The Dogs of War: Team Eight
Chapter Eight: The Sage Slowly Says His Sensible Service!
At the steps connecting two sparely separated levels of a rooftop was where Kiba sat. Ahead of him, a guard rail planted at the edge of the building and obstructed Kiba's view of the congested village. Slightly dirty clouds spat some rain. Kiba arched over his knees and rested his elbows on them and further more had his head in his hands. Akaramu found refuge under Kiba's legs.
The rain increased to sheets of water as the sage showed next to the guard railing with an blue umbrella. "Where is," he flipped his wrist and opened his notebook, "Hinata?"
An array of bugs crawled from under his collar and fashioned into a long and almost flat peasant hat, and then the sage passed the umbrella over to Kiba who caught it over his head. Kiba fell backwards and the umbrella cracked the pavements. "Hold it up, pupil." Kiba pulled himself up and held the umbrella in two hands against his torso. "I don't want to repeat myself again; where is Hinata?"
"Why should I know?" Kiba retorted. The sage walked up to him and lead him to one of the row of trees that were behind him. He took Kiba's arms and put them straight out so that the end of the umbrella touched the truck. Kiba's arms stook and his grip loosen with the rain entering inbetween his hand and the bamboo handle.
"When you know where Hinata is, you can put the umbrella down and tell me."
"She's coming. She's just late." Kiba said.
"You have not done as I had asked." The sage sluggishly said. "I'll not repeat my instructions. Be mindful to your task."
Akamaru barked when a rapid splashing of feet carried in from the steps to the roof. "I can smell her, she's on the stairs," Kiba struggled with the umbrella.
"We are waiting for me to know that you know." The sage had his back turned to the stairs and Hinata, in her yellow rain coat with hood up, stepped onto the roof.
"Go, look behind you." Kiba said adjusting his grip on the handle. "Hinata's behind you."
"I shall not spare my eyes from you." The sage said and took off his peasant hat. Kiba looked at the sage, who stood impartial to the rain, dipping into his large collar and over his sunglasses. His hair flatten down.
"Damn it!" Kiba growled. His body relaxed and his anger and confusion faded from his mind. The umbrella smashed into the ground and splashed into the water causing a mixture of stone chips and cords of water. "She's beside you."
"Now you understand the difference between having and not having mindfulness towards your task. Your happiness to finish the task had taken root in your heart, and you did not know my instructions. Like the load on your arms, the umbrella was, your carelessness has burdened your heart to struggle needlessly towards contentment." The sage said. "Now pick the umbrella back up."
Kiba folded it and clutched it in his arms. "When you are comfortable holding it, then you can try to hold it over your head."
"Am I late?" Hinata asked timidly.
"No, I asked Kiba to come early." The sage responded and pulled another umbrella placed under his coat and handed it to her. She stepped back to one leg to take it. A weight hung from a wire string that ended in a loop and sat in the sage's hand. "Everytime I notice your mindfulness is lacking, I will attach a ten pound weight. There are eight spokes to the umbrella, so that amounts to eighty pounds. Follow me."
He lead them down the stairs and lined them up against the wall. "Put your backs against the walls, and bend your legs." The two followed his orders. The sage then when down on one knee and tied a weight around Akamaru's neck. "Hold your umbrella out."
"Hey," Kiba shivered with his umbrella held out in his hands. "Akamaru can't hold that."
The sage added a weight to the middle of Kiba's umbrella. Akamaru reversed his back legs up the wall in a comprise to the physical endurance the other two members were under going. "Repeat after me. I will be mindful to my task."
"I will be mindful to my task," the two spoke and Akaramu surely barked.
"I will not perform other tasks to distract me from the task you give me," the sage put in a listless voice.
"I will not perform other tasks to distract me from the task you give me," they said and Akaramu barked with effort.
