"GUH!" Kiyoshi woke up sweating and breathing heavily trying to catch his breath. His dream seemed so real that he couldn't breathe in the real world. "What the hell's happening?" he looked around examining in each corner of his room, looking for his nightmares, "That's messed up" whispered the terrified blonde pinching himself to make sure he wasn't in another dream. His shirt and hair felt cold against his skin due to the cooled sweat. Kakashi knocked on the door, "come in!" replied the teen dropping himself back on the bed, only to quickly get back up from the unpleasant sensation of wet clothes reattaching themselves to his back.
Kakashi walked in "You alright? You look as if you've just seen a ghost."
"Yeah, the ghost was I."
Kakashi gave him a strange look "Whatever, we start the mission tomorrow, you have the whole of today to train with Hinata and Naruto."
"I'll get ready,■ said Kiyoshi undressing from his cold-catching attire.
"I'll just be leaving now..." stated the masked Ninja backing away and out the door, closing it after himself.
Kiyoshi came up to the closet door, opening it and looking in the mirror hanging on the inside. Eventually undressing to his t-shirt and taking that off along with his pants, he revealed many scars, varying from short deep ones to long and heavy ones stretching across his entire body. He was quite used to the sight, and didn't really pay any attention to them. He then took a clean t-shirt and loose training-pants, put them on concealing his scars again, and got ready to go outside.
Kiyoshi walked outside to the water holding his clothes and a bar of soap. After emptying the pockets and loads from the clothes, he tied his hair back with a rubber band, and started washing.
Naruto came outside spotting the stranger by the water. He came over "Excuse me? Who are you?"
Kiyoshi turned his head to look at the whiskered guy beside him "amnesia?"
"Oh it's just you," replied Naruto startled by Kiyoshi's new look. "I hope you don't intend on keeping this fashion... Are you?"
Kiyoshi smirked "what? You don't like it?"
"Whatever... say, are you going to be catching out breakfast again?"
"I can't, I'm busy" replied Kiyoshi, "Besides..." turning to look at the boy on the dock "I don't want to be upstaged him."
Inari was having no luck understanding what Kiyoshi taught him. He was getting the normal fish that he usually got. Big enough to eat, but nowhere near as delicious as what he ate the previous morning. "Grr, what the hell am I supposed to do?" thought the kid frustrated over the meditation.
"You'll never achieve anything from meditation if you're so tense." said Hinata coming from behind, startling the boy.
Inari was disheartened, he couldn't even sense her coming, let alone do something as advanced as what Kiyoshi did. "I know, but it's so hard."
Hinata sat down beside him "I know, meditation is a tricky thing, it takes a lot of patience. If you start rushing it, your progression will go in the wrong direction. "
"Can you do that spirit thing that Kiyoshi did, to catch yesterday's fish?"
Hinata recalled sensing Kiyoshi's presence within the fish "Yes, but don't concern yourself with that. So far, you've been able to reach the first stage and keep it for a short time."
Inari filled her gap "about seven seconds"
"Fine, now you have to learn to keep that first stage, you can't advance if you don't know the basics. That goes for anything you do." Inari closed his eyes, and tried to concentrate "No, don't concentrate. It's supposed to be more of a calm walk through your mind. You have to feel your surroundings, not focus in on them."
The kid eased his eyes and let out a soft "Oss"
The girl smiled "that's the way."
"Come on man! I'm hungry!" complained Naruto to the busy teen in front of him.
"I'm not catching today's breakfast, and that's final," replied the guy with the pony-tail "If you want to eat, go make yourself something, I saw eggs in the fridge."
Naruto looked down in shame "I don't know how to cook..."
"Oh for the love of..." Kiyoshi stopped washing his clothes and looked out at the line connecting the sea and sky. Then turned to the annoyance on legs "I thought you lived by yourself. How can you live by yourself and not know how to cook?"
"Ramen."
Kiyoshi was now drowning himself, making Naruto rush over to pull his head out of the water. After having sat on the grass for a few minutes get back into his senses, he undid his hair, squeezing the water out of it. "You live off of Ramen?" Naruto nodded, once again in shame. "Alright, I'll teach you how to fry an egg, but make three clones and make them wash my clothes."
Naruto executed his key technique, releasing three clones, and followed Kiyoshi into the house. "So... what's an egg?" asked spike, making Kiyoshi walk into a wall.
"Do you at least know what food is?"
