I opened my eyes slowly. Where was I? I felt myself bobbing up and down, my feet weren't touching the floor, and I could see the floor beneath me as I was looking downwards. Then I realised I was being carried. I saw the blue shirt and white shorts and growled.
"Put me down Sasuke!" I grumbled.
"Hn."
"Seriously, get off!" I started kicking my legs and flailing my arms to no avail. It was pretty hopeless since he'd slung me over his shoulder. I growled in annoyance as Naruto snickered. I began hitting his back with my fists but then I felt his hand slam into the back of my neck. Well done, smartass. You know of a pressure point, I thought, before slipping into unconsciousness.
I opened one eye slowly, worried that I'd find myself being carried again, but realised I wasn't moving. I was lying in a bed. I sat up abruptly, ignoring a sharp pain in my back. I felt my back to realise I wasn't wearing my shirt, just the netted material I had been wearing underneath. Instead of my top I wore layers of bandages wrapped around my chest and upper back, down to where my ribs ended.
"Lay down, Eira, you're not well," Sakura told me gently. I ignored her and stood up, pretending not to notice the searing pain in my back. Sakura sighed, knowing there was no point in trying to make me lie down again.
We walked out to see Naruto, Sasuke and Tazuna standing around. Apparently they were allowed to see Kakashi now.
"Wait, what happened to him?" I asked curiously.
"We'll explain later," Sakura replied, as the five of us rushed in to the room.
"Look, the sensei's coming around!" Naruto exclaimed thankfully. Sakura walked over and kneeled by Kakashi's bed.
"Listen, Sensei, your sharingan is amazing and everything, but if it put that much strain on you, maybe it's not worth it?" Ah, now I understood. He'd used his sharingan too long. Strange, I didn't know the sharingan did that. Maybe it was just him?
"Sorry," was Kakashi's weary reply.
"Huh, well, he did take down one of the most powerful ninja assassins to we'll be safe for a while," Tazuna stated. He took Zabuza down? He looked like a pretty tough guy. Impressive.. I thought.
"Yeah, but we wouldn't need to be assured that we're safe if you weren't a dirty liar," I muttered quietly. Once again only Sasuke heard me. I could have sworn I saw him laughing. Did he have some sort of supersonic hearing? I was closer to Naruto than him, yet he still heard me.
"Right, but.. that boy with the mask, what about him?" Sakura replied to Tazuna. What boy with the mask?
My curiosity got the better of me as I listened carefully.
"He's from the elite tracking unit of the village hidden in the mist," Kakashi told her. "Those masks are only worn by the most elite shinobi."
"What exactly do they do?"
"The ANBU black ops, also known as the inferno squad, destroy all traces of a ninja's corpse. The shinobi's body contains many secrets. Ninjutsu, chakra, special medicines used on his body. These are the secrets of his village. If his enemies find them, his village will be in grave danger. For instance, if I were to die at the hands of an enemy, he would try to analyse my sharingan. In the worst case, my entire jutsu could be stolen and used against our village. It is the sacred duty of the shinobi trackers to prevent this, to keep the village secrets safe. If a ninja betrays his village the trackers hunt him down, eliminate him and obliterate every trace of his existence. That's their specialty."
We pondered his words for a few minutes silently.
"Hey, are you okay? Sensei?" Naruto asked, concerned. I looked up from my daydreams to see Kakashi holding his head, seemingly in pain. Either that or he was thinking hard about something or other. I watched him curiously. The four of us were sitting at the foot of Kakashi's bed; me, Naruto and Sasuke had our legs crossed whilst Sakura was sitting on her feet. I was sat between Sasuke and Sakura, much to Sakura's annoyance, with Eriko sitting on my lap.
"Hm?" Kakashi looked up. "Oh, yeah. So as I was saying, tracker ninja deal with the body immediately, on the spot, so there's no room for error."
"Is that really important?" Sakura asked. Of course it is, stupid, I thought, rolling my eyes.
"Think about it. Do you remember what that tracker did with Zabuza's body?" I listened closely now, since I hadn't a clue what had happened.
"We don't know what he did.. I mean, I guess he took it away somewhere," Sakura replied. I looked at her sharply when she said that. A tracker ninja wouldn't normally do that..
