Hi no Ishi (The will of Fire) - Ninja-tag Arc
I do not own Naruto as a game, Manga, Anime series or a character. All original characters are mine though :P
A new class is introduced to Umino Iruka as things get tossed on their head quickly. How is it that so many exceptions are being made? And since when were so many Clan Heirs gathered in one class? How can a little support affect our favourite blond dobe?
Allunderlinedterms are explained at the end of the chapter.
The sun was slowly edging its way to the Western horizon, painting the sky with a wonderful melange of orange, gold and fiery red. Birds were chirping merrily, trying to get everything ready for their good night's rest.
In the training grounds seventeen through twenty-one, four cells of academy students were allowing their day of training to wind down into evening... and hopefully a night of rest.
"You two taking a break?" Kiba asked Tatsuko and Yuuna, who were looking at the sunset. He walked up to them hoping to chat a bit with the girls.
"Nn." Tatsuko noised affirmatively.
"Hey, I just wanted to tell you, I'm not like the others." Kiba said, thinking about what Aoba-sensei told him earlier. He didn't really understand - or even know - everything that they had been through, but he needed them to know that he was different. They simply had to know! 'Kami-sama, I hope I don't sound desperate...'
"She knows." Yuuna said softly and smiled about some private joke, earning her an elbow in her ribs. "That wasn't very nice, Nee-chan."
"I know, Kiba. It's just hard to remember that sometimes." Tatsuko said somberly.
"Neee-chaaaaaan, now you're ignoring me." Yuuna whined playfully. Kiba shook his head with a smile.
"You two are totally different than when you are in class."
"Hey, Yuuna, can you come give me a hand with this?" Aoba called to her. He was gathering stones in a circle to start a camp fire.
"Hai!" Yuuna answered happily, knowing that her team mates probably wanted a little time alone. She ran towards Aoba-sensei, to help him as best she could.
"What makes you say that?" Tatsuko asked. Her voice was even, calm... at peace.
"Usually Yuuna is like Hinata, barely ever making a peep; and you..." He paused, thinking about how Tatsuko was in class. "You are usually bubbly, like Ino." Kiba thought out loud.
"Oh." Her voice was soft, but there seemed to be a hint of... something in it. Kiba couldn't quite place it.
"Not that it's a bad thing." Kiba back-peddled quickly. He didn't want to upset her. "Actually, it's kinda nice." A smile crept onto his face as he (unconsciously) took a step closer to her.
"Oh?" This time her voice was a bit more like her usual self. Kiba thought he heard her joyous tone on the wind. He couldn't be sure though, she seemed to keep her emotions locked down.
"Yeah, it's nice to know that you trust me, even if only just a little bit." The sun was almost completely set now, and the first stars were starting to come out.
"Maybe I do..." Tatsuko said vaguely, but her voice hinted that she did.
Both of them stood there for a long moment, saying nothing. Somehow it was less awkward than they thought it would be, the silence between them felt... well, it felt right. Like there was nothing that needed being said at the moment.
"Is it important to you that I trust you?" Again Kiba heard something in her voice that seemed to give her words a completely different meaning. He knew that she was asking something important to her... but he just couldn't figure out why. Somehow, he needed to understand what she really wanted to hear.
"In a class you need to be able to trust your classmates." Kiba began, watching her reaction carefully from the corner of his eye. She deflated a bit. He had been raised by his mother and his sister, so he understood certain aspects of how girls reacted.
"In a team you need to trust your teammates." He continued. She pepped up a little at that. "In a friendship you need to trust your friends..." With that she smiled, and not just any smile either. Kiba felt the warmth of the midday sun radiating from her, even though the evening chill was setting in.
"I think so too." She had a faraway look in her eyes, but the smile didn't go away.
"Alright, time for for night training!" Aoba announced after dinner.
"Aoooooobaaaaaaa-senseeeeeeeei, if we traaaaaaaain right now we'll get craaaaaaaaamps." Yuuna whined in a high-pitched voice.
