Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto

I awoke with the first hint of the days sun to a knock at my door. Bleary eyed I made my way from my futon to the door, opening it a crack to see Kakashi, wide eyed and ready to start the day.

"Hey Ko," Kakashi greeted before taking in my unkempt state, "Sorry did I wake you?"

I shook my head, I would have woken up soon anyway. Until I saw Kakashi on my doorstep I had completely forgotten about how we agreed to train together in the mornings, I held up a finger to Kakashi asking him to wait a moment and I closed the door and got dressed for the day. It never took too long to get dressed considering I was still only wearing a pair of trousers and no shoes. My growth might have slowed dramatically but it was still fast enough that buying new clothes was pointless.

On my way back out I grabbed my slate and chalk in case I needed it and we headed to the small training ground behind my house.

"What were you thinking of training Ko?" Kakashi asked.

I thought for a moment, usually I would practice my katas this early but with Kakashi here maybe we could get some more intensive training done, I wrote down what I thought on my slate and showed it to Kakashi.

"Warm up and then spar?" He read from my slate, "Sounds good. I'll warn you though I've been training non stop whilst you've been in the hospital so you might have your first loss today."

I grinned at the provocation, truth be told I was looking forward to a challenge after so long cooped up.

We spent around 15 minutes stretching and moving through our respective style's katas before taking a place opposite each other and initiating the seal of confrontation.

We stood across from each other tense for a few fleeting moments and then Kakashi just disappeared. It was only the barest wisp of air blowing across me that warned me he was moving in from my right and I threw up an arm to block the roundhouse kick he had thrown.

He plainly hadn't expected me to block the hit and the surprise showed in his face, he was rightly confident in his speed, I hadn't been able to follow him at all but I knew him too well to be taken down by such a straightforward attack. I grabbed his foot by the sole before he could disengage and with ease threw his small weight across the field, he landed perhaps 20 paces away in a crouch and his momentum made him skid another metre.

"I can see this might not be so easy." Kakashi said

I shrugged smiling playfully before retaking my stance, with his speed I couldn't afford to allow him to keep taking the initiative, eventually he was going to get creative and hit me with a strike I wasn't expecting, I took the moments he was still recovering from his crouch to close the distance between us as quickly as I could.

Kakashi definitely wasn't expecting it, in the spars we had so far I had always allowed him the first move and he had almost never seen me on the offensive, preferring instead to use the opponent's attacks against themselves. By the time I was within striking distance though he was ready.

His first move was the beginning of the end for him unfortunately, in his shock at me coming so quickly at him he tried to leap away to create some space to move, a foot pinning one of his prevented that though and instead he flailed onto his back on the floor where I followed to grapple him into submission, it was the ideal scenario for me considering I would not be able to keep up with his strikes for long in an open fight, moving to the ground also gave me a significant size advantage over him.

He fought valiantly for the next minute, his speed giving him the purchase needed to escape from many of my attempts to pin him down, eventually though I had him trapped and when I finally coiled around him in strong hold he submitted.

Unentwining myself from him we both stood up and, slightly out of breath, gave each other the closing seal of the spar. Kakashi looked a little frustrated at his loss, with more experience he might have won but he panicked too quickly when I did something he didn't expect. I found my slate nearby and began writing on it and showed it to Kakashi.

"Your speed is incredible" I wrote.

Kakashi took a look before snorting, "My speed didn't help much in the end did it?"

He seemed to be taking the loss badly, I decided for the rest of the morning we would discuss the spar rather than try again, I could see another loss would be frustrating for him.

By the time that we had to set off to see Minato Kakashi looked much happier, I had broken down the mistakes he had made and what he could do to improve, honestly he was going to be a monster in the future, he might have beaten me in the spar if he were more experienced and hadn't panicked, a part of me wondered if the chakra training Minato had given Kakashi involved agility exercises, his speed from the last time I had seen him fight had skyrocketed and he was already one of the fastest fighters I had ever seen to begin with.