"Exactly, but why? He should have worked on Zabuza right there, as quickly as possible. Think of the weapons he used for the take-down. Do you remember what they were?" Kakashi was obviously trying to get us to realise something whilst pondering over it himself.
"Thowing needles... No way!" Sasuke realised. I caught on when he said that.
"Exactly.. none of it adds up," Kakashi replied, thinking hard.
"What are you all yabbering about? You demolished that assassin!" Tazuna cut in.
"Is yabbering even a word?" I asked, making everyone glance at me increduously, no doubt wondering how I could be thinking about that at the present time.
"Here's the truth; Zabuza's still alive," Kakashi said bluntly.
"HAH?" Sakura's, Naruto's and Tazuna's faces displayed complete shock and surprise, their jaws dropping. The girl in the room, who I was told was Tsunami, Tazuna's daughter, gasped slightly, her eyes going wide.
"But we saw his body, believe it!" Naruto shook his fists.
"Kakashi-Sensei you checked him yourself, you said that his heart stopped!"
"His heart did stop. But that was just a temporaty state, to simulate death. The weapons that tracker used were called senbon. They pierce deeply but rarely kill unless they hit a vital organ - not in the neck. They're modified for needles used for medical treatments like acupuncture," Kakashi explained gravely. "Trackers are trained to know every detail of the human body, causing the heart to stop temporarily while keeping the body alive is an easy matter for them. First, he carried Zabuza's body away, even though he's much heavier than he is. Second, he used senbon which have a precise effect, but are rarely fatal. From these two factors, we can conclude that the tracker wasn't trying to destroy Zabuza, he was trying to save him."
"Come on, you're over-thinking this, aren't you?" Tazuna tried to reason.
"We're ninja. We're supposed to over-analyse," I told him, sighing.
"She's right," Kakashi said. "Encountering suspicion, the ninja prepares quickly. Hesitation leads to disaster. Every shinobi knows this saying."
I glanced at Naruto who seemed to be shaking with excitement, grinning determinedly. Hm, he's pleased to know Zabuza's alive. Well, good, I really wanna get back at him..
"Sensei, you said 'prepare quickly', but how can we do that when you can barely move?" Sakura asked.
"She's got a point.." I stated thoughtfully. Kakashi suddenly laughed.
"Huh?" Sakura looked confused, her eyebrows furrowing slightly.
"I can still train you."
"Hold on! A little last-minute training isn't going to make us strong enough to fight Zabuza! You could barely defeat him, even with your sharingan! We have to be reasonable about this!" Sakura exclaimed angrily.
"Sakura, why was I able to stop Zabuza? Because, you all helped me. You've grown. Naruto, you've grown the most," he praised with a closed-eye smile. Naruto's eyes widened slightly and he chuckled a little, obviously pleased.
"So you noticed, Kakashi-sensei? Now things are gonna get better, believe it!"
I heard footsteps behind us as a voice cried, "I don't believe it, and nothing's gonna be good!"
"Huh?" Everyone spun round to see a small boy standing there scowling. He only looked about seven or eight, and wore brown sandals, a pale creamy yellow shirt with a high collar, green dungarees and a little hat with two blue stripes on it. He had spiky brown hair and dark eyes.
"Who are you?" Naruto yelled obnoxiously, pointing to the small figure.
"Ah, Inari, where've you been?" Tazuna exclaimed, holding his arms out.
"Welcome back, Grandpa!" the little boy, Inari, ran into his grandfather's arms and hugged him. Tsunami put her hands on her hips.
"Inari, that was very rude!" she scolded. "These ninja helped your grandpa and brought him here safely."
"It's okay, it's okay, I'm rude to them too!" Tazuna stroked Inari's head whilst saying this.
"Oh, so that justifies it, does it?" I asked, with a scowl.
"Mom, don't you see, these people are gonna die! Gato and his men will come back and find them and wipe them out!" Inari cried.
"What'd you say, brat?" Naruto screeched angrily, his fists clenched. "Listen up! you know what a super ninja is? Well that's me, only a lot better! I'm gonna be Hokage. This Gato or Glato or whatever he's called is no match for a real hero like me!"
"Huh, there's no such thing as a hero," Inari scoffed, looking at the floor. "You're just full of stupid ideas!"
"WHAT'D YOU SAY?"
