A/N: Urgh…exams have totally screwed me over. Let's just not go there…argh…
Anyways, another update! Woot! Yeah, yeah, stop groaning about the time it took me, I'm depressed enough as it is.
Right, as usual, enjoy, and any questions, ask it in a review or pm.
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. Simple as that.
I Will Believe
Chapter 28: Reminiscing the Past
The sun was blaring down on the individuals currently training in their usual grounds. Only this time, the sensei was different.
"Come on, come on! Get your lazy little butts moving now!" roared Minagi as she watched her Kage Bunshin rain flames at the two girls. Namely one Haruno Sakura and one Yamanaka Ino. It was quite understandable how this Uchiha came to be known as a very dangerous pyromaniac. After all, the two genin were currently experiencing the proof to the fullest extent possible.
One of the reasons they were currently screaming bloody murder.
"I actually agree with them sometimes…" muttered Kireki as she watched on with grimaces all over her face. She was never one to use such drastic training measures, and preferred much more gentle ways in terms of teaching, yet she had to admit, Minagi's ways did have her merits, albeit the price those two had to pay were much larger…
Ryusei chuckled as he crossed his arms, "Indeed. But it's for their good anyway. The next time they get on the battlefield, they will pretty much gain immunity to any fire attacks. It'll be pure muscle memory that makes them dodge."
The white-eyed Hyuga raised an eyebrow, before frowning, "Muscle memory?"
"Yeah, the pain of being scalded and burned will be etched firmly into their minds, so their bodies will then deem evading fire attacks as a reflex."
If anyone else was listening to this explanation, there would definitely be sweat-drops, but to a certain extent, Kireki knew that Ryusei wasn't kidding. The clear increase in evasion skills displayed by the two girls was obvious.
After Naruto left with Jiraiya, the three Guardians decided to take it upon themselves to train the remaining two members of team six, much to the girls' horror. Three days had already passed, and so far, the girls were making steady progress. Ryusei merely stood on the sidelines giving comments every now and then when he took a break from his active Shinobi duties, while leaving the main training regimes up to Kireki and Minagi, seeing how those two were pretty much the epitome of Kunoichi when at their full capacity.
"Katon: Gokakyu no jutsu! (Fire Element: Grand Fireball Technique)" A huge flame sphere shot at the escaping 'victims' and threatened to scorch them once again.
Sakura and Ino however, had long since been used to this type of attacks and could easily avoid it. But they soon realized that the whole point was to devise plans right on the stop to not simply nullify the attack but also to take the opportunity and counter.
"Doton: Ishi Saku no jutsu! (Earth element: Rock barrage technique)" That effectively deflected the fire attack whilst Ino followed it up, "Ninpo: Dokugiri! (Ninja Arts: Poison Gas)"
Minagi gave an approving nod before leaping away to safety, temporarily giving the two girls some breathing space. To be honest, when she was their age, her skills were not that much better than what these two were showing. The thing she had was experience, multiple kills, heaps of missions, tons of different situations in which one could be in, and this was the point in training them, something Naruto could easily do with himself.
Only way to gain experience was to keep fighting different opponents, and by rotating between all three Guardians, the two girls had an abundance of situations and crisis in which they would have to really think on their feet. They've gotten the basics, they've gotten the techniques, now it would be the execution. That had always been the most vital part of them all.
Kireki was in charge of taijutsu whilst Minagi took care of ninjutsu. Ino herself had a teacher for genjutsu, in the form of her father, who was more than happy to teach her enthusiastic 'princess' all the mind techniques she could learn. Sakura took lessons from Minagi and Kireki, first getting down the control needed and then the theory behind genjutsu. Her mental willpower was extremely strong, so breaking a genjutsu would not be a problem. Her inner-self proved to be final defense against any outsiders who were attempting to manipulate her through her mind. Same went for Ino.
At times, Ryusei just couldn't help but wonder where all these talents come from. These two girls were pretty much godsends, seeing how most of the Kunoichi their age nowadays would merely care about appearance and stuff like that. And even if they actually trained, none of them would even dream about reaching their current level. It was truly an astonishing feat.
"Alright, time out!" Kireki signaled as the hour was up.
