Teaching, Learning

The masked shinobi walked at a brisk pace across the seemingly neverending, grey corridor that was lit by unfeeling, cold lights. From time to time, another ANBU crossed his path, but words were never exchanged, for each had his own task, and no time was to be wasted.

Crane was noticeably shorter than most of the people he encountered, but that was never addressed, only barely recognized by himself with a distracted flare of annoyance. He wore the standard black ANBU fatigues under a grey armor that broke his figure, making him less noticeable in the shadows.

Muscles rippled under his skin, chakra answered to his merest exercise of will, and if not for the express command of remaining visible at all times in any of the buildings reserved for ANBU, because it wouldn't do to instil paranoia in the already high-strung soldiers by having unknown people sneak around, nothing would have betrayed his existence.

With a slight twist of his chakra, the Bloodline of Neji Hyuga came to life, hidden as it was under his mask, and he confirmed that he was in the correct area of the building, realizing that a clever application of seals kept his gaze from wandering where it wasn't allowed to.

The rooms that he was passing were designed for simple taijutsu training, as they were reinforced, but not in a way that could hold up to ninjutsu. It would be easier if the orders were more comprehensive. Go there. Wait for further instructions.

A scoff wasn't allowed to escape Neji Hyuga's lips as he kept moving. On one hand, he knew that he had never been stronger than he was now: the range of his Bloodline kept improving, his muscles were akin to cords of steel, and the amount of experience he was getting kept him on the crest of the wave. On the other hand, he had absorbed just too much snark and disrespect from his old teammate to truly become what the training aimed to turn him into.

Of course, he'd respect orders and emotions would never compromise him, but that was something that he had learned years before, under the tender mercy of the Hyuga's current leadership. I'll treat myself to an Akimichi BBQ. He decided, his chakra not moving even if his prowling gait relaxed infinitesimally.

When he entered the bare but large room he had been sent to, Crane didn't stop walking, moving immediately towards the people occupying the place: despite the mask, Hound was as recognizable as he always had been to Neji's eyes.

Kakashi Hatake was a fantastic shinobi, but as a jonin-sensei... Team 7 had learned more because of their individual abilities than because of any ability of his to properly explain the meanest technique.

Neji, no, Crane, he was Crane when he wore the mask, had served only twice on the field under his command: and whatever complaint one might have about the jonin, they vanished when considering the ANBU. Efficient, demanding, experienced, swift in giving orders, and all-around capable of working both with and around the weaknesses and quirks of the other members of any team he was assigned.

But the attention of the masked Hyuga quickly fell on the short kid that was barely managing to cling to a form that wasn't an open slouch. Angry, red welts covered most of his forearms, while his torso was clide in a white undershirt and his dark pants were tucked into bandages tightly bound around his calves.

Barefoot and covered in a sheen of sweat, the blue-eyed, blonde kid with whisker-like marks on his cheeks was about as out of place as one could be, and yet... Close as he was, Crane couldn't help but take a peek through his Bloodline, safe under the cover of his mask.

The chakra of the kid was... dense, and despite being depleted, it was recovering steadily: if Neji had to take a guess, he would say that Hound hammered the kid until he was too less than a fifth of his reserves.

"Trainee Uzumaki will be tested at the end of the month to join ANBU." Hound spoke tonelessly as he regarded Crane, who maintained his quiet demeanor while he looked over the kid's chakra pathways.

"You'll train his taijutsu and kenjutsu until he is up to par." the masked man tilted his head slightly: "Your similar size should prove beneficial for faster learning."

Crane didn't sigh in annoyance, but his chakra quivered slightly. One of the two greatest prodigies Konoha ever produced, and I'm on babysitting duty.

He nodded silently at the masked for of Hound, who left immediately after, leaving him alone with a kid that stared at him with determination burning fiercely in his eyes: one didn't need the Byakugan to see that he was barely holding himself back from fidgeting.

Without speaking a single word, Neji swallowed his indignation, and gestured to the kid, with a single, taunting index finger. His whole posture was perfectly relaxed, not an ounce of hostility bleeding into his form.

Let's get this over with.

The sun shone somewhat merrily in a slightly clouded sky over what was left of Uzushiogakure no Sato, and as I breathed in the salty air, I couldn't help but marvel at how different the white noise of this environment was when compared to the one of the Land of Fire.

Gone was the neverending rustling of the leaves, replaced by the relentless assault of the waves against the cliffs, gone was the occasional creaking of wooden trunks that almost stirred under the changes in temperature caused by the intense impact of sunlight. In what was left of Uzushiogakure, no matter how unbearably hot the day promised to be, the mild climate of the area was persistent.

