Chapter 6: Muscle Memory
This is ten percent luck
Twenty percent skill
Fifteen percent concentrated power of will
Five percent pleasure
Fifty percent pain
And a hundred percent reason to remember the name
- Remember the Name by Fort Minor
Whenever I made a mistake, Itachi would always quiz me on what went wrong, then make me repeat the exercise, going through it over and over until I got it right. I knew it was so I would gain the muscle memory and not make the same mistake again, but it was getting tedious. It felt like I plateaued a bit in our training, and I worried we were wasting time practicing the same moves over and over.
For the first time in months, I had a distraction: it was Lucia's birthday and she invited us all over for a party. I was a bit late: after Itachi dropped me off after training, I still had to shower and change into something semi-presentable.
"Happy birthday!" I exclaimed, giving Lucia a hug and handing her a wrapped gift. It was an anthology of her favourite author's complete works. She knew I was getting it for her.
"Thanks Emily!" she squealed, beckoning me to join the others.
We ended up watching some chick flicks while destroying several boxes of pizza. I only half paid attention, my mind drifting back to all the times Itachi's been leaning over me, or when I ended up lying on his chest… His body is so warm and so strong…
The main character was just meeting the love interest of the movie. Someone knocked into her as she carried beers for her and her friend, and she spilled them all over the male lead. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. Did that kind of thing actually work in real life?
I wondered what would happen if I spilled a drink on Itachi…
Then I tried to shelve that thought. He probably wouldn't notice me in that way.
He'd probably just politely help me clean them up and I'd end up feeling awkward.
He had plenty of opportunities to pay attention to me in training. I was regularly rolling over him for crying out loud! But he approached it the same way he seemed to approach everything: polite, reserved, and slightly detached.
I should be thankful he's even taking the time to teach me at all, I thought bitterly. I get to spend twenty-five hours a week training with him. That should be enough for me!
I wondered why he was even bothering to teach me. It must be such a joke to him, teaching someone my age how to do basic sparring. I still hadn't even landed a hit on him in taijutsu practice! And even though I was starting to build up more flexibility, I hadn't gained enough skill to do any actual gymnastics other than somersaulting.
It was embarrassing.
About six months into my training, I guess I had gotten better at taijutsu: we had started incorporating throws into sparring, so I guess that was progress? Itachi even let me land hits on him to simulate a real fight. It was hard, especially fighting someone so much taller than me.
And I was always covered in bruises. It was a good thing that the weather started to get colder and I had an excuse to wear long sleeves and pants to school. I didn't want to have to explain why I was black and blue to my friends. Itachi wasn't aggressive at all in sparring, but it turns out that forcefully blocking punches or regularly dropping to the ground and rolling to dodge attacks will do a number on you.
Who knew.
Even when Itachi suggested we spar on the mats, I still managed to bruise myself. I got used to the pain, but I wondered what I'd do when the weather got warmer.
Oh well. That's a Spring Emily problem.
One day at the end of training, Itachi said I was ready to start learning chakra control.
This is what I'm here for! I thought excitedly. I was buzzing with energy the rest of the day. I couldn't believe I was actually going to learn…well, basically magic!
Jutsu are pretty much the basis of everything in Naruto, so if I didn't memorize the hand signs quick, it would take me longer to start being able to do anything cool. And I didn't want to waste Itachi's time by forgetting hand signs. I'm sure he's well aware that most people aren't as smart as he is, but still, I didn't want to disappoint him either. I practiced the hand signs until two in the morning, making sure to memorize them before our next lesson.
School that day was rough. I bought myself a coffee from Starbucks during lunch, but it didn't help much. I was exhausted by the end of the day (I had had choir that day too), and couldn't stop yawning on the way to the gym.
I put on some ABBA for my run, the upbeat song pumping me up and giving me a bit of a spring in my step.
Half-past twelve
And I'm watching the late show in my flat all alone
How I hate to spend the evening on my own
Autumn winds
Blowing outside the window as I look around the room
And it makes me so depressed to see the gloom
Sue me. I frickin love disco.
