First Day of Training
"Hansuke," Chizue whispered to her brother, "Aniki, wake up!"
The Uzumaki boy opened his eyes, a pulsing pain going through his head as he did so. He glanced at the clock on his bedside.
'4:09 AM? Goddammit. I know I should've slept earlier!' he thought as he sat up in his bed, his legs shifting over the edge and hanging there. His sister was at the doorway, already dressed in a green sleeveless shirt with a short-sleeved mesh shirt underneath. She also had grey shorts that went halfway down her thigh, under which were leggings that reached her ankles. Around her wrists and ankles were black bands with rods that were fastened onto it. Her hair was fashioned into a long braid with twin bangs that spilled over her brow. Her headband was around her neck.
Hansuke yawned before laying back into his bed and facing away from Chizue. "Five more minutes."
"No. Now." Chizue said sternly, "We need to eat and training ground twenty-three is really far from here. We'll have to leave soon if we want to make it in time."
"Can't we just teleport there?" Hansuke said sleepily, "It'll only take us a couple of minutes using that Shun-shit."
"First of all, watch your language. Second, that's not how it works, aniki; the Shunshin only allows one person to move at high speeds. If I use the technique, then you won't be coming along!"
Hansuke groaned. Seeing that this was going nowhere, Chizue sighed before leaving the room. Seconds later, the boy was snoring once more. Unbeknownst to him, Chizue was in the bathroom filling up a pail of water. Once the pail was filled to the brim, she returned to her brother's room before pouring its contents all over his body.
"GAH!" Hansuke shouted, "Goddammit, Chi! What was that for?!"
"Well, it's the only thing that worked!" she yelled back, "Maybe if you got up earlier I wouldn't have done it!"
"Dammit! Ya ruined my sheets! Now I gotta make a laundry run!"
"Not my problem! God knows you need to do your laundry anyways! This room reeks!"
"Oh it so is your problem! You're gonna regret messing with me, sis!"
"Come at me, bro!"
Hansuke would've continued arguing but he was interrupted by a loud creaking sound. The two of them immediately shut up to listen. Slow yet loud footsteps seemed to emanate from the opposite side of the apartment, getting louder as it made its way towards them. The twins' faces began to pale as they realized what they'd done.
'We've woken Kushina. May god have mercy on our souls.'
"Adamantine Chains." a demonic voice muttered.
Metallic chains covered in glowing yellow energy erupted from the doorway and snaked towards the two of them. Hansuke attempted to vault over his bed to establish cover, but a stray manacle grabbed him by the ankle and pulled him towards his attacker. As it did so, more chains wrapped around his legs and torso, making escape a lost cause. Chizue made no movement, as if she already knew it would result in wasted effort. The chains wrapped around her entire body, sealing her fate. The Uzumaki twins were then hoisted out of the room, flying through the voyeur before being flung onto the sofa where Kushina Uzumaki stood. Her normal violet eyes were completely gone and her long red hair formed nine tendrils that flailed around wildly. Chizue shook with fear while Hansuke let out a small whimper. Kushina raised her fists.
The onslaught ended several minutes later. The twins both had reddened faces and swollen foreheads from the blows that they received. Kushina now sat calmly on the armchair next to them, her chains still wrapped around the two kids.
"Now, what will you do in the morning?" she asked.
"Get ready quietly and leave." the twins slurred in unison.
"And what won't you be?"
"Loud and obnoxious."
"And why won't you be loud and obnoxious?" Kushina asked finally.
"Because it'll wake you up."
"Very good!" she said with a smile. The chains retracted before disappearing into her abdomen, freeing her adoptive siblings. "Looks like we've come to an agreement!"
She leaned towards the two, wrapping her arms around them in a hug. She kissed their foreheads, an action that stung for the two of them, before pulling away.
"Hope you guys have a nice day." she said before returning to the bedroom.
"Crazy witch." Hansuke muttered.
"What was that?!" she shouted from behind the bedroom door.
"Nothing!" the boy squeaked. He rushed towards the bathroom to get ready, Chizue giggling as he did.
The lone warrior stood, his back to the cliff, his body battered and clothes in tatters. His trembling hands were on his katana as he faced his adversary, a man with black hair fashioned in a chonmage, a golden mask on his face, and wearing golden karuta armor all over his body. The lone warrior wondered what the armor was made of; even though he struck the man for what seemed like days, his armor never wavered nor received damage.
