A/N
This one was supposed to be longer, but it's taking way too long to get out, so here's what I have so far.
I OWN EVERYTHING!
Except for Naruto.
I don't own Naruto.
"FUCK THIS CAT!" I yelled, bolting through the trees in Training Ground Thirteen.
Yes, through the trees. Anything in my way was getting cleaved in two via gigantic sword.
"Calm down, Taichi-" Kakashi said over the team-com.
"I'm TWO YEARS past doing this shit!" I continued.
Tora had gotten faster. Much faster.
Probably just to spite me.
"Fuckin' ninja cats, jumping off of trees 'n shit. Imma KILL IT." I could feel my killing intent bubbling off me in waves. The normal kind, not using the seal. I didn't actually want- OK yes, I definitely wanted to kill it, but I knew that if I did, the Hokage would be magnificently displeased with me.
I did try to do the thing where I freeze the creature with intent, but the damn thing took one look at me and ran. Completely heedless of the content of my intent.
The only issue with that, was that my intent was steadily growing throughout the chase.
Which only made the cat run faster.
"GRAAAHHHH!" I roared.
I saw Naruto and Sasuke give each other a worried look out of the corner of my eye. I mean, I guess I had let my temperget the better of me… a little.
This was supposed to be a team exercise to help build us up before the Chunin exam. Niashi-sensei had learned to not take anymore Tora missions after my last one. Too bad that particular memo never made it to Kakashi's desk.
He had just shown up that morning and said we had a mission.
If I remember correctly, my eye twitched.
"No you won't-" Kakashi tried.
"Come'ere you little pickle-fart and let me gouge out your eyes!"
There was a couple seconds of silence as we continued the chase.
"He's lost it." Sasuke said, paying homage to the god of all things bloody fucking obvious.
"Pickle-fart?" Naruto asked.
It was later reported that my screams could be heard throughout the village for the next couple hours.
Ultimately, we had to report the mission as failed. Mainly due to the excessive damage I caused in my blind rage; Kakashi called us off when the ANBU thought the village was under attack.
I had… um… evidently… well, there wasn't much left of Training Ground Thirteen, and a couple residencies in District Four took some… significant damage.
Catching the Demon Cat has since been upgraded to a C-rank mission, requiring the active roll of at least one Jounin.
Oh, and I was barred from ever taking the mission again.
I counted that as a victory.
About a week before the exam found Niashi Fukumi sitting in a tree overlooking a group of Genin, a couple Academy students, and the Hokage's grandson.
Three of the Genin were Suna nin; one was sitting in a tree behind the group - much like herself, and the other two were threatening the wellbeing of Konohamaru.
Well… One of them was.
"Brats should watch where they're going." The Suna nin with face paint said.
The scene continued as Naruto threatened to beat up the foreign nin if he didn't let the kid go.
Niashi began to ready herself to intervene if someone steered the situation out of control.
Then a familiar voice sounded out on the branch next to her. "Now how the hell did this happen? Sakura's still in the hospital."
She looked over to see her student - though she said that loosely now - peering down on the crowd looking confused.
She wasn't even surprised that the kid was able to sneak up on her. His chakra control was to the point where he could suppress his footprint to almost nothing, and the Yamanaka had always been privy to techniques in the stealth field.
"What does Sakura have to do with this?" Niashi asked.
"Hm?" The Genin cocked an eyebrow. "Oh, nothing apparently."
Taichi Yamanaka was a puzzle. The kid was driven to improve by some divine force, all the while acting like a Nara. She had never seen so much skill and drive packed into one person.
Well, she never did see the kid's drive, but knew it had to be there. The sheer amountof shit he got done in the 'Personal Improvement' category was staggering by anyone's standards.
From the very beginning of their relationship, the only things she could teach him were Kenjutsu and Ninjutsu, and those were covered in the first year. Any plans regarding exercise were overruled by his Gravity seal; simply by being too pedestrian to have any effect. Chakra control was… Well it was better than Niashi's at this point for sure, and she suspected that it had always been so. His work ethic seemed to be moot to begin with. Teamwork, and strategy just seemed to be minor facets that he picked up without problem. Hell, she actually had to try in order to beat Taichi in a spar now.
The last time they fought unencumbered, she had left the training ground with just as many bruises as he had. He still wasn't her match, but it was getting to be a close thing.
She just had to face it: there wasn't much else she could teach him.
She thought back to the first time she met Team Three, and gave them her version of the Genin test.