The uncountable insects typical of any area of the deep forests of the land of fire were noticeably absent, and so there wasn't anything resembling the infinite chorus of buzzing, clicking, and cicadas' songs. No, there was only the screeching of seagulls and their like that flew merrily around their nests in the cliffs of the abandoned island, coupled with the irregular and almost shy rippling of the lake's surface, that didn't manage to erase the neverending, gargantuan breathing of the Sea of Whirpools.

The lake was a relatively small body of water that dominated the area of Uzushio where I settled down with the two Uzumaki women. The lake hosted a respectable population of fishes, which were a big part of my died these days, and it was fed both by the rains and a deep underground reservoir. Truly this place s different from any other in the Land of Fire.

As I considered those differences, I sidestepped with casual ease the precise downward strike of the tanto in Karin's hands, kicking lightly the surface of the small lake we were standing upon in order to spray her.

Wise to the trick by now, the red-haired girl didn't blink, transitioning instead in a low sweep that aimed to take out my calves.

I eyed her carefully: the transition hadn't been smooth, but the movement itself was passable. Her left hand was braced over the surface of the water, loosely holding her while her extended right arm was retracted, bringing the tanto close to her chest, ready to return on the offensive after her maneuver. Her weight was well balanced, needing only a controlled amount of chakra to correct for her lacking speed.

Still, momentum was carried well from the downward strike to the leg sweep.

I took a single step backward, feeling Karin's feet miss my shins by a few centimeters, only to be forced to bend backward when a kunai buzzed where my head had been an instant before. I snatched the offending weapon out of the air with my right, my left grabbing the lit paper bomb tied to it and snapping it free.

Karin kept up her not-quite spinning motion, the tanto in her hand trying to slash blindly in my midsection in order to stave off any retaliation. But while the movements were sound, logic-wise at least, I couldn't let the young Uzumaki rely on a half-assed slash as a defense. So, I simply kneed her forearm, forcing her limb to soar much higher, where my torso would have been, had I not bent back in order to avoid the kunai.

In the same movement, I slapped the active paper bomb on her wrist, and kicked her in the face while she finished her spinning motion, exactly in the moment in which she realized my counter had won against her hasty movements.

She had the instinct to bring forth her free arm as a defense, but it helped her little: Karin was lifted off the surface of the small lake that dominated this area of the island, and the paper-bomb exploded, causing the Uzumaki to squawk indignantly when she was doused in freezing water.

"Gah!" she exclaimed, "That's cold!"

Keeping my silence, I blurred forward, slow enough for her to notice my approach, and I led with a downward swing, holding my empty hand knife-like as if mimicking a blade.

Dodging back wasn't an option, Karin was on the backfoot because of her recently failed assault, and I drilled into her head that allowing your opponent to work at their optimal reach was foolish: so she sidestepped.

I completed my downward slash while I twisted my torso and my supporting leg bent: low on the rippling surface of the water, the straight arm that had allowed me to attack with my knife-like hand continued its motion, cutting horizontally while my free hand slapped on the lake, pushing myself off. The leg that hadn't been supporting my weight swept out, barely missing Karin's knees, but by the time she had found her feet after jumping back, the push of my hand against the lake had flung me upright once more, allowing me to lead with a straight jab, which she barely dodged by tilting her torso.

The arm that held my empty knife-like hand arrived sideways a split second later, and I stopped when my finger grazed the Uzumaki just under her ribs.

Breathing heavily, Karin took a long look at my arm, a frown appearing on her forehead as she went over the last exchange, only to openly grimace when she realized what I had done: "The point of that sequence is to keep forward momentum, but sweeping with one leg instead of two allows for a change of direction without bleeding off too much speed, the horizontal cut would allow forcing an opponent that sidestepped in that direction to jump." I stared at her expectantly, waiting for her to repeat what I spent an inordinate amount of time forcing into her head.

"And most people fall slowly." she bit out her last word, disliking that she had to quote me in order to show she understood my point.

I nodded: "On an open field, if you don't have surfaces to ricochet off from, every time a part of you isn't connected to the floor you are predictable, because your trajectory has already been mostly decided."

I held back a grimace at how scratchy and unfamiliar my voice sounded to me. I needed to get used to it: breaking free from Konoha would be much more rewarding if everyone kept looking for young Sasuke Uchiha instead of old, cranky Haruto.

