Disclaimer: I own nothing but the general plot and OCs
Hey sorry it's been a while! I moved country and got a new job. A job which I know absolutely nothing about so it's a learning curve. Also this chapter kicked my butt quite a bit so I kept giving up.
I said last chapter that this one was going to be long, because I intended to go through what Sonaru was learning during interrogation lessons and all the theory leading up to that. I was planning to world build a fair bit, but I left my notebooks and shit that I use to inspire myself back in the UK and it's just been so difficult to motivate myself creatively since then. So I changed my mind and this is a fairly average length.
I will eventually go into that but for now I decided she'll be less informed and so shall you.
I remember someone asked me in the comments at some point about length and when she's gonna grow up properly or something? And all I can say is that if I knew I would tell you. I really am making this up as I go along, I only think a bit in advance and although there are some plot points here and there that I like to include, I never know when I'm actually going to get to the point where I can include them.
Having said that though! I do intend to start putting a little more care and effort into the plot of this story soonish. No promises on when because I want to reach a story checkpoint but I don't know how long it'll take to get there. Warning; with more thought out plot, comes less regular updates.
No editing as always and English underlined as always.
Thank you so much for awesome reviews, as well as favs and follows! Let me know what works, or what doesn't work for you, as well as any prompts for scenes you'd like to see.
Chapter 39 - I Know You're Gonna Be Okay
"Hey DFB, what do you know about the Fukuda Norita's clan?" I finally got round to asking him a few days after we had worked out a loose schedule that would allow me to initiate my apprenticeship with the woman without taking up time I would spend training.
"The Fukuda clan is primarily a civilian clan. I know they aren't the largest clan, but they're certainly well established. They're not quite influential enough to be able to hold sway in shinobi matters, but among the purely civilian strata they're in the top tier of clans. Fukuda Norita is the matriarch of the clan, and her husband is the head of the clan.
"The family rose in wealth and prominence through trading and selling tea leaves throughout all the major countries of the Elemental Nations which then expanded into incense too, and although there are multiple Fukuda tea shops in various cities the most famous one is here in Konoha. The tea shop and tea room in Konoha are renown, which is helped by the fact that the Fukuda Tea House is often used for tea ceremonies by people of high importance - even by the Kages during diplomatic visits- where Fukuda Norita herself is the hostess."
"Hm," I bit at my lip in thought, "I don't suppose you have any idea why she'd be so interested in me? If her clan is that wealthy, wouldn't there be a string of wealthy civilian clan children for her to teach?"
"I don't know much about the clan. I only know as much as I've already said because it's one of the civilian clans that the Hokage takes some care to ensure that their influence doesn't encroach into shinobi matters at all. The Fukuda head has some strong views on various shinobi related politics but he doesn't have the power to act on them. The Hokage keeps it that way by curtailing their expansion into business or politics that involve shinobi, without offending them.
"That's really all I know. The clan only has a single member in the shinobi forces and she completely cut ties with them for varying and personal reasons years ago, before she was a Jōnin. If I had to take a guess it would be that Fukuda Norita wants to use you as a stepping stone for the clan to breach the barrier into shinobi business to then gain influence in shinobi political matters. The name I gave you; Igarashi - on records it belongs to a wealthy but very small civilian clan that deals with a lot of diplomatic and weapons based work, closely interacting with many of the shinobi clans, and has little to do with the circle any Fukuda would be exposed to. I imagine she's hoping to capitalise on her mentorship of you to benefit her clan."
Well I didn't have too much to worry about if that was her plan; to use me for something that I had no intention of supplying her and could prevent her from doing so very easily, since Igarashi Sona could slip away into non existence as easily as I could remove clothes and some black eye contacts.
"I-"
"DYNAMIC ENTRY!"
Fucking ow. Goddamn Ambush.
A map landed on the ground in front of me with a slap, causing me to look up from where I was slowly copying sections of the explosive tag I had in my hand, with an eyebrow raised.