"That is it. Now stand up." He directed them to their normal state that shudder in weakness and pressure. "We are going to the preschool carrying the weights. When we get there, your next task will be to entertain them. I sense that there will be a storm and we must keep their mind busy and off the storm. Don't forget the words you have said."
A-------------------
They entered the preschool and stood on the mat near the entrance. It was dark and quiet with the only sound coming from the outside of heavy rain fall and rumbling thunder. Flashes of lighting illuminated the room. A dark hair teacher walked up to the sage. "I'm glad you have come," she said. It was difficult to see her clothing, it was a green sleeveless top with a long white gown, as well as her facial expressions. But her unsettled voice revealed her anxiety. The sage walked into the darkness lurking in the nearest wall. "It was hard making them take a nap, and they should be able to sleep at the most, half an hour."
"My students don't have that time to waste on their current task." The sage serenely state. The lights of the room flickered on and off, and to the dismay of the teacher, the sage was fooling around with the switch. "Wake up! Wake up!" He left the lights on and Kiba and Hinata stared with their mouths wide open at all the kids who rubbed their eyes and sobbed. The thunder boosted and the room embranced in a collective gasp. The sage broke silence in his chilling voice: "I think that a heard someone being struck with lighting."
This followed by a loud scream. The sage walked over to his group. "Now you have your work cut out for you." He said. "Your new task starts at this moment. Entertain the children."
Akaramu frantically slipped off his weight and ran with a joyous puppy bark into the crowd of whimpering children. "Akamaru," Kiba and Hinata said. The sage picked up the weight that Akaramu removed and put a weight on Hinata and Kiba's umbrellas.
"Be mindful your own task." The sage said. "Don't carry around distractions."
"You gave us one?!" Kiba shouted.
"You are correct;" the sage added another weight to both of them, "you should be punished accordly."
"He's being unreasonable asshole," Kiba muttered under his breath and lugged his umbrella to the wailing children. Hinata followed in her shuffle. This shuffle stalled when a group of children ambushed her and clung to her legs.
"Woah.." she fumbled warying she may drop the weight on one of them. "How are you?"
"We're scared," a girl looked up at Hinata. They shared the same impotent voice.
Kiba had a similar size set surrounding him. "And what the hell do you want?"
His audience lessen and joined one of the large groups that were entertained by the teacher and Akamaru. Kiba glaced over at Akaramu's group. "Shameless Showboating sailor swine!"
"Ooooo.." the children that remained around him sounded astonished.
The smallest group belonged to the sage, and it was merely an individual pink haired girl standing near the sage who sat down on a large building block. "Can I see your glasses?"
"If you can tell I have glasses," the sage began, "then you must be able to see them."
"No, silly," she batted his knee with her hand. "I want to hold them."
"Of course," the sage removed them and handed them to her, "go ahead, break them."
"Don't wanda break them," she giggled and put them on her face. "Dark."
"Can I ask you a question," the sage rubbed his weakly grown facial hair, "are you seeing the glasses or seeing through the glasses?"
"I tell that the glasses are on," she repeated his motion and stroke her face keeping her posture in deep thought, "so I am seeing them!"
"Can't you know that you are wearing the glasses if you close your eyes?" The sage asked. "And when you have your eyes open with the glasses on, can't you see me who is through the glasses?"
"It must be both!" She conclude.
"Interesting insight."
Hinata strained herself with the children and the umbrella that she put the umbrella on the side. "Don't Hinata!" Kiba warned. She had not looked up to him but the sage pulled out a weight from his pocket and walked to Kiba who was inbetween the sage and Hinata. Instead of going to Hinata, the sage stopped at Kiba and put the weight he was carrying on Kiba. Kiba dropped the umbrella as the weight exceeded his expectations. "What are you doing?"
"Keep mindful of your task and don't continue tasks that don't belong to you." The sage said. Kiba kneeled down to pick up the umbrella. "Are you sure about that?" The girl who had spoke with the sage tugged on his coat. She avoided eye contact with him.