"Oh, ye of little faith. This is a chakra focusing exercise." Came the sagely explanation. "Come, come, everyone sit in a circle. Backs to each other." They complied, moving slowly after the intense physical training they had endured all day long.
"All right, now I know that you have done these kinds of exercises before, but mine are a bit different. First you need to make a hand seal, doesn't matter which one, just so long as you are comfortable with it. For now at least." Aoba gave them a minute to calm their minds, taking careful notes of who used what seal.
Kiba was using the inu - dog - seal, no big surprise there. 'Fiercely loyal to his companions, an adept hunter. Leans more to Taijutsu.'
Yuuna was using the hitsuji - ram - seal, also not very surprising. 'Gentle to her friends, harsh to those who would harm them. Leans more to Earth elemental jutsus.'
Tatsuko was using the toru - tiger - seal, this one caught him a bit off guard. 'Fiercely territorial, strong willed, intensely passionate. Leans more to Fire elemental jutsus.'
"Now, I want you to focus on a single point, about an inch above and between your eyebrows. Focus your chakra there... now try to sense your surroundings, keeping your physical eyes closed." Aoba explained in a very calm and low voice. He could feel their focus, it was that intense! Aoba didn't know why, but he just knew that these three would be something special in a few years. "Now focus your chakra in your hands, in your seals." What happened next left Aoba completely in shock.
Akamaru jumped on Kiba's head and began... humming... in a low soothing note. It almost reminded Aoba of a temple, for some odd reason. The two were in total harmony.
Yuuna was in a deeper state of mind... literally! The ground beneath her dropped almost a solid metre, seeming to almost swallow her whole. "So young and yet so attuned to her element." Aoba thought.
What Tatsuko was doing, though, is what truly shocked him: she was glowing. With each breath, water vapour was coming out of her nostrils, and the area around her seemed to heat up slightly as she exhaled. When she inhaled, the air became chilly. 'It's as if she is absorbing the heat, then breathing it back out... I've never even heard of that. And all three of them are so focused on their hand seals that they aren't noticing what is going on.'
"All right, now slowly release the focus on your chakra." With that things slowly drifted back to normal. Akamaru stopped humming (or whatever he was doing), Yuuna slowly raised back to ground level, and Tatsuko stopped her dragon breathing. "Now open your eyes and tell me what you felt and how many rabbits are in the area, one by one. Starting with Yuuna."
"I felt safe, protected. Like someone was wrapping me in their arms. Yet somehow I felt, powerful too." Yuuna thought long and hard.
"... and the rabbits?" Aoba reminded her.
"I sensed seven. I think..." She answered vaguely.
"Okay, Kiba, your turn." Aoba turned his attention to the lone boy in the group.
"I dunno, I felt kinda calm, but dizzy too. It was almost like me and Akamaru were on the same wavelength too - that was cool - and there were only five rabbits I could sniff out." Kiba said, with a content smile plastered on his lips. Akamaru barked twice and growled, telling Kiba something. "Well, Akamaru thinks that there were fourteen rabbits. His sense of smell is much better than mine anyways."
"Interesting." Aoba said quietly. He himself counted fourteen rabbits, three sniffing around above ground, the others settling down below ground. "And Tatsuko?" This is the explanation he wanted to hear most of all.
"I felt... cold, like someone threw me into a bucket of ice water." She rubbed her hand together and breathed into them, then rubbed them together again. She was clearly still feeling a bit cold.
"Let me feel your hands." Aoba instructed, reaching his left hand out to touch hers. She nervously held out both hands, which he tapped with his index and middle finger. 'Several degrees colder than it should be. That must be her kekke genkai, the ice element. Well, I know how to test that later.' Aoba thought to himself.
"There were fourteen rabbits I could sense." Tatsuko said after pulling her hands back, wrapping them in her oversized jacket that Kiba handed her moments earlier. Aoba was now REALLY glad for his shades, because they probably kept his eyes from popping out of his head.
'She managed to spot all of them.' He thought in complete amazement. He thought for a moment longer. 'So did Kiba and Akamaru. Only Yuuna counted the groups of rabbits. This is a very interesting group.'