"What the fuck am I supposed to do with that?" My tone was punctuated with an unamused grumble, which DFB smartly didn't comment on.
I was in a shitty mood, having found out from Gai accidentally letting slip that the bastard DFB didn't actually like sweet things. Which was a whatever, who gave a damn what someone did or didn't like to eat.
Unless of course this someone was a rotten wanker who had been eating my fucking chocolate cake for the best part of a year in front of me whenever I failed to lie to him successfully enough times in a day.
Chocolate was the closest thing I was probably ever going to get to something I deified, especially after the unexplainable phenomenon that was my reincarnation. To see that smug bastard disrespect - nay desecrate -such a treasured and worshipped existence when I could have given it the honour and love it deserved. Sweet chocolate, it just killed a little bit of my heart each time I thought about it.
"Are you internally monologuing to a non existent audience again, Su-chan?" DFB had the gall to sound amused at me.
I grunted at him with an ill humoured scowl and gestured impatiently at the map in front of me.
With one last irritating eye smile that just screamed smug, DFB proceeded to act as though my grump was non existent and informed me with way too much pep in his voice, "this is a fairly simple map of the Elemental Nations. It only includes major landmarks, country borders, large cities and hidden villages. The terrain information is barely included but it gives you a good enough place to start. You're familiar enough with the layout of Konoha at this point but you don't know much about what things are like outside of the walls. Memorise this to help you visualise some of the necessary knowledge you need to know before we start practicing interrogation."
"Why would a map help with that?"
"You need to have at least a basic understanding of the Elemental Nations geography for multiple reasons. For example, let's say you're undercover as a civilian trader, and you're in Kiri on a mission to collect intelligence. They're a little suspicious of your background because they've never seen you before and yet your story is that you're an established trader, so they bring you in for questioning. One particularly smart shinobi takes one look at the way your cart is built, or the rope used to tie your products down and extrapolates that you're from Konoha before you've even opened your mouth. What do you do?"
"Well I'd be fucked because Kiri doesn't get along with Konoha. So I'd prepare for torture as best I could and plan my escape."
"That's why you need to know as many different types of map as possible. If you'd taken a look at a map that included trade routes you'd see that Kiri has a lot of them from other countries. Even ones that they're incredibly hostile to. The hidden village doesn't have any civilians of their own and so they rely entirely on trade with civilians from their own country as well as others.
"Kiri may be one of the most aggressive hidden villages in shinobi standards, but its relationship with civilians is a separate matter. The same goes for any hidden village or country. Its foreign relationships tell two entirely different stories in regard to military and civilian. You need to know both and familiarity with geography can only help if you find yourself interrogated.
"Besides, once you escape or are on the run as a shinobi you need to know where you are and exactly how to get home while you're under high levels of stress, probably cut off from any help, possibly injured and weak.
"Finally, as a more personal reason; I have enemies. My enemies and my father's enemies are likely to be your enemies. Some people will kill you the moment they look at your face and recognise me in it. There are areas in the world which are far more high risk than others and you need to know which."
"I need to know all of this to help with escapology and interrogation survival?" I raised my brows in surprise.
"Geography, cartography, an in depth understanding of civilian and military foreign relations and direct threats toward our clan, yes. All of them can only boost your chances of surviving as unharmed as possible."
I groaned, not in the mood to study more theory, and attempted to dramatically roll away across the floor as an escape until a magically appearing weight sat on my back and suffocated me.
"Heurk!" I choked, craning my head to see what was pinning me down and caught a spiked collar in my periphery, "Bull, get off me!"
Unfortunately Bull acted like he couldn't hear me, and sat there happily panting.
"Since you're already comfortable why don't we get started?" The bastard eye smiled and sat down across from me, ignoring my death glare.
In the midst of practicing lock picking with my hands behind my back, and how to hide useful little tools in the lining of my clothes that would be missed by a pat down, Tenzō began teaching me the the rope escaping technique that any graduate Genin should know.