Minato was already at our usual training round when we arrived.

"Good morning team, how are you both doing?" Minato greeted us.

"Good." Kakashi shrugged.

"Better now that I'm finally out of that hospital." I wrote.

Minato looked at my slate and seemed to remember something "Ah, Ko, could I take a look at that slate for a moment?"

I nodded and passed it to him and he proceeded to throw it casually over one shoulder and it disappeared into the distance, I looked at Minato confused.

"They were going to find a sign language instructor for you but since I can already speak sign language fluently I offered to take on the task of teaching you." Minato said grinning, as he spoke I realised that he was keeping up a real time translation of what he was saying with his hands in sign language. I didn't like where this was going.

"From now on you'll be communicating with your hands, Kakashi I know you've already been taught the basics of this by your father so you'll have a head start but you'll also need to learn if you want to understand and work together with Ko."

Kakashi's eyes widened and I felt my spirits fall, I had barely learned the simplest signs by the time I had left the hospital, learning to communicate solely with my hands was an extremely daunting task.

"Don't look so down team, learning by immersion is always the best way to learn a new language." As he spoke I kept my eyes resolutely on his hands but I could already tell this was going to take a while, Kakashi looked similarly despairing.

"Now to start with today I thought we'd catch up on how we're doing with the leaf exercise. You first Kakashi" he said offering a leaf to him.

Kakashi held the leaf and looked at it deep in concentration, for a few moments nothing happened but then, gradually, lines of crackling blue light began to trace their way through the leaf starting from his fingers, he held that for almost ten seconds then all at once the electricity shot to the outside of the leaf and it combusted instantly.

"Close, Kakashi. You should have that perfected within a week or so I think. Now you Ko."

I took the leaf from Minato, I was pretty excited - this exercise had turned into one of the few I could do to keep in practice within the hospital and I had a lot of free time. I held up the leaf and channeled my chakra, making the now familiar change to wind chakra as it left my fingers that were holding the leaf up.

For a moment the leaf did nothing then a portion of the leaf fell away from the whole, then another and shortly after that another, a small breeze dismantled the rest of the leaf. It had been difficult getting to this point but after I finally got my chakra sharp enough to make one cut and I still had time to use up I figured it couldn't hurt to try to make another cut and then another and so on. This resulted in my wind natured chakra not only becoming sharper but also giving me the control to focus on even a small movement of it.

Minato nodded and gave an appreciative whistle, "I didn't think you both would have come so far so quickly, especially you Keiko, the control required to make that many slices at once is something even I would struggle with. As for you Kakashi you just need to be a little more careful with your chakra, I've heard it helps with lighting to imagine it as a cold fire. Deliberate but just as dangerous."

Kakashi nodded, looking consideringly at the fragments of leaf left in his hand.

"Now for our training and I have some news for you. In 8 months the Chunin exams are going to be held in Suna, the next chunin exams are in 2 months time but it is too close to prepare you properly for it and since it is being held in Kumo - a country we were at war with until very recently - it is too dangerous to send any team that isn't desperate for a promotion." Minato paused, he could probably see how excited we were just at the thought of entering the exams regardless of them being over half a year away. "To enter the Suna exam though you're going to have to prove you can work as a team and the most important part of teamwork is communication which you can hardly do when you can't understand each other."

Ah. So there was the rub. To enter the exams both Kakashi and I were going to have to get fluent in sign language as a bare minimum and we'd have to do it with at least a few months to spare so that we had time to practice other elements of our teamwork.

Kakashi and I turned to each other and nodded simultaneously. We could do this.

Minato called our attention back to him "Now for today's training you'll be sparring against me. You have 10 minutes to figure out a plan but remember no whispering or trying to speak Ko. I'll know if you even try. Kakashi, you too."

I grimaced, this was going to be a long day.

We didn't beat Minato that day. In fact we barely got a plan together at all beyond a simple trap and even that was only due to Kakashi and I being familiar enough with each other that he was able to guess what I wanted to communicate and vice versa. We left for home that evening tired, dejected and frustrated.

