Chapter Twenty Eight: Team Seven
Teaching...reminded him why he hated teaching in the first place. To have to explain the basics, to be constantly reminded that they didn't know how to do basic things that Kakashi had taken for granted, like tree walking or fighting on water, to always receive a blank look in response to Kakashi's cues.
It always seemed to slip his mind that these kids were just genins, not jonin or Anbu level shinobis that he was used to working with. They didn't understand the Anbu hand signs nor the jonin ones. They didn't know the most common team formations. They couldn't tell what the hell Kakashi wanted them to do just from the look in his eye.
Then again, the last one was something only the members of Team Ro could do, so what was Kakashi expecting? For his new team to be able to read his mind? Yeah, right.
For all that he hated teaching, Kakashi had a genin team, so he would take responsibility for them. Especially since there was still an ongoing challenge between him and Gai on whose genins would become chunin first. Gai had a head start, but Kakashi wasn't too concerned.
He would whip these brats into shape by the time the next chunin exams rolled around.
Did Kakashi say that he was going to take responsibility for them? Scratch that, he meant he would shirk his responsibilities onto Sasuke or Sakura, in the cases where Naruto needed to be explained something.
The first order of business was to get both Sakura and Naruto's taijutsu skills onto Sasuke's level, which was currently at low level chunin. Speed could come in later, but for now, Sakura's taijutsu skills were practically nonexistent and Naruto's fighting style was very heavy hitting, but left a lot of openings for enemies to take advantage of.
Sasuke didn't look too happy at being put in charge of both of their progress, but all Kakashi needed to do was mention that the team is only as strong as their weakest link for Sasuke to agree.
The second order of business consisted of the three genins learning basic formations and chunin hand signals. Sakura and Sasuke caught on pretty quickly, but Naruto struggled. Thus, Sakura was left in charge of making sure Naruto got the information. The blonde boy proceeded to whine about learning boring things.
"I wanna learn a super cool jutsu!"
"The things that you call 'boring,' could very well save your life in the future," Kakashi lectured. Then he proceeded to tell him a story of one of the missions where using hand signals to communicate had saved their life. Naruto listened to the story with disinterest written all over his face, but Kakashi supposed that couldn't be helped. Not when he turned an assassination mission into a dry cut story because he had to omit or modify most of the details of the mission.
He was sworn to secrecy after all.
At that point, Kakashi left, claiming that he had a mission when he really didn't. The genins were given instructions to continue working on what they were taught and given an assignment to complete by tomorrow: to do their research and figure out which aspect of shinobi arts they wanted to specialize in.
Then he headed to the training ground furthest away from them to do his own training. The completion of a new jutsu that he dubbed Rasenshuriken.
"It's complete, isn't it?" Kakashi broke his concentration, letting the chakra in his palm fade to nothing, as Rin's chakra signature came closer.
"Trying to figure out how to throw it," Kakashi admitted. "With the properties of the wind chakra that I added, if I attempt to smash the jutsu into the enemy, the wind will cut into my own hand as well."
"Then how come the Chidori doesn't harm your hand when you use it?"
"Lightning is my first chakra nature. My body will naturally be more resistant to it. And since wind is strong against lightning, I have the least resistance to wind and thus, is the weakest element that I have."
They spent the next half hour working through possible theories to be able to throw chakra, but didn't come up with much beyond treating it like an extension. Except the problem with that was the Rasenshuriken would come back to Kakashi and he definitely didn't want to be on the receiving end of his own jutsu.
"Why don't you limit the amount of chakra then?" Rin suggested. "Then the jutsu will fizzle out before it comes back to you."
"I can keep working on it, but even if I perfect this jutsu, there's no way I can use it in battle. The amount of chakra that it takes equates to when I use two Chidoris."
"And that's why I've been trying to figure something out for you," Rin retorted. "How is your chakra control coming along?"
According to Rin, the plan was "simple" in theory, but hard to pull off. Kakashi thought the plan wasn't all that simple, even in theory.
The source of his low chakra reserves was the Sharingan, which sucked away his chakra at a constant rate when he wasn't using it. When he did use it, the Sharingan took his chakra at an exponential rate, which usually left him with about two thirds of his actual reserves for battle. Considering his chakra reserves were average to begin with, Kakashi repeatedly found himself at the hospital for low chakra reserves.
And so Rin had devised a plan for him, which would have been ridiculously easy for her to pull off. For Kakashi, not so much.