Apparently Genma had put the idea forward, but as soon as DFB heard me being tied up with ropes, he banned Genma from being the one to instruct me.
Just like every other technique that used chakra I wasn't great at it, but I was fortunate in that it only needed a tiny amount and it didn't require precision at all, which sped the learning curve up by a large amount.
Beyond learning the common psychological methods used during interrogation, it quickly became obvious to all of us that DFB was putting off applying them in practice to give me a real life taste of intense questioning.
I didn't say anything at first, sympathetic to his hesitance and reluctance to see me distressed at his hands in any way, but as my birthday approached and he made no move to move on I became frustrated with him. In all areas of practice I was making progress but this one. I was even learning more from Fukuda as I shadowed her during my apprenticeship.
Despite the continuation of Ambush and Playing Ninja I began to get restless in my anticipation for the next stage of learning. While I understood his reluctance, I still felt insulted by it. I had no desire to be babied any more than I already had to be due to my lack of practical experience and physical size. My simmering irritation eventually began to express itself during our spars, as my moves became sharper and angrier, my hits more vicious and less precise.
Finally something had to break between my annoyance and DFB's pussyfooting. It was unfortunate that that something ended up being my skin.
We were sparring two on one during Playing Ninja, at a relative stalemate between me and Genma against DFB, as Gai snuck past in order to reach the objective.
DFB was taunting us both in attempt to rile us up, which I usually found easy to ignore. This particular time though, with my temper already at a consistent low burn I found myself gritting my teeth and my already less precise moves dipped for just a second to downright sloppy as I lashed out in an ill timed cheap shot.
My left arm shot out, intercepting DFB's kunai swipe and we all watched in dismay as the sharp tip pierced the palm of my hand and slid cleanly down my wrist, slicing the skin and flesh open as it went.
DFB hastily yanked his kunai away from my inner arm, leaving behind a two and half inch gash decorating the pale skin. On my small arm that incision length went all the way from the hand to the inner elbow. The kunai was sharp enough that it took half a second to start bleeding properly, but when it did the small trickle transformed into heavy flowing quickly.
With the Adrenalin racing through my system from the sparring the sting and throbbing was only minimal, but I could practically feel the biting heat of pain waiting just on the edge of the Adrenalin rush.
"Shit, Mini Bastard. Hold still," Genma hastened to tell me as he quickly dropped his weapons and leaned over me.
DFB froze for a second, paling at my crimson soaked arm and the rapidly soaking ground as my blood dripped heavily, but he quickly collected himself and dropped his weapon like it burned him.
In that time Genma had already applied pressure to my arm and I could feel the adrenalin just start to ebb away slightly. I was not looking forward to the pain when it finally dropped, and grit my teeth in anticipation as sweat beaded on the back of my neck.
"Let me look," DFB finally got his wits together enough to demand, "if nothing too serious was cut through I should be able to close it myself."
With my arm rapidly beginning to hurt, I allowed a hiss to escape from between my teeth and unpleasant shivers wracked my body as Genma pulled the cloth away from the injury.
Even more blood pushed its way over the edge of my skin and slid down my arm. I could smell it. Copper and salt and sweetness and heat. It smelt good. Really good. I resisted the urge to swipe my arm with my tongue and swallowed thickly, almost able to taste it in the back of my throat.
Doing my best to focus on the pleasant colour and smell rather then the increasing pain shooting up and down my limb in time to my heavy heart beat I watched with a grimace as DFB gently poked and prodded at the gash.
"Genma, get Gai. He has what I need to clean the wound. After that I'll be able to heal it enough that she won't need the hospital," his voice was authoritative and commanding like it rarely was around me and had Genma whisking himself away in the space of a blink.
"What were you thinking, Su-chan?" Uncommon anger sharpened the question as he looked me in the eyes with a glare.
