=The Training=
Chapter 5
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"Concentrate."
An old lady and a girl occupied a clearing that was teeming with nature; bird calls could be heard filtering through the leaves of the enormous trees that sheltered them, rustling in the bushes denoted the movement of small animals foraging, and a soft wind flowed through, making the grass sway in the breeze.
"Concentrate." The woman repeated, moving to the left three steps, circling the cross-legged girl that had her emerald green eyes squeezed shut.
The girl with fire-red hair took deep breaths, following the set instructions of her 'sensei', and tried to complete the task.
"Concentrate."
*Snap.* "HOW THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO CONCENTRATE WITH YOU YELLING IT AT ME?" She practically screamed in frustration. "OW! THAT F-ing Hurt, Crazy Lady!"
Holly Potter – or Rei no-name, as it may as well be now – cursed, rubbing her head where it stung from the solid rap delt to her via her slave driver/insane old sensei/prior medical carer/Crazy Lady via the wooden staff that the woman carried around.
"If ya didn't loose your temper so often, I wouldn't hit you so often, gaki!" Old Lady Tanaka reminded exasperatedly. "And how many times do I have to tell you that it's Shiori-sensei when I'm teaching you! The title is supposed to show me respect, gaki!"
Holly grumbled something under her breath concerning the respect she felt due to the 'old hag' (or lack thereof) as she rubbed the twelfth red mark she'd received that session.
"What was that gaki?" Shiori-sensei asked sharply, fixing the girl with a Stare.
"Nothing." She replied quickly, because she was totally learning that there were certain lines that were better not to push past if she wanted to be able to get back up in the morning without a limp.
"That's what I thought." Crazy Lady replied, much too smugly for Holly's tastes. "Come on, get back to it."
Holly sighed and ceased rubbing the latest mark that was sure to bruise and settled back down on the grass, crossing her legs and shuffling around a little for a comfortable position before closing her eyes once more.
This was Shiori-baba's fourth approach to finding a way to balance Holly's chakra. So far, by what she could gather from the Crazy Lady's mutterings and explanations-in-technical-babble, each of the separate exercises had helped, but only to a point. After that point, it stopped doing any good at all for the balance and just… stopped working. Her chakra balance was supposed to be getting better, but Holly hadn't exactly gotten any real evidence of this… well, besides the fact that Crazy Lady seemed to be getting a tad less worried that if she hit Rei in the wrong way, her student would suddenly explode.
Well, that's what Holly guessed was the reason that old lady Tanaka had been kinda jittery about doing anything directly to her chakra system… something about if Tanaka made just a tiny mistake, it could result in 'game over'. And that sounded bad.
What Tanaka had her doing – meditating – was nothing new to the witch. After all, that was the basis for occlumency; gathering the will power and mental power to move stuff around and create barriers from outside forces that would seek to invade.
…Well, the official explanation for occlumency was a crap-load more complicated, but Holly wasn't exactly the type of person to get into semantics and explanations; if it worked, she did it.
The difference from this meditating and that meditating went right down to the basic principles. For occlumency, you meditate to draw inwards and examine your own mind. For chakra-balancing/control, Tanaka had her trying to expand awareness outwards and use the 'energies in nature' as a guideline to follow or some stuff like that. What Holly pretty much understood it as was that Tanaka was saying 'look at all those animals, trees, and me – don't we fit in with the balance and world? And have a look at you – doesn't it look like you… don't?
"Okay okay, I guess that's enough for today." Old Lady Tanaka said, poking Holly out of her thoughts. "If you can't focus any more I guess we can call it quits. But I expect you to do better tomorrow."
"Hai, sensei." Holly drawled, rising from the ground and dutifully following her make-shift 'sensei' back to the cottage that had become something of a home in the two months she'd spent smack dab in the middle of Kyokan Forest.
"Was there anything you wanted to do now that we're done, Rei?" Shiori idly asked as she pushed the door to her house open.