Minagi instantly stopped her onslaught and gave a small smile, "So far so good." The girls were completely exhausted and she had to admit, keeping up with them and watching them grow was quite entertaining. It was good to know that you took part in molding two brilliant Kunoichi and had a hand in helping them onto their paths. It would be interesting to see just how far these two could go by the end of the month.
Naruto had better not be slacking, because he might be in for a surprise at the rate these two are going……
With Naruto and Jiraiya……
"Ne, Ero-sennin……"
"Damn gaki! How many times have I told you not to call me that?!"
"You can't blame me for speaking the truth."
"I can when you're doing it to ruin my image."
"Well then stop peeping on women in the hot springs!"
"Shhhhh! Quiet! Are you trying to kill me?"
"Like I said, we aren't even doing our job properly here. Why the heck does training involve peeping at hot springs?"
"Because!"
"Such a mature answer from a fifty-year old hermit."
"You shut the hell up."
"Oh ho?" Naruto narrowed his eyes, "You do realize that if I scream 'there is a pervert here' right now, you'll get mutilated, don't you?"
Jiraiya stilled in less than a second, before staring at his 'disciple' with the most pathetic expression ever, tears flowing down his cheeks comically, as though begging him not to reveal this location. The blond merely raised an eyebrow at this supposed Sannin and shook his head in exasperation, "You know, if not for the fact that I actually know you are the Toad Sennin, I would seriously wonder why the heck an old coot like you would even be respected."
The fifty-year old seemed to take all the subtle insults in stride and nod furiously, doing his best to get Naruto to agree with the decision, i.e. not reveal his hiding place. He seemed to forget though…that they were conversing. And when one person was speaking, there's this thing called 'sound' that would travel through the air at quite a fast speed, three hundred and thirty metres per second in fact. On top of that, seeing how the distance from the hiding place to the hot springs was about one hundred metres, Jiraiya should have realized that whatever Naruto was saying should get transmitted all the way over to the naked females in less than a third of a second.
Fortunately for him, the volume of the sound was somewhat muffled by the steam and the leaves surrounding them, but even so, for a group of women who were previously enjoying their bath in the wonderfully soothing hot springs, having a nice and quiet time relieving their stress, to all of a sudden hear muffled sounds coming from a bush that wasn't all that far from them proved to be quite a shock. It was even more surprising when they actually overheard the contents of the words and the moment the name 'Toad Sennin' reached their ear drums, something akin to female righteous fury ignited within their souls.
Furthermore, the voice of those words came from someone quite young, probably a teenager, and for him to be speaking in such a condescending tone already put him in a good light with the infuriated women. Their minds instantly jump to the conclusion that this old pervert must have forced this young man into leading him here using his status as a Sannin and therefore, all the blame was to be placed onto him.
When Jiraiya noticed Naruto's thoroughly amused expression change all of a sudden, and the numerous shadows that towered over him, he instantly understood the implications of his situations. As much as he wanted to curse the gaki, he soon came to realize something. One would think that females punish perverts using whatever 'weapons' they could get their hands on. Indeed, that they would.
But what about naked women with only water around them?
Contrary to popular belief, females do not magically create weapons out of absolutely nowhere.
Therefore, towels seem to be the answer.
Logically, the amount of damage a towel could achieve when wet would be about the same as that of a wooden pole stick. Not to mention that those towels that the women would have to strip off their body after having them immersed in water in close contact to their skin would all have a very faint scent of aroma, one that would be unique to each and every individual women.
So would one say getting beat up by women at a hot spring was hell?
Please, I beg to differ.
Which was why the groans that came from Jiraiya felt more like he was delirious from fantasy instead of pain. The fact that once the females removed the towels from their body to start hitting him, the involuntarily become naked, with all their glorious assets and various attractive attributes presented directly in the pervert's line of gaze, and as we all know, perverts usually survive the beating in the end anyway, it has seriously become a debatable point whether or not Jiraiya was as 'helpless' as he seemed.
Naruto detected the 'danger' right away, and instantly henge-d multiple leaves from the trees around them into sticks of all sorts. Of course, he had to let Jiraiya think he was in bliss before shooting him down. So after a quick thirty seconds, he quietly handed each and every female a stick and secretly sent Kage Bunshins under Akiraka Jiseki (Clear Trace) to put secure some more towels onto their bodies to prevent anything more from being exposed.