The next day wasn't much better but Minato seemed to want us to get past this blocker before we moved onto anything else. As a result we began spending 5 days a week sparring with Minato with the other 2 days being used on missions.

Kakashi continued to show up to early morning training and learning sign language rapidly became a large staple part of our training during those times, considering the situation we did the only thing we could - attack the problem with a dogged determination.

I only tried whispering something to Kakashi once during our early morning training, I don't know how Minato found out but our training that day went on for over 12 hours, when Minato ran out of excercises for us he just had us exercise, by late evening we were doing laps of the village wall. Minato never said why but I could see the disappointment in his eyes as he observed while we ran. I didn't need to ask.

With no time to relax the days passed like hours, the weeks like days and then the months. Before we realised it 5 months had passed and at some point Kakashi and I were communicating with a fluency born from necessity, we had learned the base sign language but between the two of us we had learned a kind of shorthand that vastly cut down the time needed for communication.

With our newfound skills we had at least improved to the point where Minato had to pay attention when we sparred against him. We still never came close, with his Hiraishin he was faster than it was possible for any human to be, he did show some sportsmanship though, only using it when he was pushed to… for the most part.

My wind chakra began to take a larger and and larger part of our battles against our sensei as did Kakashi's lightning jutsu. Kakashi's attempts at least looked somewhat polished, he learned more than a few jutsu from his father but I didn't have a teacher outside of Minato with wind nature being so rare in Konoha and he wasn't giving us any time during our training to learn new jutsu so I did what I could. This resulted in many of my attempted jutsu being used without hand seals, I gained a sense for how my wind chakra would behave and learned to control it to some extent, it was a wild beast though and I used it sparingly.

Kakashi's chakra enhancement training had payed off, he still had nowhere near the amount of chakra I did but he was at least able to finish many of our training sessions without being on the verge of chakra exhaustion.

Jiraiya visited twice during these months and suggested both times that I should begin my training with the toads - the earlier the better he said. I had no time though and I knew at the very least it would take months if not years to complete the training the toads wanted me to participate in.

Tsunade found the time to visit me every now and then, she tried to act as though she was visiting merely to check on my health but I had the feeling she was still worried about me, particularly about my mental state.

Kushina remained cooped up much of the time focusing on seals but seemed to finally make a breakthrough 4 months into mine and Kakashi's training after which she regularly dropped into our training and mocked us for the most part though it was all in good humour. She often referred to me as "dumb" clearly in reference to my voice, or lack of it, but she seemed to find it funny considering my relative intelligence for my physical age.

So it was that Kakashi and I showed up for training 6 months in to find a Minato who was grinning in a way that we knew harboured some kind of news.

"Good morning team." Minato called.

I signed a greeting back, as did Kakashi.

"I think we've progressed far enough with teamwork for the moment." Minato paused after saying this, he pouted a little we when we didn't immediately celebrate. It was understandable though, we had been training almost none stop for 6 months, my body had built muscles in places I didn't know possible and Kakashi could literally disappear on command with his speed. We were happy with our accomplishments but we were weary beyond belief, far to tired to celebrate when we knew there was something he wasn't telling us.

"From here we're going to be spending some time training your soft battlefield skills, I've arranged a tutor for both of you who you will be reporting to for the next month after which we'll be doing a final month of multifaceted training in advance of the Suna exam." Minato continued.

This caught our interests. New teachers? And we'd be taught separately?

"Who?" I asked silently

"Well I suppose I should begin by explaining the particular skills you have been allocated and why I'm working you so hard before this exam." Minato began a little sheepishly, I had a bad feeling about this, "Usually teams enter the chunin exams in standard 3 man cells, you might have noticed that we're a man short."

'Were we getting a new team member?' I thought to myself, I had never really thought about how this team was different from every other Konoha team, I had just kind of accepted it as an odd circumstance brought about by the strange number in our academy class.