"I was kidding, of course I know what an egg is." laughed Naruto
"I'm going to kill you one day,■ stated Kiyoshi making the guy beside him slightly nervous. They came up to the fridge, Kiyoshi pointed at a cupboard beside Naruto "Get a frying pan from in there, it's the round, semi-flat, black thing with a handle." Naruto pulled it out and looked back at Kiyoshi inquisitively, to check if it's the right thing. "Good" replied Kiyoshi taking butter and a carton of eggs out of the refrigirator.
"Butter?"
"It works much better than sunflower oil, gives it a better taste." explained Kiyoshi, setting the items on the table, turning the stove on, and tying his hair back. "How do you like them?" Naruto shrugged "I like them over-easy, I'll show you how to cook that." He took a small chunk of butter, and started to spread it out over the heating up frying pan. "Get a lid." Naruto started rummaging through a drawer, eventually finding it. "The pan heats up pretty quickly,■ stated Kiyoshi holding the black utensil in one hand, and taking two eggs with the other. In a quick motion, he broke them both over the ridge of the pan and poured the egg insides on the hot surface. The eggs started sizzling and turning white in less than a second after contact with the round surface "Give me the lid" said Kiyoshi reaching his hand out.
"Here" Naruto handed it over, and Kiyoshi covered the egg. "What'd you cover it for?"
"Keeps the hot air in, which makes the skin over the yoke turn white. Oh crap, I forgot to put salt on it, it's supposed to be done as soon as you pour the egg on the pan, oh well, you get the idea."
"That won't taste good all by itself."
Kiyoshi looked back at the pan "You're right, but it should be done any second now." he took a peek under the lid, then took it off, removing the pan from the stove "get a plate and a fork or spatula." Naruto complied doing the latter. When the egg was salted and set on the table, Kiyoshi put the pan back on the stove and took sunflower oil, pouring it. "I wonder if Inari has bacon..." he looked in the fridge, "Nope, but he has the next best thing." taking out some bologna, chuckling.
"Bologna?"
"Hell yeah!" Kiyoshi took a knife, and three pieces of the meat; cut each into four sections, tossing them on the pan. Turned back to the pan, flipping each of the pieces over, eventually taking them off and putting them on a piece of bread after spreading butter over it. "Here, this should go nicely with the egg." said the blonde handing the sandwich over to Naruto
"This is concentrated heart-attack," complained Naruto "There's so much butter on this..."
"Shut up and taste it."
Naruto took a bite and smiled. "Alright, thanks."
"Another thing you could do is fry the bologna first, and then drop it on the egg while it's still not turned completely white, or use something else instead of bologna, my favorites are bacon or tomatoes."
"Awesome, now let me eat," said Naruto shooing Kiyoshi off.
Kiyoshi stormed out mumbling "friggin ingrate..." he walked out to find Naruto's clones playing soccer. After feeling for his weapon and failing to find it, he ran up to them making each with the exception of one explode in a cloud of smoke. Took the last clone by the throat, brought him closer to his face and said "Naruto, you abused my help. Unless it's a matter of life and death, you won't receive it again." with the final word exiting his lips, he punched through the clone, making it disappear.
The eating teen inside received the last images from the clones, and flew back from his meal. "What the hell?"
Kiyoshi got back to washing his clothes. After twenty minutes, he hung them off of branches on a tree, leaving them to dry. "Now I'm ready for training." Kiyoshi felt a ton of bricks fall on him, with the realization of the fact that he washed his clothes and made Naruto's breakfast, both dangerous procedures if one has no control over their body. "I think I'm getting the hang of this,■ thought Kiyoshi feeling around for his weights and failing to find them.
Inari and Hinata were sitting side-by-side meditating, when she opened her eyes in shock, remembering something very important. "Naruto is hungry,■ stated the girl getting up and rushing back to the house.
Inari was still sitting in a calm aura, eyes closed. "..." Was the only though on the kid's mind, absolute relaxation, he had his mind cleared from all the distractions of the human world.
Naruto was done eating, but he still felt empty. The one egg and some fried bologna didn't satisfy his stomach, his daily overdose of Ramen was coming back to haunt him. He was now getting ready to make himself another portion, somewhat nervous about making his first meal. "I wish somebody was here to supervise me... damn those clones." thought Naruto with an egg in his hand, afraid of breaking it completely rather making a crack. "How did Kiyoshi do this?"
Hinata rushed in seeing Naruto over the stove, ran up taking the frying pan off, and putting it under a cold stream of water from the tap. After a sigh, she turned to the blonde with a worried expression. "You've never cooked before, what were you thinking trying to do so now?!! And without supervision for that matter! Are you trying to burn this house down?!!"
