Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto

I realised I had made a very large miscalculation. I had departed from my house bright and early to make my way to the Nara compound and realised perhaps 30 seconds after leaving home that I didn't have a clue where I was going. I decided to head to Kakashi's house, if Sakumo was in he would probably know.

It was a remarkably sunny day in Konoha and despite it being early morning I found Sakumo doing drills in his well equipped training area, he saw me coming and relaxed his posture in front of the training dummy he was pummeling, grabbing a nearby towel and wiping the sweat from his brow.

"Ko," He greeted, "How goes it?"

"Pretty good," I silently replied, "I wanted to ask if you knew where the Nara Compound was."

Sakumo nodded "Of course I do, I'll lead you there - I needed to see their apothecary for supplies anyway."

I thanked him, despite his protests that it was no problem. Despite me now being able to talk with people again, albeit with the intermediary of my hands, conversation still seemed a little stilted and one sided. It felt strangely awkward to answer one man's voiced inquiry with a lengthy reply of silent hand gestures. It was something I hoped I'd get used to in time but as things stood there was no alternative.

I was surprised with the direction Sakumo took when we left his house, instead of heading further into the village where I expected a prodigious clan such as the Nara would stay he circled around the edge and began to get further and further away until, on many of the dusty roads we walked along, we were the only people in sight.

"What brings you to the Nara anyway Ko?" Sakumo asked

"Minato has found me a teacher for battlefield strategy with them." I replied

"Ah, so that's why Kakashi's doing survival training, Minato's selected something for the both of you that would suit you very well." Sakumo said nodding to himself.

"If you don't mind me asking, why do you think I would be suited for strategy?"

Sakumo snorted, "You can see it when you fight kid, you aren't thinking about the punch you're throwing or the kick you're blocking, you're thinking about the overall battle, when you move it isn't to gain an advantage - though there's no doubt that is part of it - instead you move to where you'll win, even against opponents where I'd say you had a disadvantage you never look to be in a weak position. It's one of your best traits."

I blinked, I hadn't considered it that way, surely everyone fought to win?

Sakumo seemed to hear my unspoken question, "Everyone fights to win, it's uncommon though for someone to actively place themselves to win, everyone always thinks about the next few moments never paying any heed to what lies beyond but I've seen you do things in a spar that never even registered as relevant to the battle until towards the end."

I shrugged non committedly, I think he gave me too much credit.

"Listen Ko, I wouldn't be saying it if I didn't mean it."

I looked up at Sakumo and he looked about as serious as I had ever seen him. I nodded slowly.

Before long the dusty roads we traveled became dry dirt paths and then eventually a single path wandering through trees.

"You'll find the main Nara house straight ahead," Sakumo said as we entered into a clearing dominated by traditional wooden buildings built on stilts with steps leading up to their porches. I looked around, it was certainly well hidden, I hadn't realised there was anything here until I stumbled upon it and it was the size of a small village. The main path through the compound led to what appeared to be the largest house.

I tapped Sakumo before he walked away and asked him how he knew where I needed to go when he turned around.

"No need for guessing games, if you've come for strategy training it'll be Shikaku Nara who'll be your teacher." He said before reiterating, "Main house straight ahead." and making his way in another direction.

Something about the village seemed oddly absorbing to me, as if it was pulling me in. Perhaps it was the peacefulness of it's situation, the Nara were certainly a careful people, building their houses as they did they made sure their buildings did the least damage possible to the land.

As I made my way past the houses I didn't really notice many people and those that I did were either doing chores such as sweeping their porch or dozing in the sun. By the time I finally reached the main house and knocked quietly on the door I had heard barely a sound from the people here, the deer I occasionally saw between houses made more noise as they ambled along on their hooves.

The door slid open whispering in its frame after a few moments to reveal a woman, "Ah Kei, it's been such a long time."

I looked at the woman before me for a moment in confusion before putting my hands together to ask "Who -" but I didn't get any further than that as she seemed to recognise my confusion.

"Oh we only met once, you might not remember, I was the one that completed your paperwork to make you a fuinjutsu practitioner."

I slammed the bottom of my fist into my open hand in sudden recognition, "Yoshino!" I signed

She chuckled, "That's me, but you're here for my husband I think, come on in he's just out back."

