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Chapter 7 - Journey to the Land of Waves: Part 3 - The Forest of Chakra

Kakashi slowly opened his eyes. Exhaustion threatened to close them again, but he willed himself to stay awake. An unfamiliar house surrounded him and he lay in an unfamiliar bed. One thing, or person rather, that he recognized was Amaya. She watched him with cool, unconcerned eyes. She knew the drill, knew what to do when he over-used his Sharingan.

"Finally awake, I see," she said, a smile tugging at her lips. "You should've seen our poor Genin hovering over you. They were worried sick about their sensei."

"Where are they now?"

"Helping Tazuna and his daughter with some chores."

"They need more training," Kakashi said, his exhaustion-ridden mind forgetting to explain his reasoning. He tried to sit up, but Amaya held him down with a firm hand.

"I think I can handle that. You need rest. Otherwise, you'll be about as useful as a scarecrow in a field with no crops."

The Copy-nin rolled his eyes at her teasing, but it meant she still cared so he wouldn't stop her. "All right. They're all doing okay, though?"

"Yeah, their little psyches are fine as far as I can tell. Kids bounce back fast."

The auburn-haired Jonin moved to get up, but Kakashi caught her hand. Half crouched, she waited for him to speak. A million different scenarios ran through his head,each a different reaction from her about the question he was about to ask. A second more of deliberation and he decided it was worth the risk. "How're you doing?"

"I'm fine," Amaya said, a reassuring smile spreading across her face.


Haku knelt beside Zabuza's body, scissors in hand, ready to bring his master back from the dead, but Zabuza grabbed his wrist.

"That's enough. I'll do it," the nukenin growled, pulling the bandages down from his mouth.

"So you've already come back to life."

Ignoring the boy, Zabuza slowly sat up, feeling the weakness brought on by his near-death state and his grueling battle. As he spoke, he none too gently pulled the senbon from his neck. "Dammit, you're brutal, Haku."

"You're the one who's brutal, Zabuza. If you keep pulling them out like that, you really will be finished."

His gaze slid to the hunter-nin mask Haku still wore. "How long are you planning on wearing that phony mask? Take it off."

"I have good memories of this mask and it was quite useful for tricking that ninja," Haku stated as he did as he was told. "If I hadn't intervened, you'd be dead now."

The ex-Kiri nin spat blood from his mouth. "Putting me in a near-deathstate is fine but not through the pressure points in my neck." He pulled the bandages back over his face. "Cruel as usual. I think you enjoy it."

"It was the only sure way. And I wouldn't want to mark up your flawless body. You'd complain about that even more." Haku caught his master as the other nin tried to stand and lowered him back down. "There's no point trying to move. You'll be numb for a week. Although, if you're as stubborn as usual, you'll probably be moving in half the time."

"You're so innocent. And you're clever at the same time. Rare combination. That's why I keep you around."

Haku chuckled and smiled. "I'm still a kid. What else would you expect? Speaking of innocence, though, a Leaf shinobi intercepted me on my way to help you. Her body was covered in tattoos."

"Yeah, what about her? Did she try and stop you?"

"She did at first but saw through my disguise. Then she...she offered to help us…."

"Help? Bah, some sort of trick to distract you."

"That's what I thought, but I could tell she meant it. She offered to plead our case to the Hokage if we'd drop our contract with Gato and leave the bridge-builder alone."

Zabuza said nothing more. Her words were only a trick. If they were real, though…. No. There'd be no idle speculation. He couldn't allow himself the luxury of hope.


"Zabuza isn't dead," Amaya announced to Kakashi, the Genin, Tazuna, and his daughter, Tsunami. Silence dominated the room until her words finally sunk in.

"My thoughts exactly," the silver-haired shinobi agreed.

"But we saw his body. Believe it!" Naruto yelled.

Sakura frowned. "Kakashi-sensei, you checked him yourself. You said that his heart stopped."

"His heart did stop, but that was just a temporary state to simulate death."

"With the senbon you said that boy used and from what I saw of him, it wouldn't be a stretch to say that he'd have more than enough skill to do that. Besides, senbon pierce deeply but are only fatal if they hit a vital organ. And there aren't any In the neck," Amaya chimed in.

Tazuna and Tsunami exchanged fearful glances, but Tazuna spoke for them both. "Come on, you're overthinking this, aren't you?"

"Encountering suspicion, the ninja prepares quickly. Hesitation leads to disaster. Every shinobi knows this," the Copy-nin stated.

