"Is that my shirt?"

Shizuka startled out of her thoughts at her cousin's voice, causing her to jostle the needle and prick herself in a finger. Cursing softly, she stuck the now stinging finger in her mouth for a second, the metallic tang of blood sharp on her tongue.

"There was a hole in it." She explained as she waved at the nearly patched up tear near one of the shoulder seams. The thread was a shade darker than the original seam so her repair job was more obvious than it should have been.

"So you fixed it?" He asked bewildered. "Why?"

"Because I can." She responded dryly. "I was bored so I asked Tsunami-san for some thread. It's not exactly the right shade of blue but at least it's better than having a tear in it. If you want, I can redo it with the right color when we get back to the village."

"Hn"

After cutting off the excess threat carefully with a kunai, she threw the now repaired shirt into Sasuke's face. She sent him a smug look in return for his annoyed glance.

"You're welcome."

Sasuke picked up the shirt from his head with an annoyed huff before carefully folding it and putting it back in his pack.

"Kakashi's awake."

Shizuka perked up at that.

"Finally."

After returning the leftover thread to Tsunami and thanking her profusely for letting her use some of it (she knew high quality thread when she saw it), she scurried into her sensei's room, a sense of relief accompanying the sight of his opened eye.

Naruto and Sasuke were already inside with the former hovering closely to their sensei anxiously and the latter leaning against the far wall with his arms crossed nonchalantly like he couldn't care less.

"How are you feeling, Kakashi-sensei?" She asked, letting her gaze scan over his still too pale visage (or at least the visible part).

"I think I may have overdone it with my Sharingan." He muttered sheepishly as he sat up straighter in bed. "I apologize if I worried you guys."

Must be embarrassing to pass out in front of your genin.

"But" Tazuna poked his head into the room. "You defeated such a strong ninja. We should be okay for a while."

"What about that stupid masked kid?" Naruto balked.

"He's a trackin nin from Kirigakure." Kakashi explained calmly. "The masks are worn by the most elite shinobi. They destroy all traces of rogue nin corpses to protect the jutsu and chakra from being taken by rival villages. When a shinobi defects, a tracker nin will hunt them down, eliminate and destroy all evidence of their existence on the spot."

"On the spot?" Shizuka repeated. That tracker nin from a few days ago certainly didn't deal with the body on the spot. Then again, a rivaling village's squad was there so maybe there was some protocol that stated to not destroy the body in the presence of enemy nin?

She saw Sasuke shift to attention from the corner of her eye.

"He took the body with him." He muttered.

"And he used senbon, too. A mostly non-lethal weapon..." Kakashi trailed off.

Shizuka sucked in a sharp breath.

"So he's still alive then?"

"But we saw the dead body!" Naruto screeched. "Kakashi-sensei said he was dead!"

"His heart had stopped." Their teacher agreed. "But it must have been some sort of temporary state of death. While senbon can kill if they hit a vital organ, there isn't really anything in the neck to immediately kill without a bunch of blood... Tracker nin are trained to know every detail of the human body. Temporarily stopping the heart would be possible for them..."

"So you're saying the tracker nin is in league with Zabuza?" Shizuka interjected warily. "How will we even stand a chance against them when you're out of commission, sensei?"

"I may be stuck in bed but that doesn't mean I can't train you."

She deadpanned at him. A bit of training wouldn't bump them up to Zabuza's level. The man was delusional.

"That'll be a first." She muttered disdainfully under her breath.

"What was that?" Kakashi asked sharply.

"Nothing at all, sensei." She smiled with fake cheer. He had better hearing than she had expected.

"Zabuza will need time to recover so we should have a few days at least." Kakashi continued on. "I also think compliments are in order. You've all grown since coming out of the academy. Especially you, Naruto."

"You sure know your stuff, Kakashi-sensei." The blonde boasted haughtily. "Things are gonna get better now, believe it!"

"No they're not." A flat voice interrupted.

