The Archangel of the Hidden Leaf

Chapter 12:

A Couple of Specimens

Kakashi made it a habit to check the branches above him every couple of pages of Make-Out Tactics. There was no noise from Dolia since he placed her up there two hours ago. She must have been comfortable where she was. Although he could not see her clearly, he could find spots of white among the leaves from her flesh on her legs.

Little did he know that she was busy watching Naruto train. The creature stayed on the branch she was sat on but transformed her face so she could utilize the increased depth perception. Naruto was once a fuzzy figure that was high up from the ground. With her black eyes, he was magnified. She could see his hands touching the fast-moving water and how it splashed every few seconds. She could not understand how it happened, though, because he did not move. That was not the thing that confused her the most, however. She scanned each body to see every single one was the exact same. Soon she lost track of which one was the original Naruto.

Gazing down, she observed Kakashi laying down on the wooden couch with his novel hovering over his face. His ankles were crossed and a was hand supporting the back of his head. She hoped to get his attention somehow so she could ask him what Naruto was training for. It appeared that he was monitoring both Naruto and the man sitting in the center of the totems, but if that were the case, he was not very attentive. So, it would not hurt to ask him.

Carefully, Dolia shifted her weight on the branch to lay on her stomach. The sounds of leaves twittering accompanied with twigs shaking alerted Kakashi. Finally, she was making her presence known. He moved the book to the side to peer up into the tree. If she were trying to get down, there might be a problem between them, and she would not get extremely far. He watched as small branches shifted, and then the face of a demon forced itself into the open. He felt his heart skip a beat from the unexpected sight. Although he would not admit it verbally, he did feel a sense of impending doom at that very moment. Her cumbersome black eyes could reflect his image if the distance between them was any closer, and the teeth protruded from her lips a good four inches, ready to clasp and shred flesh at all times.

Dolia saw that Kakashi was already looking at her, so she rolled her eyes back one after the other and pulled her teeth back into her mouth. Seeing it disturbed Kakashi. A simple blink could cause someone to see totally different beings, missing the transformation completely. "What is Naruto doing?" Dolia asked him.

"He is trying to cut the waterfall in half," he explained, moving the book back over his face. He knew she would not understand what that meant and expected for her to probe more, but instead, she disappeared back into the tree. After reading only three words, he once again looked up to see more branches wiggle and leaves fall. Dolia pressed the bottoms of her sandals into thicker limbs so she could climb without the chance of any breaking. Eventually, the trunk thinned too much, and she found a new spot to rest. She peered through the clusters of leaves until she caught a glimpse of Naruto.

Trying to cut the waterfall in half…she recalled.

She went ahead and transformed once more to get a closer look at Naruto's hands. The blonde was straining rhythmically. Each grunt from his mouth forced a splash from his unmoving hands. The effort showed that it was somehow possible. Did he possess some kind of power?

Then Naruto's consistent rhythm suddenly halted with one of his clones. His grunts, which were inaudible to her due to the distance, were replaced by pants and the heaving of his chest. Dolia watched him frustratedly dunk his head into the moving water. Some cascaded down his back, making his bunches muscles shimmer in white. The clones noticed and also stopped what they were doing. Then he turned around and called down loudly, "Kakashi Sensei! Don't you think I need more Shadow Clones?!"

"You can't cut the waterfall unless you perform the Change in Chakra Nature on a large amount of wind chakra!" Kakashi called back from underneath the tree's cool shade. "The chakra for each clone will disperse if there are too many of them! And we can barely line up ten clones with the width of the waterfall!"

The clones up on the branch looked at each other with complaints. They were not satisfied with his answer and explanation. Dolia tried to listen even though she had no idea what they were talking about.

"Then tell us the trick to get just a little bit better!" one of the Narutos requested.

"You're not holding the chakra you've built up inside your body long enough! Take your time and be more efficient!"

"But if we don't get a move on, this won't be of any use in a real battle."

"You're in training right now. You don't need to be thinking about real battles. It will get quicker once you get used to it."

Naruto struggled to find a response with that. In a way, Kakashi Sensei was correct. He struggled to cut the leaf in half with just his wind chakra, but once he did it the first time, he could do it easily as if he never struggled to begin with. But something still nagged at Naruto on the inside. This leg of his training was taking much longer to master than the leaf-cutting training took. There had to be something that could help give him a boost, like when he visited Asuma Sarutobi for some advice about how wind chakra worked.

"Listen, Change in Chakra Nature training normally takes several years," Kakashi continued. "Under normal conditions, it takes six months to even cut a leaf. You completed that in only a few hours. No need to be so impatient."

But he was impatient. Sure, it took a few hours to slice a leaf, but this waterfall training had been going on for a few days now. He made sure to rest and eat enough to have the energy to keep going, but progress was creeping by so slowly that it felt like nothing was happening at all.

"You're progressing several times faster than we expected," Captain Yamato chimed in from his circle of totems on the ground.

"It even took a genius like Sasuke several days to master the Lightning Change in Chakra Nature when I taught him the Chidori," Kakashi added

Hearing Sasuke's name mentioned burned in his chest. It agitated that nagging sensation bothering him. That was part of the reason he wanted to participate in this rigorous training. He desired to be equal to his rival, especially after their last encounter with him.