"I've spoken to organisers for the Suna chunin exams and they have told me there isn't a test this year that particularly necessitates a 3rd team member and since we don't have anyone on the roster available to take the space in your team I've arranged that an exception be made in your case so that you can enter as a two man team."

I almost put my head in my hands, no wonder he had been drilling us so hard.

"With that explained I'll move on to what you'll be looking at this month. First you Keiko," I looked up, I had let my mind wander ahead considering all the drawbacks our situation brought to us. "You will report to the Nara compound tomorrow, you have been marked for a long time in your academic work for having an outstanding mind for tactics and strategy, your teacher for the next month will be the newly inaugurated clan head Shikaku Nara." I nodded, I was vaguely familiar with the name, I had at least a passing knowledge of him. "As for you Kakashi, you're the team medic at the moment and with only one other member on your team it's all the more important that you survive at all costs therefore you'll be taking survival training, I've managed to get you a rare opportunity to learn from one of the village's best shinobi, Orochimaru will meet you tomorrow at The Forest of Death."

I frowned. Orochimaru? I had only seen him once and he seemed to be related to my kidnapping.

"Is something wrong Ko?" Minato asked

No, I shook my head, Minato had been henged to trick Kakashi back then, it's possible - likely even - that Orochimaru was also a henge after all why would Orochimaru have an eye on me?

Minato looked at me for a few more moments before seeming to accept my answer, "Good, well I know it's been a difficult time all around these last few months, you have today free."

This time Kakashi and I did celebrate.

We decided to use the day on separate projects, Kakashi chose to use the time to work with some of his dog summons. A good choice for preparing for survival training.

For me though it had been some time since I even had the opportunity to brush up on my fuinjutsu skills outside of applying what I already knew in the rare instances I had the opportunity to use them in spars.

When I checked my fuinjutsu library in my living room though I found a few new scrolls, it seemed Kushina was actively adding to the collection when she could. I took some of the new ones from the shelves I had access to and began reading through them.

They were all related to methods on breaking seals, it seems Kushina has devised a few new methods in the last months. Suddenly I remembered the task the hokage had given, I hadn't been asked for help so I assumed Kushina had been able to manage the problem fine but plainly she had found some new schools of thought during the process.

I spent the entire day reading through them, something about the seal Kushina worked on must have really gotten her pumped up, reading what she had written she was plainly very enthusiastic about the subject and honestly it was very engrossing.

The standard school of thought when negating or nullifying seals is to try and just seal the seal away. It gets circuitous very quickly and of course there were protections any competent seal user could apply to prevent such a eventuality. If sealing the seal away isn't possible then the simplest solution is to just contain the seal, the evil sealing method was one of the foremost examples of this but took time to prepare and exacted a heavy cost in terms of chakra.

The final option is to find a flaw in the seal you can use to unravel it or find a weakness that lets you get under it's skin so to speak, in this way you can forcefully pull the seal away from the object it was applied to onto another compatible object.

Kushina had filled these scrolls with flaws and weaknesses to particular schools of fuinjutsu from every village from Suna to Kumo, they included jinchuuriki seals and even some seals I had to assume were state secrets for those villages. It was a good thing these scrolls were naturally coded considering they written almost entirely in the convoluted language fuinjutsu took on when you reached more advanced subjects.

Eventually I had to resign myself to my futon or risk falling asleep at my living room table, regretfully I tidied away the scrolls and went to try and get some sleep. I still sometimes had nightmares from my time being tortured by Danzo. Thankfully the episodes were few and far between now. I spent my last moments of awake wondering what kind of teacher awaited me at the Nara compound. What had Minato signed me up for?

AN: Still a bit short for a chapter, seemed like a good place to leave it though. A lot of ground covered in this chapter, hopefully it doesn't feel too rushed. It's been a while since I read the rest of the fic back so I might use the next few days to go back and read it through to refresh my memory and maybe even make some small changes. Depends if I can find time. Again, thank you for the reviews they do help a lot. I hope you enjoyed this chapter. See you in the next one.