To be honest, Naruto wasn't that naïve and pure when it came to the anatomy of a female body. After all, the numerous times he had been in a bath with Kireki when he was young, and the times he had accidentally witnessed Anko's certain activities, plus the occasional bored reading of Kakashi's smut novel, and the presence of ero-sennin on training missions, well, one would hardly expect to think that he would be unfamiliar with a naked female body.
Granted, he did get quite embarrassed if it was Sakura or Ino, or any of his 'sisters', older or younger he might add, and of course, his mother, were exposed in front of him like that, but if the woman had nothing to do with him whatsoever, there really wasn't any need to freak out. He didn't even look and merely allowed his Kage Bunshin to finish the job. Yes, when they disperse, they sent the info back to his brain, but he could decide to pick out which stuff to see and which stuff not to. He did have an appreciation for the female figure after all.
And seeing how his expectations were raised pretty high given his constant interactions with 'elite' women in terms of beauty, he really didn't pay much attention at all to others. He had no need to anyway. He was thirteen, he had plenty of time, unlike a certain crappy toad hermit.
Funny how the females seemed to realize his intentions and even halted their assault to send him a few looks of approval. It seemed that being gentlemanly did have its benefits after all. It was stupid to assume that there were no Kunoichi amongst this group and even worse to assume that none of them had lightning affinity. Apparently the prank side of Naruto came up and one of his Kage Bunshin not-so-nonchalantly whispered to one of the females that it would be a splendid idea to dump a certain someone into the hot spring and send lightning natured chakra into the water.
The Kunoichi cooed at the idea and did just that. Jiraiya wasn't too pleased at all. Talk about too much heat to handle.
In the end, the event ended with a slightly overcooked toad hermit lying painfully on the ground, twitching all the while, with Naruto standing beside him, looking bemused after receiving multiple kisses on the cheeks as thanks for helping them in subduing this pervert. Ironic that he had the exact same view as Jiraiya, yet completely different treatment. Rubbing it in was always a good thing to do.
"Urgh…Gaki!" Jiraiya then slowly rose from the ground, chakra bursting from him in a frenzy as though to signify his rage, only for it to quiet down in a mere second, where Jiraiya gave him a thumbs up, "Good job! Now I have a new plot for my next Icha Icha novel! What a brilliant setting! To think that getting beat up wasn't all that bad at all! A spectator who gets all the benefits and becomes the hero of the heroines! Brilliant!"
The enthusiastic scribbling that ensued brought quite a few sweat-drops to Naruto's head.
The hell are we even on a mission for?
Elsewhere in Tanzaku……
"Tsunade-sama! Mo!" grumbled a panting Shizune as she carried their pet-pig Ton-Ton, chasing after her mentor in order to prevent her from spending the last of their money gambling. Her nickname as 'The Legendary Sucker' said it all.
You would think she would learn from all her mistakes and leave the route of a gambler, unfortunately, it would seem that all three Sannin have a certain stubborn quality around them. One was crazy for jutsu, one was crazy for porn, and one was crazy for gambling. Interesting enough, Tsunade and Jiraiya both love Sake. Meaning out of the four rules of prohibition for a shinobi during missions, namely no eating in excess, no drinking of alcohol, no disgraceful acts regarding human interactions (a very funny, albeit nice way to put it) and last of all, no gambling.
Did it occur to any of the Konoha citizens that their strongest warriors just happened to break three of the four rules already?
Of course not, why else would they want Tsunade to be their Hokage?
"Urusai! (Hush!) That bastard just now must have cheated, there's no way he could have beaten me."
"A-ano, Tsunade-sama, all you had was a pair of threes…"
Narrowed amber eyes with extremely furrowed eyebrows turned towards Shizune, "Your point?" The twitching of her facial features easily showed her agitation, and given numerous years of experience, Shizune took the easy way out, "Nothing, nothing at all."
"Oi! Watch where you're going you crazy…woman…" A random rude guy just happened to be walking on the road, at that exact area, in that exact place, at the exact time and unfortunately, at the worst possible timing ever.