However, even though the lone warrior was critically wounded he felt no pain. His eyes were harder than the most hardened diamonds and his smile was sunny even in his grave situation. The golden samurai could beat him, kill him, humiliate him, but his spirit would still remain intact.
"Any last words, rebel scum?" the golden samurai said.
The lone warrior opened his mouth and said, "You may have beaten me, dog of the Shogun, but you haven't won. Soon, the tyrant will fall. And there will be no stopping what comes next."
The golden samurai sighed heavily, his body heaving as he did so, "Very well." He pulled out his katana before slashing diagonally across the lone warrior's chest. Blood gushed from the wound, staining the cliff red. Even then, the ronin was smiling, saying, "You can't kill me in a way that matters." The body of the lone warrior fell backward, down the edge of the cliff and was gone.
"Oi, Kouichi-kun!" Hansuke said as he and his sister approached where he sat. Kouichi looked up from his book to find Hansuke and his sister walking towards the tree that he was sitting under.
"Good morning, Kouichi-san," Chizue said, "Looks like you had no trouble coming here." She shot a miffed look to her brother, who didn't notice.
"Mmhm." the blond responded, "Thanks to the map sensei gave us, coming here wasn't too difficult."
Tatakai gave the two new members maps of all the training grounds in Konoha. He told them that they would change locations everyday to simulate the different landscapes that they would find themselves battling in. Kouichi found that to be a very sound idea that was a bit of a bother to implement. That meant each day they had to wake up at different times depending on where they would be training.
Hansuke sat by the Seijo kid as the boy went back to his book. Chizue remained standing.
"You know while we have time, why don't we stretch?" she asked. Kouichi shut his book again before rising from his seat. He dusted himself off as he moved away from the tree. Hansuke groaned and followed his teammates into the middle of the clearing.
"Aw, do I have to?" he whined.
"You don't, but it's good to always stretch before a workout," Chizue said as she began leading them in the exercises, "Trust me. You're gonna need it for today."
She bent down and touched her toes as she continued speaking, "By the way, Kouichi-san, I've noticed you're always carrying those books around. What're they about?"
"Oh, they're about samurai and stuff."
"Yeah? What kind of stuff?"
"Oh, you know rebels, honor, and all that junk." the boy said dismissively.
"Huh. Doesn't sound like you enjoy it much," she replied dropping onto the ground. She spread her legs, stretched her arms as far as possible before bringing them to the ground between her legs, making her forehead touch the ground. The two boys did the same, though they were both wincing as they did so.
"I do enjoy it," Kouichi said, "I'm just not good at summaries."
"It didn't sound like you even tried to summarize it," Hansuke said with a chuckle.
"Right?" Chizue murmured. She stood back up and the boys did the same. They did some quad stretches, arms stretches, and chest stretches in silence.
"If you wanna read it, I could lend it to you." Kouichi said, "I have the first book back at home."
"I'd like that," Chizue said as she moved into a cross-legged position. She placed her hands on her knees and closed her eyes. The two boys glanced at each other before mimicking their teammate.
"So, what are we doing now?" Hansuke asked.
"Oh, I'm meditating. You two can do whatever you want." she said.
"Oh! Oh! She's using her sensing technique!" Hansuke said, "She can still see us even with her eyes closed!"
"Oh?" Kouichi said. He lifted a hand up with three fingers extended, "How many fingers am I holding up?"
"That's not how it works, Kouichi-san," Chizue replied, "What my brother meant was that I can perceive people by sensing their chakra. So I can 'see' you standing in front of me, but I can't actually see what you're doing."
"What good does that do?" Kouichi asked, sounding a little disappointed by the limitation of the technique.
"Well, if I concentrate hard enough, I can make the range of my perception larger. This could help for scouting."
"Oh." Kouichi said, his face flushing a little, "I didn't mean to offend."
"You didn't." Chizue responded with a grin. Suddenly, she opened her eyes and rose to her feet. "He's here."
Chizue turned away from the group and pointed diagonally. Out of the trees in that direction came their sensei, jogging towards the three genin with something in his arms. He had a bunch of bands around his wrists and ankles just like Chizue, except his were white.
"Good morning, my students. I hope this morning finds you well."
"Morning, sensei." the three genin replied in unison.
