A/N: If you read these head over to my LJ for Nabari no Ou, you can see the pretty pictures that accompany it. The URL is nyanja14(dot)livejournal(dot)com .

All of these are un-beta-ed and most were written late at night. So please let me know if you spot errors!

022: TRAINING

The blind woman, Ichiki, had been put in charge of supervising his kiratraining. Yoite thought she was a little scary—that perpetual, dishonest smile unnerved him. Still, he was relieved that it was her and not Hattori watching him.

"There hasn't been a new kira user in quite a long time," she told Yoite when she first handed over the scroll. "And he was much older than you and already had many years of training in other ninjutsu."

"I'll work hard," Yoite murmured. The end that met kira users was the closest thing to erasure he could possibly obtain. Of course he'd work hard.

"Oh, I don't doubt that," Ichiki said with a small laugh. "I just wonder if you have the type of temperament necessary to utilize the kinjutsu."

Yoite didn't know what kind of temperament she meant, but it quickly became obvious that he didn't have it.

He learned how to direct his ki quickly enough and soon after that he could snap fragments away from himself and shoot. He could make regular objects burst and break with no problem.

But whenever his broken ki brushed against the dim life force of the rats Ichiki brought, it would scatter and dispel uselessly.

That frustrated Yoite. Not so much because of the wasted life—that was the point of mastering kira after all. But because he'd never been bad anything before, at least nothing he'd really set his mind to. So he reread the kinjutsu scroll again and again, trying to absorb whatever piece was missing from his knowledge.

It was no use. Each session Ichiki would bring out the same rat and at the end of each session it would be huddled in the corner of its cage, frightened and frozen but still alive.

"I think that's enough for today," Ichiki said. It was still early in the session, but Yoite was already panting from the recoil of so many aborted shots.

He shook his head and raised his hand to point at the creature again. He breathed deep and readied himself, staring down the rat and sharpening his ki. He broke the fragment away and fired as the door opened.

"Ah, Leader."

Yoite jerked just as he touched the rat's aura. His ki cleaved into it and tore and the rat made a noise not unlike a human scream.

Blood.

Yoite's knees buckled and he found himself on the floor, staring numbly at the red mess where the little creature had been.

"I understand there's been some trouble."

Yoite closed his eyes

"Yes, there had been. But it seems like we might have hit a break through."

"Well, it's always been my belief that the first kill is the hardest."

Yoite felt Hattori's gaze on him, so he forced himself to meet the man's steely eyes.

"I trust that mastery will not take much longer now?"

He managed to maintain the contact as he nodded, but Yoite made no effort to move from the floor. He was frozen.