"Who the hell do you think you are?!" roared a very pissed off blonde as she smashed her fist into the poor guy's face whose only fault was being rude to the woman who had not-very-nicely knocked into him whilst he was happily minding his own business. Needless to say, he was sent flying. Literally.
And there we have it. The main reason for Tsunade to become Hokage. Not only was her temper extremely volatile, her immense strength and ability as a med-nin placed her as one of the most powerful shinobi ever to grace this world.
Shizune sighed as she watched her mentor storm off down street, clearly expressing an aura that screamed 'death'. The number of times they've been through this…
"Puhi…puhi!"
"Yes, Ton-ton, I know…"
Back with Naruto and Jiraiya……
They've finally moved on from what they now deem the 'hot spring' incident and were finally back on track. As they travelled, Naruto would constantly express his queries about certain aspects of form and nature manipulation, trying to get more ideas in how to vary his two most powerful jutsu, namely Rasengan and Kaen Furea. He had the fire manipulation down, no problem, at least for his level. Naruto, after witnessing Ryusei's control of fire knew that he had a long, long way to go.
But for now, he needed to focus on other aspects, like wood element and ice. For some reason, Naruto simply could not grasp it. There was just something against his nature in wanting to well…create life force. To be honest, he was a brawler, meaning he was a 'destroyer', so for him to master an element that wanted to be 'created' seemed utterly pointless. Jiraiya too, was surprised at first that he could even make something appear, but soon realized that the chakra output for this particular element was several times that of other elements. Jiraiya then told Naruto to put training this element on standby and merely stick with simple basics for now.
He made a valid point: Naruto had two major elemental affinities, fire and wind. So why not focus more on wind for now? Jiraiya had told Naruto once again that wind was not to be simply used in the enhancement of speed, but also in the increase in strength and even reach for his attacks. Be it ninjutsu or taijutsu, if one could utilize their elemental chakra and implement that within their styles, they would be an extremely formidable opponent.
Simply put, Jiraiya had an earth affinity, and by simply channeling chakra through his muscles and using elemental manipulation, he allowed his muscles to increase in terms of density and therefore reduce the impact of the attacks that might hit him. Furthermore, his Ninpo: Hari Jizo worked along that concept as well, lengthening his hair to protect his entire body. There were multiple uses that were waiting to be discovered and for Naruto, implementing wind into his style would probably result in him 'playing' with the element, like what Ryusei was doing.
"Ne, Ero-sennin, where to next?" Naruto muttered as he shook his head, trying to clear his brain of all the troublesome thoughts. Seriously, training to be stronger was good and all, but constantly thinking about it did nothing but dull your senses. Improvising wasn't all that bad perhaps…
"Well, considering we've been to most of the possible places already…it leaves us with…Tanzaku, the village with one of the most famous casinos in the country." Jiraiya couldn't help but let out a sigh. This fellow teammate of his was getting to be a real bother. Why gamble when you knew you were going to lose anyway?
Scratch that, she probably thought she could win. Placing a palm over his face, he continued to mentally calculate the routes she would take if she were to leave Tanzaku before they got there. That village had two exits. One from the north, one from the south. At their current rate of travelling, they should be arriving at the south gate sometime tonight. The chances were that Jiraiya would be able to meet them along the way. Surely Tsunade would be in no hurry to leave Tanzaku? After all, the Sake in that region was quite well-known…
Back in Konohagakure……
The sun was setting, and soon, another day would end. Kireki couldn't help but sigh as she walked down the streets. It felt weird that the usual blob of sunshine wouldn't be greeting her enthusiastically when she arrived home. It was all she could do to pray that Naruto would be successful in his mission. Konoha had hurt Tsunade-sama quite deeply and it would take something close to a miracle to drag her back.
Fortunately, this was Naruto they were talking about here. Kireki stopped halfway in her tracks, raising an eyebrow, "Why am I even worrying?"
"Because you're his beloved one-chan."
"Minagi!" The embarrassed Hyuga gave a surprised yelp as the Uchiha appeared behind her all of a sudden.
"Oh? Blushing are we?" Teased the brunette as she stood beside her friend.