My face coloured in embarrassment and annoyance in return and I finally burst, "I'm sorry! I shouldn't have- that was stupid of me... I've just been so fucking annoyed with you! I let that- I'm sorry I let that get in the way of... of my judgement. I just- I just. You've been babying me and I can't stand it!"
His eyebrow raised in surprise, but the severity of his expression didn't dissipate. Nevertheless I could see the consideration in his face as he calmly spoke, "we should talk about this later."
I nodded once and avoided eye contact in my shame until Genma returned with Gai.
"Here, Kakashi," Gai handed DFB a water bottle and pill. DFB dropped the pill in the water and then shook the bottle vigorously as the pill dissolved.
"This is going to hurt," DFB warned, before bracing my arm in his hand and upending the bottle over my wound.
My teeth gnashed together and I half growled half snarled, in order to avoid wailing in the face of the overwhelming sting. My entire arm felt far too hot and Gai supported me as my legs threatened to collapse.
Swear dripped down my back and my face as I panted, feeling exhausted. We weren't done yet though, as DFB removed his hand and placed the water bottle down on the ground.
"Keep your arm up. Genma, get the bandages out."
His hands lit up in translucent green fire and moved to cup my wound as I stared transfixed. A split second before he touched me the memory of the first and only time I had had the Mystical Palm technique used on me shoved its way to the forefront of my mind.
.
It had felt... like nothing I could describe. Like if bleeding into someone else's body could be both hygienic, clean, and romanticised. Like a part of his essence, the most natural, simultaneously the most human and yet least conscious part of him had touched me. I didn't know why Chakra seemed to largely be a weapon of war when it felt so intimate to be touched by it.
It was like, in that moment, when his chakra had entered my system, I knew him. I knew him on a fundamental level, I saw his existence, I recognised him as a living human, I connected to him in a way I had never experienced before.
It had left me momentarily in awe.
.
I hadn't ever given it any thought after that day, what with the events that experience had led to mere minutes afterward. I had forgotten it had happened at all, and pushed the memory to the back of my mind, more concerned with the revelations that followed the exposure to the technique.
.
I didn't want to connect like that to a stranger now that I had committed myself to leaving this life. If that happened again I would quickly lose my resolve, living day to day waiting for a chance to feel that fleeting spiritual intimacy again, that at the end of the day was no substitute for the sort of personal connection I was more familiar with from my original life.
It would be a shitty way for me to live. And far too easy to visualise. I realised that if DFB ever did that with me I was fucked. I couldn't let that happen. In something resembling panic, but was actually closer to dread, I stood up, and immediately saw the balcony doors had been left open just enough for me to fit through the gap.
Not taking any more time to think things through, least I lose my nerve, I made my way unwaveringly out onto the balcony, and saw, to my grim satisfaction, that the bars of the rail on the balcony were set far enough apart for me to squeeze through.
My breath caught in my throat, and my mouth was dry, no matter how many times I swallowed. I felt the sweat build on the palms of my hands, and prickle coldly down my back. Despite the adrenaline, and pounding heart, my mind felt numb, in a daze, and everything felt unreal.
I fit myself through the metal bars and stepped up to the edge, knowing better than to take a pause to allow any doubts to set in, then without another thought, I fell forward.
.
Then DFB's hand came in contact with my arm, interrupting the memories... and it was exactly like the last time. But even more intense.
My vision whited out as a tsunami of pure feeling swept over me and covered me. It wrapped around me, suffocating in the best possible way. I couldn't even feel if I was breathing or not, but I had to be because I was so light. So heavy and light at the same time.
I knew him at a level I'd never known him before. It was like I had access to everything that made DFB human and it was beautiful. It was so beautiful. I wanted to give him my spirit and heart, the breath in my lungs and love in my thoughts.
There was so much bliss it ran along the edge of agony. Perfection which lasted moments that stretched onwards and onwards. Everything in me that constantly craved closer and more time with DFB was sated like it never was.