She gestured me in and I followed, looking around the house as I went. I had to rethink my idea of spartan, to me my house was pretty spartan, Yoshino's house blew mine out of the water though, there was almost no furniture and even the kitchen only had a single stove built from stone with a large pot sitting on top, they had a large wooden bucket in one corner filled with dishes soaking in water, the only real furniture in the kitchen was the low table in the middle of the room and a large cupboard in one corner.

Yoshino apparently noticed my eye looking over her home, "We like to live simply out here." She explained.

I nodded, I didn't dislike it.

She led me to another door which opened to reveal a back garden that stretched into a dense forest, a man was laid at the foot of one of the trees apparently dozing off.

The most prominent thing about him was the bandages sweeping across his forehead with a secondary one dropping below his right eye, he was dressed in a standard Jounin uniform over a mesh shirt, his hair was tied back into a spiky ponytail.

I looked to Yoshino a little uncertain, unsure whether to wake him up but she just rolled her eyes.

"Don't worry he's awake, he probably knew you were here before I did, he's one of the clans best sensors." She said, "Doesn't act like it though." she added pointedly.

Shikaku sighed and opened his eyes and I was instantly struck by how sharp they were, like they were cut from granite. I had the odd sensation I was being weighed. Abruptly he stretched to his feet and walked to the house.

"You must be Ko," he greeted

"His name is Kei!" Yoshino interrupted

Uh oh, this wasn't the first time I had seen this argument break out.

Shikaku just sighed, muttering something before turning to me, "How about we get started, come into the living room."

I followed him through to find him sat at a Shogi board, I took a seat opposite him.

"Minato tells me you've never played Shogi. But he also told me you're a fast learner so..." Shikaku trailed off.

Technically true, I had never played it during this lifetime. In my head though just looking down at this board was like an explosion of ideas in my mind complete with names for tactics and the ideas behind them. I suspected I played this game quite extensively in my old life.

Shikaku began rearranging the pieces on the board to a set up you might see toward the end game, the pieces were quite developed and each player only had 4/5 pieces left.

"The end goal of Shogi is quite simple," he yawned, "You need to capture the opponent's King. This," he said holding up one of the discarded pieces, "is a pawn, the cheapest unit in the game. This is the Lance..."

He went on to explain what each of the pieces were, what they did along with a simplified blurb of their strengths, he then moved on to showing the promoted pieces with a similar background on each, all the whilst I nodded along not knowing how to explain how I already knew how to play when there was no way I could.

When he finished he gestured down at the board.

"I've laid the board out in a way for you to begin to learn to play this game with simplified scenarios, Using what you have learned so far make the best move from this position. It's your move, you have 5 minutes."

I didn't need 5 minutes, I had spent much of the time he had used explaining the game to me deciding what move I would were many options from such a position that would on the surface play to my benefit, eventually though I had found one that seemed eminently elegant. It sacrificed one of my most powerful pieces, a promoted rook, for the taking of a pawn. On the surface a perplexing move to make, true it placed the opponent's king in danger of being taken the next move but my piece could be taken 3 different ways from the position I had placed it. The elegance of the move became clear later, despite seemingly sacrificing the rook in any scenario of the 3 it resulted in a win for me between 3 and 7 moves later depending on the option Shikaku took.

Shikaku looked at the board following my move for a few moments before he started moving the pieces back to a starting position. He looked a little bit more awake now.

"There's fast learners and then there's you." Shikaku muttered as he, replaced the pieces, "I can see the exercises I had planned aren't going to be much use since you apparently already have more than a beginners grasp of the game. Tell me, who told you we'd be playing Shogi."

I shrugged my shoulders shaking my head to convey to him that no one had and Shikaku sat back in his chair looking at me carefully. "Damn, you aren't lying." he said at length. "OK let's play some practice games."

What followed seemed like consecutive games played one after another, many of which Shikaku ended a few moves in, others towards the end game, he didn't give any indication to why he was ending the games but as time went on his grin got wider and wider. My mind felt like it was getting a workout, every game he employed a new tactic, every midgame introduced more and more elaborate traps. I began to sweat with concentration finding these before they tightened around me. Some games he had me make moves to a time limit, others he distracted me with questions, I began to enter a trance like state, the part of me answering him sequestered from the part that was analysing the game.