"Don't just scare me like that!"
"Well, considering you're one of the best Kunoichi in this village, I would have thought you could pick up on my presence already." Her mockingly sweet tone caused Kireki to groan.
"I just worry too much I guess." Kireki sighed, with a slight frown on her face.
The Uchiha shrugged, "Least you know that you do worry too much. That classifies you as a true loving sister, instead of an overprotective maniac."
Kireki deadpanned, "You're on to talk."
"I don't care about the brat."
"Uh huh, that was why you made sure he completely understood the concepts of complete combustion and ways in altering the enthalpies of certain chakra outputs."
"Th-that was just because I'm his sensei!"
"Ah admit it, you've got a soft spot of him too."
"I do not!"
"Do too."
"Do not."
"Do too."
"For the last time, I do not see him as a younger brother!"
Kireki merely chuckled light-heartedly, "Good to know."
It was now Minagi's turn to blush, "Urgh, why do you tease me so?"
"You started it."
It wasn't long before they reached their apartment. Ryusei was still on patrol and therefore would not be home for quite some time. The Sandaime Hokage had already given the key of the next door apartment to Ryusei, so it was much easier for them to meet together.
Nevertheless, there was always this slight tension between the two when it came to this young man. To put it simply, both had more than mere feelings of friendship for him. And it wasn't today that they realized it. Ten years ago in fact. It warmed Kireki's heart to see Sakura and Ino training so hard just so that they would not be a burden to their captain. It reminded her of the old days, where Minagi and her would do the same, having a friendly rivalry with each other. They hadn't even realized their affections for that certain male until one day, he went on a solo mission…and came back half dead.
It came as quite a shock, for Kamio Ryusei was literally the will of fire. He was the embodiment of flames and could command it at his will, and to find him having countless injuries on his battered body was something no one would ever thought of seeing, until that very day. He had smiled when they dashed into his room, with worried looks all over their faces, wondering just what had happened to the Seiryu of Konoha.
They had never seen him so broken before, so immersed in despair and grief, as though he had lost something close to him, and would never get it back ever again. That was the day he met Nii Yugito, the new friend he made whilst she came to Konoha for a visit with her sensei. They hanged out for a week, and it was during an outdoors trip that he was ambushed, by members of the Kamio clan. She had been bluffing all this while, luring him into a false sense of security.
And to be honest, it wasn't Ryusei's fault for wanting to have friends. Fifteen year old prodigies like him didn't have any friends, apart from the few that worked with him. He was quite happy to befriend her and yet she had spit in his face. Even till this day, they would remember the disheartened look on his face. They were fourteen years old.
It was a year later, that everything was forced to change…
"Ne, Kireki…"
"Hm?"
"Are you…thinking about that as well?"
"Yeah."
"Will he…"
"He will, I'm sure of it." White eyes gazed confidently into insecure black ones. The pink tinge around her pupils seemed to glow as Minagi turned her head away, "I hope you're right."
The moonlight silhouette bloomed in the background, as though answering their prayers.
With Naruto and Jiraiya……
"EH?!" Naruto stared wide-eyed as Jiraiya solemnly nodded.
It had all started with Naruto being bored and asking 'ero-sennin' about Ryusei's history. He knew that Kireki and Minagi were both elites of their respective clans right when they were young, having graduated at the age of seven, and were apprenticed right away. They trained under clan tutors and didn't form an actual genin team until age nine.
Their third member was Anko. She had been going through a really hard time then, seeing how her sensei, Orochimaru had betrayed not only her but the village as well. In addition, she was given the Heaven Cursed seal, and for countless nights, she had to suffer the pains, both mentally and physically. Minagi and Kireki acted as major supports for the girl and together, they helped her overcome her crisis.
Of course, the cursed seal had to be placed under control, and it was a young ANBU that had been given the task. Jiraiya had added that the fuinjutsu this kid had was taught by both the Yondaime and himself personally. Apparently, that had been Ryusei under the mask. That was the first interaction this four had with each other. After Anko discovered that it actually worked, she was deeply moved and was convinced that she owed Ryusei her life.