The jounin dropped what he was carrying onto the floor. It was a number of bands that looked similar to the ones he and Chizue were wearing, though these ones were red and blue.
Hansuke lifted one of the bands. "Weights?"
Sensei nodded, "Choose what color you want and put them on."
"I call blue!" Hansuke hollered. He grabbed the four blue braces and fastened them on his wrists and ankles. Kouichi did the same with the red braces. The two boys slumped a little, feeling a bit of heavy from the extra load.
"Each of these braces carry two kilograms of weight, which adds up to eight kilograms in total. Every two weeks, I will add an extra kilogram to each brace. You will wear these braces all day, everyday, with the obvious exceptions of showers and sleep." their teacher explained, "Chizue and I, however, will be adding one kilogram a month instead."
Hansuke and Kouichi looked at him with questioning stares. Tatakai cleared his throat before saying, "The two of us have been doing this training longer than you have. I'm making you guys add more weight to try to catch you guys up. Do you understand?"
The two boys nodded.
"Alright. Let's get down to business." He dropped into a push-up position. "For the next thirty minutes, we're going to do some warm-up drills. We'll change periodically in the allotted time on my signal."
The trio of genin dropped down into the same position. "Start!"
"Done!" Sensei said, pulling himself off the ground from the plank position. Kouichi flopped onto his back, heaving exhausted breaths as he looked at the morning sky.
'That was a warm-up?' He thought, 'Is It too late to give up on being a ninja? I think being a carpenter or artist would be fine.'
While Kouichi laid there rethinking his career choice, Hansuke sat up and looked at his teacher. The man was barely winded, a couple of drops of sweat falling down his pale face. Chizue was back on her feet as well, perspiring just as much as their teacher. Meanwhile Hansuke's face was covered with sweat, enough to pool his entire hand and then some.
"We have to do that daily?" the Uzumaki kid asked.
"Yes." Sensei replied. Chizue grinned at his shocked expression.
"You get used to it eventually." she added. She offered him a hand and he took it. She hoisted him up to his feet before moving towards her teammate.
"Come on, Kouichi-san. We've only started." she said. She let out a small grunt as she dragged him to his feet.
"We still have six and half more hours of this?" he asked groggily.
"Actually, no." Tatakai said, "Now we enter the sparring portion of training. For the next hour and a half, you will take turns sparring while the odd one out will sit here and watch with me. No ninjutsu, weapons use," he glanced at Hansuke, "or fuinjutsu. I'll reward hits with points. A clean hit is worth one point. A glancing hit is worth half. Whoever reaches six points first wins. First up, Kouichi and Chizue."
Hansuke pouted as he followed Sensei away from the two genin. He watched his teammate square up against each other. The two of them took up a stance. Hansuke watched as the two combatants began circling each other.
"Who do you think is going to win?" Sensei said.
"Obviously Chi. She had a full year of extra training and she kicked the shit out of both me and Kouichi yesterday. I really don't see why you would pit us against her. Can't you spar with her?"
Tatakai looked at the boy with an admonishing glare. "Kids your age shouldn't curse."
After Hansuke mumbled an apology, he continued, "Well I could, but the difference in skill between her and I is far too wide for it to be of any help. I mean, she's not even ten and I'm in my twenties. I'm a jounin and she's still a genin. A talented genin, but a genin nonetheless," he explained, "Also, yesterday she used the Shunshin, Kawarimi, and Henge, which she's not allowed to use now. Couple that with the fact that I allowed her to remove her weights yesterday and it makes sense why she was giving the two of you problems. You guys have a better chance than you think."
"Alright," Hansuke said before turning back to the spar, "Go Kouichi-kun! Kick my sister's ass!"
Kouichi looked back at the boy with a grin before giving a thumbs up. Chizue immediately pounced, punching the Seijo in the side, sending the distracted boy skidding a couple of feet.
"Never take your eyes off your opponent, Kouichi-san," she warned.
"That's one point for Chizue." Sensei said. Kouichi hissed with displeasure and charged towards the girl. He sent out a wild flurry of fists, but none of them connected. Chizue was dodging gracefully, and whatever she couldn't dodge she blocked.
'Dang it,' Kouichi thought, 'Why can't I land a hit?'
He sent a blow to her head but she blocked it with a forearm. It seemed like this was what she was waiting for because she immediately retaliated with a punch to his nose. His head cocked back from the force of it and she continued with a knee to his stomach. He got his hands up on time but his gut still got hit if only barely. He jumped back to put some distance between them.