"Well, I don't know," Holly replied sarcastically, "do you have another list of chores for me to do today?"
The old woman turned her face away from the spit-fire redhead to hide her smirk. "Nope, can't say I can think of anything off the top of my head."
"In that case, I think I'll have look at your scrolls – there was that really interesting one about fuuinjutsu I saw a few days ago that I wanna take a look at."
Holly crossed the doorway and made a bee-line for the stairs in a bid for escape from the freaky slave-driving old woman that she'd struck up just about the bare-minimum of a camaraderie possible after spending so much time together. It wasn't that they hated each others guts… it was more like… well, the closest example that Holly could compare it with would be how the twins treat Ron – affectionately teasing. The insults they exchanged had lost their bite, and Holly appreciated the skills that her 'sensei' was pounding into her head, although preferred the taijutsu more than the stupid chakra-balancing sessions.
She'd even only set fire to the Crazy Lady once. Which, considering her track record, was nothing short of miraculous.
So even though Tanaka was old enough to be her grandmother and totally had one foot in the grave, Holly found she saw the woman as more of an annoying older sister than anything else. Well, that and a sadistic sensei.
"Oi! If you're looking for fuuinjutsu, just grab that book written by Abukara – you know, the one titled 'Seals for –"
"-Dummies', I know. And you suck!" Holly interrupted, shouting back down the stairs. "You don't have to be such a hag about it." She added, grumbling to herself.
"What was that?"
"Nothing, nothing." Holly quickly replied to the sharp yell before complaining to herself; "God, Shiori-baba must have sonic ears."
Holly paused on the landing for a second, just waiting for yet another reprimand for her lack of proper apprentice-y behaviour. Upon finding that none was forthcoming, she entered the room full of scrolls and migrated over to the bookshelf wedged in the left corner which is where she thought she'd seen the freaking book that Shiori-baba had mentioned.
"Yes!" She cheered upon finding it. Holly removed the book and checked over the dented cover with a sense of satisfaction – now all she had to do was have a look at it. Shiori had warned her about something about fuuinjutsu, bit she couldn't quite remember what the exact wording had been…
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"Your stance is still too sloppy." Shiroi-sensei criticised a few weeks later, "And you have to watch your left side more, or else you'll get killed." She added, demonstrating by throwing a punch and easily breaking through her student's defences so that 'Rei' ended up crashing to the ground.
Holly growled and slowly pulled herself to her feet, spitting a little blood out of her mouth as she did so, before falling into her improvised 'combat-ready' stance. "You can't freaking teach me like a normal sensei, can you?"
"Normal? Ha! Rei-chan, you ain't normal in any sense of the word! 'Abnormal' may as well be your theme song, so I figure you'll learn this best by fighting it out." Old Lady Tanaka bent her legs into a crouch before charging at her student, being sure to telegraph her intended moves.
Holly's hands sprung up in a block, almost independently from any conscious thought, and her legs followed through, throwing a round-house kick at her attacker. "You…suck!"
Tanaka laughed, grabbing her student's leg in a bid to unbalance her. "You're a broken record, gaki! Come on, you can do better than this!"
Rei twisted her body, throwing her left hand to the ground for a purchase before swinging her right leg as well, managing to kick Tanaka's shoulder and release her grip. She continued through, landing, and pounced forwards, aiming to slap the old woman's knees backwards to send her to the ground.
Tanaka dodged this, grabbing the hand and pulling the girl from the ground, flinging her bodily across the clearing.
Holly got right back up, something she'd learnt to do during their three-times-a-day 'sparring matches' that were the Tanaka's way of teaching her taijustu… that wasn't actually formal taijutsu. It was best described as plain hand-to-hand combat – and the 'dirty' version as well, being that Rei had no formal training, period.