Finally he swept the pieces back into their starting places and said it was time for a 'real' game. I raised my eyebrows, if this was going to be a real game what were we doing before?

From the start though I could tell this was markedly different, Shikaku was apparently pulling his punches before, I moved sagaciously through the early game, taking control of the board where I could, retreating when it was prudent. The real breakthrough didn't come until the end of the mid game and it wasn't to my benefit. My rook was forced into a trade with a pawn with only the consolation of another pawn in a few moves time. I tried to play as well as I could from there but Shikaku could smell blood in the water and we didn't get much further before I could see the end coming and I conceded. It was none too soon as Yoshino bustled in with food which brought me to the sudden realisation that I was actually quite hungry.

"Shikaku, you can't play through the night, you need to stop to eat at least. Don't act so irresponsible when you're injured." Yoshino remonstrated.

Wait. through the night? I pushed the sliding door next to me open slightly and found the sky in the ending stages of twilight, slipping into deepest dark. We had been playing for close to 7 or 8 hours I realised with shock.

Yoshino began filling a plate for me and I put my hands up to refuse, Yoshino looked at me and passed me the plate saying "Don't be silly, you're a guest in my house it's my job to make sure you're comfortable."

"I don't want to impose." I responded.

Her face grew a little harder. "Didn't I say not be silly. After all you'll be staying for the night anyway, I couldn't send you home at this time."

I got a little flustered but Shikaku cut in for me, "There's no reasoning with her Ko, once she's made up her mind that's the way it is, might as well accept it."

She cuffed him over his head, "I said his name is Kei." Shikaku just hung his head sighing.

Yoshino brought the pot back to the kitchen to place on the still warm hearth before coming back into the living room where we sat around the finished Shogi game. Yoshino saw I had lost and told me not to worry about losing, Shikaku hadn't lost since before he graduated the academy.

"And yet he came within one move of bringing me to a draw in his very first game." Shikaku drawled.

Yoshino did a double take, "Against you? You must be slipping in your old age Shikaku." she said jokingly.

Shikaku shook his head still staring down at the board, "No. I think our guest might be the most talented player I've ever played."

I covered up my embarrassment by digging in to the food and almost let out a groan at the taste.

"This is amazing." I communicated to Yoshino, who waved me off.

Eventually we finished our food and Yoshino told me I would be sleeping in the living room, there were other rooms in the house but they hadn't been occupied in some time and needed renovating. I accepted this gratefully, I didn't need anything more than the floor space to lay down.

They left me after the meal with Shikaku telling me to get a good sleep because he had some real teaching to perform tomorrow and after he wanted to play some more Shogi.

That morning, with Kakashi

Kakashi had set off with plenty of time, he had packed a bag full of survival gear at Orochimaru's request - he had sent a message the previous evening asking him to bring whatever he thought he would need to survive in a hostile environment.

Finding his way to training ground 44 was easy, every shinobi in the village knew where it was though many were unsure how it got there. Some were of the opinion that it was a jutsu of the Shodai Hokage gone wrong, his father had mentioned one time that it had been the site of many biological experiments in the past and in the end they had simply closed it off to prevent what was in getting out.

'It would certainly explain the huge metal fence around it' Kakashi thought to himself.

He had been told to meet with Orochimaru at 10 in the morning at gate number 12., luckily this wasn't on the other side of the forest and was only a small walk along the perimeter. Arriving there Kakashi gazed at the sun and judged he had made it with perhaps 15 minutes to spare so he waited.

Kakashi jerked to alertness when the gate at his back rustled to life and swung open, standing on the other side was a pale looking man dressed in even paler robes. He matched the description his father had given him before so he greeted him with a nod.

"Orichimaru."

"Hmmm, you look like you came prepared." Orochimaru began, his voice was raspy like wood dragged over stone, every sentence was clipped at the end.

Kakashi nodded patting his supplies bag, "You told me to bring everything I might need so I did."

"Oh," Orochimaru's slit like eyes sharpened, "Show me."