"Hey Tatsuko-chan, come here a sec will you. There's something I want to show you." Aoba was standing near the water just away from the camp they made.
"Hai!" Tatsuko replied curtly and walked towards her sensei. When she was close enough, Aoba took something out of his pouch on his left thigh.
"Take this." He handed her a piece of paper, there seemed to be nothing special about it. "Now I want you to focus like you did before, focus your chakra into a tiger seal, while keeping that paper in your hand."
Obediently, the blond did as she was told. Wondering all the while what the paper had to do with anything. After only a few seconds, Aoba told her to stop and to hand him the paper.
"Well this is unexpected." Aoba said in an even tone.
"What is, Aoba-sensei?" Tatsuko could make no sense of anything he was doing at the moment. Was it a form of fortune telling?
"You show a deep potential for the Ice element, yet you do not use the Air element to do so." He explained so calmly, you would never have guessed it was unexpected.
"How did you know about that?" The blond girl felt like she was about to faint from shock. She had been so careful to tell no one, and show no one what she was capable of, but this man knew... and knew it well, it seemed. He even knew that she didn't use the wind element...
"Well, this little piece of paper is a closely guarded family secret. It reacts with a person's chakra, revealing their affinity, or affinities with certain elements, and chakra types. My clan was famous for it at one time, but because we never explained how to make it, or sold it on the market, people searched for other methods. Which suits us just fine." Aoba explained, which the girl caught nothing of. "Anyways, look." He gave her the paper again. The morbid look on her face saddened Aoba somewhat, thinking that she didn't trust him at all.
"Suiton, Fūton, Hyōton, Ototon. Water, Fire, Ice and Sound." Her voice quivered, and tears were welling up in her eyes. "After hiding it so well for years. One stupid piece of paper manages to rat me out."
"Years?" Aoba didn't even notice the insult to his heritage. "How could you manage to unlock and hone four different types of chakra by yourself?" He tried to keep the reverence and amazement out of his voice, but only partly succeeded.
"Does it matter? Just hurry up and go tell your buddies all about it." Tatsuko plopped on the ground, pulling her legs up and hugged them, trying to comfort herself. She obviously felt down right miserable. Aoba put his hand on her head, rubbing her hair gently.
"I don't betray my comrades." He tried to comfort her as best he could.
Tatsuko blew air out of her nose in distaste. "As if adults know anything of loyalty, of trust." Her words were harsh, but Aoba saw the broken heart hidden in her eyes.
"Some adults may not value these things... but I do. A shinobi never abandons his friends, or goes back on his word. That is the way of the Konoha shinobi, that is my nindo."
"..." Tatsuko just sat there, not speaking or moving for a long while. Aoba was not sure what to say to show her that he meant every word, but there was always tomorrow.
"You wanna see something cool?" He asked her. Still no reaction from her, so he decided to show off a bit.
"Mi-toru-saru-i-uma-tora. Katon - Goukakyu no Jutsu!" With one heaving breath, the night was filled with a giant ball of fire, no less than four metres in diameter. Aoba blew the flame for almost a good thirty seconds, before allowing the jutsu to end. Suddenly he felt her eyes glued to him. "The fireball jutsu, a basic Fire style attack. Not hard to learn, but quite tricky to truly master. I can teach you how to do it, if you would only let me in a little bit."
He turned to look her in the eyes, to show that he was truly different, but she only looked away.
"If there is nothing else, Aoba-sensei, I'll head back to the warmth of the fire."
"Hey Aoba-sensei, what was that jutsu you were using earlier? Was that the Grand Fireball jutsu Hana told me about?" Kiba asked as Aoba walked towards to campfire.
"Hai, though only the Uchiha claim that name for their jutsu. I prefer to call it the fireball jutsu." Aoba explained.
"So you were really on Hana's team when you were genin?" Kiba asked. It occurred to Aoba that he wasn't really sure whether to believe his sister or not.
"Hai, Hana-chan, Raidou-kun and me. They used to call us the 'troublesome trio'." Aoba had tossed another small bunch of twigs into the fire to help keep it going, smiling at something only he could see. "We used to drive Hokage-sama up a wall. Not so much with pranks like the way Naruto does... more with... a youthful creativity."