Dolia watched as the clone who was doing all the talking shifted his stance on the branch. "I have to catch up with Sasuke!" he asserted.

There was no immediate response from Kakashi. Dolia gazed down to see movement through the branches. He had gotten up from the couch and walked into the circle of totems. She wanted to see what was happening, so she began to shift around in an attempt to climb back down the tree. But before she could get far, the ground began to rumble. She gripped the trunk of the tree tightly to stabilize her balance, but fear raged in her with confusion.

Naruto and his clones had to catch themselves, so they did not fall over on the branch, and above their heads, a massive torrent of water crashed over the plateau's edge, extending far out to the left. It mixed with the original waterfall to form a massive one that seemed to go on for a whole mile.

Dolia felt the tremors settle and heard a deafening roar. She quickly climbs back up to her perch in the tree and looked out to see how the plateau was now completely curtained by falling water. The branch Naruto stood on began extending; the two trees holding the ends in place transformed into more branches that spread across the length of the new waterfall and stopped where dry ground appeared again. The line of Narutos now seemed tiny compared to the extra room provided. Dolia had no words. She had always wondered what the world was like outside of the hole she lived her whole life in, but never did she imagine that humans could be this powerful.

When dusk broke the orange hue of the sunset, Naruto was told to stop training for the day. He had made dozens of more clones of himself to fit along the entire new branch and seemed disappointed when he had to disband them all. Yamato sighed and laid back down in the grass with tired pants. The small flames burning on top of each totem went out all at once. Not only did his back ache, but his chakra was running low since he expanded Naruto's training area. He was relieved to hear Kakashi end training for the day.

Naruto jumped down from the branch and focused his chakra into the bottoms of his feet so he could land with ease. He went to his discarded clothes and slipped them back on his wet torso. At the same time, Kakashi walked over to the tree and called up, "You can come down now, Dolia."

Dolia? Naruto thought, glancing over while tying his headband over his forehead. He watched some tree limbs shuffled. Then Kakashi grabbed a branch and hoisted himself up for a moment before coming back down with the creature in his grasp. Her attention went to Naruto immediately.

"Hey!" he greeted, going over to her. "You let Kakashi Sensei name you?"

"Huh? No," Kakashi replied.

"Sakura," Dolia whispered.

Naruto paused for a second, comprehending why she mentioned his teammate from Team 7. When it hit him, he responded, "Ohhhh. You let Sakura name you. That's awesome! I like it."

She nodded, and then gazed over his shoulder to look at the landscape he was training on. "How…?" she trailed with the point of her finger, not knowing how to word her question.

Naruto turned his head and then looked back at her. "That? Oh, Captain Yamato did that."

Yamato heard his name be said but did not sit up. Kakashi pulled out their sleeping paraphernalia to rest out here for the night. He heard Naruto mention Yamato and remembered things from his past. "So, Dolia, the Hokage told me you were one of Orochimaru's experiments. Yamato was one, too."

His remark piqued everyone's interest. Yamato found it in him to sit up. Naruto recalled Dolia telling him at Ichiraku Ramen that she escaped from some kind of captivity, but he never knew Captain Yamato was the product of Orochimaru. He always wondered how he was a Wood-Style user. Dolia turned to look at the man she was not properly introduced to. A metallic face shield bordered his whole face with the same leaf symbol present on Naruto and Kakashi's headbands. He had prominent eyes, but a distinct expression full of fatigue. His cheekbones were looking a little bony like hers.

She was not the only one? There were more like her? Although, he looked nothing like her. Curious, she walked over closer, wanting to say or ask him things, but unsure how to go about it.

"What were you used for?" he questioned her with a tired smile. Yamato had also never known anyone else who was an experiment of Orochimaru's. Despite being exhausted, he reminisced clearly this same girl having a petrifying face, screeching wildly with her body covered in blood. The difference between then and now was astonishing. But since Kakashi had to be in charge of her, he figured he would once again have to cage her with wooden branches. Thinking about it made the fatigue inside him increase alone.

To answer his question, Dolia hesitated but transformed her face. It was exactly how he remembered it, so it did not startle him. His lack of reaction surprised her. Had he already seen it before? But she did not get the same familiar sense as she did with Kakashi. She retracted herself. "Did you have children, too?" she questioned as a pang of sadness beat through her heart with her blood.

The question confused Yamato at first. "N-No," he replied, scratching the back of his head. "But I was a child when it happened. I became a Wood-Style user." He pressed his palms together to form a hand sign, and then pulled them apart and showed one palm to her. A little twig sprouted from his skin, and the tip blossomed into a small flower. The small gesture took more chakra from him, making him breathe a little heavier. But he plucked the twig from his palm and offered it to her.

Dolia blinked in awe. Something about his mysterious power did not come across as natural to her. It was like watching magic happen. The flower that blossomed was white in color like her skin pigment. She took it from between his fingers and saw some pink draining from the center and into the petals, but just a little bit. It was pretty. The corners of her lips curved upward. Even though he was more than tired, he still showed her kindness.

Yamato, although unsure of himself, thought he noticed the featureless face show a delighted expression. Her vessel-less eyes closed as she subtly nodded once in appreciation, then turned away to go back to Naruto.