She wrung her hands into her hair after tucking away the tanto I had given her and squeezed, a small waterfall leaving her head as she pursed her lips in distaste: "You wanted me to jump to prove your point." she accused me.

"I performed the sequence as I showed you: using both legs is necessary only against someone much stronger physically, but only if you want to bet your life on it, because you'd be exposed otherwise." I turned my back on her and started walking back towards the shore, "But before we went over today's mistakes, what did you do well?"

"I still don't understand why can't we focus on what I need to fix." she mulishly replied, and even without seeing her, I could imagine how her eyes would narrow behind her glasses.

"Because growth is built upon success." I replied casually, still somewhat unfamiliar with both my self-assigned role and forcefully scratchy voice while I rolled my shoulders, ignoring the annoying feeling of the damp shirt on my torso, "First, recognize the things you did well, then we'll go over your mistakes."

Karin paused briefly as she walked, likely parsing through the bullshit that had just left my lips before answering: "The kunai." she decided after a while, earning a distracted nod from me.

"You created a good opening there." I praised her while my eyes roamed over the rocky horizon that surrounded the small lake, stopping me from seeing the sea, "But if you are unable to take advantage of it by attacking, you should instead have recovered your balance, avoiding my retaliatory strike..."

As we walked towards the shore, we went over the rest of the match, highlighting what the young Uzumaki did right and what she needed to improve on. To be honest, having to explain and showcase how to do things wasn't something that I felt particularly talented in: the Sharingan was how I learned new stuff, then I simply had to parse it in my spare time, getting used and learning the ins and outs of every movement, every jutsu.

The kind of perfect memorization that came with my Bloodline allowed, if one spent enough time on it, to separate everything in smaller and smaller pieces, that I could recombine again and again until I found something truly effective: for example, the momentum-keeping principle behind the maneuver that I was trying to teach to Karin was born from what little I had managed to spy off Might Guy when he had trashed me, and a derivation of Konoha' ANBU standard kenjutsu.

Again, the principle was solid, the single movements simple: bringing them together in a cohesive style was a difficult task, one I didn't feel particularly suited to: by nature of my Bloodline, my Close Quarters Combat was reactive. I anticipated, and exploited movements that my enemy had just decided upon. I was fast enough that with the Sharingan I could keep up against the likes of Kimimaro, even if I couldn't truly harm him, but that hardly qualified me to instruct another into building a personalized taijutsu style.

Without considering chakra, straight jabs were dangerous: completely extending an arm meant that your opponent could slip a needle deep enough to pierce your brachial artery, and that'd be game over. Hooks and wide swipes were slower, but more useful: they created an obvious opening that invited an attack that was easy to prepare for. If instead you landed a hit heavy enough on the face of the enemy... well, when your head snapped to one side violently, your spine had a point in which it simply decided that it was enough, and the K.O. was granted, even if that was mostly subjective because of how ever individual's chakra instinctively answered to damage caused to the body.

"Elbows and knees are harder than fists and kicks," I spoke the obvious truth as my student and I left behind the lake and walked over the sandy shore, "given the size disadvantage, the closer you get to the opponent, the better served you'll be, and an elbow thrust into someone floating ribs can be leveraged effectively."

But with chakra, my fists had proved able to crack the ground, my kicks could shatter tree trunks with ease... truly, my breathing technique could become a masterpiece once I perfected it: the problem was, Gai would be able to spot it with a glance, and my whole idea about being Haruto instead of Sasuke Uchiha would be meaningless.

Karin objected as we started walking on the pebbles-covered shore, leaving the lake behind: "But you use your hands to grab me, and you also throw me around all the time."

"With chakra enhancing my body, I'm capable of using more strength than what my limbs would normally be able to." I replied distractedly, "It isn't extremely efficient, but for now the kind of opponent that will give you more trouble is an adult capable of overpowering you." It went unsaid that I was drilling a few reactions in her budding personalized taijutsu that would allow her to be dangerous, no matter the opponent.

So, while teaching Karin, I had to rethink my fighting style, I had to go over everything I knew, selecting and discarding parts of my arsenal until I could create 'Haruto': a small, cranky old man that had nothing in common with Sasuke Uchiha. The sooner I finish with the ANBU mask, the better.

I shook myself from my musings as the Uzumaki darted ahead of me along the path that led to one of the less destroyed houses on our left.

The buildings of Uzushiogakure, at least those that remained, were crafted out of the same rock that composed the cliffs of the island, and while the destruction of the village had been meticulous, four walls of stone were easy to turn in a temporary shelter, and the mild climate of the area hardly imposed the need to actually rebuild a proper house.