"Feh, the way Hana tells it, you three were exactly like Naruto." Kiba retorted condescendingly.
"Don't group me with him. He lacks any kind of artistic soul. My art was always about the heroes of the village. It added value to the walls and mountains they were graciously bestowed on." The three students looked at him in a completely non-believing way. "Anyways, that was almost ten years ago. I've grown up a bit since then."
"She also tells me that you and Raidou were the only ones that were there for her after... that incident." Kiba smiled a bit, but there was no life in his smile. "She told me once that she could never thank you two enough for helping her the way you did."
"We were then - and are now - a team. A shinobi that abandons his team mates is not worthy of the brand they wear." Aoba explained. "Besides, she was there for me, when I went through much the same thing." Aoba suddenly became a bit deflated himself, though it was greatly kept in check.
"What happened, Aoba-sensei?" Yuuna asked worriedly. Truth be told, Aoba didn't want to talk about it - ever! One look at Tatsuko though... that one look told him that if he didn't dare opening up, neither would she.
A pair of concealed eyes were peering morosely into the camp fire. "I lost both of my parents when I was about your age." He paused, trying to not think too much on the past, even as he told the tale. "People always told me how great they were, or how proud I should be to be their son..." There was another long pause. "The only people that understood what I was going through, were my team-mates and Hokage-sama."
'Just like us...'
"For a long time, I didn't know what to do with myself. So I just lost myself in my training."
Aoba glanced at Yuuna and Tatsuko for a long moment. He could see that his words were striking a chord within each of the pair. He knew about the Senju massacre - it was hard not to hear about it - but somehow it could only make sense to him that the sole survivor was treated like royalty. "If Hokage-sama hadn't taken care of me... if Raidou and Hana hadn't stayed by my side... I'm not sure I would have ever truly survived."
"I'm soooooo sorry for you, sensei!" Yuuna was almost in tears.
"Don't worry, Yuuna-chan. There is nothing you can do about it anyways." Aoba tried to comfort her as best he could, but Yuuna didn't seem any less worried.
"Imouto-chan, he's okay. Try not to worry so much." Tatsuko said in an almost maternal voice. Aoba looked at the exchange, intrigued at how easily Yuuna calmed down after that.
'Tatsuko is like a mother to Yuuna, always giving her an emotional shield. She seems to need it sometimes too, since her heart is usually on her sleeve. I wonder if anyone does the same for Tatsuko-chan?' Aoba wondered to himself, but he quickly saw the troubled look in her eyes...
"You guys wanna hear about the stories of what we used to do?" Aoba asked, trying to offer Tatsuko a bit of reprieve.
"You know we do!" Kiba piped up, obviously loving stories by the camp-fire.
"Well... I remember the one time..." Aoba began, smiling inwardly as all three forgot their troubles for a little while and got lost in the 'good ol' days' stories.
The sun had long since set. All temporary inhabitants of training ground twenty-one were tucked in for the night, sleeping soundly... save one. The only pair of eyes that were open were glued to one unsuspecting subject. Her eyes gazed with great interest at the rise and fall of the subject's chest.
Her ears listened intently to the light snoring that matched said chest's rhythm; a perfect whole note. She could use his fitful sleep as a perfect metronome, but then... watching and listening to her metronome in her room was no where near this... fulfilling. There was just something about him.
She thought about that for a long moment, still partially entranced by his hypnotic breathing. What was it about him? Why did he make her blush like a school girl? Why did that damnable smile of his take her breath away? Why were his lips so tempting to touch, so mysteriously attractive? Why did he tie her insides into a pretzel just by looking at her?
Even now, the temptation to seize his lips with hers was almost too great to resist; with that angelic air about him as he slept. So why was she even hesitating?
'What are you thinking? You can't do that while he's sleeping!' A voice inside her shouted incredulously. She knew what she had to do... she had to talk to them. Even if they wouldn't answer her, she needed to collect her thoughts...