"I broke your glasses." She whimpered.
"Are you alright?" He asked. She nodded. Kiba gripped his hands under the umbrella. He looked around the room and saw that Akaramu and Hinata were making the children happy. Hinata performed magic tricks with her blood limit, and Akaramu pulled children around in a wagon. Then Kiba remembered how the sage had punished Hinata and Kiba twice when they shouted at Akaramu.
"This is our new task," Kiba spoke, "we don't have to carry on with the old task. That's why he hadn't added a weight to Akarmaru. Akarmaru was mindful of his task, but we weren't."
"Precisely," the sage stated. "If you are not one with mindfulness, you are carrying a ludicrously large load that will hurt your effort in your task. When a new task is taken up, it deserves your undivided attention. The heart is not pure when the mind is not in harmony. Akaramu has a pure heart, and will not do any harm when performing a task."
A-------------------
In a cold stream carrying chunks of ice, the Loner walked on the water above Shino who had the water up to his shoulders. "It was close to a stream where I had contracted the larva. On a match in the heavy rains to the other village, the squad I was in had been ambushed," the Loner recounted. A piece of ice as big as Shino's torso floated close to him that he had to push it out of the way. Where his finger tips touched the ice, they came off with red splots that strung. "We dissolved to flee the enemy and I was seperated. I happened upon a group of insects that were halted at a flooded river. They had returned from another hive, bring back the larva. Injured from my retreat, a pack was made for me to cross the river with the larva, future slaves of the victor's hive. The pain that day was the last thing I felt." The Loner pulled out a dagger. "In return, my family would be protected by these destruction bugs. Now, I only ask that you release your bugs so that they can protect me."
"I can't," Shino trembled, "do that."
The dagger entered into Shino's chest and he folded into the stream and screamed into the waters. The bugs swept away in the current, intercepted by the Loner.
Shino had continued down the river. At a low point, he had mustered up and was left with the sayings of the wise sages, his moments with the loner, and a broken body.
"Lao Tzu wrote:
'Other people are excited,
as though they were at a parade.
I alone don't care,
I alone am expressionless,
like an infant before it can smile.'"
B-------------------
The sage, Hinata, Kiba, and Akaramu had stayed at the preschool until the rains had stopped. Outside, in the new light of the sun, the students lined up for their next task. "Your next task is to refrain from using violence until we finish walking to the academy." The sage said. "Akaramu, you can't say anything until you get to the academy."
"Sure," Hinata rejoiced.
"I can't walk that far without getting into a fight!" Kiba exlaimed. He lead Hinata and Akaramu in the direction of the school leaving the sage behind them. "I wouldn't be a very good ninja if I didn't."
"As a teacher, I must give my students a push in the right direction," the sage performed some hand signs and pushed Hinata and Kiba on the back turning them to the left.
"Hey!" Kiba said. "That is the long way."
"The way you are going is too rough." The sage announced. "For this task, it is best to take the least dangerous road."
"Hell no!" Kiba said.
"Suit yourself," the sage said, "but remember, you will refrain from violence. If I feel it fit, I will step in to solve the problem." Then the sage thought: "My Hidden Note on Back Jutsu was the most feared when I attented the academy. This genjutsu makes the opponent unaware of a note on his back and notes of others who are under the same genjutsu."
"Dynmatic Entrance!" Gai leaped from behind with a jump kick and booted Hinata in the ass. Gai turned his dented cheeked face to the sage and gave him a nice guy pose with a bright grin and a solid thumbs up.
"Childish as ever, Mr. Sage!" The black bowl cutted haired jounin remarked retaining his nice guy pose.
Kiba helped Hinata up, "Why did you do that?!"
"Carry on with your task." The sage ordered so Kiba assisted Hinata to limp away to the academy. "How may I be a service to you?"
"I need a saying to inspire the students." Gia said and flipped out a pad and pencil.
"A student does not die without a dead teacher." The sage said.