The walls of the habitation, one of the few survivors of the infamous genocide of the Uzumaki, were grey because the brightly colored plaster that used to cover them had long since fallen apart, and instead of a roof, there was an assortment of thin tree-trunks that I had casually ripped from the edges of the lake.

Still, when I entered the room after Karin, my attention left eh building in order to zero in on the woman slowly rising from her soft cot, who smiling softly at her daughter.

Akari Uzumaki was a woman that barely reached 1,70 meters of height, with hair that had once been of a vibrant red mulled to a dull, spent variation that contrasted with her dark irises. Despite being under forty, she had heavy wrinkles on her forehead and at the sides of her mouth, which made her look like she was at least sixty years old.

Karin had been smart enough to pack as many clothes as she had been able to, and so she was clad in a large, if warm, purple and black kimono, that made her thin wrists and bony hands almost disappear in the fabric.

And yet, the eyes she had pinned on her daughter were vibrant, and while her voice wasn't loud, it was warm.

It was enough to make the more or less bare habitation that we shared feel welcoming. I inhaled, consciously taking stock of the surroundings through my bastardization of 'sensing' while I barely refrained from flashing my Sharingan: the chakra of the two Uzumaki females couldn't be more different.

Karin's had a coldness to it that her casual enjoyment of this or that situation barely managed to conceal, like a spike hidden in velvet, while her mother... Akari's chakra was thin, taxed. Had I not been able to say otherwise with my eyes, I could have sworn that the owner of said chakra was holding on his soul by the skin of his teeth.

"It's always weird when you do that." Karin scrunched her nose in distaste because of the feedback of her own sensing.

I gifted her a thin smile as I turned towards the small iron stove I had salvaged and repurposed in the far-off corner of the room: it was more than enough to stave off the cool nightly air despite its deceptively small dimensions, and it was perfect for cooking our meals.

With an expert hand, I set out to prepare dinner, which ranged from the wild roots that I knew were edible, to fish cooked while wrapped in seaweed. Oh, there were some small mammals that roamed free what passed for a forest in the western side of the island, even a few deers, but I was forcing myself to grow acquainted with the preparing of seafood.

It was annoying: I disliked the smell until the food was ready to be eaten, I was offended at the idea of needing to check for fishbones in my plate, and I was aware that red meat would be better for both me and Karin, considering the kind of absurd metabolism chakra and training forced on us. Still, while only a selected few knew of my hobby of BBQs, I needed to be ready to drop that particular joy from my life, at least while I lived as 'Haruto'.

For some reason, I had the feeling that I would grow to dislike this second persona I was building for myself sooner rather than later.

A giggle made me raise my eyes questioningly towards Karin, which admittedly was a welcome distraction from the slimy feel of raw fish on my fingers: "What is there to laugh about?"

"Your face!" she snorted openly, making Akari look at her with something that could have been pride in her eyes.

Then the elder Uzumaki turned towards me, an almost blank expression on her face: "The way in which you scrunch your nose when you have to deal with fishes... well, it is amusing."

Her voice was surprisingly ordinary: slightly lower-pitched than the average for a woman, it carried over it the clear tiredness that characterized her every movement. At least she stopped coughing every five words.

"Karin tells me she almost got you today." her voice acted as a soundtrack while I quickly started to pile the food on three plates that Karin had somehow found while exploring the dead village.

"Does she?" I smirked, forcing myself to accept my scratchy voice as my own while I balanced the three plates and moved towards the two Uzumaki.

Once I was settled and everyone had a filled plate in their hands, I breathed heavily, centering myself as I slowly let go of the 'teaching mode' that I used to whip Karin in shape: "She's getting better, but we'll need to finish building her fundamentals before anything truly exciting can happen... on that note, did you both memorize the scrolls I left with Akari?"

The elder Uzumaki's eyes glimmered for an instant, a soft smile appearing on her features between one bite and the next of the meal I had provided: "I did."

At her askance glance to her daughter, Karin shrugged, a bit sheepish: "Most of it."

"We'll start soon on Fuinjutsu basics then." another piece of the training plan fell into place, "And the sooner we're done with those fundamentals, we'll see if there is any truth to the Uzumaki's disposition towards sealing."

While the duo of red-heads digested what I said, I stretched over the short distance between me and my student in order to pull sharply at Karin's hair, who let out a hiss of pain before grabbing her already empty plate, going through the motions of throwing it only to stop when Akari's hand landed lightly on her daughter's arm.