Laying out all of his equipment Orochimaru looked on without comment but then eventually delivered his verdict.

"You brought a adequate amount of tools such as your ninja wire and kunai but you brought far too much food, the food you have here is what you would take on a month long mission, in a real life survival scenario you will not have that luxury, repack 3 days worth and seal the rest in this scroll." He said throwing Kakashi a scroll.

With that done Orochimaru told Kakashi to follow him and began to walk back into the forest.

They walked for almost half an hour and encountered no other life other than trees and some huge fauna during that time before Orochimaru stopped in a small clearing.

"This is where I leave you. Your first task will be to survive 2 weeks. If you prove yourself capable of that I will teach you some skills you may find useful."

Kakashi's eyes narrowed, "2 weeks where am I supposed to find water and -" He stopped trying to ask a question as Orochimaru disappeared in a shunshin and instead bit off a shout of frustration as he kicked a small rock.

The first day was hard. There was a reason they called this place the forest of death. Kakashi was attacked by two enormous insects during the first few hours foraging but eventually found a source of water and he set up camp nearby. The water itself was safe, he had tested a sample with one of the water purification indicators he had brought with him.

Unlike everything else in the forest which was decidedly not safe. He witnessed a small animal eat a fauna he would normally have thought of as edible outside the forest only for the animal to claw at its face moments later and then run out of sight.

Kakashi had decided that whilst he had food to last another few days he should look into setting up traps and scouting out animals that looked edible. He lit a fire that first night but found out quite swiftly that he would have to hide the presence of his fire in this forest at night due to the attention it attracted from the other inhabitants of the forest.

He lay down that night jerking to alertness every few minutes when some new horror of the forest let out a call from the darkness.

I woke early the next morning in the Nara's living room and spent the time meditating outside as the morning gave life to itself. I only realised I had company when my head was gently nudged by something soft and wet.

It was one of the deer I had seen wandering around the compound the previous day, it's dark eyes betrayed no fear of me and I reached out to gently stroke his neck, it leaned into my hand as it knelt down beside me. Strange. I had thought deer to be much more skittish creatures.

Its was around 8 in the morning when Shikaku looked out from the kitchen and found me sat, still with the deer at my side. He rose an eyebrow before snorting into his drink, "He's a brave one, it's rare for one of the deer of the forest to approach someone outside of the Nara clan let alone take to someone like that one has."

The deer looked up when Shikaku spoke, in a way that was a little unnerving, it seemed almost like it was trying to understand what Shikaku was saying.

I smiled up at Shikaku before asking "Training?"

"Don't beat around the bush do you?" He took a final mouthful of his water before continuing, "Yeah, we'll be starting in around half an hour but first there's some stuff you should know about the Nara clan."

I nodded as Shikaku took a moment to sit down on the other side of the deer, his legs hanging off the porch, "Most of the village knows us as medicine makers or tacticians but the Nara's most important job is looking after the clan forest. It's been here since before Konoha was a village and so have the Nara - It's why we haven't moved to a more central area within the village. I can't tell you everything about the forests significance to us but don't worry about that you won't need to know for your training. Our main job is making sure the deer don't range too far and that is what you'll be helping me with today." He finished with a smirk.

"I'll be shepherding?" I think my hands as I signed the question reflected the amount of confusion I had.

Shikaku just laughed, "Yes we will. You might even learn a thing or two."

Shikaku gave me an ornate staff and told me to keep it on me whenever I was in the forest, the shepherding itself wasn't really an active task, its was a job that involved more passive management of the deer in concert with other members of the Nara clan who looked after their own areas, instead of pushing deer in a certain direction it was an activity that involved more analysation and the anticipation of where the deer might head next and guiding that movement, the Nara clan head made it look easy but when he let me take the lead we lost a deer pretty quickly.

I examined the forest floor and the trees around where we had picked up the trail of a deer that had slipped past the perimeter.

"They tread lightly" I signed to Shikaku, "But this buck left a mark from his antlers on the bark of that tree."

Shikaku looked where I had pointed and nodded "You have sharp eyes, he can't have been gone more than a few minutes but that way leads to another of the areas my clan members manage - I'll go ahead and let them know what happened, they won't mind just one more to manage."