Every little flicker of stress and doubt and irritation that clouded my relationship with him, even things I didn't know were there, were cleared away to leave pure adoration.
I was drowning in adoration and it was amazing.
Slowly, almost unnoticeably at first, the intensity dimmed and drained. It was gentle, like a feather floating toward the ground, leaving behind an impression of the peace and wonder I could function with.
With a content sigh, I blinked rapidly and returned to myself fully. Languidly looking toward DFB, unsure how long had really passed.
He was staring at me, with the most openly gobsmacked and awed expression I had ever seen him wear. He stared speechlessly at me for long seconds, before asking me in hushed reverence, "what was that?"
He had tear streaks on his face, soaking into his mask, and a shift of breeze cooled the tears I realised stained my own cheeks. The feeling of fabric on my fingers had me glancing down, alerting me to the fact that at some point my other hand had reached out and grasped one of DFB's arms.
When had that happened? Why? I thought I vaguely remembered reaching toward him in some way as I was overcome with the desire to give DFB back something of what he had done for me. I didn't realise I had literally reached out though.
"What was that?" He asked again, still hushed.
"I don't know. It happened last time the technique was used on me, too. When I was a baby. This time was so much more..." I answered almost as quietly.
"Can someone explain to me what's going on?" Genma's baffled voice pierced through the moment and had DFB jerking back in surprise.
"I don't know," DFB repeated me, "I was healing her and then she grabbed me and her... it was like her chakra responded to mine and... entered my system. But not in any way I'm familiar with. It was just there, connecting me to Su-chan."
"You were both shedding tears. Were you in pain?" Gai asked, concerned.
"No. It didn't hurt. It was..." I saw DFB try to find a single word to accurately express the experience, and find himself unable to do so, settling for a lacklustre, "good. It was good"
I barely focussed on what happened afterward, more than happy to silently bask in DFB's presence. From his quiet stillness, he seemed to be of a similar mind.
By evening we were back home, on the sofa with me curled into him, barely having spoken a word to each other but more than okay with that. I still hadn't let go of his arm.
"What was that?" He finally asked once more, turning to me with a half lost expression.
"I don't know," I told him again, "it's only happened once, shortly before I... jumped. It wasn't exactly the most important thing that happened to me that day so I honestly forgot about it until now."
"Why would you want to kill yourself after something like that?" He sounded troubled and confused.
"I was scared about getting addicted to the experience, and just living for it. Like an addict only living for the next high. I thought if I ever experience it with you I would never have a chance; from then on I'd live life suicidally depressed, but too hooked on that brief feeling to do anything about it. I was right," I turned to him, "if I still wanted to kill my self now I would never be able to go through with it after that."
I looked down at my bandaged forearm, hiding the much shallower wound which would almost definitely scar. It would look to a lot of people like a suicide attempt due to the placement. Maybe with time the scar would fade.
"Your chakra didn't reach back last time, though," DFB commented, like he was trying and failing to make sense of it all.
"No."
He heaved a deep breath and released it slowly, "okay. Regardless, the circumstances leading to today... were unacceptable."
"I know. I'm sorry," I replied calmly.
"You said I was babying you," DFB sounded equally calm.
"Aa, you've been avoiding practice interrogation. I was insulted that you felt more concerned with my potentially hurt feelings than you felt belief in my ability to weather it."
There was a pause as DFB thought on my words, "okay, I'm sorry about that. We'll start after your birthday. There are a few useful ninjutsu I'd like you to know first."
"Fair enough."
There was no more to be said after that. Any resentments or aggravation that might have lingered around the conversation had already dissipated in the face of the peace the strange chakra experience had left behind.
We sat in perfect contentment and connection next to each other for the rest of the evening, comfortable with our mutual silence and feeling no need to fill it.
DFB spent the week after that both getting close to the end of the creation of the seal he had been working on, and doing preliminary research on what had happened that day in the training ground.