"WHAT?!" Gia broke his pencil on the pad. "I can't tell them that! It's too morbid."
"Dead is natural," the sage spoke as he drifted off to his students, "for a teacher to die before his students is what is to be inspired towards."
C-------------------
The sage appeared in front of Kiba and Hinata who crawled along the ground.
"How is your task doing?" He asked.
"Horrible." Hinata heralded.
"Asume kicked me in the ass!" Kiba stated. "Through a brick wall!"
"You know they wouldn't be good ninjas if they didn't walk a block without getting into a fight." The sage retorted. "Now, stand up, I said that we were going to walk to the academy."
They struggled to rise and took steep strange steps. Leaning against the alley they had passed, Kakashi lowered his book and looked around the corner to see them with their notes: "Hit me in the ass!"
The exposed eye of Kakashi bordered with red and he put a hand over his mouth cloth. "I shouldn't; I am very late for my meeting with my students." Kakashi looked around the bend again. He put his book anyway and held his hands together with the index fingers pointed out of the fist. "I'll go for the teacher then."
"1000 years of pain!" Kakashi bolted out and aimed himself at the teacher. When the strike landed, the sage reverted into a colony of bugs, and the true sage materialized behind Kakashi and pulled him up from the knot of his mouth cloth.
"Should I take it off?" The sage asked of the piece of clothing covering the lower half of Kakashi's face.
"No, keep it on!" Kakashi turned around and begged.
"Suit yourself." The sage said to the departing Kakashi. Kakashi leaped from building to building until he caught up with his students at a bridge.
"Sorry, I'm late," Kakashi said to Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura, "I met someone who had a bug up his butt and he distracted me."
"Liar!" Naruto said.
The hard outline of the pink haired girl, Sakura, named inner-Sakura, evoked inside of her and yelled: "Look at his back! KICK him!"
Sakura hardly hesitated and rushed him. "I'm sorry, Sasuke and Naruto," Kakashi turned around as Sakura planned to land her kick and misfired in between his legs. He folded up and fell to the ground.
"I didn't mean to, you had a note on your back," Sakura explained but her inner-Sakura boosted with a passionate flame: "Hell Ya! I beat a jounin!"
"I should have asked him to take it off." Kakashi muttered in pain.
D-------------------
The sage's students arrived at the academy without any accidents. "You were mindful of your task." The sage remarked. "There is nothing left to teach you today."
The sage disappeared and left Hinata and Kiba to lie face down in the grass. "Urg!" Kiba grunted. "I can't stand him."
"We have to take this lying down," Hinata responded, "Kurenai warned us about his training, and it seems to be a lot less painful than she had described."
Akaramu lied low in front of Kiba's face and barked softly. "What!" Kiba yelled. "He put notes on our backs!"
"He does seem a bit immature for his age," Hinata said, "especially compared to Shino."
"It must be that they stop losing their memories when they get older," Kiba presumed. "They have more bugs and more memories that aren't destroyed so easily."
"Let's stop talking about him," Hinata suggested.
"Okay," Kiba said.
"Would you really protect me from all of those kunais?" Hinata asked.
"Huh?"
"When Kurenai trapped us in the genjutus." She elaborated.
"I thought they were real kunai," Kiba state, "so yeah."
"Thank you." Her hand reached out and settled on Kiba's back. After a moment, the pressure increased and Kiba found that she was on her feet again. "Take my hand; I'll help you up."
So he did.
-------- End of Chapter Seven ------------
Next Chapter: Kurenai will encounter her mark and Shino will fully recover. The sage continues his training of team eight. There will be one last mission before the chuunin exams.
Notes: When the sage gave Gai the inspiring saying, it is the similar to the story of "grandfather dies, father dies, grandson dies", which is another taoist story.
I promised to reveal the memory of the forth bug in this chapter but I didn't, but next chapter.
Predictions: Kurenai fights an S-class ninja, there is nothing predictionable about that.
