Disclaimer: I own nothing. This is purely for entertainment purposes, and I am making no profit off of this.

"Have a nice day, miss," I handed the bouquet of flowers carefully over to the woman standing on the other side of the counter.

"Oh, thank you," The woman smiled at me and turned to leave.

I struggled to suppress the twitching of my eye as I watched the flowers that I had painstakingly arranged twisted slightly out of their arrangement. It wouldn't make a difference really, but dammit lady, I spent like, twenty minutes getting those damn tulips just right.

Ah, whatever.

I checked the time and prepared to close the shop, realising that it was just about closing time. I counted up the profits from the day and hung up the 'Closed' sign.

The door to the shop opened with the ring of the door chimes and I walked towards the training fields, shielding my eyes from the light of the setting sun.

While I walked, I tried pulling a few senbon around on my skin using chakra. I figured that if I could master this sort of 'chakra pulling' I could draw weapons without even moving my hands, a skill that would no doubt become useful for surprising enemies.

I turned a corner, struggling to put my senbon back into my pouch using my chakra. Getting the senbon in and out of the weapons pouch was always the hardest part of the exercise.

After a few more minutes of trying to put the senbon back while walking, I gave up and just used my hands to put them back into the pouch. I would have the whole night to practise, and right now, my time would be better spent actually practising with the throwing of my weapons.

I drew a kunai from the pouch at my hip and prepared to throw it at the target on the far side of the clearing. At this distance, I could throw the kunai with an accuracy of one or two rings from the centre. It was well above Academy standards. The Academy only required students to have that sort of accuracy with a target only half the distance that I was practising at.

Before I made the throw, my eyes narrowed. I felt the barest flicker of chakra off to the side. I threw my kunai in the direction.

The shard of metal hit nothing but foliage.

I walked over to the side of the clearing to pick up the kunai. I reached out with my sensing skills to figure out if what I had felt was just imagined. I frowned as I picked up nothing.

Shaking my head, I bent down and picked up the kunai that I had thrown. I returned to the clearing to continue practising. The presence I felt must have been just my mind playing tricks on me. Maybe I was just tired. Perhaps I should return home earlier today and get some extra sleep.

Still, I couldn't shake off the feeling that I was being watched.

With great difficulty, I materialised the tiniest drop of water from my chakra. The lone droplet of water slowly slid down the finger that I conjured it from, dripping off of my wrist onto the sodden piece of chakra paper that was lying at my feet.

I smiled.

Water

It wasn't a raging waterfall or a water dragon or even anything capable of doing battle with, but it was something.

I sat down for a night full of water.

"Hajime!"

The instructor yelled for the two of us to start our spar. The boy who I was facing rushed into battle. This boy was about average for the year he was, and he was only slightly below my skill level.

I narrowed my eyes and began to think as we fought.

I had been fast-tracked and had skipped a year. I had been moved up a year previously, so I was two years younger than every other child in my new class. It absolutely was reasonable that they would be better than me.

But it was unacceptable.

But the word 'reasonable' does not imply the words 'sufficient' or 'acceptable' or 'competent' or 'strong.'

Or 'alive.'

I was weak and I would die.

Training would have to be taken more seriously. It would have to become more intensive. I would take my weakness and pulverise it.

I would grind it all to dust.

I laid in the clearing under the light of the thousands of gleaming stars

I closed my eyes and imagined that the soft moonlight that I had begun to adore was caressing and healing my aching muscles and my bleeding knuckles.

And then I got up, as though the dim glow of the night sky had revitalised me somehow.

In a way, it had.

"Chisei-nii! Chisei-nii! Wait!"

I turned around and watched as Ino ran towards me. I stood still and allowed her to embrace me.

"You haven't been around for so long! You never have time to play! Where have you been going? What's taking so much of your time? Come on, Chisei-nii!" Ino whined loudly to me.

I awkwardly placed my hands on her shoulders and tried to lightly push her away, hoping that she would take the hint.

She didn't, continuing to hug me.

Well, she probably had noticed that I didn't really want her around right now, but decided to hold on to me anyways.

I cleared my throat, "Ino, I can't play now. I'm off to do some… awesome… ninja training."

Ino looked up at me with wide, sparkling eyes.

"So… I, uh, need to head off to the training fields."

Ino gave me a coy smile, no doubt noticing my awkwardness.

"Alright, but you have to promise to play with me later!"

I smiled clumsily and delivered a hesitant promise. That seemed to satisfy her, and she scampered off back to her home in the Yamanaka clan compound.

I don't understand children.

I looked in the mirror and touched the black circles that had begun to reappear beneath my eyes. Before I had tried to limit the amount of time that I spent out in the training fields so that I would actually have energy when I woke up in the morning.

But with the advent of a nature transformation to practise with as well as the extra time that I had begun to dedicate to training my physical aspects had begun to eat into the time that I had previously allotted for sleep.

I tied my long auburn hair into the traditional Yamanaka ponytail and exited the bathroom.

I prepared a cup of tea.

And when I sipped it, I felt slightly more alive.