Chapter 14 - Stubbornness
An end of a school day in March; it was a good day. The weather was nice – not the best, but it was okay. There was no history homework, which was great. That meant there would be no need to mention her father's occupation or the man himself in her homework. Yuna cringed at the thought of that teacher – he was one of those who flattered excessively and promoted the good deeds of the current, young and fresh Hokage in an obsequious manner. She thought they acted fake, and she considered them to be two-face. She tried to avoid any association with those kinds of people. She did not want them to destroy the harmony in her family by troubling them with any sort of nonsense; she would prefer to be recognised as an individual rather than just the Hokage's daughter.
Children rushed out of the Academy building like mad cows, sprinting toward the fences of parents. They were clearly overjoyed that another dreaded school day was finally over. They were shouting, bag-swinging and laughing. It was a touching scene: children running to their parents, smiling, and going home together as a family. Yuna wished that she too had… No. She stopped herself from thinking anything of that sort. She should be proud. She should be proud of her parents – because of their hard work, this was possible for the other children. She should know better; her father and mother would always watch over her, somewhere, somehow, exactly like the parents she once had, who died afar protecting her from all harm.
Yuna smiled. She knew that she was blessed to be given a second chance to live her life. She would live this life the way she had promised her papa she would.
She walked through the Academy training grounds and arrived at the river bank. She had discovered this place only recently. She liked it there – it was quiet, peaceful, and full of materials that she could use for drawing. The liveliness of a new beginning chased the bitter season away. There would be no more small birds dying because of the unbearable cold. There would be no more bloody and torn bodies lying around, numb and stone-cold. The fervent season reflected all senses of death and destruction from within, and turned all pessimism into feelings of revival. The hard snow had melted, and birds began to sing their hopeful song as they welcomed the return of spring after its winter slumber.
It was too good a day to be constructive.
Yuna found herself stopping by a dry yard of lawn amid the vast growing green, a space filled with flower buds that were yet to bloom; she decided to lay down and free herself from thoughts. She made herself comfy, using her school bag as her pillow. As the girl rested peacefully, the fragrant scent of grass lingered in her nose, and the sun shone gently and warmly upon her. It would be perfect if there wasn't someone nearby disturbing the tranquillity by practising ninjutsu. To be more specific, practising techniques of Fire Release.
"Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu."
The usually calm flow of the river was agitated, and the clear liquid bubbled heatedly at the surface contact with the giant orb of burning flame. The blunette just wished that this somebody had gone somewhere else to perfect his technique. She was there first. With annoyance, she got up and made her way to the source of the fire. She saw the back of that Uchiha classmate of hers.
"Itachi-san, would you mind practising elsewhere?" Yuna found her deskmate facing the river. When he turned, she saw the boy was covered in sweat, his mouth had traces of blood, and she could also faintly make out the blisters forming at the edge of his lips and around his fingertips. After seeing how hard he was working while she was relaxing, she felt bad to have asked. Before he could reply, she spoke again.
"The so-called genius is someone who puts a lot more effort into what he does than other people. People always see the brilliant result, but they always neglect the amount of sweat and bloodshed that has gone in to achieve it." Yuna had an ambiguous idea of how he could be so strong at his age, but she never knew exactly how hard he had been working to obtain his strength.
Itachi blinked at that comment. He was taken by surprise. He always knew she was different from the other girls. She understood him. Pulling himself together, he then responded with a dim smile to her most complimentary remark.
"You're the first to understand me so well," Itachi responded with a gentle smile. It made him happy to know there was someone else, apart from Shisui, who knew him that well.
"Because you and I both know," Yuna turned away from him, laughing inwardly to herself, "that there's no shortcut."
By the time she turned to face him again, he was gone. When she discovered that she was alone, she made her way back to her belongings. Yawning and rubbing her eyes, she dozed back to her afternoon repose.
In a drowsy state of half-sleep, Yuna picked up rattling noises buzzing around in the bushes. She forced herself awake alertly – someone was behind the trees. Then a shadow rapidly moved and hid again. Acting on self-protection, she promptly took out a kunai from her tool bag and threw it at the first tree of the bunch. At a tremendous speed, the kunai pierced straight through the tree and broke it into two halves.
A toddler with raven hair and black eyes cried out loud in fear. He was petrified by that kunai's throw.
"Wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" the little boy shrieked at the top of his lungs. Yuna wanted to apologise for the misunderstanding, but she did not know what to do with a crying child, as she was never really one to cry out loud, herself. The raven haired boy who sat next to her in class suddenly appeared. Looking at the detached trunk of a tree and the kunai laying not so far away, Itachi had a good guess of what made the little boy wail that desperately.
"Itachi-niisan, that nēsan is scary. I want to go home. I don't want to play anymore." The boy hid behind her classmate, seeking safety and comfort with his aniki.
"How could you, Yuna-san? You nearly killed him with that throw." Itachi was angry at her sudden attack. She threw that kunai with wind element chakra, intending for it to be a fatal blow. "What do you want of him?" No one shall touch a hair of his family; he would show no mercy. She better give him a good explanation.
Yuna tensed up, but that anxiety soon turned into wrath. She hated being accused, especially of ill-will, which drew relation between her and that man. She never wanted to be compared with him, ever. So, instead of apologising, Yuna argued back.
"What? You're being unreasonable. He crept up on me. I only reacted naturally, as any shinobi would." She knew she shouldn't have said that, but she was angry. She didn't care.
"No, you're being unreasonable. Why would a four-year-old want to do anything bad to anyone? More importantly, how can a four-year-old do any real harm?"
"Oh please. Age has no correlation to one's abilities. And Rule number one: never underestimate your enemy." Yuna rolled her eyes when she stated the obvious, because she was well aware that she and Itachi were great examples for illustration.
"Toshiro is no enemy to anyone," Itachi fired back. He could not believe she was such an unreasonable person. It would seem his first impression of her was incorrect.
"It's not wrong to be a bit more cautious," Yuna tried her best to say it as calmly as she could, pretending it was no big deal, although she knew deep down that she was wrong.
Itachi was raging.
"That's just ridiculous! You can't always get your way around everything just because you're the Hokage's daughter." Itachi knew how Yuna had many privileges being their leader's child. "Just because you practically live your life like a princess doesn't mean you can treat others like dirt." To his mind, she was always a princess who seemed to be living a dreamy life. Right now, she was a very spoiled princess. Fury flooded his mind and anger dictated his tongue. He did not realise just what had come out his mouth.
"How dare are you drag Papa into this! And what do you know about me to say these things? You better apologise before I do otherwise." Yuna was almost screaming at this point. "Now!"
"Why don't you try to demonstrate how to apologise first, hime-sama?" Full of sarcasm and smear, Itachi made use of his extensive imagery in his livid retort.
"That's it, Uchiha! You've crossed the line." Yuna held a kunai in her left hand and got into a battle stance.
"Most certainly, your highness. If that's the way you want to settle things, I am more than happy to comply." He further drew parallel of her to a rampage royal figure who would be inferior of others, regardless of the situation. His eyes inflamed the moment he drew his own kunai from his pocket while he gestured the younger Uchiha to flee from the battlefield.
As soon as the little boy left, they clashed into each other with kunai at top speed. Yuna knew she stood no chance in a pure power match with him; she needed to break free. Just then, Itachi saw her hand going through her tool bag, he thought she was about to use some sort of seal tag. He did not know what the seal was, but he could not afford to let himself be caught in a seal. He decided to knee his opponent in the stomach to separate from her and with the possibility of injuring her. Yuna made use of his movement of kneeing up to spring herself up high. Taking her kunai in her mouth, she landed a handstand onto his shoulders, then she attempted to toss him over with the help of gravity and amplify the force by adding her own chakra. The moment Itachi was flipped in mid-air, he took a quick glance at her chakra flow and read her next movement before landing securely on foot onto the nearest tree, hanging upside-down like a bat.
She is good. This is all just taijutsu so far. He knew she was by no means weak, but he didn't expect her to be this strong.
To test out her weakness, Itachi fell back onto one of his most confident techniques: shurikenjutsu. He threw shuriken in various directions to see how she would dodge, and what she could do. Yuna could not afford for him to find out her blind spots. She knew his accuracy surpassed hers, and she remembered from practical class that he never missed. She would surely be done for if she let him get even close to finding her weakness.
He's fast in many ways. I better raise the game. She knew how powerful the young heir was; she had seen it before, twice, being able to escape a battlefield full of trained shinobi who were in for the kill.
"Fūton: Kiryū Ranbu. (Wind Style: Air Current Dance)" Yuna blew away the incoming weapons. Since she would not give him any idea of what she was not capable of, he could only work with what he had in front of him. Little did Yuna know, those shuriken were also a distraction to find out what her weakness was. As the current of wind she just made still dawdled in the air, Itachi took his chance and turned it in his favour – he used the wind to strengthen his fire attack. He was making hand signs; she prepared for the worst and stepped into the river.
"Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu." It was a lot more powerful than she had anticipated. It was made with plenty more chakra than when he practiced it, and the Wind Release technique she employed to deflect his shuriken backfired in the worst possible way. She was so glad that she was in a river where there was an almost infinite water supply for her to use in comparison to the fire he could make with his chakra.
"Suiton: Suiryūdan no Jutsu." The water dragon extinguished the giant fire ball with ease. The reason was simple: fire was weak against water, unless the fire was strong enough to heat the liquid beyond boiling and evaporate it. With nature on her side, Itachi would stand a lesser chance of winning. They had to continue this fight somewhere else, somewhere dry, with no source of water. The instant the fire ball disappeared, Itachi used body flicker, and appeared and attacked from behind. He kept pushing her out of the forest, back to the Academy training grounds, where the ground was made of minerals and there was no big reservoir of water to be seen anywhere close by. By the time Yuna realised they had changed venue of their fight, Itachi had gained a massive upper hand in terms of the surroundings. She knew it was useless and self-destructive to use any more wind techniques. By elemental elimination, she knew her wind would be weak against him, but her water would be stronger than his fire. The only problem was that it required a lot of chakra to make water of out nowhere – it would be an ineffective use of her chakra. Yuna could not make another mistake – if she made another, it would be the end of her.
She is very good to be able to force me this far.
"Katon: Karyū Endan." He spat fire in a dragon form this time, the counterpart of the water technique she had used not long ago. His chakra was kneaded skilfully and the flame was manipulated, assuming the precise way he wanted it to. The ground was burnt and the surroundings were turning to charcoal as it protested its damage to the dragon in the boy's control. The dragon chased her restlessly; she could not run faster than that thing, and had to do something. Yuna stopped and held her hands together; she concentrated and focused her mind. Ice appeared before her and shielded her from the tough blaze and, eventually, Itachi had to stop the fire dragon flame bullet technique. The ice was melting, although slowly, but he was using too much of his chakra. He changed his approach again.
He used an explosive tag to break the pre-heated, and now, shattering ice shield she'd made. When the ice's crack resounded for one last time, Yuna broke out and attacked him from the front. She charged directly at him, then swiftly twisted her body in a certain angle in order to cut him with her poisoned kunai. Yuna knew better to use wind technique against him, but she realised that she could use wind to boost up her own speed.
She succeeded. He was now poisoned with nectar from Manda's deadly jaw, the poison she got from her time under the Orochimaru's tutoring. He'd better do something fast if he did not want to die a painful death at such a young age. Itachi stopped the poison from travelling any further in his body by hastily sealing the cuts through burning. Yuna was surprised by his razor-sharp thinking, but this was no time to be impressed.
"Katon: Hosenka no Jutsu."
Yuna was unprepared for the sudden outburst. She was running low on chakra, and she was getting too worn-out. She tried her best to dodge everything thrown at her. Unfortunately, despite her best effort, some fragments of fire had caught her, and she was burning in pain, as she was now too exhausted to continue battling. The next thing she knew she was pinned down on the ground with a kunai up to her throat.
Merely an inch away from her, Itachi immobilised Yuna, weighing himself on top of her. He restrained her arms and legs by holding them down with his own firmly, while he had a kunai positioned closely by her delicate neck and glared at her with his all-seeing Sharingan. She closed her eyes, preparing for what was coming. When his victory was affirmed, he could think coolly at last. He was stunned. He did not see a spoiled princess full of arrogance; he saw a girl lying flat and exposed in her helplessness, with her long plaited hair half-loosened by the intensive combat, long blue strands scattered messily against the bumping ground.
Revelation struck him. Maybe she was acting in self-defence and it was only an accident. However, there was an immense difference between a normal girl and her: Yuna was considered quite powerful regardless of her age, and that contributed greatly to his misunderstanding on her run-in with his cousin. His inflamed gaze relaxed and turned back to black. He slightly loosened his grip on her, but not enough for her to fight back, which could potentially lead to another round.
A voice broke in.
"Children, I hope what you're doing is only training. You have done very well. Now, go home and take a well-deserved rest." The Third was speaking in his standard serious voice, though he was actually seriously concerned about what really happened. He was still living in the Hokage mansion – it was located very close by the Academy – while the Namikaze family was still living in the house they were occupied before Minato had become Hokage. He could visibly see flames flying around the Academy's training ground; he had wondered what was going on. When he'd looked closer at the wrecked state of the training ground by the window, he decided to go and check what was happening. He did not expect to find this mess to be caused by two Academy students.