Chapter Eight: The Sage Slowly Says His Sensible Service!
At the steps connecting two sparely separated levels of a rooftop was where Kiba sat. Ahead of him, a guard rail planted at the edge of the building and obstructed Kiba's view of the congested village. Slightly dirty clouds spat some rain. Kiba arched over his knees and rested his elbows on them and further more had his head in his hands. Akaramu found refuge under Kiba's legs.
The rain increased to sheets of water as the sage showed next to the guard railing with an blue umbrella. "Where is," he flipped his wrist and opened his notebook, "Hinata?"
An array of bugs crawled from under his collar and fashioned into a long and almost flat peasant hat, and then the sage passed the umbrella over to Kiba who caught it over his head. Kiba fell backwards and the umbrella cracked the pavements. "Hold it up, pupil." Kiba pulled himself up and held the umbrella in two hands against his torso. "I don't want to repeat myself again; where is Hinata?"
"Why should I know?" Kiba retorted. The sage walked up to him and lead him to one of the row of trees that were behind him. He took Kiba's arms and put them straight out so that the end of the umbrella touched the truck. Kiba's arms stook and his grip loosen with the rain entering inbetween his hand and the bamboo handle.
"When you know where Hinata is, you can put the umbrella down and tell me."
"She's coming. She's just late." Kiba said.
"You have not done as I had asked." The sage sluggishly said. "I'll not repeat my instructions. Be mindful to your task."
Akamaru barked when a rapid splashing of feet carried in from the steps to the roof. "I can smell her, she's on the stairs," Kiba struggled with the umbrella.
"We are waiting for me to know that you know." The sage had his back turned to the stairs and Hinata, in her yellow rain coat with hood up, stepped onto the roof.
"Go, look behind you." Kiba said adjusting his grip on the handle. "Hinata's behind you."
"I shall not spare my eyes from you." The sage said and took off his peasant hat. Kiba looked at the sage, who stood impartial to the rain, dipping into his large collar and over his sunglasses. His hair flatten down.
"Damn it!" Kiba growled. His body relaxed and his anger and confusion faded from his mind. The umbrella smashed into the ground and splashed into the water causing a mixture of stone chips and cords of water. "She's beside you."
"Now you understand the difference between having and not having mindfulness towards your task. Your happiness to finish the task had taken root in your heart, and you did not know my instructions. Like the load on your arms, the umbrella was, your carelessness has burdened your heart to struggle needlessly towards contentment." The sage said. "Now pick the umbrella back up."
Kiba folded it and clutched it in his arms. "When you are comfortable holding it, then you can try to hold it over your head."
"Am I late?" Hinata asked timidly.
"No, I asked Kiba to come early." The sage responded and pulled another umbrella placed under his coat and handed it to her. She stepped back to one leg to take it. A weight hung from a wire string that ended in a loop and sat in the sage's hand. "Everytime I notice your mindfulness is lacking, I will attach a ten pound weight. There are eight spokes to the umbrella, so that amounts to eighty pounds. Follow me."
He lead them down the stairs and lined them up against the wall. "Put your backs against the walls, and bend your legs." The two followed his orders. The sage then when down on one knee and tied a weight around Akamaru's neck. "Hold your umbrella out."
"Hey," Kiba shivered with his umbrella held out in his hands. "Akamaru can't hold that."
The sage added a weight to the middle of Kiba's umbrella. Akamaru reversed his back legs up the wall in a comprise to the physical endurance the other two members were under going. "Repeat after me. I will be mindful to my task."
"I will be mindful to my task," the two spoke and Akaramu surely barked.
"I will not perform other tasks to distract me from the task you give me," the sage put in a listless voice.
"I will not perform other tasks to distract me from the task you give me," they said and Akaramu barked with effort.