It was sort of similar to what Rin had done to regain her chakra control. She proposed the idea of creating another chakra reservoir and rerouting the chakra network connected to the Sharingan to that chakra reservoir. Then she would fill up that reservoir with her chakra. In the event that Kakashi did need to resort to Kamui, then by using her chakra, he wasn't tapping into his own and her chakra contained some healing properties to curb some of the blindness.
The failsafe was that Kakashi needed to be able to connect his chakra network to that reservoir in the event that the reservoir ran dry. That, right there, was his biggest problem.
For all of his shinobi career, Kakashi had simply tapped into a single pool of chakra and executed his jutsus from there. While he had a thorough understanding of chakra networks, he didn't reroute chakra network on the daily, like Rin did.
In fact when Rin explained to him what she really did, Kakashi had practically toppled over from the shock. At this point in time, Rin had created five reservoirs full of Isobu's chakra, while one was of her own chakra for the seal on her forehead. Isobu's chakra had corrosive elements, Rin had explained, so to continue to use medical ninjutsu, she had to filter through Isobu's chakra and hers and place it separately. In battle, she would draw upon the reserves of Isobu's chakra to fight, while in healing, she would switch to her own.
Kakashi was simply mind blown that she could do that with such ease, even in the thick of the battle.
It becomes practically second nature, Rin told him. That was easy enough for her to say, as she had one of the best, if not the best, chakra control in the village. With his additional training, Kakashi's current chakra control scraped the bare minimum requirement for the refinery needed to become a medical ninja.
He only found out because Rin insisted on teaching some basic medical ninjutsu in emergencies, now that he had a team of genin to look after. While Rin watched Kakashi practice using medical ninjutsu, she all but burst out laughing, claiming that his healing would close the wound and stop the bleeding, but would most definitely leave scars. The funny part to her was simply because she had never seen him perform at a genin level.
Kakashi scowled in response.
Though he had his own self doubts about whether or not he would actually be able to achieve Rin's plan, Kakashi kept working at it. One, he wasn't born a quitter. Two, he had never not been able to figure out something. Three, it would lessen his chances of entering the hospital. Four, he didn't want to look lame in front of those idiots. Five, he could finally execute the many battle tactics that he had to disregard due to his abysmal chakra levels. Six, he needed a larger chakra reserve to actually use sensei's Hiraishin in battle. It would do him no good to be exhausted just from the act of teleporting.
Besides, if he had to suffer from learning chakra control all over again, then his kiddos was going to suffer with him.
When Kakashi was whisked away from his genin team for an impromptu S rank mission, he left them in Rin's care. As so it happened, Rin's medical students were progressing quite nicely and would do alright under one of her subordinate's watchful eyes, so Rin could step away from the hospital.
All he needed to do was the plant the idea into her head that his students had poor chakra control, and they did, and Kakashi knew what his three cute genins would be spending their day doing.
Tree walking.
Rin showed up at the training grounds, at the time Kakashi usually did, so about two hours after the scheduled meet up time. She didn't want them to get comfortable with her showing up on time, only to have to revert back to adapting to Kakashi's schedule. Besides, Kakashi did mention that in that time frame was their valuable "team bonding time and he wouldn't want to interrupt that."
She only half believed him, but upon seeing the genins sitting in a circle on the grass, seemingly discussing something important, her belief increased. Only marginally though as Naruto started to point an accusing finger at Sasuke, shouting something incomprehensible.
"Hi," she greeted. Recognition flickered in all three of their eyes, but Rin couldn't really recall when she met the kunoichi on Kakashi's team.
"Nee san, where's Kakashi sensei? Is he lost on the stupid road of life or something?" Naruto demanded.
"Settle down, Naruto. He's on a mission right now, so he told me to help with your training today. And Naruto, here I am your sensei, not your sister, alright?"
"Alright, nee- I mean Rin sensei. What are we learning today? Can you teach us something cool?"
And there it was, Naruto's daily request to learn a cool jutsu. At this point, Kakashi had become so accustomed to it that he began to tune the blonde boy out, but still complained to her daily about his three brats.
"We're going to work on your chakra control, today."
Naruto's face immediately scrunched up in disgust. "Why?"
"You can't learn cool jutsus if you don't have chakra control," Rin admonished. "Besides, learning chakra control allows you to walk on water and hop through trees."
And just to encourage him further, Rin added. "If you can't do that, then you won't ever become a chunin, much less the Hokage."