"That's now two and a half points for Chizue." their sensei said. Chizue stared from a couple paces away, her face completely calm. To Kouichi, it was quite unnerving.
'Why's she just standing there?' he thought, 'She's mopping the floor with me! Shouldn't she be on the offensive?'
He ran towards her, sending a haymaker towards the left side of her face. She jumped to his right, evading the attack entirely. His eyes followed her and he put up a hand to block the palm strike she sent. He grabbed her wrist and pulled as he turned, hitting her in the center of her chest.
Chizue fell onto her back before rolling back onto her feet. She grimaced as she rubbed her sternum.
"That's one for Kouichi."
The two combatants ran towards each other to continue their spar.
Hansuke and Kouichi gaped up at the tree. Hanging upside down from one of the bigger branches was their teacher. Both his hands were in his pockets and he looked completely calm, as if he was standing on the same ground that they stood.
"This is the Tree Climbing Exercise." he explained, "It is a drill that will help refine your chakra control."
"How did you even get up there?!" Hansuke exclaimed. The trio of genin were sent further into the forest for a different exercise and found their teacher like this when they came back.
"I walked." Sensei said nonchalantly. At their confused looks, he began to walk down the tree as a demonstration.
"How are you doing that?" Kouichi asked.
"Simple." he said, not stopping from his descent, "I channel some chakra into the base of my legs and use it to stick to the tree," he finally reached the ground. "This is a skill that you will always use which is why I wanted you to begin learning it as soon as possible. I don't expect you to perfect it in a day. Heck, it took Chizue three weeks of constant practice to finally move on to the next exercise."
"What's the next exercise?!" Hansuke asked excitedly.
"Woah woah! Don't get too eager. We'll get there when I think you're ready."
"Hmph." Hansuke grunted. He made a hand sign as he began molding chakra and sending it downwards. A small amount of dust kicked up at his feet before he began walking towards the tree. He took his first step onto the bark and was immediately launched away from it. He landed on his back.
"Ah, I forgot to mention something."
Hansuke looked at his teacher with a venomous glare. Chizue was trying-and failing-to contain her giggles. Kouichi was listening intently.
"When it comes to sticking to surfaces you have to strike a balance," Tatakai explained, "Put too much chakra towards the surface area and you'll be repelled. Put too little and you won't stick properly. You have to find a middle ground." He tossed two kunai next to the fallen Uzumaki. "Use these kunai to mark your progress."
'You could've told me that before I tried, asshole,' Hansuke thought as he picked up a kunai. He got back up and dusted himself off before trying again. This time he stuck to the bark of the tree but began sliding off immediately. He broke his fall with his hands and somersaulted backwards onto his feet.
'Shit, this is hard, Or he made it look easier than it actually is.' the boy thought. He glanced to his right to see what Kouichi was doing but found that he wasn't there. Instead he was standing in front of another tree and inspecting it.
"Oi, Kouichi-kun! Why don't we race?" Hansuke said. 'Nothing like a little competition to kick me into gear.'
Kouichi muttered, "Yeah, okay." He then began walking up the tree. Hansuke's eyes widened with shock as the Seijo kid continued climbing, almost as if he was walking on the ground. Just when he thought Kouichi would succeed on his first try, the blond-haired boy began falling. Hansuke ran to catch him, but that wasn't needed as their teacher appeared on the tree. One of his hands was clutching the boy's shirt as he stood on the bark again, his arm swinging like a pendulum as he kept the boy taut.
"It's best if you tread carefully," the jounin warned, "It's a pretty nasty fall and it wouldn't do for you to get injured." He began walking down the tree, putting the boy down gently.
"C'mon Kouichi! You almost had it." Hansuke said encouragingly.
Kouichi nodded.
"You are making some astonishing amount of progress," their teacher said, "Just make sure to be careful. Hansuke, practice on your own tree."
"Alright Tata-sensei!" Hansuke said before running towards his tree. He made a couple steps up before the bark broke. He sliced the bark with a kunai before jumping off the tree and landing on his feet. With one last nod, Tatakai walked into the forest with Chizue following him.
"So, what will I learn?" Chizue asked when they reached a clearing.
The jounin reached into his tool bag and pulled out a single paper. He handed it to the girl who looked in bewilderment.
