Chapter 5: Announcing, the great Aniki!
Yet another beautiful day. With white clouds and a cheerfully blue sky. The type that made you want to throw a blanket at it all and hope it goes brawling away in tears so that you could go back to sleep.
Naruto remembered those days very well. Before he discovered the meaning of life. Waking up every day, wondering why he was alive, why life was like this. Just…why.
"Save me! I am lost in the laundry!"
Yes. Why? Why was he sitting here with his pink haired teammate watching his idiot third teammate somehow managing to get himself tangled in the white bed sheets. Their gennin mission was only to collect the laundry and fold them up neatly.
Really. Why?
Naruto scratched his unruly hair tiredly and turned to look at Sakura who was watching Sasuke. She seemed to have a perplexed expression as she watched Sasuke trip and fall onto the floor. But then, she always looked the same every day.
Having known Sakura for some years, Naruto had some understanding of her personality, or lack of one. Sakura was not the type to help others, sometimes, he swore she was glaring at him and gave him punches purposely that hurt a lot more than usual. It wasn't as if she lazed around ( like himself) or held back (like himself) or not do her part at all in missions (like himself). However, Naruto prided himself in an uncanny 6th sense when it came to people. Sakura was…well….she did things to the book and given a chance, she would stand on the sidelines and maybe watch a rabbit die instead of helping it.
Extreme opposite of the bouncing rabbit.
But then, Naruto wouldn't call himself a giving person either.
And someone had to fix that mess in front of him or they would be sitting in the same spot for the rest of the day. And kami knew that it was not going to be him.
"Are you going to do something about that?" Naruto asked Sakura as he tilted his head towards the hyper kid who was now rolling onto the ground in glee, making the once white bed sheets covered in dirt and grass. A sharp contrast to the neatly folded stack of clothes sitting in the basket next to her. All that remained was the linen that idiot was parading about in.
Instead she tilted her head to the left and gave him a look that read clearly: Why don't you?
Naruto rolled his eyes in reply.
A puff of smoke that suddenly appeared in front of them announced the arrival of their ever absent sensei.
"Well what do we have here? A tangled up Uchiha. Not sure if Fugaku-sama would be happy to see that." Kakashi stated after surveying the scene.
Naruto swore that Sasuke give a twitch despite the layers of linen.
"Come one Sasuke, play time is over. Time to finish up and go home."
Sasuke wriggled out of the bundle of cloth with a pout on his face. "You all are no fun at all." And then whisked out of sight with the dirtied bed sheet. Being as they all were, Kakashi stood there reading a novel while Naruto and Sakura continued to sit there minding their own business. Within 5 minutes, the Uchiha boy came storming back with a wet but clean bed sheet. He stopped in front of his two teammates, gave a grin with flashing teeth, threw up the wet and heavy bed sheet with shocking strength and then proceeded to perform a fire jitsu that spewed flames out of his mouth, almost instantly drying the bed sheet.
Naruto raised his eyebrow at the scene. That was a bit impressive. He watched as Sasuke jumped into the sky and folded the falling bed sheet quickly and placed it into the bundle with the others and took off back to the house where their mission-giver lived.
Within thirty seconds, he was back panting slightly but with a huge grin that was screaming for compliments.
"Good work Sasuke. Looks like Itachi taught his young brother well."
Sasuke immediately widened his eyes and turned to his sensei. " Sensei! You know my aniki? How did you know he was the one who taught me that evaporation jitsu? Were you both in the same team? But my aniki never mentioned you before. Was it because you were teammates in ANBU? As that would explain why he didn't mention you. Can you tell more about ANBU? Aniki never tells me anything and …"
"Alright. Yes, well, I have something to announce." Kakashi quickly patted Sasuke's head with his novel (with some force), hoping to find the switch to shut him up.
Both Naruto and Sakura got up to stand next to their bubbling teammate who was sprouting something along the lines of "An announcement? What's going to happen? Are we going to be given an A class mission? I knew we were good enough for it! Wait till I tell my aniki!"
"Tomorrow morning, you are all going back to school."
"What?" Both Naruto and Sasuke shouted in shock, while Sakura only raised her eyebrows to express the same feelings.
"Compulsory first aid training." Kakashi said with a twinkle in his eyes, obviously amused.
