A/N: The following two chapters are just going to consist of Yume and Yoku's training, so it ought to be humerous. This chapter is mainly dedicated to Yume-chii, because she dedicated a Oneshot to me, and used the Guilt Attack to get me to write it.
Chapter 3 – Yume's Training
~ * ~Yume's POV ~ * ~
That asshole Pein couldn't possibly have been more brutal, could he? 'Not allowed to leave the base unless escorted by one of the members' … what the hell was he thinking? That meant we're not allowed out of the base, period. Itachi-kun was even meaner than I thought, but it made him so cute! He didn't even say a word to me … when I say it like that it sounds so sad …
Mine and Yoku's new room wasn't too bad. The beds were on separate sides of the room, there was a bedside cabinet beside each and a working desk at the foot of each. Between the beds was a large window.
My only problem was that everything was cream-coloured. As in, EVERYTHING. They really had no idea to decorate, did they? And I had no way of decorating myself because a CERTAIN SOMEONE forbid us from leaving, and there was no one I could ask to buy me some posters or anything because—firstly—I had no money. Secondly, they were all too mean and they wouldn't get me some, and Tobi was too stupid.
Yoku and I had to sleep in some of Konan's clothes, which were too big for both of us and smelled like paper—no shit, right? Deidara woke Yoku and me the following morning with a loud 'KATSU!' followed by a tiny bird exploding over both of our heads. Yoku just gasped and clutched her heart while I cursed and cussed and swore at Deidara. Honestly, I don't know what she sees in him.
"What the hell, man?" I yelled angrily after my cursing.
"That was unnecessary, Senpai," Tobi said timidly.
"Get up, get dressed and get out, un," Deidara said simply.
"Unless you haven't noticed, we don't actually have any clothes," I said irritably, "I'm not training in clothes that would fit an elephant."
"Don't say that so loudly, Yume-chan!" Tobi said, "Konan-chan will kill you!"
"She's not allowed to," I said simply, hoping it was true, "Kakuzu's got a lot of money, doesn't he? Ask him for a few bucks and take us to town."
"Kakuzu-san will kill us, Yume-chan!" Tobi said timidly.
"Bribe Hidan into getting money from Kakuzu," I said, and then lost my nerve and yelled, "WILL YOU PLEASE JUST GET US SOME PROPER CLOTHES?"
"Tobi, get Hidan to get them clothes," Deidara said, "You have an hour to get some money or I blast your ass to hell, un."
With that, they exited the room, and Yoku fell down again, whining, "I can't believe this!"
"What?"
"We never designed spare clothing!"
"We never thought this would happen," I said irritably, "Why design spare anything if you believe you'll never need it?"
"It was a good choice, though, yeah? Sending Tobi to get the money?" she asked.
"'Suppose so," I replied, and fell down too, "I'm going back to sleep."
~ * ~ Two Hours Later ~ * ~
Tobi had been chased all around the base and even outside and through the entire forest by a fuming Hidan and Kakuzu. Apparently he had given them each a letter—the stupid prick he was—one telling Hidan that Kakuzu was going to give him some money for being such a cool partner, and another telling Kakuzu that Hidan wanted money. Of course, when they met up for the exchange, they realized that Tobi was the only one stupid enough to set something like that up.
Luckily, however, Tobi had managed to get enough money from Kakuzu—though no one knew how—to buy Yoku and me three outfits and pyjamas each. Yoku's were, predictably, all black and purple while mine were black and blue; and pink pyjamas with pictures of baby bears on them. Yoku had not even managed to thank Tobi, which I had to do for her.
We were back at the base, inside a massive, empty, dimly lit room. Deidara had sent Tobi away, for fear of killing him, so it was just the three of us in the room.
"Well, I'm supposed to teach you the basic jutsus. You told me you already knew how chakra works, so I'm not going to go into that, un," he said with a bored tone, "Do you know how the basic jutsus work, un?"
"Depends on what you mean with 'basic jutsu'," I taunted him, "For someone like you, a basic jutsu is Replacement. For someone like, I don't know, Itachi-kun, a basic jutsu is Great Fireball."
Yoku glared at me angrily, and I felt a satisfied chill run through my body. Deidara took a deep breath with closed eyes and I grinned.
"Since you evidently already know, I'll leave you here. Call me once you can do a Replacement, Replication and Transformation, un."
He disappeared with a puff of smoke and Yoku shoved me angrily on the shoulder, "You can really be a bitch sometimes, you know that?"