"Naruto calm down!" Sakura grabbed a furious Naruto before he could lunge himself at the little boy. I could understand his anger, the kid had some cheek to say that.
"If you wanna stay alive you should go back where you came from." With that Inari walked out of the room. He'd sure caused a scene..
"Inari, wait, where are you going?" Tazuna stopped him.
"To look out at the ocean, I wanna be alone!" Inari replied, sliding the doors apart. Naruto was still seething with anger, Sakura holding him back, whilst Sasuke and I sat in crouching postures on either side of them, observing the scene.
"Sorry about that," Tazuna apologised.
"Naruto, wait!" I called as he stormed up the stairs.
"Who does that brat think he is? I'm gonna put him in his place right now!" I sighed and followed him as he reached the top of the stairs and walked down the hallway with his fists clenched.
"Huh?" we both stopped when we heard choked sobs coming from Inari's room. We cautiously approached the door and peeked around it to see Inari sitting on the desk with his back to us by his window, sobbing his heart out.
"No, daddy, no!" he cried, tears pouring down his cheeks. I kind of felt bad for the kid.
"Alright, training starts now!" Kakashi declared.
"Right!" Naruto sounded pretty confident. We were outside in the trees, and Kakashi was leaning on crutches for support. Tsunami had told me to stay and rest but I'd refused, using a jutsu that acted as a painkiller. A friend of mine once upon a time had been a medic ninja and taught me a couple of tricks in medical ninjutsu.
"First, we will begin with a review of chakra, the ninja's basic source of power. Understanding chakra is essential."
"We know that," Sasuke said boredly, a hand on his hip.
"He's right, a long time ago we learned about.. uh.. catra!" You can guess who said that.
"Chakra," Kakashi corrected, his head slumped hopelessly. "Go ahead Sakura."
"Alright Naruto, I'll explain it simply, so even you can understand it," Sakura stated, her hands on her hips. I smirked as she pulled out a scroll. "Chakra is the element of life energy a ninja uses in jutsu. It's the source of all his power. Now this energy has two forms, physical energy consists of all the cells in the entire body all working together, and spiritual energy, the primary source of power which is intensified through training and experience. As you see..."
She droned on and on, and so I got bored and sat on a log a few metres behind Naruto and Sasuke. Eventually she shut up as Kakashi praised her, saying that Iruka had excellent students. Sure, sure.
"What's the big deal with all these complicated explanations?" Naruto burst out. He had a point, they were pretty annoying. "The whole point is to learn the jutsu isn't it?" I take my previous comment back.
"Naruto's right for once. We're already using chakra energy in our jutsu," Sasuke stated.
"No, you've not mastered this power, you've only scratched the surface of it."
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN?" Naruto cried in frustration.
"Calm down and listen. It's just like Sakura said; you have to draw on physical and spiritual energies and combine them within yourself. But, how do you do that? Each jutsu requires different types of chakra..."
I zoned out again as he went on to explain balancing and controlling chakra. Or something like that anyway. I stared up at the clouds again to see a cloud in the shape of a butterfly.
"Pretty butterfly.." I murmured, staring up at the sky dreamily.
"What?" Sasuke turned to look at me.
"Nothing! Do you have ultra-hearing or something?"
"...No, I just listen more than Naruto."
"Whatever."
I began listening again when Kakashi said something about putting our lives on the line.
"But… what do we have to do?" Sakura asked.
"Climb a tree."
"CLIMB A TREE?" the four of us exclaimed. I stood up suddenly.
"That's right. But, there's just one rule - no hands."
"What? You're kidding," Sakura said in disbelief. I almost laughed. Of course he wasn't.
"Am I? Let's see," he did a handsign and directed chakra towards his feet before limping over to a tree. He casually began walking up the tree vertically as if he was walking on the ground. The three stared in shock whilst I just laughed. I already knew how to do that. Kakashi walked along a branch and was now standing upside down from a branch.
Kakashi then went on into a detailed explanation of how to climb a tree.
Before he was even finished, I quickly did a hand sign and focused chakra towards my feet, walking over to a tree before climbing right to the top and sitting on a branch, my legs dangling.
"WHAAA-" Naruto began.
"I know stuff," I said simply.
Naruto whipped out a kunai and declared something about being ready. Well this was going to be interesting...