~*~ Chapter 22 - Undivided Attention ~*~
"Ok, so how exactly does this work?" Yume-chan asks.
We're sitting with crossed legs in one of the smaller training rooms, facing each other, our hands on our knees. This particular training room seldom gets used because of its size, but it's perfect for an hour's meditation every day: it's right in the corner of the building where barely any sound reaches, and it's small, but not too small.
Dei-kun and Kisame-sensei are both standing in the far corner, to help wherever they can, but also because the two of them are the only two who are really curious about the Tsukino clan's secret technique. I am sitting across from Yume-chan, facing the direction of the door with my back to the wall with the windows, and she is sitting across from me.
I nearly slap my hand to my forehead. She has asked this very same question three times now.
"I'm going to explain it to you one more time," I say, annoyed, "It's just like performing any other jutsu. You form the chakra-"
"How do you do that again?"
"What?!" I exclaim.
"I just wanna make sure I'm doing it right!"
"Now I know why Itachi-san always avoids you. You're a nightmare when it comes to anything other than Taijutsu," I say dejectedly, "To form chakra, you just become conscious of the two energies inside you, body and mind energy. You will them to balance each other out in even quantities, and then you push it out in the form of your jutsu by forming the hand seals and saying the - for lack of a better word - incantation. Got it?"
"Yeah, I got it."
"Great, so what we're gonna do, is we're gonna use that energy to create thin threads. We'll be surrounded by them. When they're formed, I'm going to let my chakra threads touch yours so that they can connect, ok?"
"That sounds kinda kinky, don't you think?"
"Yume-chan, concentrate!" I exclaim.
"Sorry, geez! I got it!" she says defensively, "I'm just trying to lighten the mood a little."
"Yeah, well, this is supposed to be a serious mood, because we've got less than two weeks to get this right. If we don't, we'll be ripped to shreds by that two-tailed chick. Do you remember that?" I am trembling from panic. Secretly I am thinking 'why Yume-chan? Why not someone with a greater attention span?" I love her, but this is the one thing I wish she was not a part of.
"Ok, so let's do it," she says.
Both of us take a deep breath, and close our eyes. The first part comes to me like a second nature. In a few seconds, my chakra is ready. I let it fill my entire body, and I feel the warmth of it. Slowly, I channel the chakra into the air around me. My heart takes a fearful leap. For a moment, I couldn't control it, and it swung around violently in waves, but I open my eyes and gain control.
Yume-chan seems to struggle with pushing the chakra out of her body. She only starts when I am already forcing my chakra into the form of threads. It flows out of her slowly, but after a few moments a thin silhouette of blue light surrounds her.
Dei-kun coughs from the corner.
It breaks both of our concentration.
All the chakra I controlled so carefully gushes back inside me and explodes out of me again. The same happens to Yume-chan. Suddenly, a great blast of powerful chakra shoots me and Yume-chan in opposite directions. A few shards of glass cut me as I fly through the window and onto the cold, wet grass, sliding a few feet and finally stopping when I hit my head against a tree. At least it's not snowing anymore.
"Sweet balls!" I hear Yume-chan shout from several yards in the distance. I see that I had not only flown through the window, but the chakra around me made a great big hole in the surrounding wall as well. Dei-kun comes running through the entrance.
"Are you all right, un?" he asks me when he reaches me. He takes my arm and helps me up. I clutch my throbbing head.
"Yeah, I'm ok," I say, "And Yume-chan?"
"She's fine ... well, she fell through two walls and landed in the kitchen. Everyone was eating breakfast. Right now, they're laughing at her, un," he says, clearly amused. I can't help but smile a little.
I let him help me walk back into the training room. My eyes widen when we reach the gap in the wall. Right where Yume-chan and I had been sitting, the chakra had blasted a hole into the floor so deep it cut through the ground underneath the floor, too. The floorboards are broken in two lines, each going in the direction where Yume-chan and I were sent flying.
"Are you ok, Yoku?" Kisame-sensei asks me, entering through the gap in the wall on the opposite side of the room.
"I'm fine, but I'm thinking that this isn't something that we should be doing inside," I say, still staring at the ruined floor.
"The power is unbelievable," Dei-kun says from beside me, "When it is perfected, I reckon that the two of you will be stronger than most of the people here."
"Together, the two of you will be damn near unbeatable," Kisame-sensei agrees.
"YOU FUCKING PRICK!" Yume-chan roars, shoving Kisame-sensei out of the way and pointing an accusing finger at Dei-kun. I cannot help but snort with laughter.
Her long hair is standing wildly and several splinters stick out of it. Most of her nails are broken and her clothes are torn on very unpleasant places, one of which being across her chest, revealing half of the flesh underneath.
"IF YOU EVER FUCKING COUGH AGAIN, I'M GOING TO RIP OUT YOUR LUNGS, YOU HEAR ME?! YOUR FUCKING COUGH JUST RUINED BOTH MY NAILS AND MY HAIR! I WAS SENT THROUGH TWO WALLS! I COULD HAVE DIED! YOU'RE SO GOING TO FUCKING PAY-"
Suddenly I hear a loud bump and she falls over, face first, onto the floor.
"You're noisy," Itachi-san says from behind her. She rolls over, screaming and clutching her nose.