"I was just teasing," I shrugged, "Come on, we have work to do."
"You're kidding, right?" she said, "You expect that, just because we know how to do the techniques, we'll magically be able to?"
"That's how Sakura passed her exams. Why can't we roll that way, too?" I asked. She pulled a face in disgust and went to the other side of the room.
It turned out that Yoku had been right. Watching the anime, it had looked so easy. Blue waves of light appeared and Ta-Da! the techniques were executed, but actually doing them proved way more difficult.
After a long time, Tobi called us for supper—I had begun wondering why I was so hungry—and neither of us were able to do, well, anything.
After an awkward supper in which I, despite myself, couldn't keep my eyes off Itachi-kun, we returned to the large room to practice, but we went to bed without any progress whatsoever, and I wondered if we even possessed chakra.
The following day went the same, and so did the next. I had a lot more patience than Yoku—who had started punching the walls in frustration, ears and tail waving furiously—and even I felt that I could explode from anger.
Finally, Tobi came to visit us. He greeted Yoku and walked over to me, "Yume-chan!"
"What's up, Tobi?" I asked, "Is Kakuzu and Hidan still after you?"
"Yes," he said sadly, "So I came out here to watch you and Yoku-chan."
"Well, I'm miserable beyond reason," I said, "I can't get this stuff right. Do you have any advice?"
"If you try to force it, you'll either end up getting no reaction or your chakra will hurt you, Yume-chan," he said. No shit, "You have to concentrate only on the technique you want to execute, and nothing else. Calm your mind. If you still can't get it, then …"
'Then there's no hope', I finished inside my head. I grinned, "Don't tell Yoku that unless she asks you, okay?"
"But she doesn't talk, Yume-chan," he said.
"Exactly. She has to learn."
I did as Tobi instructed. I calmed my mind and imagined my chakra circulatory system inside my head, the body and mind energy mixing inside my stomach, and then released it, "Bunshin no Jutsu!"
To my surprise and utter glee, a faint glimmer of an image of me flickered beside me before disappearing again. Tobi clapped his hands excitedly in applause, and I bowed playfully, chuckling.
After several more tries, the replication was flawless, but Tobi had already left with Deidara. They had gone on a mission. I saw Yoku walking toward me and smirked.
"Could you please help me?" she asked pleadingly, staring at my replication until I released the technique.
"Why didn't you ask Tobi?" I taunted.
"You know I can't," she snapped irritably.
"You've seen him several times, man. We ate breakfast, lunch and dinner with all of them four days straight. If you still can't talk to them, you'll never be able to," I told her.
"Please, just help me."
"Ask Tobi for advice when he comes back."
"Ugh," she said, turning away again. I knew I sounded rude, but I was only trying to help her.
Days passed and she barely made any progress. I knew she had chakra because finally, a week after we had arrived, her first glimmer of an after-image appeared, but disappeared seconds thereafter. Tobi stared at her the whole time when he was with us, and I knew he wanted to help her, but he obeyed my request.
After another week I perfected the Replacement technique and successfully transformed into Tobi, then Deidara and finally Itachi-kun. But Yoku, by that time, could only do the Replication.
Her temper got the better of her each time, and she started yelling cuss-words and punching the walls until her knuckles bled. The ears and tail she designed to appear whenever she was either embarassed or angry now permenantly showed. I felt sorry for her, and I wanted to tell her how to improve, but she needed to start talking with people.
I called Deidara in and showed him my three techniques, and he simply nodded. As we exited the room, he stopped in front of a panting, sweating Yoku. The skin on her knuckles were gone, and I could've sworn I saw some bone.
"Try relaxing and only concentrating on the technique, un," he said soothingly before we left the room.
To my surprise and utter glee, Deidara led me to another, smaller room where none other than Uchiha Itachi-kun stood waiting with a blank expression.
"She's all yours, un," Deidara said before leaving. Itachi-kun glared at Tobi until he left, as well.
"There are five different kinds of chakra natures," Itachi-kun began expressionlessly.
I already knew the whole rant about the chakra natures, but I listened silently just to hear his voice. He held up a square piece of paper—which I recognized to come from special trees fed and nurtured with chakra—and it took flame before my eyes. He then handed me a square piece of paper after explaining the reaction the paper would have to each kind of chakra.
"Take this and focus your chakra in it," Itachi-kun told me—his voice made my knees numb, and I wondered how long I would be able to endure my training sessions—handing me the piece of paper.