And amused was not how Sakura felt at all the next morning. She sat between a yawning Nartuo and a twitching Sasuke who was going on about something she did not care to listen.
She was currently sitting inside the large Academy halls with genin groups from not only her year, but the previous years. The whole hall was buzzing with whispers. Sakura could see Ino talking animatedly to her group mates and Kiba looking bored.
Sakura preferred not to be here at all. She wasn't interested in first aid or healing. No, it had nothing to do with her dislike of the hospital. Not much anyway. She just rather kill everything faster than it could harm her and everyone would be happy.
First aid had never been a part of their academy training all these years, so Sakura was confused as to the reason for this seemingly impromptu class.
Sasuke interrupted her thoughts by sticking his face right in front of her. "Aren't you excited Sakura chan?" Sakura pushed him away with her finger and shook her head silently.
"Why not?" Sasuke widened his eyes shock. "We are going to learn all about bandages, disinfection, simple remedies, medicines and healing jitsu!"
Sakura watched him expectantly, waiting for him to continue. Sasuke also watched expectably back at her.
"Well, aren't you going to ask me how I know all of this?"
Ah, so that was the plan. Sakura turned her head to look at Nartuo, who was currently staring at the ceiling with this weird smile.
"I can tell you if you want…" whispered Sasuke as he hovered around her ear.
Sakura was just about to teach the annoying twit the meaning of personal space when someone came into the picture. Loudly
"Sasuke-kun, tell me! I would love to know!" Ino had somehow eavesdropped on their conversation, sneaked to stand in front of them and seemed to want to push Sakura away from her seat but was stopped with by a killer death glare. Ino had all the makings of a great ninja, really. Information gathering, stealth and a value for one's own life.
Never the one to reject attention, Sasuke immediately turned around and gave Ino a brilliant smile. "Well, of course I can tell you Ino-chan! I know Sakura-chan is a bit shy to ask, but I know she would love to know too! Why, the only reason why I know all of this is because…"
Sasuke was cut off by the sound of the room door smacked open.
"Alright all of you, sit down! Your instructor has arrived. Ino, get your butt back down here with your group!" Iruka sensei barked. After waiting for a few moments for everyone to settle down, Iruka coughed loudly while he stepped aside from the door.
"Class, meet your teacher today. Uchiha Itachi, one of the head medic of Konoha Hospital."
Uchiha Itachi smoothed his white robe before stepping through the open door. He gave a small nod to Iruka who bowed respectfully at the side.
Within a wink of an eye, he appeared on the small stage situated right in front of all the gennins and quickly surveyed the room. He immediately spotted his ototo, who was currently trying very hard to not to jump up and down and shout out his name. It would seem that Sasuke required some more self-control training. The blond sitting near him was the jinchuriki teammate while the pink haired girl was the other one. Ah yes, he remembered her.
"My name is Uchiha Itachi, Ex-ANBU and currently one of the head medics of Konoha. I am the course leader and today, I will give you a brief introduction to this gennin course on healing and first aid. Later on you will be divided into groups and shall meet once a week with your respective instructor and receive further training until we are satisfied with your knowledge and skills. Any questions?"
Of course, no one had any question. His ototo knew most of the syllabus already while the other students were staring at him with different expressions. Itachi noticed the few that watched him with a calculated look. Those were children from the more well-known ninja clans. Of course they would have heard of his background.
"We are a profession regulated rigidly by rank. Ranks are earned upon skill and achievement. You are all well acquainted with general ninja ranks. The ranking system for medics is similar. Clinical medic, field medic, operations medic and head medic. Clinical medics are more suited in hospital environments while field and operations medics are trained to accompany teams out for missions with the latter for higher ranked mission. Head medics supervise and train all hospital staff in addition to aiding field work. Take note that not all medics are ninjas as some are only suitable for non-dangerous clinical work"
Itachi then tapped a large scroll that was hung up on the wall and charts spilled out in ink.
"Before you are the main fields under healing. Take note that this includes non-chakra methods such as first aid, medicines…."
After using an hour to go through the different fields of medicine and how they were used in action, he woke up the dozing class and assigned each genin group to go to a specific place to meet their medic mentor.
Itachi decided to personally take over his ototo's group, thus saving the trouble of the other medics to keep Sasuke's mouth shut. Besides, it would be easier to tutor two instead of three genins given Sasuke's skills in the area.