Hence she trained hard and together with her teammates, she reached the rank of jonin pretty quickly in her career. However, she had taken a liking to the Interrogations Department and with special permission, took the rank of 'Tokubetsu jonin', where she worked under Ibiki. Kireki returned to her clan and did her duties as a jonin shinobi. Minagi became a hunter nin, having come to dislike her clan so much that she wanted to be as far away from them as possible. It had something to do with the death of her brother, Obito, or so Jiraiya had said.
It was pure coincidence that the four of them were gathered together once again, where they had to hold a certain station during a war with Amegakure. They were sent as reinforcements to a severely handicapped base, and it was there that they all made their name. The other villages recognized their strength for the first time, and as time passed, they soon became known as Shi Fukei (Four Guardians). It was officially announced by Sandaime and Yondaime after the war ended.
Then on that day, Ryusei came back with grave injuries all over. It would seem that Kumo had a trap under their sleeves and were disguising their trip with a more sinister motive. They had wanted to get rid of the only true heir to their clan, Ryusei. Luckily they failed. No one knew the exact process of what happened, all they knew was that Nii Yugito, the nibi Jinchuuriki, was involved. Minagi, after hearing about this, had ignored orders from the council and set off alone and ambushed the Kumo delegation, getting into a serious fight with the Jinchuuriki, intent on killing her for what she did to Ryusei.
Unfortunately, this sparked off unrest between the two villages and almost brought war upon them again. Ryusei, however, was the one who took responsibility.
Which leaded back to Naruto's response of 'Eh?!'
"But, but why did he take responsibility?! Didn't Minagi-ne-chan – "
"It didn't matter who did it. For the 'greater good' of the village, a scapegoat had to be found pretty much, and some form of punishment was be given to prove that Konoha did want the peace to continue. Ryusei was kicked out of ANBU and taken off active roster duty for a year."
"That still doesn't answer the question though! Why was Ryusei the one who was blamed?" Naruto angrily yelled.
"Because Minagi was an Uchiha, and the head of Uchiha clan would rather die than let one of his kin be shown as such a disgrace."
"So because of politics."
"Yes."
"That's bullshit!"
"It is. But nothing could be done about it. You do realize how Minagi always seemed tense around Ryusei didn't you?"
"Now that you said it…"
"Back then, it was the first time that Minagi had felt so utterly insignificant and powerless."
"Why?" Came the curious inquiry.
"If Ryusei had scolded her, yelled at her, screamed at her or even beaten her up, she would have felt better. But no, all the boy did, was smile and told her not to worry."
"Huh?"
"And Minagi couldn't handle the guilt. She had just caused Ryusei to lose a year's worth of income. He was taken off the active roster and so the only way he could even earn money to sustain his living was using the money he saved up and doing civilian jobs. It was utterly humiliating for a shinobi of his status to do something like this."
Naruto shook his head, "So that's why…"
"Indeed. Perhaps the only good thing was that out of the four, only Ryusei could have survived that little crisis, at that time at least."
"You mean…"
"He was an orphan at a young age, and understood the importance of saving and maintaining a good usage of money, I'm sure you appreciate what I'm trying to say here."
They gradually reached the inn that was their destination for the day, and it didn't seem that long at all. The afternoon just flew by with Jiraiya speaking of the Shi Fukei's history. It was extremely intriguing and entertaining even to know more about his sisters and new sensei.
"And one year later, well, we all know what happened. Kyuubi came, Yondaime died, you were born. The council then ordered the Shi Fukei to be disbanded, seeing there was absolute no need for them anymore. Peace treaties had already been set up with multiple villages and hence, they were back to being ordinary Jonin. Ryusei however, left the village, charged with the mission of eliminating threats of the spy network, working alongside me for quite some time, before receiving solo assassination missions every now and then.
Basically, it was Danzo's doing, trying to remove as much of the Hokage's military power as possible. Kireki had unfortunately, in a combat with an S-rank ninja of a certain organization that we've already talked about, suffered from a completely new type of poison that harms the chakra coils and she had to be removed from active roster for quite some time as well. Minagi had set out to find Itachi after learning of the Uchiha Massacre when she came back. Anko stayed in the Interrogation department.
"Wait, so you mean he was searching on Akatsuki as well?"