"That is it. Now stand up." He directed them to their normal state that shudder in weakness and pressure. "We are going to the preschool carrying the weights. When we get there, your next task will be to entertain them. I sense that there will be a storm and we must keep their mind busy and off the storm. Don't forget the words you have said."
A-------------------
They entered the preschool and stood on the mat near the entrance. It was dark and quiet with the only sound coming from the outside of heavy rain fall and rumbling thunder. Flashes of lighting illuminated the room. A dark hair teacher walked up to the sage. "I'm glad you have come," she said. It was difficult to see her clothing, it was a green sleeveless top with a long white gown, as well as her facial expressions. But her unsettled voice revealed her anxiety. The sage walked into the darkness lurking in the nearest wall. "It was hard making them take a nap, and they should be able to sleep at the most, half an hour."
"My students don't have that time to waste on their current task." The sage serenely state. The lights of the room flickered on and off, and to the dismay of the teacher, the sage was fooling around with the switch. "Wake up! Wake up!" He left the lights on and Kiba and Hinata stared with their mouths wide open at all the kids who rubbed their eyes and sobbed. The thunder boosted and the room embranced in a collective gasp. The sage broke silence in his chilling voice: "I think that a heard someone being struck with lighting."
This followed by a loud scream. The sage walked over to his group. "Now you have your work cut out for you." He said. "Your new task starts at this moment. Entertain the children."
Akaramu frantically slipped off his weight and ran with a joyous puppy bark into the crowd of whimpering children. "Akamaru," Kiba and Hinata said. The sage picked up the weight that Akaramu removed and put a weight on Hinata and Kiba's umbrellas.
"Be mindful your own task." The sage said. "Don't carry around distractions."
"You gave us one?!" Kiba shouted.
"You are correct;" the sage added another weight to both of them, "you should be punished accordly."
"He's being unreasonable asshole," Kiba muttered under his breath and lugged his umbrella to the wailing children. Hinata followed in her shuffle. This shuffle stalled when a group of children ambushed her and clung to her legs.
"Woah.." she fumbled warying she may drop the weight on one of them. "How are you?"
"We're scared," a girl looked up at Hinata. They shared the same impotent voice.
Kiba had a similar size set surrounding him. "And what the hell do you want?"
His audience lessen and joined one of the large groups that were entertained by the teacher and Akamaru. Kiba glaced over at Akaramu's group. "Shameless Showboating sailor swine!"
"Ooooo.." the children that remained around him sounded astonished.
The smallest group belonged to the sage, and it was merely an individual pink haired girl standing near the sage who sat down on a large building block. "Can I see your glasses?"
"If you can tell I have glasses," the sage began, "then you must be able to see them."
"No, silly," she batted his knee with her hand. "I want to hold them."
"Of course," the sage removed them and handed them to her, "go ahead, break them."
"Don't wanda break them," she giggled and put them on her face. "Dark."
"Can I ask you a question," the sage rubbed his weakly grown facial hair, "are you seeing the glasses or seeing through the glasses?"
"I tell that the glasses are on," she repeated his motion and stroke her face keeping her posture in deep thought, "so I am seeing them!"
"Can't you know that you are wearing the glasses if you close your eyes?" The sage asked. "And when you have your eyes open with the glasses on, can't you see me who is through the glasses?"
"It must be both!" She conclude.
"Interesting insight."
Hinata strained herself with the children and the umbrella that she put the umbrella on the side. "Don't Hinata!" Kiba warned. She had not looked up to him but the sage pulled out a weight from his pocket and walked to Kiba who was inbetween the sage and Hinata. Instead of going to Hinata, the sage stopped at Kiba and put the weight he was carrying on Kiba. Kiba dropped the umbrella as the weight exceeded his expectations. "What are you doing?"
"Keep mindful of your task and don't continue tasks that don't belong to you." The sage said. Kiba kneeled down to pick up the umbrella. "Are you sure about that?" The girl who had spoke with the sage tugged on his coat. She avoided eye contact with him.
"I broke your glasses." She whimpered.