So saying Shikaku sedately ambled away through the trees, he had explained that the forest, whilst not quite holy to the Nara, was a thing that commanded their utmost respect and leaping through the trees was something very much frowned upon.

I leaned against a tree as I waited for Shikaku to return keeping watch for any other deer that might try to slip past this way. After a few minutes leaning against the tree I became aware of a… thrumming. Seemingly from the tree. I placed a hand on the bark of the tree and concentrated. It was faint but I could definitely feel something, and it wasn't the usual natural chakra that oozed from all plants, by the time Shikaku returned the only thing I had been able to learn was that it felt old. Ancient.

The rest of the day I didn't seem to make much progress in my shepherding skills but luckily Shikaku stepped in before I made any major missteps. It was like he had direct line to the deer, a sixth sense for where they were heading next. His skill I could admire though I wasn't sure how it related to what he was supposed to be teaching me.

Surprisingly we didn't play anymore Shogi that day instead Shikaku spent the time as we ate dinner asking me questions, they started innocuous enough, questions of the work of the day but soon they came to become questions about how I came to decisions, over painstaking hours he began to pick apart my thoughts around how I came to those decisions, from there the questions quickly became philosophical and eventually Shikaku started asking me questions that seemed less like questions and more like puzzles. One such exchange went as follows:

"What is a game?"

I frowned. In fairness I was beginning to feel weirdly slow witted, "It is … a competition between two or more people."

"So you could not have a game where you were alone in playing it?"

Well that was not true, certainly I knew there were games you could play with cards that required only yourself. I modified my answer, "It is a fun activity?"

"Some people find fun in a fight, does that make fights a kind of game?"

My frown deepened. I felt like Shikaku was trying to guide me to some kind of understanding but I wasn't grasping what it was.

Shikaku observed me for a few moments before relenting, "Perhaps I can put this another way. Do you ever really think you can come up with a perfect definition for what a game is? A definition that includes every example that someone might put before you and also exclude everything that we could all agree is not a game?"

"I… I'm not sure."

Shikaku leaned forward looking intently at me now. "Have you ever reflected on the fact that everybody knows what a game is, regardless of what the fact we can't, or at the very least, struggle to put a definition to it. I can say the words Shogi, Solitaire, fight and you, I or really anyone, instinctively know that one of those is not a game despite it matching many of the definitions you might come up with for what a game is."

I looked down at my hands. How could we categorise something without setting the conditions for what it was first? The more I thought about it the deeper I fell into the sinkhole Shikaku had opened before me.

Shikaku nodded to himself "It's late, we should get some sleep we've got another long day tomorrow."

He left me still wondering how I could really trust how I came to rational decisions when I couldn't even rationalise a concept as simple as what a game was. I laid down to sleep wondering if Kakashi was having more or less luck with his training.

Kakashi tried to stay still despite the small bug that had landed on his face. Much of Kakashi's clothes had gone and he had smeared mud across himself and hung himself from a tree for much of the evening. It was his 4th day. He had been forced to seek the refuge of a cave after it became apparent that some kind of acid was eating through his tent. He had little luck in catching any food, the creatures of the night were much too good at hearing for him to catch them and the ones during the day always saw him even when he was perfectly hidden and still.

He had learned through trial and error that most of the animals in the forest didn't see as animals usually did but instead somehow sensed the heat around them to see. This was why Kakashi had taken the measure to cover himself in mud. He was desperate, his last rations ran out that morning and he needed to find food.

Below him a tusked boar entered the small clearing, Kakashi had tried traps, the creatures here were too hardy even for the most lethal ones. Kakashi would have to take this boar down himself.

He waited until it was almost directly below him and dropped. It was, luckily, quick work. His sword - one of the few things he had salvaged from the campsite - sliced through the neck of the boar almost as if there were no resistance.

Kakashi smiled to himself. He might survive this training after all.

AN: Another week another chapter, hopefully I get faster writing these or its going to take forever to reach the end. I made an effort to be sure there wasn't any spelling mistakes in this one so just you try and find one haha. Thanks everyone for the reviews I really enjoy reading them. I hope you enjoyed this chapter. I'll see you in the next one.