The Third found the two youngsters in the severely damaged training ground, drained out from a clashing battle. He just had to hope that they were training extra on their own because the Academy's course was too easy for their liking, and by chance, it went too far – accidentally. He did not want to concern himself or interfere with the emotional content that was involved in the whole fiasco. He wanted them to sort it out themselves, as part of their learning process. He thought and understood from their parents' point of view that attending the Academy had a very different purpose for those two to the rest of the students – it was a place for them to learn how to get along with other people through experiencing the 'real life situations' themselves.
He hurried them back, sending two of his ANBU guards to follow Itachi home to make sure that everything was alright; he also sent another one to contact the silver-haired ANBU, and to get him onto Yuna's case.
It was another dull day in ANBU with silly missions; considering it was ANBU, finding herbs for making medicine was not exactly that challenging and was rather substantial. He needed some excitement in his life, Kakashi thought. Then it became too exciting for him.
The Third's personal guard contacted him about an urgent matter concerning Yuna.
Oh goodie. What has she done now?
Minato-sensei was busy preparing a treaty with Sunagakure; both the Third and Kakashi thought it was best to let him know later than to distract him for now; Kushina-senpai would be worried sick and overreact if she was notified; Kakashi was free, available and doing nothing important for the time being.
It was time for him to 'man up'.
After being notified, Kakashi immediately dealt with the stormed training ground and the reduced-to-ash vegetation by asking – well, more like bullying – his kōhai, Tenzō, into helping to shape up the training ground and nearby surrounding, along with the Third's right-hand men with the time limit, at latest, by next dawn. He knew that the Wood Release user would be of great help and speed up the plantation process exponentially. After that, he used his summons to track the girl in question within five minutes as soon as he had organised the cleaning team and they were well underway into the regeneration operation.
The silver-haired teen walked up to her from behind. Catching up to her steps, he acted as if it was another day that he would meet her on the street and they would walk home together with her. Then he began a conversation casually.
"I am impressed. Who in the world has the ability to beat our dearest Yuna-chan to this state?" He could see how intense the battle must have been. The last time he recalled seeing Yuna like this was when Orochimaru was feeling more sadistic than usual and trained her too hard. He was putting on a good act, as if he knew nothing of the accident between the Uchiha heir and her.
Irritated by his nosiness, Yuna bit back. "Shut up. It's none of your concern." She was already in foul mood due to her losing.
"Oh, but it is, and I certainly wouldn't say that's none of my concern. Because, believe it or not, I care about your well-being, and I have a responsibility to watch over you," Kakashi responded factually. He may have seemed like a cheeky dork, but he really cared about her, like the little sister he never had. They all cared about her, and she needed to know that they were always there for her when she needed them.
Minato-sensei did, Kushina-senpai did, he did.
"As I said, shut up, Hatake. I'm not in the mood for your jokes." She sped up in an attempt to lose him.
"Oh, I know. It must've been the young heir of the Uchiha. Tsk tsk tsk, you should know better than to pick a fight with someone stronger than you if you want to win." Pretending that he had just got it, he managed to sound somewhat surprised. Yuna stopped walking as a reaction to his realisation.
"Yeah, you can talk, for someone who breaks into people's home for a free meal, five days out of seven a week."
"Hey, that's not related to this, and Minato-sensei would never leave his only and favourite student out there in the streets to die of hunger. By the way, I don't break into the house. I've got a key, remember?" He reminded her light-heartedly.
"Yeah, you're the only one left, so of course you're the favourite student. There isn't any other choice, is there? And are you now saying that they don't pay you enough in ANBU? Go complain to Papa and stop meddling in my business!"
"That's just mean, Yuna. I know you're angry, but I'm just here, trying to help. And can I just say… I'm saving up to buy myself an apartment, so of course I have to save up big time. Every little bit helps. Besides, Kushina-senpai's cooking is amazing!" Putting her angry outburst aside, he calmly and patiently listened to her, if she was willing to speak. He changed his solemn tone and spoke in a goofy developing-bad-arse-baritone-voice when he included a joke, which was essentially a fact to lighten up the moods.
Yuna slammed the front door in Kakashi's face; consequently, Kakashi had to take out his key to reopen the door in order for him to enter the house.