Chapter 3
I found out, pretty soon, that training with Nagato was going to be difficult. He was pretty hardcore. He wanted me to be powerful and strong, but he wasn't sure how to go about controlling my eyes. The Myojo was so rare, that barely anyone had thought about writing scrolls about how to control it. He wanted to start off, by seeing what I knew, and what my abilities were like. He asked me obvious questions like, 'what's chakra?' and 'Explain how to use jutsu' he even asked me, 'What are the different types of jutsu'. He then wanted to see what was my strongest jutsu. The funny thing was, I didn't really have one. I was good at individual things. I was book smart. But I hadn't properly mastered many jutsu. I showed him my Shadow Clone jutsu. That was the one I was most confident at.
'Good,' he said, 'Anything else?'
I thought about this. I couldn't remember much about my life before the landfill site. I remembered having the piss taken out of me, by my clan. I remembered Shadow Clone jutsu. But the more I thought about it, the more I realised I couldn't even remember where my village was. I faintly remembered my brother creating a giant fireball but, that was it. Noticing my confusion, Nagato reassured me. He put his hands on my shoulders and looked into my eyes. A bit like a medic-nin would do, when looking for concussion.
'I think you might have a mild case of amnesia.' he concluded, 'There isn't a way to cure it, even with a medical nin. I suppose we're just gunna have to start from scratch. Do you remember what chakra nature you are?'
I tried my hardest to remember, but nothing was coming through. Reluctantly, I shook my head.
'Well that's ok, I'll just grab a piece of chakra paper, and we'll find out.' he turned around, and walked inside. A few minutes later he returned, with a small sheet of paper. he smiled at me. 'I love this test. There are five different chakra natures. Earth, Wind, Lightning, Water and Fire. To find out which one you are we do the paper test. All you have to do, is hold it in-between your middle finger and your index finger, run your chakra through the paper and it will let you know. If you're lightning-natured, the paper will wrinkle, if you're wind-natured, it'll tear in half, if you're fire-natured, it will burn. If you're water-natured, the paper will get soggy and if you're earth-natured, the paper will crumble.' He handed me the paper and looked at me.
I put the paper in-between my index finger and middle finger, just as he had instructed. I ran my chakra through it. Nothing happened for a second, which scared me. But then the little sheet of paper went soggy. Telling me, that I had a water-natured chakra. Nagato smiled and looked excited. He stood up and began teaching me about all types of water style jutsu. He told me about the Hozuki clan. A clan who had created a technique, in which they literally transformed their bodies into water. He also told me about Tobirama Senju, a man considered to be the greatest water style user ever. He then told me about how Yahiko was a water style user and how he could help. Which I thought unlikely, considering he didn't seem all that interested. Through all the babbling, I noticed how excited he was about training me. Which was odd. He didn't strike me as a person to get excited over anything, let alone me.
'Anyway,' he said, after so much theory, on water style jutsu, my head was about to explode. 'I'm not a great water style user, but I know little bits. So today, I suppose I can teach you little things, like Water clone jutsu.'
This actually sounded quite interesting. I was so intrigued by clones. Although, they were the easiest thing for any ninja to master, save transformation jutsu. I looked up at him in excitement. It was my turn to be excited. 'Ok.' I said.
'Right, they're similar to Shadow Clones, which you've already got nailed, so this shouldn't be too difficult for you. But the difference is, it creates clones that have one tenth of your power. It's only a C-Rank jutsu, but I'm sure your fine with that.'
I was. The easier something was, the better. I liked showing off, but having probably been a terrible ninja most of my life, I'd found out that it was difficult. The truth was, the harder things were, the worse I was at them. Genin stuff I could do, easily. And, of course, Academy stuff. But once I hit Chuunin level I began to plummet. He showed me the hand signs to Water Clone jutsu and explained what I had to do. When he was done explaining I put it into action. And I was really good. I created strong life-like clones that would distract an enemy in battle. I knew I wouldn't be able to get too far away from the clones without them losing control, but that I could deal with. After every clone I created, Nagato applauded. It turns out, I can make a lot of clones. When I was finished, Nagato nodded and went back inside. Was that it? Our training for the day was over? Where had the excitement gone? I stood up and walked inside, where I saw him talking to Konan about something. I walked up the stairs to my room and flopped out on my bed. I was incredibly tired. Which was odd because I'd only been making clones. I closed my eyes and dropped off to sleep.