"You also need to figure out a way to make your long hair useful in a fight." I explained before she could throw at me her plate, ignoring her mother's wish for peace at the dining 'table'.

"You mean that I have to cut my hair?" the younger Uzumaki frowned heavily, her narrowed eyes still glaring at me.

"It's not what he said, dear." the soothing voice of Akari defused the situation, even if the woman was biting lightly on her lip, as if she was unsure about laughing at the situation or scolding me for pulling on Karin's hair.

"Weaponize it, or cut it." I tilted my head, returning my attention to my plate, "A red as vibrant as that will scream 'Uzumaki' to any with some basic knowledge, so you should also consider the worth of dying it."

'Like you did?' I saw the question take shape on Karin's lips before she could utter the words, the predictable direction of her thoughts comparing her situation to mine since she had more or less guessed that we somewhat shared the 'bloodline' problem.

I shoved to the back of my mind my thoughts about the ANBU mask that Jiraya had left me with: I could start working on the seals on my own, at least to study them, but it could wait, and it would be a better thing to do all together once I was done hammering the basics into the two Uzumaki's heads. If nothing else, I'd need to figure out the Fuinjutsu needed to hide my face behind the mask, and maybe tweak it so that the Byakugan couldn't pierce the material in order to see my chakra pathways.

I already knew that it was possible, after all the first disastrous C-rank of Team 7 had seen an oblivious Neji bring us to deal with people hidden by custom-made cloaks. I'd simply need something to make sensors unaware of the Sharingan coming to life behind the mask, and that meant adding some sort of lenses that stopped light from leaving my eyes: after all, only because 'Haruto' wasn't an Uchiha, it didn't mean that when hard pressed he shouldn't be able to rely on that esteemed Bloodline Limit.

I leaned back while everyone completely cleaned up their own plate, Karin filling the room with her surprisingly bubbly chatter as she filled in her mother on her progress.

Ultimately, she was learning as fast as it was reasonable: her chakra control still wasn't as good as it was going to get, but it was extremely difficult to get her with anything but a specialized genjutsu, and the rest would come with time. Personalized genjutsu? Another thing to add to the list.

With a sigh, I rose from my position, dropping the dirty plate where Karin would clean it sometime before going to sleep, and walked out of the 'base'.

Neither of the Uzumaki commented on it, after all they had been quick to adapt to the new routine. With Akari resting most of the time, facing only those academic challenges that I threw her way, and Karin being exhausted by the end of the day because of the intensive training I squeezed her through, the only time I was truly able to train was in the evening and part of the night.

Like always, the wind rippled with the breath of the Queen across the mountains, the few trees strong enough to resist the strength of the gales constantly swaying under her almost unconscious influence while the far above clouds churned unsteadily, the higher air currents an enemy that only the more seasoned Eagles were capable of facing.

Those heights were only for those with wings wide enough to corral the winds into subservience, only for those with a strong enough Wind-Natured chakra that allowed them a measure of control over that which refused any form of leash or bridle.

Such was the nature of the wind: with its howling everpresent in the ears of any that crossed that region of the summon plane, with its power impossible to deny to any alive to witness it, it defined the environment, and it was a fundamental part of those who inhabited the mountains. Even for the Eagles that preferred isolation, for any given cause, away from the rule of the Queen, the link with the vibrantly alive air could not be denied.

Two elements defined an eagle's place into the loose hierarchy present among the Summons: the ability to manipulate wind, and the size of their body, which directly impacted the first thing. Larger wings after all directly impacted the sheer amount of wind that any eagle could manipulate, allowing a bird to exploit the faintest change in the air for their benefit.

Kyōfū looked like a female bald eagle, her affinity with the wind as powerful as any other, but her size was barely above her regular counterpart in the human world, and that directly impacted her chakra pool, forbidding her from flying as she would have liked among the highest peaks: the other summon eagles weren't kind with any that were perceived as weak. It just wasn't their way.

With light blue feathers on his torso that shimmered into a darker color on his back, Aofezā was an eagle the size of a horse, with sharp talons and an acceptable wingspan, enough to be welcome among the higher peaks. On the other hand, the wind affinity of that eagle amounted to nothing when compared to the unnatural inclination he had for Raiton. Raiton, the one enemy that Futon was uniquely suited to oppose.

The life of this particular duo of eagles hadn't been easy in the Summon Plane, and both had long since resigned themselves to fly alone where they would not inconvenience their betters, which were all to glad of ganging up in order to show the two into their proper place, low among the branches that constantly interrupted an otherwise relaxing flight.