I was practically bouncing when Itachi caught my eye and motioned me to stop, but then we moved on to gymnastics. I still had a hard time supporting my body weight, and my form wasn't great either, though my balance was getting much better. I was able to hold myself in bridge now without Itachi's help, though I could only hold it for a couple minutes before collapsing.
I had a thin sheen of sweat covering me when Itachi said, "All right, take a minute to cool down, and we'll begin your chakra training."
I almost jumped in the air.
I took one of the complementary hand towels from the gym and wiped my face and arms down. My arms felt like jelly. I tossed the towel in the wash bin and headed over to Itachi.
"I won't waste your time explaining too much about chakra and the theory behind its use," he said calmly, "as I'm sure it's explained in sufficient detail in the Naruto manga and anime. However, I will remind you that it is a combination of physical and spiritual energy. Part of the reason why ninja require such rigorous physical training is to increase our physical energy; spiritual energy can be increased through meditation, studying, and repeated experience, such as through training. Increasing physical and spiritual energy makes the created chakra more powerful. There is, of course, an eventual limit to how much chakra one can produce, but with practice, anyone can increase their limit to a certain extent."
I nodded. I appreciated the refresher.
"There are twelve basic hand seals, or hand signs, that you will use in various combinations for ninjutsu and genjutsu. Saru, or monkey" — Itachi laid his hands on top of each other, palms touching, hands pointing in opposite directions — "Tatsu, or dragon — he intertwined his fingers, pinky fingers touching and pointing down —
I followed along with each hand sign, copying his movements. I'm sure I wasn't perfect, but I swelled with pride that I could keep up. I'm glad I stayed up late last night working on memorizing all the hand signs.
"We'll start with learning to focus your chakra, and then I'll start teaching you how to mould it into jutsu."
I nodded eagerly. This is what I'm here for!
What I didn't expect was to sit on the floor, eyes closed, and meditate for an hour.
Is this really part of ninja training? I thought. Sure, we see Naruto and some of the other characters meditating at times here and there, but I didn't think that was part of regular ninja training!
I sighed and tried to focus on visualizing chakra. I wasn't sure what I was supposed to think, but I imagined that image they show in Naruto every now and then when they talk about chakra pathways. You know the one I'm talking about. It looks like the cardiovascular system.
How much longer of this do I have to do? I wondered. It's got to have been half an hour already…
I peeked an eye open. I couldn't see the time. Or Itachi for that matter —
"Focus, Emily," came Itachi's even voice from somewhere to my left.
I blushed and squeezed my eyes shut.
From there, Itachi began to teach me jutsu! Starting with the most iconic, the basic clone jutsu.
"The signs are hitsuji or ram" — the "iconic" jutsu hand signs with the first two fingers of each hand pointing up, knuckles of the right hand curled under and the left over your interlocked hands — "mi, or snake" — hands up and fingers intertwined — " and tora, tiger" — the first two fingers of each hand pointing up, the rest of the fingers interlocked and both thumbs up.
Itachi had me run through those hand signs several times until I could do them fluidly, sometimes gently readjusting my fingers if I didn't have the sign exactly right. I could feel rough calluses on his fingers, which surprised me considering his soft features.
Remember, this man has been killing people and fighting since he was four! I thought. Regularly using weapons, regular ninja training, heck, weight training — all of that is bound to toughen your hands. I had even noticed calluses forming on my palms from weight training.
"Focus on creating a clone of yourself. Picture yourself in your mind, and, when you're ready, focus your chakra and do the hand signs as I showed you."
He stepped back a couple steps and nodded for me to start.
I took a breath, my heart pounding.
This was my chance!
I closed my eyes, trying to bring myself back to meditating. I tried not to focus on the dull hum of the electricity in the gym, tried not to focus on the fact that Itachi was inevitably watching and analyzing everything I was doing…
I let out my breath and breathed in again. In, out. In, out.
I pictured the chakra network diagram again, visualizing my chakra running through my body like electricity.
In, out. In, out.
I brought up a detailed mental image of myself, down to the new pimple I had found this morning on my nose, the greasy messy bun with stray curls hanging out, and the beat up Nikes I should probably replace…
I opened my eyes, focusing everything I had on holding the image in my mind and flowing chakra to my hands.
Ram.
Snake.