A small dark haired boy appeared next to Tazuna, leveling a glare at Naruto.

"Oh Inari! Where were you?"

Without responding, the boy tightly hugged the old man before turning his glare back onto the four of them.

"They're going to die. No one can go up against Gato."

A sheepish looking Tsunami darted into the room.

"That was rude, Inari!" She scolded. "These shinobi helped your grandpa get home safely."

"What'd you just say, you brat?!" Naruto grunted, hackles raised. "I'm a super shinobi that's going to become Hokage. I don't know who Gato or Plato is, but I will beat him into the ground!"

It didn't surprise Shizuka that the blonde had never heard of Plato.

The kid just stared at Naruto blankly. "If you don't want to die, go home."

With that, he turned around and marched right out of the room, an irate Naruto chasing after him.

She could already feel a headache forming behind her temples.


"We will now begin our training." Kakashi spoke.

They were all gathered in the backyard of Tazuna's house. Shizuka had to admit that some part of her was excited to see what kind of training the man had in store for them now that he finally seemed serious about teaching them.

"But first, let's go over the basics of chakra again."

"I already know all about catra so we can skip that." Naruto huffed, waving his hands around dismissively.

Shizuka resisted the urge to facepalm so instead shared an exasperated look with Sasuke before deciding that looking at the various flowers littering the porch was more interesting than basic chakra theory.

There were actually some rather pretty red spider lillies in one of the planters.

"We're going to climb a tree."

That statement got her attention as she merely blinked at the man in confusion. This was the grand training plan? Climb a tree?

"What?" Naruto verbalized their feelings.

"You heard me." Kakashi confirmed cheerily. "But without using your hands."

"Uhhhh are you sure you should be out of bed already, sensei?" Shizuka asked. Maybe his head had hit the ground harder than she thought.

"Observe."

They all watched in perplexed silence as the man hobbled over to a tree with his crutches. Instead of stopping at the base of the tree, he merely hobbled right up the trunk, continuing his path down a branch until he was standing upside down.

"What the fuck." She muttered softly.

"Now you get the idea." She couldn't help but notice the smug edge of his voice. "Focus your chakra into the soles of your feet to stick to the tree."

"This will help us how?" Sasuke spoke up.

"It's a way to learn better chakra control. Master it and you can master any jutsu." Kakashi paused for a second. "Theoretically at least."

Without a warning, the man flicked three kunai down to their feet. Shizuka took a hurried step backwards to avoid having her foot impaled, sending her teacher an annoyed look. Not that it had any effect on the perpetually unfazed man.

"Use these kunai to mark the highest point you can climb to."

She dubiously picked up the sharp blade, glancing over at her teammates who seemed determined to... climb a tree. With their feet. As if on some unspoken signal, the two of them dashed towards a tree.

Naruto took two steps on the trunk before sliding down and falling flat on his back. Sasuke managed to get in about two meters before the bark splintered under his foot. He swiftly slashed a mark in the tree and then performed a graceful backflip to land on the ground in a crouch.

"You too, Shizuka." Kakashi urged her.

Fine. Closing her eyes for a second, she carefully guided her chakra to her feet. It wasn't all that different than how she used her chakra to activate her kekkei genkai. Once she felt confident enough in her chakra concentration, she opened her eyes and carefully walked over to a tree. Running would only ruin her focus.

She hesitantly placed one foot on the bark, pleasantly surprised to feel it stick securely, before placing her other foot on the tree. She had to tense all her core muscles to not careen over backwards as she slowly but steadily made her way upwards, tongue slightly poking out of her mouth in concentration.

"WOW SHIZUKA YOU'RE SO GOOD AT THIS!"

Naruto's loud voice startled her out of her concentration, causing her chakra control to falter and her left foot to slip off the bark. She hurriedly made a line in the bark with her kunai before taking a leaf out of her cousin's book and backflipping more or less (definitely less) gracefully down to the ground, adding some chakra into her ankles to absorb the shock.