A minute later, a pair of pink eyes gazed wistfully out at the water. There were only two things in this world that could comfort her troubled heart: her flute, and water. Seeing that they were the only things that tied her to her parents, it wasn't really surprising to the blond.
Mateki jutsu, her mother's jutsu. Tatsuko didn't know her mother. Not in the sense that you never really know someone... she simply couldn't remember ever meeting the woman. Pictures were all she ever had. Pictures, and scrolls containing Senju mateki jutsu.That was why she mastered her flute at such a young age, it was practically the only tie she had to a woman she'd never meet.
Water though... water was perhaps twice as special to the Senju. Her heritage played a major role in that. Her role model, though long gone now, was none other than Senju Tobirama, the Water Dragon of Konohagakure. He was so renowned for his suiton jutsu, that Kiri refused to go to war against the leaf during his reign as Hokage. What would be the point? Even their own jutsu would be used against them if they faced him!
The other, and perhaps most endearing reason water calmed her, was her Tou-chan. Even her earliest memories were of the two of them training near the water. Always training.
'Did I really inherit your hyouton, Tou-chan?' The blond wondered in awe.
'One cannot hope to harness ice, without water. I remember the day you told me that, but I always thought you were teaching me so that we could teach him when he was ready. Had you always known I would inherit your jutsu as well as Okaa-sama's?' Her thoughts were a collection of unanswerable analytical inquiries, as they usually were. As innumerable as the stars in the sky.
She sighed heavily, her shoulders slumping pre-emptively for the depression she knew was coming. Slowly, she brought her flute to her lips, praying to the Heavens to take away her pain. 'Just one day without having to cry over for everyone that was lost. Just one moment that I can truly say that I am happy. Is that too much to ask?' She didn't think it was, but it was obvious that the Heavens were still debating the matter.
'Have I been playing Okaa-sama's aicho the whole time?' She didn't know why she played it as often as she did. She hated hearing sad songs, with a passion even. However, as soon as it came to playing to sooth her frayed nerves... that aicho was the first thing to jump out of her flute.
'Maybe I should try to get some sleep. Maybe not looking at him will help?' She wondered. Doubtful.
Breakfast the following morning was a quiet affair. Yuuna couldn't seem to focus on anything other than the puffiness around her Nee-chan's eyes, or the bags beneath them. No one seemed to want to comment on either point. Kiba managed to catch twice the amount of fish needed, but no one seemed to notice.
Training began as quickly as possible, though not quick enough for the blond; and true to design, Aoba was paying much less attention to the individual and more to the group on a whole. If only the timing was better.
"Yuuna-chan, stop staring at Tatsuko and focus on your actual target!" Aoba-sensei warned the redhead. Everything seemed off with team Aoba that morning. Everything. There was no team work to be seen, the blond brains seemed to have waited for dawn to fall asleep, the brawns couldn't see past said blond's almost haunted eyes, and the pup seemed to be the saddest target in the history of stealth training... The boy was actually walking closer to her ever chance he got, while trying to make it look inconspicuous. Which he failed miserably.
'At this rate, we might as well just call it quits and go back to the academy. How can one person affect a whole team on this level?' It was sad really. They had been at it for just over an hour, and so far they had not properly executed the assassination attempt once. True, Aoba didn't call it an assassination set-up... to their faces, but this was a textbook 'kill the target before he notices' exercise. In his book, that was assassination pure and simple.
"Maybe we should just take a break. Yuuna, go check how much we have left over from breakfast. Kiba, you and Akamaru go scout around for whatever meat you can find. Tatsuko... get yourself together." The shades-wearing shinobi instructed his charges. 'Kami-sama, this really is no time for celestial jokes.'
End Chapter 4
A/N: As always, much love going out to Kiravu, my beta-reader. Don't know what I would do without you :D
I would complain about the lack of reviews, but nah. I'll just base my overwhelming success on the fact that you are still reading :P
"Reviews are like ramen: you'll starve without 'em, dattebayo!"
Nindo - Ninja way/Way of the Ninja.
Aicho - A requiem. A mournful melody.