn from the events that hurt us, otherwise we aren't worth a damn in this world."
Naruto felt distinctly uncomfortable with this conversation with Sasuke breaking down and all. He hadn't ever expected the dark-haired boy to ever look so…human. They weren't really friends at all, but Naruto still felt he had to do something.
After Sasuke composed himself some more, Naruto offered him the bowl of instant ramen he had originally prepared for himself.
"Take it. I'm not that hungry." The blond blatantly lied.
The Uchiha boy accepted the bowl with a barely audible mumble quite possibly indicating his thanks.
San nodded to Naruto.
"We should head out soon, boy."
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When San and Naruto departed, Sasuke lingered for a while to collect his thoughts.
He still ate the ramen before it went cold though.
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"Yo gramps. What was that whole thing with Sasuke about?" asked Naruto on the way back to the village."
"I guess you could call it 'tough love' in addition to the fact that I've grown soft in my old age."
"Yeah, soft a like cut across the eyes," snickered Naruto.
"I'm serious," replied San. "The last person I showed "tough love" to permanently lost an eye and an arm. It was a shame since he enjoyed playing the guitar so much. I'd feel almost guilty if he were any good at it, but since he sucked I don't."
San smiled viciously.
Somewhere in a secret underground bunker beneath Konohagakure, Danzo , the leader of the ANBU splinter group Root, sneezed violently, almost cracking a rib and scattering his carefully compiled secret documents all over the dirt floor.
"Fuck…Arrghh!!"
As he bent over to pick up and compile his documents single-handedly, Danzo lamented the loss of his arm and cursed ever having met San and Sarutobi.
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End Chapter 11
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C&C Welcome.