She really didn't want a Genin team, but even though the Hokage had only asked her to take the roll, another… party didn't give her a choice. She had to take this team and see to the development and mindset of one Taichi Yamanaka.
They had immediately picked up on the point of it, and showed her some of the best teamwork she had ever seen from fresh Genin.
Granted that was mainly Taichi and Shiro working off of each other, but Mai had shown a lot of trust and willingness to work with her peers that simply wasn't expected of her, as well as a propensity to ask questions, and fight decisions that she didn't think were appropriate.
Still, Niashi was pleasantly surprised, so she decided to bump up the difficulty.
For Taichi.
She could tell he was still holding back, while the other two were working in top gear. So she used the easiest method available to get him to pick it up.
She backed him into a corner.
By disabling Mai and Shiro in a visibly brutal - but not truly damaging - fashion, and raising her skill level up to about low Chunin, she got him to release his Gravity seal.
She could honestly say that was the most surprised she had ever been.
A Genin was able to immediately match someone at low Chunin level right out of the Academy.
It was ludicrous.
And then he had tried to pummel her in the face with a Rasengan.
That one didn't even register before the fear kicked in and she slammed the kid into the ground so hard that she felt most of the bones in his body break.
Niashi was around during the Third Shinobi War. She saw what the Fourth Hokage did with that jutsu. She saw how it mangled and grinded a person into a bloody, pulpy mess.
The reason why the Rasengan was such a dangerous jutsu wasn't because it had great blunt force. With how the Fourth used it - if it was just a ball of chakra - it would have served him better to just punch people instead.
No, the Rasengan was feared because it drilled through your defences like they weren't even there, then ripped apart your insides like a hurricane of gears. Whether it was made of Chakra, flesh, metal, or stone, nothing could maintain its integrity when it was being stripped layer by layer at a speed beyond comprehension.
The Rasengan was feared because of the wrath that had been written with it.
The Rasengan was feared because nothing had ever lived, once pitted against it.
The Rasengan was feared because the man who invented it left a trail of mangled corpses longer than any known shinobi to date.
Fuck the fact that she was a clone; that fear had been carved into her soul.
So it ended with a fresh Genin in the hospital.
Niashi had done her homework before meeting the three of them.
She knew Taichi was the latest genius of Konoha, and frankly, she'd been annoyed at the fact that she was selected to be his sensei.
She expected a brat.
She expected a stuck up idiot who knew he was better than his peers.
She expected a lot, really.
She got none of that.
What she got was a snarky twit that knew his limits, and never stopped improving on his deficits.
What she got was a team of snarky twits that she barely had to teach.
They were already effective from the get-go, they just needed someone to grease the wheels. Mai and Shiro needed a bit of work, but that was expected.
Then their first C-rank happened and everything went to shit.
She tried. She honestly did.
She had gone through emotional… training in the past, but evidently it was wearing off after so long. Sometimes she wished she could be as emotionless as they wanted her to be.
This was her first Genin team. She never had that type of responsibility before, and that spawned a sense of apprehension that was nearly crippling.
So she made the worst decision of her life; leaving her Genin under the care of a clone while she tried to get a grasp of the situation. Really, she should have flipped it; sent the clone out instead. But no. She had to go and be a complete idiot.
Shiro was beheaded.
Mai was reduced to a clinical patient.
Taichi… Well Taichi had taken it remarkably well for a kid his age. He'd lost an arm and two teammates. He seemed to go through the stages of grief in about a week after he woke up, and never relapsed. Acceptance seemed to hit him while he was with Shikamaru after he'd been released from the hospital. Yes, she was watching when he met up with the Nara, and yes; she told the kid where to find Taichi. She wanted to be there for him, but knew that she would be terrible company. Not knowing how to deal with the grief herself, Niashi would be no help.
Since then, she spared no effort in training him - though he still barely needed it. She took him through everything she knew about Kenjutsu, and Ninjutsu theory, letting him create his own: Wind Release: Air Burst.
It surprised her that he focused on making a supplementary jutsu instead of something purely offensive, but that decision only proved to enhance her view of Taichi's ability to plan ahead.
After the first year, she officially cleared him to do easy C-rank missions solo. There had been a little pressure for her to get back on the mission roster, so she either had to bring Taichi with her, get him promoted, or clear him for solo missions. The third option seemed like the safest.
The easy C-ranks traditionally only took a day or two, as they only dealt with courier missions in the immediate vicinity of the village, patrol of the village wall, gate duty, or other menial tasks that were only slightly more dangerous than D-ranks. They didn't pay much, but they stacked up nicely.