I was being dragged. I'm not sure who by. Hell, I wasn't sure where I was. I looked around and saw trees. Lots and lots of trees. So I was in a forest? The land of trees? No I'd been there before, it looked different to this. I looked up and saw my dragger was short. He had white hair. He looked like he was a chuunin, maybe just turned jounin. I couldn't tell. He was cute, kinda like a puppy. I wanted to put him in my pocket. He was talking to someone, it was then I noticed he was wearing a black mask. I looked over to the person he was talking to. Tall, Blonde hair. Definitely Jounin. Maybe even higher. He looked familiar, but I couldn't think of where I'd seen him before. I had just woken up, though, and it is always a bit to get your head around when you wake up, being dragged. The tall one was talking, but it didn't seem to be aimed at my dragger. 'Obito, we need to get back to the village so that we can interrogate her.' he said. 'I know, but it's not going to hurt if we have a little break,' said an unknown voice. I wasn't sure where it was coming from. 'Oh for goodness sake Obito! Don't you realise we're on the brink of war?! The tension between the shinobi villages are so tight, having a break this close to the Hidden Sand Village, could make things worse!' said my dragger. Suddenly, they stopped. The person, with the unknown voice, came into view. He was short, as well, but something about him made me certain he was a chuunin. I could tell by their headbands that they were Leaf shinobi. I was scared, but being a shinobi, I couldn't show it. 'For goodness sake, Kakashi,' said the chuunin, Obito, 'I know what's going on, I know about being close to war, but I'm sorry if my feet are hurting and I want to sit down for two seconds. What makes you think we'll get caught? And if we do, what makes you think it'll make things worse?' he said. Was this boy an actual moron? As if reading my thoughts the white haired boy, Kakashi said, 'Are you an idiot? Or do you just like playing dumb?' The blonde haired man stopped them. 'Obito, Kakashi, please stop arguing. First of all, it's not good to argue with a teammate, you need to know you can trust them and if you're always arguing how are you supposed to think that? Secondly, If you continue to raise your voices everyone in the shinobi world is going to know we're here. Now I know it's an inconvenience not having Rin here as peacemaker, but she's on another mission, you need to get on or else.' he said. He was so familiar, it was bugging me that I couldn't remember. 'Or else what?' said Obito, in a sulk. The man materialised behind Obito. Wow. He was fast. 'Or else, you'll have me to answer to, Obito Uchiha.' he said. Even I was scared. Well, even more scared. That man was fast. I didn't even see him move. How had he done that? 'Yes Minato sensei. I'm sorry,' Obito said, terror in his voice. It was then that the man noticed me. He saw I was awake. And he was concerned. 'Kakashi! The captive's awake!' he said. Kakashi turned, quickly, but I had already kicked him. I stood up and ran. Even though I knew I wouldn't get away. That man was so fast, and my hands were tied. I fell over, expecting the worse. I was waiting for a crash. I saw the man's feet in front of me. I was going to die. He squatted down and grabbed my face, looking into my eyes. He smelt nice and he was quite handsome. His eyes grew as if he remembered me from somewhere as well. It was then I remembered where I'd seen him from. He was...
I woke up. My dreams were getting weirder. Ever since I met Nagato, I was having odd dreams. Dreams that were memories, and dreams that seemed like memories, but hadn't happened yet. I looked around and realised Konan was in my room, looking at me. This made my defences kick in. Why was she in here?
'Umm...Hello,' I said, holding a pillow around me like I was naked or something. 'Why are you..umm..in here?' I asked, as politely as I could.
'Nagato wanted me to wake you up but you were dreaming so I didn't want to,' she said.
'I wasn't dreaming,' I lied.
'Too bad, I'm intrigued by your dreams.' she said, looking seriously at me. 'I want to know how you knew my name before we met.' she said standing up and walking over to me. I backed into the head of the bed. Konan, intrigued me, but scared me a little.
'Umm...I dunno, maybe I heard someone say your name before I fell asleep.' I said. I would've been surprised if she'd bought it, I hadn't even bought it.
'Ok, well, what was the dream about?' she asked.
I sat there trying to remember the details of the dream. But I couldn't. I was really starting to worry about my memory. It was only little things I was forgetting, but it was annoying and worrying. Trying to ignore it, I told her the bits I could remember.