"You broke it, Itachi kun! You broke my nose!" she whines. By now, all the Akatsuki are standing around us, and most of them are laughing at Yume-chan. Even I can't really help but bury my face in Dei-kun's cloak with laughter.
"God, you're like a fucking baby," Hidan says.
"Stop whining, I can fix it," Kakuzu says, approaching her. She lifts her hands from her bloody nose and allows him to fix it.
"I should probably get to work on this," I say softly, looking at my bloody arms.
I sit down and Dei-kun helps me remove the glass shards. I try to act tough, but it really hurts. Eventually, when everything is removed, I start closing the wounds. Kakuzu hasn't taught me how to mend the tissue yet, but at least this will stop the bleeding.
"Are you ok, Yume-chan?" Tobi asks in the distance.
"I'm fine, Tobi," she snaps.
Finally, when both Yume-chan and I are all fixed up again, she leaves to change her clothes, and most of the other Akatsuki members leave to start their own training after their entertainment for the day.
"Itachi," Kisame-sensei calls the Uchiha before he can leave. He is the only other remaining nin apart from Dei-kun and Kisame-sensei. He stops in his tracks. "Perhaps you should also stay here. You know how to get through to her."
"My presence will only distract her more," he replies, "You know how she is."
"She will try to impress you. That means she will try harder to concentrate," Kisame-sensei argues, and I agree with him. But I kind of feel bad for her about the way they're talking about her.
"Very well," Itachi-san says, surprising me. "I will not stay for more than an hour."
He walks across the room and all of us go outside in his lead.
"It will be better if you practice outside," Kisame-sensei tells me.
"All the sounds might distract them," Dei-kun says, voicing my thoughts.
"Then they will have to work harder, and they will improve faster."
We don't have to wait long until Yume-chan appears. We sit down again, facing each other, and start all over again.
It takes Yume-chan more than two hours before she can actually make the chakra threads without being distracted. Itachi-san decides to stay a while longer after Kisame-sensei tells him that she is now doing much better than before, but that doesn't particularly make her feel better.
By sunset, the two of us have been blasted into every direction imaginable by the chakra. Almost every time, it was Yume-chan who lost concentration, and then she made me lose focus as well. But, as the hours passed, I noticed that the chakra changed from white to faintest purple.
"We should get something to eat, un," Dei-kun says after Yume-chan's stomach gives a particularly loud growl. "We can try again tomorrow."
"We?" Itachi-san says, "I don't think so. These two have to do this on their own. We will not hold their hands while they are in battle. They should learn to be independant. Besides, Deidara, you could use some training yourself."
"Go to hell, un," Dei-kun replies. I glare at Itachi-san, but he pays me no heed.
The hours we meditate turns into days. My panic levels start rising to a level where I start believing that I'll never calm down. Yume-chan gets distracted by the littlest things, and we need to have enough time for me to focus on my Taijutsu. This link will be of no help if I cannot keep up with the movements.
Finally, four days after the first time, Yume-chan and I are looking at each other, excited but carefully maintaining our concentration. We are both surrounded with lavender-coloured chakra, hundreds of thin energy threads moving about. She nods at me, and I nod back.
Slowly, careful to maintain the connection, I allow my chakra threads to move closer to Yume-chan's. It's difficult to keep my concentration with all the excitement boiling in the pit of my stomach.
What will happen when the threads touch? Will we be blasted into different directions again? Will we fill up with power and somehow be stronger than we are now? Will we get some kind of message that passes to every lucky pair of Tsukino prodigies?
The threads touch.
At first, nothing happens. Then, suddenly, purple light envelopes both Yume-chan and myself and we start rising from the ground. I fight to keep the concentration, and evidently, so does Yume-chan. A frown starts creasing her forehead.
A glimmer catches my eye, and I slowly look to my left wrist. A strange pattern starts snaking all around it like a bracelet, and the same happens to Yume-chan. I cannot identify the pattern. It just looks like some random tattoo to me. Finally, it stops glowing and snaking, and I am left with a purple tattoo all around my wrist.
I look at Yume-chan, and both of us grin.
Suddenly, purple light appears between us, and explodes. But instead of knocking us back, like the last million times, it simply sends a wave of power, rippling in every direction. I can feel the warmth and the euphoria of being absolutely invincible. But then the sensation disappears, and Yume-chan and I fall to the ground, the connection broken again.
"Hooolllyyy shit," she says slowly. "Was that as cool for you as it was for me?"
"It was awesome!" I exclaim, looking at the marking on my wrist, "What do you suppose this is?"
"No idea, but it looks friggin insane!" she says, inspecting hers.
"I wonder ..." I say, "Maybe this marking has something to do with inheriting the Tsukino Bloodline Limit. Maybe it'll be easier to link now, d'you think?"
"Let's try."
To my shock and awe, it barely takes five seconds for both of us to form the chakra, channel it and touch with the threads. My head starts buzzing with different battle scenes with the most insane movements I ever thought possible. I break the connection carefully.
"Oh, yeah, bitch," Yume-chan tells me with a huge grin, "Time to learn Taijutsu. You're on my turf now. Ha-haaa!"
A/N: Cocky Yume, always trying to get pay-back. Tsk tsk tsk.
Lol, anyway, hope you guys enjoyed the chapter. Stick to it and don't forget to R&R XD