That's about when the 'Student/Teacher' thing started to break down.
She began to see less and less of Taichi as the second year progressed. She still took the odd mission with him, just to see how he'd been progressing and possibly teach him some miniscule tips and tricks. He still lacked experience, and that was really all she could help him gain at that point.
Niashi knew she wasn't the strongest ninja in the village. She had sparred with Kakashi, Asuma, Gai, and others, to find that she was definately Elite Jounin, but still only as good as that. Kakashi and Gai could kick her ass, and she won against other Jounin like Kurenai, Asuma, and Yugao a few times, but not enough to put her ahead of the crowd.
At least her Bingo Book entry said she was an A-Rank threat, though the following details explained that it was on the lower end of A-Rank.
It might have been bad or good luck - she didn't know - when Taichi was paired with another Genin team to do a slightly longer C-Rank mission just a little bit after he turned eleven.
They were ambushed just as they were turning the mission scroll over to the client. She wasn't privy to the 'why', but the Iwa nin that attacked immediately went for the Jounin sensei, knocking him out after a short clash and left him for dead, bleeding out on the ground. However, when they turned around to 'Take care of the kiddies', they were caught completely off guard by an enraged eleven-year-old child.
Taichi's problem with Iwa nin would probably never go away, and she wasn't sure she would do anything to fix it. It wasn't like she cared much about the offending party, and as heartless as it was to admit it, Taichi's cold rage was a very productive motivator.
He had lost too much in one mission, and that blame fell on an entire village.
There were three attackers; all at about high Chunin level, but Taichi was pushing Jounin at this point - if only in speed and strength - even while hanging onto his Genin title.
He managed to kill two of them and the "client" before the strongest of the three met him even.
With their Jounin out cold, the two other Genin on the team did the only thing they could and helped out Taichi, which proved to be just enough to overpower the last attacker.
By the time they got the Jounin bandaged up and made it back to the village, it was clear that Taichi had just completed his first B-Rank mission.
His skills began to get noticed at that point, so he found himself on slightly longer, and more difficult missions without his sensei. He was thrown in with more teams, and managed to make that name for himself: The Guillotine.
She didn't even bother to suppress the smirk that jumped to her lips when she first heard the moniker.
It was official, her emotional training was totally shot.
She just hoped that nobody figured it out.
A burst of killing intent from the Sand Genin with a gourd strapped over his shoulder brought Niashi back to reality.
Taichi still sat on the branch next to her, seemingly content with how things were pacing themselves out below him.
Sasuke had shown up at some point, and threw a pebble at the Genin with face paint, prompting Mr. IHaveAHugeFuckingGourdOnMyBack to come out of hiding as well.
The Jounin sighed as the group began to disperse. She would have stepped in if truly necessary, but it didn't seem that it was.
"Well, that was anticlimactic." Taichi said, standing up.
"Mm." She replied, still staring down at the empty street.
"Hey, wanna take a mission tomorrow?"
She looked up at her student, and cocked an eyebrow.
"Oh don't look at me like that."
She continued to look at him like that.
Taichi sighed. "I'm trying to get out of teaching someone fuinjutsu. Help."
Niashi couldn't help it. She chuckled. "Taking on students of your own, are you?"
"Hey! She gave me a sob story! I had no defense to that!"
"She?" The Jounin grinned. She found herself doing that more often in the past year or so; grinning. She kind of liked it.
"Oh don't you dare."
She straight up laughed at his glare.
"Nevermind." Taichi pouted. "I'll just go ask if there's anything short term at the mission desk."
Niashi kept laughing for a few seconds after Taichi flickered away, then brought herself together. She was glad that her student was finally making more friends. He had plenty of acquaintances, but when it came to people his own age, there weren't too many he interacted with. After their first C-rank mission, Taichi grew distant from his extended family. The only contact he regularly kept was with his mother, Ino, and her father. During the monthly Yamanaka Festival, he could be found speaking with a few people here and there, but he never really made an effort to socialize to the Yamanaka standard. Outside of the family, he really only talked to Shikamaru, and even then their conversations tended to be about the clouds that were passing by.
Fuinjutsu, huh?
The Jounin had been thinking about asking him to teach her that, as well.
Niashi Fukumi found herself scratching at her cheek, lost in thought for the umpteenth time that day, thinking about the seal that laid upon the fleshy appendage between her teeth.
A/N
Please let me know if there's something I can do to improve; which is also known as Constructive Criticism.
Please do not shove insults up my ass.
Please review! Even if it's just a word or two, I'd like to know what you all think.