So it had been a surprise when a human summoner, one that managed to get the Clan Contract from the Queen no less, turned up and asked to add their names to the list of summons he could call forth in battle. Both accepted, of course, hoping, despite themselves, that something in their lives would change thanks to the summoner.

Back on Uzushio, Sasuke left the abode he was sharing with the two Uzumaki, breathing consciously while he blurred across the landscape, each step as quiet as he could make it despite the speed he was moving at. Finally, I can get started.

The thought bubbled up with some undisguised anticipation: the Eagles were his. Karin would never be subject to Orochimaru's tender care, and he was free of Konoha's obligations as long as he maintained a low profile, something that he had already started to build towards by creating the persona of Haruto, the cranky teacher of the younger Uzumaki.

Soon enough, he reached a secluded area of the abandoned island, and with no further hesitation, his hands blurred through the needed hand-signs, a single drop of blood finding its way on the ground after Sasuke bit the back of his hand: with a large plume of white smoke that immediately dispersed, the duo of eagles he had been looking for appeared in the mortals' plane, regarding him with intelligent, inhuman eyes.

The Uchiha felt his chakra click against two others, establishing a link he'd have to figure out eventually. It was not unlike having a ribbon tied in your hair: you didn't directly feel it, but its weight and position could be imagined because of the weight it exercised upon your scalp.

"Kyōfū and Aofezā." he greeted them, receiving a screechy 'Summoner' as an answer.

Right, they're not ones for pleasantries. He amended in his mind: "I don't believe that being small or without a Futon affinity should make you any less powerful than any other Eagle." he started, making both of his summons flutter their wings in outraged surprise when they couldn't feel any falsehood in the Uchiha's voice, "So let's get to work, shall we?"

Besides figuring out a Kirin that made use of Aofezā's unique traits, and learning with Kyōfū how to best leverage Futon, for which the Uchiha had no aptitude whatsoever, he'd still needed to properly work out the strange combination technique used against Kimimaro: weaving a genjutsu into a fireball sounded fantastic, and potentially opened the road to many other gen-ninjutsu like that.

Then I only need to actually learn and modify the fuinjutsu in the mask so that my identity as Haruto won't be figured out. Grimacing minutely at the neverending list of things he needed to do, he clasped his hands enthusiastically, plastering an eager grin on his face, and he started giving directions.

AN

We're back people! I was uncertain about placing a time-skip here, jumping ahead by somewhat making it so that the MC could stay on his own in Uzushio and train mysteriously. But I don't want to get to a point in the story in which our Sasuke does something that he has 'trained' back on Uzushio with zero foreshadowing, that'd be convenient, but also plain lazy.

Besides, it'd kind of kill the story, since Sasuke has some emotional ties to a few people in Konoha. That's mostly why I have made Neji resurface in the first part of this chapter: his sub-plot should become interesting soon, even if I have kind of rushed it up to this point.

In any case, I have to insist on a growth rate that is still believable despite being as vertical as I can make it without needing to nerf Sasuke later.

How did the teaching bout with Karin look? Katas are useful, but Sasuke is trying to make her able to survive: it means mobility. This means conserving momentum and redirecting it: the extreme jumping that everyone in the series does during every fight is stupid unless is a trap, or the people have a way to sudden change direction (Jiraya's hairi jizo for the first, Inuzuka's Fang Over Fang and Kakashi's kunai tied to a string for the latter).

I introduced Karin's mother, and I hope I made justice to the potential differences in the young Uzumaki's development.

This chapter sets up what is going to happen in the immediate future of Sasuke: he trains Karin, he discovers soft and hard limits for his new contract, he keeps working on fuinjutsu while he teaches, and he experiments a bit. I listed some of the things he's going to work on (as well as to bring forth once more the fire-genjutsu thing he pulled out during the escape from Kimimaro, which he wants to refine into a proper technique).

I decided to shift to the 3rd person POV of his summons by the end of the chapter, showing just a bit of the 'not-human' line of thought of the Eagles with the impression that they have of their new summoner.

I did ascribe some form of personality and personal troubles to each of the two eagles mentioned here: besides the fact that I want them to be remembered, I didn't want them to pop out with no forewarning later in the story, capable of things that were never mentioned before.

Opinions? Thoughts? This is the 'breath before the plunge', so to speak, after this chapter there will be some low-level but intense action, as well as the story picking up speed and getting tangled with some familiar faces.