That did the trick. "Alright! How do we do this chakra control thing?"
"The first exercise to walk up trees, using only your feet. The trick is to send the right amount of chakra to the soles of your feet. Too much, you will break the bark of the tree. Too little, your feet won't stick and you'll just fall. You'll need to practice until you can do it like it's second nature to you."
At the end of her explanation, Rin demonstrated by walking straight up the trunk of the nearest tree. From the top of the tree, she ordered the three of them to start practicing. "Use a kunai to mark your height."
She took solace on one of the lower hanging branches halfway up the tree, giving her the perfect view of the three genins. After all, if their chakra control was as bad as Kakashi made it out to be, none of them were going to get past the halfway point.
Naruto was the first to take a stab at it, running towards the tree at full speed, taking two steps up the trunk before he promptly fell, landing on his back. Sasuke snickered at Naruto's demise, walking towards the tree. A few steps up the trunk and Sasuke's foot broke the bark. To save himself from the fall, Sasuke backflipped off of the tree, landing gracefully on his feet. Annoyance was etched all across his face.
As for Sakura, the girl simply silently stared at both Naruto and Sasuke's failed attempts. Nodding to herself, the girl approached the base of the tree. Planting one foot on the trunk, Sakura used her hands to steady herself as her other foot stuck to the tree. From there, she methodically placed one foot in front of another, making her way up the tree to the halfway point with ease. From that point forward, Sakura gained the courage to run the rest of the way up.
Naruto was watching with awe down below, while Sasuke still had that impassive look on his face. But having spent years reading Uchiha facial expressions told Rin that the kid had been mildly impressed with Sakura's display.
Kakashi did mention to her in passing that Sakura seemed like a genjutsu type, and now Rin understood why. With her excellent chakra control, Sakura would be able to sense any fluctuations to her chakra the moment the genjutsu was casted.
Perhaps the two of them were more similar in skill set than Rin had originally anticipated. Motioning for the girl to come down from the tree, Rin hopped down from the branch. Summoning a clone to supervise the two boys, who continued to treat the exercise as a challenge who could get up the tree first, the real Rin led Sakura to a small pond located on the other side of the training ground.
"Try practicing walking on water," Rin instructed. "It's the same concept, but water is a bit harder since it moves. Once you master walking on still water, I'll take you to the lake where you can practice adjusting your chakra control on moving water."
Sakura did just that, testing the waters with one foot at first. She wobbled slightly, but caught her balance before she could fall in. Her other foot joined the first and for a second, Sakura simply stood there to get a feel for it. Then she began to walk across the pond slowly.
Slow and steady, but she didn't topple in once. The girl continued practicing, crossing the pond again, towards where Rin was sitting. And then back to the other side once more. With each attempt, Rin noted that Sakura was becoming steadier with each attempt, and more comfortable.
A testament to the young girl's progress was seen when Sakura piped up to ask Rin a question. "Ne, Rin sensei, can you help me?"
"With what?" She had responded instinctively. It didn't even hit her until Sakura was speaking again that Rin was conversing with a genin who was trying to learn how to walk on water. Who was supposed to be concentrating on the task, not being able to spare a thought to starting a conversation.
Yet there was the girl, gracefully sliding across the water while she spoke. Sakura was full of surprises, Rin would admit.
"-Kakashi sensei told us to figure out what area of shinobi arts we wanted to specialize in, but I'm not sure what I can do with my skill set. I mean it is obvious with Naruto's large chakra reserves that he will be adept in ninjutsu and his endless stamina will aid him in taijutsu. Sasuke is all around talented and his dojutsu will lean him towards genjutsu, but even if he doesn't, he has a strong affinity for ninjutsu. But I'm not sure about myself…"
"Your excellent chakra control will open doors for you that aren't available to either Sasuke and Naruto. The obvious is to become a medical ninja, but decent chakra control is also critical to become a high class genjutsu user. Tsunade shishou uses chakra in to aid her in battle."
"That's not to say," Rin continued. "That you can't explore the arts that don't require refined chakra control. Your advanced chakra control will just make it easier for you to execute the jutsu."
"I see. Thank you."
"Don't worry about it. I'm sure you'll figure something out."
By the time that Kakashi came back from his mission three days later, he was pleased to see that all of his genins had mastered tree climbing. Sasuke and Naruto were working on water walking, while Sakura was fighting against one of her clones on water.
His lone eye shone with pride.
"Ne, I did a good job, didn't I?"