"What is this?"
"That is chakra induction paper," Tatakai explained, "It's paper made from a special tree that's been fed chakra all it's life."
"What do I do with it?"
"Channel some chakra into it and we'll know your natural affinity. This is to test what nature release you'll learn first."
Excited, Chizue did as she was told. The paper began glowing from the moulded chakra. The white sheet began to slowly turn brown from the area of contact until the entire sheet was the same color. Then it began to crumble away from the top of the sheet until the entire paper was gone.
"Oh no!" Chizue said, "Is that bad?" She bowed, "I'm sorry, sensei, for ruining your paper."
Tatakai chuckled, "It's fine. The paper changes depending on what affinity you have. If you have fire it burns, water it dampens, lightning it wrinkles, wind it splits, and earth it crumbles. So your affinity is earth."
"Okay. So are you going to teach me Doton techniques?"
"No, no, no," Sensei said as he wagged his finger, "That'd be like teaching you how to run before you learn how to walk. There's levels to this." He walked to a nearby tree and pulled off a low-hanging leaf. He handed her the leaf.
"Now, try to do the same thing to this leaf that you did to paper." he instructed.
Chizue took the leaf and concentrated, shoving chakra into the leaf in an effort to make it crumble. Nothing happened. She tried again, this time trying to force even more chakra into it but received the same result. She closed her eyes as she poured as much chakra as she could into the leaf, her eyebrow knitting together from the exertion but still nothing happened. She continued trying this over and over, her forehead pooling with sweat as she did.
"If you think just shoving chakra into the leaf will do the trick, then you're mistaken," Tatakai said.
Chizue huffed in exasperation, "Then what should I do?"
"Are you sure you want me to just give you the answer?" he said with a smirk, "You won't learn anything from that."
"I'm not learning anything without help," she argued.
"That's true but a good teacher guides their students to the answer while letting them reach it themselves."
"Well then guide me!" Chizue whined.
"Ah, but challenging students is a teacher's best tool for guidance," he said, calm in the face of her mounting annoyance.
The girl just glared in response.
"Right, right," he said as he rubbed his chin, "Well, let's answer your question with another question."
Chizue sighed and her sensei chuckled, " I know, I know. Just hear me out. What are the properties of each element?"
"Huh?"
"How does each nature transformation act?" He repeated, "When executing nature transformation ninjutsu, how does each element do its damage?"
The Uzumaki girl looked at him in confusion, still not understanding what he meant. The jounin sighed.
"Let's take fire, for example," he said as he grabbed the leaf from her hand. Immediately the leaf began burning but at a slow rate, giving Chizue enough time to notice what was happening, "Can you describe what's going on here?"
"The leaf's burning."
"That it is, but what does 'burning' mean?" he pressed, "What does an object on fire go through?"
"The fire spreads across the object."
Tatakai smiles at that, "Can you think of any other instance where something spreads?"
Chizue pondered that. "There's that one time that aniki was sick. We had to stay away from him so it wouldn't spread to us."
"That's one example of something spreading. Can you think of another?"
She put a finger to her chin in rumination but shook her head. "Sorry."
"That's fine," he said as the leaf turned to cinders, "The answer I was looking for was poison. When a poisoned weapon is penetrated past the skin, the agent spreads through the body, killing the person as it does."
Chizue nodded, "I get it. So fire acts like a poison."
"Correct. Now that you have that one down, what does earth act like?"
Hansuke was panting. It's been hours since sensei left with Chizue and he made very little progress on the exercise. He looked at the large tree and the placement of the kunai mark. The highest was only a third up the tree. He glanced towards Kouichi and his tree.
"How's it coming along my dude?" he hollered.
"Oh, it's coming," Kouichi said. He was currently in the middle of climbing the tree. However, him uttering an answer caused his concentration to waver. Sensing his impending fall, he slashed across the bark before leaping off, landing a couple feet away from the tree. The mark he made was a little past the halfway point of the tree.
"Just not fast enough," he said. Hansuke made his way towards the boy.
"You're more than halfway there. I'm only up a third the way." Hansuke said, "I mean, he did say we won't make it on the first day."
Kouichi said nothing in response.
Hansuke pondered something before grinning, "You wanna go see what he's teaching Chizue?"
"Sure."
Hansuke ran towards the forest and Kouichi followed.