"I... I'm sorry?" Naruto was slightly thrown off by Hinata's worry. After a small pause, he asked, "Can you watch over me?" reaching the egg over to Hinata.
Hinata looked around, and gave him a cup. "Start off simple, break the egg into the cup first, then you'll pour it on the pan." Naruto nodded hesitating with the egg. "Come on, it's not a baby. Just crack it, and pull it apart!" exclaimed the girl making him crush the egg in his fist. "No worries, try again." She said, handing him another egg to demolish.
Hinata showed him step-by-step safety operations that beginners should follow when cooking. Eventually giving up after he horribly mutilated the second-last egg, she made him breakfast, and they both left to train with Kiyoshi. Kiyoshi found that he had perfect control, strength, and balance with his weights still off, after testing his techniques with the weights taken off, he reattached whatever few he could back onto his light training attire.
Hinata spotted someone in the distance "What's Shikamaru doing here? And why is he blonde?" she asked, being slightly cautious.
"That's Kiyoshi... I don't know what he's thinking making a ponytail, but I don't like it." replied the whiskered guy beside her. Getting her eyes to look into his.
Hinata looked back at the figure and found Naruto to be correct, it was in fact Kiyoshi. The pony-tailed teen spotted them, and turned around to greet them with a smile. "Ready to carry on with the airborne training?"
"Oss, let's take it to the next level!" exclaimed Naruto eagerly at the thought of fighting side by side with Hinata.
"Not yet, warm up first, get the feeling of control before we go there." making Naruto look down in disappointment. "Gogogo!!!" screamed Kiyoshi attacking Naruto with several wire-propelled kunai
"AAH WHAT THE HELL!!! WHERE DID YOU GET THOSE?!! AAH!!!" screamed Naruto jumping from trunk to branch, back down to the trunk, off it and around another one, all moves to evade Kiyoshi's attacks. Hinata shook her head and walked off to train on her own. After two hours of non-stop adrenaline pumping action, Kiyoshi stopped, and Naruto fell to the ground panting. "Are we ready now?"
"We'll see when you catch your breath." replied the fashion-less teen standing over Naruto.
Hinata was also taking a break from the low movements, when Naruto came flying through the bushes into a tree near her, softening his impact with a crouch, jumping off again to fly at another one. Kiyoshi's Kunai were following Naruto's moves, as the owner of the daggers himself came running through the bush. "Hinata, join Naruto and fight back!"
Hinata jumped at a tree, avoiding one of Kiyoshi's tosses. The couple started jumping all around, eluding the daggers, beating off the kunai that are aimed at their partner. In slick movements, the two were moving in a zigzag formation from tree-trunk to tree-trunk, grabbing onto eachother to twist in a helix in mid-air, dodging Kiyoshi's flying daggers. Kiyoshi was having a blast watching the two working in absolute harmony "Perfect! Help eachother, work as one, have the strength and ability of a pack of ninja."
As the couple of flying lovebirds closed in on Kiyoshi, he let go of the wires, preparing for close-hand combat. In a flurry of kicks and punches, they were supporting themselves up in the air using Kiyoshi like a tree, and twisting around eachother to propel in mid-air. "This is awesome!" screamed Naruto.
Kiyoshi laughed "good, but could be better!" he said grabbing on to their ankles, flipping over backwards and flinging them in the opposite direction. The couple flipped over, crouched and sprung themselves off their trees, once again darting in Kiyoshi's direction. Naruto grabbed on to Hinata's hand, flying through the air. She pushed him off from side to side, getting him to bounce off trees on their way to Kiyoshi. Naruto's next motion made them flip over eachother in mid-air, jumping off Kiyoshi on impact. Hinata quickly went in a low, horizontal pose tripping Kiyoshi, making him vulnerable to attack, flying sideways through the air. At this moment, Naruto landed over Hinata and made a double-fist punch to Kiyoshi's stomach, making him fly through several trees and get stopped halfway through the fifth. The couple retracted and stood in their stances smiling at their success.
Author's note: Thank you to all those who read my sloppily-made fanfic. Unfortunately, I have to go to this annoying little thing called school, and exams are coming up. Where am I going with this? I'm afraid I might break my "Daily Updates" promise. As of tomorrow, I will be studying five hours a day (of homework homework), and I will most likely be unable to write my fic (might be able to slide by every now and then). The good news is, I have rations, meaning that I have five more chapters that are ready to be posted, so I'll be able to keep posting updates this week. That is all, special thanks to Kita (crystalfeathers), who reviews every single one of my chapters, putting rhetorucal questions every now and then.