With him so busy, and Tenzō on a mission, I spent a lot of time with Gai and Genma. Most of it was spent physical training with Gai, persuading him not to do anything for my birthday, and Genma teaching me one of the ninjutsu that DFB wanted me to learn.
It was a suitor ninjutsu that required very small but precise amounts of chakra, with great aim. Genma called it spit projectile, and it was how he could spit his senbon out of his mouth with such speed and force as to block a thrown kunai.
"Since the Bastard has already sewn all those useful little things into your clothes, it's easy enough to get one of those hidden under your tongue, or access something with your mouth when the rest of you is restrained. From there, if you only have one or two guards or kidnappers, this is a very useful method of taking them out, since generally shinobi don't expect too much danger from your mouth if you can't make hand signs.
"Even though you have your struggles with chakra, you're easily Chūnin level when comes to projectile weaponry like kunai, shuriken and senbon, so I think once you get the hang of the chakra application this will be a real hidden ace."
I blushed heavily at the compliment and tripped over my words for far too long afterward, trying to hide my telling grin.
"I know you don't want to celebrate your birthday, Su-chan-"
"We never celebrate yours or Gai's and I don't want to be singled out. Plus I'm not big on birthdays anyway," I shrugged somewhat defensively.
"Maa maa I already explained to Gai your reasoning. We both know you only want a birthday party if it gets you a kitten," DFB waved uncaringly, "still, before we go any further I want you to take this and channel the smallest amount of chakra you can into it."
Looking at the square piece of blank paper, my eyebrows shot upward.
"Chakra paper? Seriously? Isn't that only for people who are further advanced than I am?"
Regardless, I took the paper from him without any further prompting and did as instructed. The paper immediately crinkled in my hand, and then dampened with absorbed water immediately afterward.
"Raiton and suiton. Good, I was hoping you had inherited the Hatake lightening affinity. Normally you're right and shinobi more experienced than you test their affinity, but I was hoping to teach you a couple raiton ninjutsu. They're only D rank, but raiton is a very dangerous element and can be difficult to control. I wasn't going to risk teaching you if you didn't have an affinity making things slightly easier. This is your birthday present from me."
"Okay, I'll accept that as a present," I responded, faux reluctantly, "Which ninjutsu are we talking about, exactly?"
"The first one is an external ninjutsu and allows you to electrify another with physical contact. It's not very strong, and with your control and chakra levels the best you'll get is a taser - nevertheless that's still enough to down many full grown shinobi for a few seconds.
"The second is an internal ninjutsu and a lot more dangerous if you make a mistake despite its low rank. It allows you a level of conscious control over your heart rate. Your heart beat is controlled by electrical signals and this raiton ninjustu gives you a few minutes of control at a time to slow it down, or speed it up, keep it steady or add a little hiccup in there to make it seem like you're lying when you're not if someone is monitoring your heart rate under interrogation.
"It has an additional application if the ninjustu is directed toward your other muscles in that it can give you a few minutes boost of speed. The downsides are that if you slip up when controlling your heart rate, you could accidentally stop your own heart, or give yourself a heart attack, and if you use it on your muscles then your nerves are also enhanced - that means any pain is a lot worse and even things that wouldn't otherwise register as pain might feel overwhelming. Be careful with this one."
I didn't bother suppressing my excited grin at the idea of learning raiton ninjutsu. They were so destructive and cool and my inner evil couldn't wait to get experienced enough that I could really fuck shit up with home made lightening. Plus I admittedly felt good about another visceral connection to the Hatake clan. Another piece of proof that I actually belonged to it.
"I will, tou-san. When do we start?" I wriggled around gleefully, to his mild amusement.
"Now sounds good."
"Wait - really? Right now?"