Kakashi didn't even need to turn to see who it was. "Well maybe they're just good kids."
"The girl has excellent chakra control," Rin stated. "She's just not confident in her abilities that's all, but I suppose you figured that out all along time ago, didn't you? Besides pawning off work onto me, you want me to teach Sakura."
"Maa, nothing gets past you does it? Her skillset is very similar to yours, so I figured you would be able to teach her more things than I ever could. Perfect chakra control, genjutsu type, and I suspect that her sensory skills aren't a joke either."
"Let the girl decide on her own," Rin finally said. "I'll wait for her to come to me."
She was on a B ranked mission, supervising some jonin hopeful chunins, when she felt it. Sparing a glance at the two chunins in front of her, Rin summoned a clone, leaving it in her stead while her real body snuck off into the forest.
The chunins didn't even notice and continued trudging forward towards Konoha, with her clone right on their heels.
Her real body headed east, following the flicker of chakra. The source of the chakra came from a crow that circled above her head, leading her to exactly where it wanted her to go. It was no ordinary crow; she could feel Itachi's chakra signature.
It had been five years since the massacre. Five years since they last spoke. What did he want? Did he receive word that there was going to be an attack on Konoha?
Ten kilometers away from her team, the crow suddenly stopped its flight, choosing to land on a branch right next to her. Rin paused, eyeing the Sharingan embedded in the crow. One look and Rin felt an onslaught of chakra into her system as the crow burst into a plethora of feathers, fluttering lightly down to the forest floor.
Five days time. Uchiha hideout.
A frown marred her face as Rin turned to rejoin her team. Her teammates' chakra signatures were too easy to pinpoint, even a non sensor could pick them out. Making a mental note to scold the chunins for their poor chakra suppression skills, she pushed chakra to the soles of her feet to speed her along.
Rin supposed she could have teleported to her clone's marking, but that wouldn't escape the chunin's notice.
She rejoined the group, easily swapping out her clone and slipping into her rightful place.
The rest of the journey home was spent mulling over Itach's message. Only five words long, but posed a whole lot of problems.
There was no question about it. Rin was going to meet him.
But how was she going to get out of the village?
A/N: Hi again! Sorry in advance for the long note ahead.
Don't worry, the Rasenshuriken will still be Naruto's jutsu. Kakashi had 10+ years and Minato's notes to help him get to the first form of the Rasenshuriken but with his chakra levels, that jutsu isn't very useful to him in battle.
To Guest: Thanks for mentioning the scarf; I must have missed that detail when I watched the movie. To be honest, I haven't given much thought about the intricacies of the seal, so I don't really have answers for you. The story isn't really focused on Naruto (or Team Seven in general - it might seem like it for these few chapters), so I haven't thought that far about the Kyuubi.
I have a confession to make. I wrote the first 30 or so chapters in a span of 15 days at the end of 2019 and wrote another 10 chapters during the semester when I could find time. I haven't written anything for this story since early March. With that being said, I just wanted to be candid and let you guys know that I have lost interest in this story and have moved on to other story ideas. If the story seems like it was written in a rush, that's because it was. I'll admit that there's a lot of plot holes that I should really fix, subplots that I never get around to addressing, and mediocre writing, but I hope that you guys will stick with me until the finish! I promise that the story will be finished (can't promise that it'll be really good though), if only to give some readers a peace of mind. :) I'll still continue to post every Friday until it's finished, endgame should be 44-45 chapters in total lol.
I mentioned a while back that I was working on a new story idea and it's finally coming in fruition. I've been working on it on and off since March, so I wanted to know what you guys think of it. Personally, I've enjoyed writing this one a lot more. Let me know if you would (or wouldn't) be interested in reading it.
Setting: AU. The Senjus and Uchihas never made peace with each other and continued to fight each other. Each side created their own village (so Konoha doesn't exist). So basically the Warring States Era extended to modern time.
Very tentative summary(did I ever mention that summaries aren't my forte?): Having lost all of his family to war, all Kakashi yearned for was peace. By day, he was one of the Uchiha's prized soldiers, and by night, a Senju informant. For the sake of peace, he was willing to anything and everything. And Rin? She just happened to be an obstacle to achieving said peace.
And that's the gist of it! Let me know if you would be interested in reading it, any thoughts you have, or any questions. :)
Next chapter is called Land of Waves. We can finally start canon arcs!
Thanks for reading and listening to me ramble. Until next time!
-MM