"Are you alright?" He asked. She nodded. Kiba gripped his hands under the umbrella. He looked around the room and saw that Akaramu and Hinata were making the children happy. Hinata performed magic tricks with her blood limit, and Akaramu pulled children around in a wagon. Then Kiba remembered how the sage had punished Hinata and Kiba twice when they shouted at Akaramu.
"This is our new task," Kiba spoke, "we don't have to carry on with the old task. That's why he hadn't added a weight to Akarmaru. Akarmaru was mindful of his task, but we weren't."
"Precisely," the sage stated. "If you are not one with mindfulness, you are carrying a ludicrously large load that will hurt your effort in your task. When a new task is taken up, it deserves your undivided attention. The heart is not pure when the mind is not in harmony. Akaramu has a pure heart, and will not do any harm when performing a task."
A-------------------
In a cold stream carrying chunks of ice, the Loner walked on the water above Shino who had the water up to his shoulders. "It was close to a stream where I had contracted the larva. On a match in the heavy rains to the other village, the squad I was in had been ambushed," the Loner recounted. A piece of ice as big as Shino's torso floated close to him that he had to push it out of the way. Where his finger tips touched the ice, they came off with red splots that strung. "We dissolved to flee the enemy and I was seperated. I happened upon a group of insects that were halted at a flooded river. They had returned from another hive, bring back the larva. Injured from my retreat, a pack was made for me to cross the river with the larva, future slaves of the victor's hive. The pain that day was the last thing I felt." The Loner pulled out a dagger. "In return, my family would be protected by these destruction bugs. Now, I only ask that you release your bugs so that they can protect me."
"I can't," Shino trembled, "do that."
The dagger entered into Shino's chest and he folded into the stream and screamed into the waters. The bugs swept away in the current, intercepted by the Loner.
Shino had continued down the river. At a low point, he had mustered up and was left with the sayings of the wise sages, his moments with the loner, and a broken body.
"Lao Tzu wrote:
'Other people are excited,
as though they were at a parade.
I alone don't care,
I alone am expressionless,
like an infant before it can smile.'"
B-------------------
The sage, Hinata, Kiba, and Akaramu had stayed at the preschool until the rains had stopped. Outside, in the new light of the sun, the students lined up for their next task. "Your next task is to refrain from using violence until we finish walking to the academy." The sage said. "Akaramu, you can't say anything until you get to the academy."
"Sure," Hinata rejoiced.
"I can't walk that far without getting into a fight!" Kiba exlaimed. He lead Hinata and Akaramu in the direction of the school leaving the sage behind them. "I wouldn't be a very good ninja if I didn't."
"As a teacher, I must give my students a push in the right direction," the sage performed some hand signs and pushed Hinata and Kiba on the back turning them to the left.
"Hey!" Kiba said. "That is the long way."
"The way you are going is too rough." The sage announced. "For this task, it is best to take the least dangerous road."
"Hell no!" Kiba said.
"Suit yourself," the sage said, "but remember, you will refrain from violence. If I feel it fit, I will step in to solve the problem." Then the sage thought: "My Hidden Note on Back Jutsu was the most feared when I attented the academy. This genjutsu makes the opponent unaware of a note on his back and notes of others who are under the same genjutsu."
"Dynmatic Entrance!" Gai leaped from behind with a jump kick and booted Hinata in the ass. Gai turned his dented cheeked face to the sage and gave him a nice guy pose with a bright grin and a solid thumbs up.
"Childish as ever, Mr. Sage!" The black bowl cutted haired jounin remarked retaining his nice guy pose.
Kiba helped Hinata up, "Why did you do that?!"
"Carry on with your task." The sage ordered so Kiba assisted Hinata to limp away to the academy. "How may I be a service to you?"
"I need a saying to inspire the students." Gia said and flipped out a pad and pencil.
"A student does not die without a dead teacher." The sage said.