As Itachi walked towards the scheduled meeting areas at the training grounds, he could hear the familiar chattering of his brother's voice.
"Did you know that before aniki became a medic, there were less than twenty medics on the whole ninja force! Ever since aniki took over, we have at least 5 medics qualifying each year! We currently have a rough total of around 30 clinical medics, 20 field medics, 10 operations medics and 5 head medics! That's not even including non-medic hospital personnel! And a lot of the field and operation medics are in fact chunins and jounins and our ninja cell teams are in fact the most well balanced teams of all ninja villages and…"
Itachi quickly stepped forward to his blabbering ototo and placed a hand firmly down on his head.
"That's enough." Itachi toned with a touch of sternness in his voice.
Sasuke immediately turned red and looked sheepish. Itachi gave another firm press before motioning all of them to sit down on the ground. It would seem that Sasuke needed another stern lecture on self-control.
"In order to effectively train all ninjas regarding basic medical methods and possible healing jitsu, we single out potential medics as early as possible. Today, I would be testing your preliminary potential to heal using chakra."
Itachi watched them with a careful eye. The blond jinchuriki, Naruto he believed, tilted his head and was giving him with an odd look. The pink haired female was silently watching him with polite attention. Sasuke was trembling with anticipation as usual.
Somewhat satisfied that he had their attention, Itachi then proceeded to slowly go through the signs for the simplest healing jitsu and a warm green glow enveloped his hands.
He could see that all of their eyes go round in interest and gave himself a small smile.
"These are the hand signs for a simple diagnostic jitsu." Itachi said solemnly after a few moments. "Once you believe you are capable, focus yourself on detecting unnatural chakra reaction in a body and perform the jitsu."
Itachi then quietly watched the three genins obey his instructions.
An hour later, his ototo large eyes were on the verge of breaking out into tears.
"Aniki! I tried! I really tried! But nothing happened! What's wrong? Is there something wrong with me? Am I performing the hand signs wrongly? Does healing jitsu require a different type of chakra?"
Ignoring his brother's rambling, Itachi turned to look at the other two unsuccessful gennins. Naruto seemed bored and not at all concerned that he couldn't perform the jitsu as he sat with his hands loosely in his lap. The pink haired girl, however, seemed a bit troubled as he saw her furrow her eyebrows slightly as she stared at her hands which were still mimicking the hand signs he taught.
Knowing the deeper complexity of his brother's personality, Itachi was not surprised at Sasuke's unsuccessful attempt. He had even anticipated Naruto's lackluster performance. However, he was surprised at the girl's lack of even a tinge of green forming at her hands. According to his experience, at least one out of three of each gennin team would be able to produce some sort of healing chakra. Despite the harsh life of a ninja, it was peaceful times now and young children of Konoha were not yet affected much by the cruel and realistic world outside of the gate and were still innocent and kind hearted. Especially females.
This showed a lot about this team. Itachi did not envy Kakashi at all.
"That's enough." Itachi gave Sasuke a look which immediately quieted him down.
"This jitsu is performable with your usual chakra focusing technique taught in ninja academy. The main focus of the test was to assess those who have the required temperament for healing chakra. Namely, to be willing to give freely unconditionally and without an intent to harm. This is a test for your subconscious which cannot be faked easily. "
Itachi stood up and dusted his pants. " I am afraid all three of you are unable to fulfill this requirement. Future lessons shall focus on non-chakra related healing techniques until proven otherwise. I shall leave you to your sensei."
And with a quick nod to one of the trees nearby, Itachi disappeared in a puff of smoke.
"Well, that went well. " said Kakashi, as he slid down from his hiding spot to stand in front of his team.
As expected, Sasuke was sniffing pitifully with his eyes and nose red. Naruto was already zoning out and Sakura seemed to look a bit confused.
Kakashi knew what Itachi meant. He basically said that the three of them were selfish heartless brats. Which was not surprising given that Kakashi had been their sensei for some months. He patted the weeping Uchiha boy on the head and immediately stepped sideward when the boy tried to latch onto him.
However, this uncaring attitude was not the way of fire taught by the Hokage.
Kakashi sighed loudly as he dismissed his team. He was not looking forward to the lecture he would receive from the Hokage and the series of training he and his team would have to go through as a result of this 'assessment'.