'I can't exactly remember. But you, me and Hoshi were at a hot springs in one of the baths. You two were talking about, something.' I hesitated, closing my eyes to get a better picture. 'There was another girl there. She was blonde.' That was all I could remember. I looked her, a little upset. She understood, nodded and stood up, turning to leave the room.
She turned around, as if remembering something. 'I forgot to tell you, breakfast is ready.'
Breakfast? It was like four o'clock, when I fell asleep. Had I slept for a long time? It was then my belly grumbled, letting me know that I hadn't eaten since yesterday lunch and was starving. I got up got dressed and ran down the stairs. Ready for my next day of training.
I trained for about six months. In that time I learned loads of jutsu. I'd learnt, Giant Vortex jutsu, Rippling Torrent and thanks to the, surprising, help of Yahiko, Water Dragon jutsu, Demon Fish Wave Crash and Raging Waves. I'd also learnt a bit of Taijutsu. But I wasn't brilliant at it. I was stronger and Nagato had taught me how to control my eyes. Using the training he used to control his eyes as a practice technique. We looked for as many scrolls on the Myojo as we could, trying to help us with training techniques, we'd found some and I wasn't that bad at it. What was interesting, was at the end of every training session, no matter how excited he had been during it, he would simply nod and walk back in the building. No smile or anything on his face. I was almost ready. I just needed to perfect using my eyes and then I would be able to help Nagato.
One sunny day, in June, Nagato came out for training with dummies, an umbrella, and a raincoat. I was confused. He placed the dummies over on the far side of the training field. They were made out of wood, and looked like it would take a lot to break them. After Nagato had placed them in different places around the field, he walked over to me. I was wearing my usual training clothes, but had decided to put my hair up. I hated seeing it. Nagato's red Uzumaki hair looked great, like it always did. It looked so smooth, I really wanted to smooth it. When he finally reached me he put his hands on my shoulders and looked into my eyes.
'This is it,' he said, sounding hopeful, 'time to find out how far you've come.' I looked up at him and then at the dummies, I was very nervous. I didn't want to do bad in front of Nagato. I had really grown fond of him.
I took a deep breath. 'Fine.' I said, 'What do I have to do?' I asked.
Nagato turned around and pointed to each of the dummies. There were four. 'What you have to do,' he said, 'is shoot down each of these dummies with a different weather type.'
Oh god. I was going to terrible. My heart started racing and I took another deep breath. 'Ok.' I said. I'd got passed arguing with Nagato. I couldn't really say no, when I would had to do it anyway.
Nagato grabbed his umbrella. 'Cut this one down with a lightning storm.' he said. I looked at the first dummy. Determined. I concentrated on the dummy. Making sure to push any unsure thoughts out of my head. Black clouds started to appear. I didn't stop concentrating. I couldn't get side-tracked, I'd do bad otherwise. I pushed all my concentration on the dummy. It began to rain, and thunder could be heard. A streak of lightning came down and cut the dummy in half. Nagato clapped and took me towards the next dummy. 'Cut this one with a tornado.' he said. So I did what I did on the first one. I concentrated and the wind around the dummy started to pick up, it was rotating. This one was happening quicker. The wind was spiralling so fast that it rose into a giant twister. I waited, however. When the dummy finally went up with the tornado and was very high, I stopped concentrating and it came crashing down, breaking into pieces as it hit the floor. Nagato smiled. It was getting quicker and taking less effort each time I did it. This one would be easy. We walked over to the next dummy. I noticed the fourth dummy was very close to the third. 'Ok,' Nagato said, 'Now cut both of these dummies down with a hailstorm.' I looked at him with an are-you-kidding-me kind of face. Both the dummies? I'd never tried that before! This was my final test and he comes out with something I haven't done yet?! Reluctantly, I nodded. I moved so I was in-between both dummies. I concentrated really hard. Nagato got his umbrella out again. Making sure all my concentration was on this one. To be honest, I thought it would be more difficult than it was. It felt just like when I'd made the lightning show. Snow started to fall, but I didn't want it to. My eyes starting stinging. I thought about hailstones. About big hailstones. Suddenly massive rocks fell from the sky and landed on the dummies. Right on their 'heads'. My eyes were killing me, but I was so happy! I'd done it! I'd got the two dummies. I jumped up and down screaming, 'I did it!?' I turned around and looked at Nagato. He nodded like he did every time we finished training. But as he turned around to go in, I saw a sly smile creep across his face. He was as happy as I was, he just didn't want to show it. I continued feeling good about myself before walking in, going up to my room and sleeping.