The auburn-haired Jonin glanced at Naruto, who sat beside her. He seemed pleased with the news, eager for a second chance to fight the missing-nin.

"Sensei," Sakura asked after a moment's thought, "you said prepare quickly, but how can we do that when you can barely move?"

"I'm going to train you while Kakashi-san rests," Amaya said.

"Hold on. A little last-minute training won't make us strong enough to fight Zabuza. We have to be reasonable about this," Sakura said.

"Sakura, Kakashi was only able to defeat Zabuza because you all helped him. You've grown. And Naruto... you've grown the most." Amaya smiled at the young blond and a sheepish smile crossed his face.

The uninjured Jonin clapped her hands. "Then let's get to training."


"So," Amaya said once they'd gone into the woods near Tazuna's home. "I know all of you, including Naruto despite his efforts to convince us otherwise, understand the basics of chakra, but what we're going to work on is control. If you have control over your chakra, your jutsu will be more effective. For example, Sakura, create a clone please. Oh, and without announcing your technique. I'm going to break all of you of that habit. It's ridiculous, unnecessary, and quite frankly, dangerous."

Sakura did as she was asked, and a moment later, two other Sakuras stood in the clearing. "How was that, Amaya-sensei?"

"Very good but let me show you what that same amount of chakra can do for someone whose control is much better." Amaya performed the hand seals and ten clones appeared. "You see? With enough control, you can stretch your techniques even further. Now for what you'll be doing." She turned and, without thought, walked up the nearest tree and stood upside down on a sturdy branch. Sakura and Naruto gasped while Sasuke only looked impressed. Amaya threw kunai at their feet. "To do this, you need to maintain a steady, precise level of chakra. Too little and you can't grip the tree. Too much will break the bark and repel you. Now, you try and mark the highest you get every time."

Moments later, Naruto and Sasuke were both on the ground glaring at their respective trees while Sakura, feeling victorious, sat on a branch.

"Good job, Sakura. Sasuke, Naruto, keep trying." Amaya leapt from the tree and met Sakura as she reached the ground. "Hold out your wrists."

The pink-haired Genin complied and Amaya snapped a metal band around each of the girl's slender wrists. Sakura examined the plain metal bands. "What're these for?"

Amaya touched the bands and a symbol matching one of her tattoos was seared into the metal. Immediately, the Genin's knees buckled at the unexpected weight.

The Jonin crouched beside her student, who struggled to lift her arms. "That should be more than enough to get you through this training."

"Enough for what?" Sakura asked through gritted teeth.

"As female shinobi, we're at a disadvantage when it comes to our chakra pool. Ours will almost certainly not match those of our male counterparts. Our advantage, however, lies in our control. But that doesn't mean we should neglect our chakra pools. So you're going to do the tree climbing exercise with these weighted bracelets until you can reach the top of the tree. Trust me, even with your already impressive level of control, this won't be easy. The rest of the rules for the training apply, but the amount of weight in each band will change at fixed intervals as you manipulate your chakra, so you'll need to adjust the amount of chakra you use accordingly. Do you understand?"

Nodding, Sakura managed to get to her feet. With the Genin up and ready to begin training again. Amaya decided there was nothing more she could do for them so she left, wanting to be alone. She found a small pond and sat beside it to meditate. Calming her mind, she allowed thoughts to come and go as they pleased. At first, none contained the taint of the madness she'd almost succumb to years ago, but as her thoughts drifted to her talk with the Hokage, to entering the mission room to wait for Team 7 for the first time, and to the recent battle with Zabuza, she began to feel her chest tighten, feel her breathing become shallow, feel her heart beat faster. Nervousness and hesitancy at returning to ninja life that she'd ignored, written off, crashed over her in mammoth waves.

She tried to rise above the flood of her thoughts but only succeeded in dragging herself deeper. Just as she was about to give in, despite all the work she'd done to stave off the insanity, someone was beside her, shaking her. Reflexes kicked in and she slipped a blade hidden beneath the long sleeve of her coat into her hand, thrusting the steel at her attacker. The weapon never made contact with flesh; a firm hand gripped her wrist. Opening her eyes, she saw a blur of silver and black.

"Amaya, look at me," the blur insisted, tightening its grip on her wrist.

She focused and the image resolved into Kakashi.

"You recognize me now?"

Nodding, Amaya looked away from the other shinobi. Kakashi released her, letting her draw away the glowing blue chakra blade that had almost taken out his eye. "Well, that could've been messy." The auburn-haired Jonin said nothing, so he continued. "That didn't seem like fine to me."