"Not just that, on other Jinchuuriki too. He helped a few of them escape, try to feed them information as an anonymous source, delaying Akatsuki as much as he could."
Naruto thought for a moment and nodded. He should probably thank the brunet when he got back, seeing how it was mostly because of him that Naruto was still alive and kicking. Had the Akatsuki come any earlier, he would definitely have perished.
"Ne, why was Minagi-ne-chan away during the Uchiha Massacre?" That had always been the question that confused him. "Where did she go?"
Jiraiya merely gave a small smile, "She had an apology to make, or so she said to the Sandaime."
Naruto was about to continue asking questions when they entrance of the inn was before their eyes, "Alright gaki, that's enough for one day, won't you say? Let's take a break. You've got enough information to figure out all that you need to know. Just have a little think about it."
Outside of Konoha……
"You're doing this wrong Sasuke, you do not force your element out!" Kakashi sighed in exasperation. Honestly, this was supposed to be a prodigy, one of the elite amongst the Genin, and to think that he would be agitated simply because he thought he should be way stronger…
What a load of bullshit.
When Kakashi had said, "There are people stronger than me, yet younger than you." He meant it metaphorically. There are exceptions of course, where certain bizarre individuals fit the literal meaning, yet all he wanted Sasuke to remember was that there must be a pace for everything. There were no shortcuts, and no sudden boosts of strength. It had to be done in the most basic way ever, to train, and train, and train. Simple as that.
Unfortunately, the Uchiha ignored his words and continued to force out the lightning elemental chakra and as expected, temporary chakra exhaustion occurred. His mind completely shut down and he fell into a state of unconsciousness, leaving Kakashi with a sweat-drop. He wasn't going to die, but the white-haired jonin was seriously considering just leaving him like that for the rest of the day instead of wasting a soldier pill on him. After all, he already took five. There was a limit to everything, one of the reasons why soldier pills were only available for jonin. Constant doses of chemicals that forcefully catalyze reactions within your body in order to produce an extra amount of chakra not only disrupted your control slightly, but would also cause damage to your chakra coils. The side effects accumulate, and it was definitely not recommended for those without a large enough chakra capacity.
Rolling his eyes, he sighed, "Obito, I try, I really try, but at this rate, I'm seriously going to go nuts."
Slight chuckling drifted into his ears as he turned around, faced with a brunet dressed in black, "Oh? Minagi probably wouldn't like to hear that."
Masking his surprise pretty well, Kakashi tilted his head, "And you are…?"
Grinning, the figure stepped into the moonlight, "Long time no see, Inu-senpai."
"Ryusei!" He started for a moment, before breaking into a smile, "Glad to see you're safe."
"Same goes for you."
"It's been quite a while hasn't it?"
"Hm…ten years really."
"Nah, we've met each other on missions every now and then."
"Haha, what I meant was, it's been ten years since we could really have a nice, long talk."
Kakashi raised an eyebrow, "Now?"
Ryusei chuckled, "Yes. When the Uchiha's unconscious."
"Ah, so it's about…"
"Yes, about a certain weasel-san that we all know about."
"I see…"
Alright, I'm gonna this chap here. Was going to address Naruto and Tsunade's meeting, but that will have to wait until next chap. Have quite a funny way of doing it actually.
By the way, I think that this chapter is useful for you guys in the sense that the history of all the four guardians are linked somehow, and you can now form a kind of timeline in your minds.
The questions you need to answer would be:
1) Who do you think were Anko, Kireki and Minagi's sensei?
2) Ryusei's reaction to Minagi from before and from the huge bulk of text above.
3) The hatred between Minagi and Kakashi (should be obvious, considering Obito is her brother)
I understand if it still seems vague to you, but I promise, it'll all get clearer bit by bit. That's character development for ya. About their fighting skills and strength, I would say they're around S-rank ninja. That's a given, seeing how they could each take on an Akatsuki member. Of course, Anko has gotten quite a power up.
On top of that, their ages would be twenty four for the three women, and twenty five for Ryusei. Kakashi's canon age, as are the others.
Also, lol, hope you enjoyed the humorous hot spring bit. I actually think that way is much more believable. Haha.