"Dude." Was all the said as she deadpanned at her teammate.

"Sorry!" His shoulders hunched in slightly, a red tint adorning the tips of his ears.

Looking up at the tree, she was pleasantly surprised to see that she had made it a good ten meters. Turning towards Sasuke, she stuck out her tongue teasingly, resulting in him turning away from her with a huff.

"It seems like our female teammate here has the most chakra control out of you all. Well done, Shizuka." Kakashi said loudly from where he was now lounging on a chair on the wooden porch.

Shizuka beamed brightly at the praise from her teacher, her inner teacher's pet making an appearance.

"Not only does she understand chakra, but she can control and maintain it." Kakashi continued on. "Seems like Shizuka's got a much better chance of becoming Hokage than you, Naruto."

Naruto glowered at the man in annoyance.

"As for the great Uchiha clan. It would seem you're just all talk, Sasuke."

The smile fell off her face immediately at the flicker of hurt in her cousin's eyes. She understood that Kakashi wanted to motivate them into trying harder but using a dead clan for a taunt went too far.

"That's quite enough I think." Her carefully monotone voice belied the irritation she was feeling on her teammates behalf.


"Come onnnn" Naruto muttered as he fell down for the umpteenth time, panting heavily. The multiple slash marks on the tree showed the minimal progress he had made in the past hour.

Sasuke was panting just as hard as he glared up at the tree like it had personally wronged him. He too hadn't improved much during his many attempts.

Shizuka on the other hand was perched comfortably on one of the highest branches of her tree as she dully regarded her teammates struggling. It had taken her four times to make it all the way up the tree. She supposed she had her kekkei genkai to thank for that as one couldn't perform genjutsu without solid chakra control.

Another ten minutes of watching the boy's ego reducing in size (Kiba would have a field day watching this) and the bark starting to dig into her back uncomfortable, she decided to make her way down the tree the same way she had walked up, not willing to risk an ankle injury by jumping from this height.

"Shizuka."

She blinked up at her slightly taller cousin as he stood in front of her, unwilling to meet her gaze as he fidgeted with the kunai in his hand. If she didn't know better, she would think he was nervous.

"Yes?" She prompted after he remained silent for an awkward amount of time.

"How are- How do y-" He sighed deeply before turning around. "Never mind."

"Sasuke." She said sternly, causing the boy to turn back around. "Do you want me to give you some pointers?"

Shizuka could practically see the internal struggle in his eyes. He wasn't really someone to ask for help so the fact that he had even attempted to ask her, however clumsy that attempt had been, meant a lot.

His eyes flickered from her to a recently fallen Naruto to Kakashi, who was pretending to read his book but was regarding them from the corner of his eye, back to her before nodding curtly.

She moved closer to the tree he had been using for the exercise, motioning him to follow her. Shizuka pointed at the rough indents of his feet that littered the tree bark.

"You see these indents? It's because you're using too much chakra so you end up putting too much force on the tree, causing the bark to splinter which makes you fall off."

She shot a glance towards Sasuke to see if he was following, knowing that if she fucked this up, he would never ask for help again.

"This exercise is not only to focus your chakra into your feet but also to maintain the right concentration. You're trying to use brute force to get through the exercise but this requires a bit more delicacy. Use too little chakra and you'll slip off the tree like Naruto does, use too much and, well, you know." She gestured again at the tree. "What helps for me is to do it slowly. Running breaks my focus too much so I start by just walking. Try it."

Taking a step back, she observed as Sasuke slowly approached the tree, testily putting a foot on the bark. She could already see it starting to splinter from the force of his chakra but to her surprise, the chakra output decreased slightly, allowing his foot to stick properly. This was followed by another fifteen small and deliberate steps up the tree before his focus wavered and he cracked through the bark and fell off as a result.

Looking back up at the tree, the corner of her mouth quirked up as she saw that he had made it significantly further up than before. Glancing back at Sasuke, she could see her expression mirrored on his face.

"Hn." Thank you