I held the piece of paper up and struggled a bit with focusing my chakra in it, but as soon as I succeeded it took flame just as Itachi-kun's had, and I felt my heart lift instantly. I had the same chakra nature as Itachi-kun! Awesome!
"The most basic fire jutsu I can teach you is Great Fireball," he said, and I smirked to myself.
I felt bad to be training without her, but whenever I tried to talk to her, Yoku would blow me off either by pretending to be asleep or turn her back on me and walk away.
After several failed and embarassing attempts at executing the Great Fireball technique, Itachi-kun wasn't gentle in telling me that I wasn't ready for it yet. Instead he taught me the training I knew Kakashi had given to Naruto and the others: running up a tree or, in my case, a wall. That was just as difficult. I ended up falling to the ground every time.
Tobi didn't like the tension between Yoku and me—he would ask why I wasn't visiting her and then I would go into Rant Mode every time and go on about how she was just weak before I knew it, and then felt angry with myself and just ignored him entirely—so he stopped visiting me during my training. Finally, after days, I saw bandages on her hands.
I snuck out of my room late at night to try and run up a wall to impress Itachi-kun. He had to give me some credit. I learned stuff that took Naruto years, in weeks.
The days passed slowly. Itachi-kun trained me for an hour each day how to land if I fell from great length, and I managed that pretty soon. But my chakra control was still crap, and soon Itachi-kun became so dejected he didn't even supervise me anymore.
After more long days of exhausting training and nearly ending up in the hospital wing because of excessive chakra use, I finally managed to run up the wall of the room and end up standing upside down from the ceiling. I grinned broadly at Itachi-kun when I showed him this, but he just grunted and told me to continue with the Great Fireball.
"You're so mean," I told him irritably, "Give me a break, man. I'm working really hard."
"Let me make something clear," he replied, "I'm here because I was ordered to be. I am not your friend, or your teacher. I am not impressed with your progress, but I'm not disappointed either. Stop trying to get me to like you and just focus on your training. You're weak."
That stung like hell, but before I could retort he had disappeared with a puff of smoke. I released the chakra and landed on the ground flawlessly, like he had taught me.
More days passed and I worked for hours on end trying to generate a fireball, only stopping when I knew I was near to fainting because of chakra loss. Yoku finally managed to thank Deidara, who had handed her her plate of food, as the bandages on her hands still looked a little bloody. I smirked when I saw a faint blush on his cheeks. The whole table stared at her with wide eyes.
"It fucking speaks!" Hidan exclaimed, causing her ears and tail to appear, "About time too!"
"You have a pretty voice, Yoku-chan!" Tobi said cheerfully.
"Why do you sometimes sprout the ears and tail of a wolf?" Zetsu asked, staring at her like she was some kind of alien.
"They appear whenever she's angry or embarassed," I said, trying to help, but for some reason she glared angrily at me before starting to eat.
This resulted in her not talking once for the next three days, disappointing everyone. She seemed thoroughly pissed all the time, and I wondered how her training was progressing.
Itachi-kun had started teaching me *melee combat with my scythe. It was a lot more difficult that it looked, swinging the tall weapon around all the time. Itachi-kun had to block attacks that would have caused me to chop my own arm or leg off, and I barely made any progress with only an hour a day.
After yet more days I managed to make a fireball the size of a beachball. Itachi-kun happened to peek into the room while I did this, and I could've sworn I saw a smrik before he disappeared again. After another few tries the fireball grew to twice that size.
I went to the sitting room that night after sorting things out with Yoku again, determined to actually rest for once. I knew there were circles under my eyes, but only because Hidan had told me at the dinner table, "Fuck, you look like a corpse."
Itachi-kun was sitting in one of two armchairs near the window, silently staring at the outside view. He was wearing a pair of leather skinnies and a plain black T-shirt, showing off his muscled torso and arms and setting my mind spinning. I took a deep breath and sat opposite him. When his eyes rested on me, they widened.
"How often do you sleep?" he asked softly.
"About four hours a night," I replied carelessly, staring out the window.
"Why do you work so hard?" he asked, "It's not like you have a mission to prepare for, or have the need to protect yourself from someone."
"There's no particular reason," I lied smoothly.
He was silent for a moment, and I looked at him, blue-green eyes meeting onyx ones. He seemed to be surprised before a faint smile tugged at his lips and he said, "You're very different … from the rest."
I shrugged, "I needed to show you I wasn't weak."