Tiger.
Clone jutsu!
There was a small puff of smoke. My doppelgänger stood in front of me.
My eyes widened and I couldn't move. I couldn't speak.
Did I really just…!
Holy shit…!
"Nicely done," Itachi said, distracting me. He was smiling. His Sharingan was activated.
"I used chakra! I did it on my first try!" I blurted, then blushed at how stupid and childish that sounded.
"You've been subconsciously tapping into your chakra for a while," he replied, his eyes softening and bleeding back into black. "Usually while listening to music."
I blinked. So getting pumped up and in the zone, that feeling of euphoria that music gave me… Was that me subconsciously tapping into my chakra?
"Is that normal?" I asked.
"It's not unheard of," he answered.
I was filled with pride. I did this on my own! This was fully me and my skills! I might not be a prodigy like Itachi, but this was something I did naturally, so that had to count for something, right? Maybe I could be good at this chakra thing!
Itachi started to throw chakra control into almost every other area of training. He started having me focus my chakra into my biceps, triceps, or various leg muscles while lifting weights to be able to temporarily increase my strength. He had me focus chakra in my feet and legs to jump higher on the trampoline so I could practice more somersaults in mid-air. I had started being able to do proper gymnastics moves like back handsprings consistently, and he sometimes had me practice shifting chakra from my palms to the soles of my feet as I touched the floor, to extend my stamina and do more of them in a row. Sometimes he'd throw tennis balls towards me and had me focus chakra in my hand to catch or deflect them — or sometimes he'd try to throw me off-guard even more to just test my reflexes and I had to dodge or risk getting hit in the face.
It was relentless.
I loved every minute of it.
And not just because Itachi would shunshin over and wrap his arms around me and pull me out of the way when I was about to get mauled or injure myself in some other way. Like if I was too slow, or my form was bad in gymnastics or taijutsu.
"Unfortunately you don't have the luxury of years of ninja training at the Academy," Itachi had explained. "You don't have time to sit out injured — and the degree of injuries you could sustain would be…difficult to explain to your parents."
He had a point. I knew what ninja training entails, but my parents have no clue. I didn't want them to change their mind about these lessons and not let me continue.
When I did mess up, Itachi would quiz me on what I thought I did wrong (and tell me what it was if I didn't know), and then have me go through it over and over until I did it right without injuring myself.
It was annoying, but I realized he was responsible for me in a way.
I realized that it was also a way to build up my spiritual energy, and to do it properly, so my maximum chakra reserves could be expanded.
And he probably had such high standards that as his student, he didn't want me embarrassing him.
Itachi started teaching me ninjutsu and genjutsu. Sometimes I forget that every ninja (okay, except for Might Guy and Rock Lee) can actually use genjutsu, and you don't need the Sharingan to cast a decent one.
"The difference between a passable genjutsu and a great one," he said, "is the level of detail. Regardless of whether it's a visual genjutsu or auditory, or a combination of senses, the more detail you provide, the more effective it will be. Forgetting to include a shadow on a person, or light reflecting off hair can instantly alert your opponent that it's an illusion."
I nodded. That made sense.
Which meant that Itachi must pay attention to everything with an almost surgical level of detail to create the intricate genjutsu that he does!
This guy really is next level!
Ninjutsu was also challenging, just remembering the right order of hand signs and what to use for what jutsu. I actually started to ask Itachi if I could write them down so I could practice at home (without using chakra of course).
And on top of that, I had started driving lessons too and needed to factor in practice for that too. The perks of having a February birthday, I guess.
"You're so lucky you get to drive though!" Sara whined at lunch one day when I was complaining about how hard driving was.
"You try it on top of school and extracurriculars," I grumbled.
My grades had started to slip again. I didn't want to drop anything, especially since I was making good progress in singing lessons, but there just wasn't enough time in the day to practice everything and get a good night's sleep, and keep my grades up.
My fragile level of control over my life was quaking.
I was determined not to let it affect my training with Itachi though.
If he noticed anything wrong, he didn't say anything.
I was grateful.
I wanted to prove I could keep up with everything Itachi taught me.
I wanted to prove I was worth his time.
I wanted to prove I was worth his attention.