"WHAT?!" Gia broke his pencil on the pad. "I can't tell them that! It's too morbid."
"Dead is natural," the sage spoke as he drifted off to his students, "for a teacher to die before his students is what is to be inspired towards."
C-------------------
The sage appeared in front of Kiba and Hinata who crawled along the ground.
"How is your task doing?" He asked.
"Horrible." Hinata heralded.
"Asume kicked me in the ass!" Kiba stated. "Through a brick wall!"
"You know they wouldn't be good ninjas if they didn't walk a block without getting into a fight." The sage retorted. "Now, stand up, I said that we were going to walk to the academy."
They struggled to rise and took steep strange steps. Leaning against the alley they had passed, Kakashi lowered his book and looked around the corner to see them with their notes: "Hit me in the ass!"
The exposed eye of Kakashi bordered with red and he put a hand over his mouth cloth. "I shouldn't; I am very late for my meeting with my students." Kakashi looked around the bend again. He put his book anyway and held his hands together with the index fingers pointed out of the fist. "I'll go for the teacher then."
"1000 years of pain!" Kakashi bolted out and aimed himself at the teacher. When the strike landed, the sage reverted into a colony of bugs, and the true sage materialized behind Kakashi and pulled him up from the knot of his mouth cloth.
"Should I take it off?" The sage asked of the piece of clothing covering the lower half of Kakashi's face.
"No, keep it on!" Kakashi turned around and begged.
"Suit yourself." The sage said to the departing Kakashi. Kakashi leaped from building to building until he caught up with his students at a bridge.
"Sorry, I'm late," Kakashi said to Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura, "I met someone who had a bug up his butt and he distracted me."
"Liar!" Naruto said.
The hard outline of the pink haired girl, Sakura, named inner-Sakura, evoked inside of her and yelled: "Look at his back! KICK him!"
Sakura hardly hesitated and rushed him. "I'm sorry, Sasuke and Naruto," Kakashi turned around as Sakura planned to land her kick and misfired in between his legs. He folded up and fell to the ground.
"I didn't mean to, you had a note on your back," Sakura explained but her inner-Sakura boosted with a passionate flame: "Hell Ya! I beat a jounin!"
"I should have asked him to take it off." Kakashi muttered in pain.
D-------------------
The sage's students arrived at the academy without any accidents. "You were mindful of your task." The sage remarked. "There is nothing left to teach you today."
The sage disappeared and left Hinata and Kiba to lie face down in the grass. "Urg!" Kiba grunted. "I can't stand him."
"We have to take this lying down," Hinata responded, "Kurenai warned us about his training, and it seems to be a lot less painful than she had described."
Akaramu lied low in front of Kiba's face and barked softly. "What!" Kiba yelled. "He put notes on our backs!"
"He does seem a bit immature for his age," Hinata said, "especially compared to Shino."
"It must be that they stop losing their memories when they get older," Kiba presumed. "They have more bugs and more memories that aren't destroyed so easily."
"Let's stop talking about him," Hinata suggested.
"Okay," Kiba said.
"Would you really protect me from all of those kunais?" Hinata asked.
"Huh?"
"When Kurenai trapped us in the genjutus." She elaborated.
"I thought they were real kunai," Kiba state, "so yeah."
"Thank you." Her hand reached out and settled on Kiba's back. After a moment, the pressure increased and Kiba found that she was on her feet again. "Take my hand; I'll help you up."
So he did.
-------- End of Chapter Seven ------------
Next Chapter: Kurenai will encounter her mark and Shino will fully recover. The sage continues his training of team eight. There will be one last mission before the chuunin exams.
Notes: When the sage gave Gai the inspiring saying, it is the similar to the story of "grandfather dies, father dies, grandson dies", which is another taoist story.
I promised to reveal the memory of the forth bug in this chapter but I didn't, but next chapter.
Predictions: Kurenai fights an S-class ninja, there is nothing predictionable about that.