"Now's as good a time as any. I don't see why not. I don't think it will take you more than a couple of weeks if your effort remains consistent. It might even take you closer to one week. But," DFB held a warning finger up, "I'm not joking about the consequences of raiton ninjutsu. You haven't taken any of the training lightly so far so I'm not too worried, but it bears saying anyway - if you mess around with raiton jutsus I won't pass anymore onto you."
I nodded rapidly, "sure. Absolutely. Definitely. Let's get started!"
"Okay, we're starting with the external ninjutsu."
"Do you think I could make someone piss themselves if I used it on them?"
"Undoubtedly."
"Awesome!"
My third year in Konoha came to a close with little fanfare beyond a dinner attended by everyone but Tenzō who was still on a mission.
It was nice, and although I did miss Tenzō's long suffering attempts at seriousness around DFB, Genma somewhat made up for that. After all, it was always more fun to spend time with people when DFB was making someone suffer just a little bit.
Especially since DFB was usually just a touch more savage around Gai, as though to make up for how Gai tended to make DFB suffer just a little bit, often without even meaning to.
It got to the end of the evening, when everyone was full, a bit tired, and a bit drunk on laughter, when Gai cleared his throat to make an announcement. We turned to him, expecting some sentimental and overly tearful or surprisingly perceptive speech.
"Since I was given the honour of being chosen as your godfather, Su-hime, I can barely remember a time I felt so happy. Your presence in my life makes things better, and I'm certain that this is the same for both Genma and Kakashi. Nothing has made me happier than seeing you flourish and grow. Nothing makes me more satisfied than seeing my lessons and my own effort help fan your flames to new heights.
"Your Hard Work this past year has inspired me. I have realised what a gift it is to pass the flames of Youth on to the next generation. I understand that despite your physical youth, you are not the blank slate of other children, and I see how much guiding they need just from the results Kakashi brings back from the Genin test.
I have pushed Kakashi for some years now to pass his pearls of wisdom and experience on through teaching, knowing he would gain much from doing so, and I now realised that this advice applies to me just as much. As a result, I have put myself forward as a Jōnin Sensei to the next graduate class of Genin."
I saw out the corner of my eye the surprised look on Genma's face, but not on DFB's, and realised that he must have already been told or had guessed.
"I have observed the soon to be Genin class already, and I've seen one or two students who I believe will most benefit from my style of teaching. Of course, nothing is finalised until a Genin team passes my test, but I have faith that those who I've suggested be put into my team will meet my test with everything they have. I believe that I'll soon be a Jōnin Sensei.
"Despite that, I'll still have the time to train you, but perhaps not as regularly, and perhaps not always one on one. I hope this change doesn't disappoint you, Su-hime."
All I could think of in that moment, was DFB's horror filled face when he met Rock Lee once the boy changed his outfit and hairstyle. God I hoped that was actually going to happen.
I remembered my impression of Rock Lee being that of a ridiculous, adorable and slightly insane kid. Well matched to Gai.
I was certain I'd like him despite my general avoidance of other people's children.
I gave Gai a knowing smile, which curved into something closer to a smirk, "I know you'll be a fantastic Sensei, Gai, and I can't wait to meet these students who have already caught your eye. I'm sure we'll get on infamously."
In the edge of my vision, I saw with a level of satisfaction as DFB's head snapped sharply toward me, trepidation in his eyes at my choice of words.
So guess who Sonaru's going to meet next chapter...
What do you think she'll make of Neji and Tenten when she meets them? What do you think they'll all make of her?
Out of all the Konoha rookie Genin, who do you think Sonaru will get along with the most when she meets them? Who will she dislike the most do you think? Why?
I'm sure at least one of you has a guess at what's going on with the healing chakra thing, and I can't remember if it's more well known in canon than I'm making it out to be. If Kakashi would realistically know what it is in canon, I'm changing that in my story to it something that's mostly been forgotten by everyone.
Additionally, to address any concerns, note I never mentioned torture survival being practiced anywhere. Kakashi wouldn't do that, normal interrogation only.