Tanaka apparently only knew styles specific to Konoha, and according to the old woman, it was not a good idea for 'Rei' to go out in the world using those styles because Konoha would wonder just how she had learnt them, leading to her capture, subsequent torture for information and, eventually, problems for Tanaka herself by way of anything from a slap on the wrist to execution for disobeying her contract of retirement. Apparently, the styles were a closely guarded secret, and there were ways of telling the difference between a person who had been formally taught them and a person who had improvised from what they'd seen while fighting.
Because of those reasons and more, it meant that the best way for Holly to learn taijutsu was for Crazy Lady to pretty much beat the shit out of her, only giving advice and teaching which places were the most effective to hit – like the kidneys – as well as those really dirty not-nice moves used in street fights and stuff. All this meant that Holly would not ever have a formal way of fighting, but apparently that suited her anyway – Tanaka had said something about her having an 'instinct' for combat that was typical in blood limit offspring and left it at that.
On top of the physical combat, 'Shiori-sensei' had Holly up at the crack of dawn running, dodging, jumping, swimming, carrying, lifting… pretty much doing any kind of physical activity possible to 'increase the physical energies' because that was the part of chakra that she was lacking the most – apparently, she had way too much spirit energy, and way too little physical energy… or something like that. When she wasn't in a lesson, exercising, or reading Tanaka's books and scrolls, she was bogged down with a list of chores to do to complete her side of the bargain.
Sigh. Holly didn't think she'd ever be able to go back to just lazing around like she had after the war for quite some time yet. Although she privately admitted that having such a frantic schedule to keep track of meant that she didn't have any time to worry about how she was going to go about finding a way to get back to England and her friends.
"That's enough, Rei!" Shiori-sensei called at the end of their session, looking quite pleased with herself. "You're doing a good job, chibi."
Holly's brow rose, "…Did you just compliment me?"
"…Yes. But don't you dare go getting a big head ya hear? You've got a fair way ta go yet." The white-haired woman warned, brushing a few strands of hair out of her face. "Now, go clean!"
Holly was panting, sprawled out on the ground. She stared up at Crazy Lady's finger and let her head fall back on the ground. Staring up at the sky she said miserably, "I'm your slave, aren't I?"
Tanaka snorted, apparently finding amusement in her plight. "I believe the correct term is 'apprentice', but whichever."
Holly sighed explosively, and gathered the will to sit up.
That night they were both sitting around the rickety table once more, only this time eating something that Holly had cooked on her own, having been taught the dish and a few more besides by the old Tanaka after she figured out that the young girl had experience in cooking with different foods.
"So, how long do you think I have to go, Shiori-baba?" Holly asked, voicing a question that had been bothering her for a few weeks.
Electric blue eyes glanced at her over the table, seeming to judge her, before they dropped casually back to the food. "Well, it depends."
"On what?" The kunoichi-in-training asked confusedly.
"On you." Tanaka said exasperatedly, like she should have known the answer.
"…Huh?"
"Oh please." Tanaka rolled her eyes, "It's simple. Do you think you're ready?"
Holly was going to ask just what the old woman meant, but then she caught her eyes. In them, she could see the horrors of the woman's past, ghosting just below the surface. She saw a life; one of sorrows, regrets, terrors, and fears. She saw her own eyes reflected back at her, mirroring those experiences. The real, unvoiced question came to her then – was she ready? Was she ready to go out and face the world again? She had been living roughly the past six months sheltered from all of those horrors, and the worries that came with making your own decisions, for being responsible for oneself in a world where nobody cared if you lived or died. Could she leave this safe haven, and go and forge a path of her own?
It was a tough decision, but Holly Potter had never been one to happily live in a constructed make-believe play of life being simple, or only encompassing one location. She thrived on making her own decisions, living her own life, and moving from place to place… she couldn't stay cooped up much longer like she had, even though she was honestly happy there.
"…I'm ready." She said, a note of determination colouring her words.
Tanaka sighed, leaning backwards on her chair thoughtfully and studying her apprentice. "I believe… that you are ready." She said slowly, nodding her head regally.
Holly went to say something, but Shiori held up a finger to silence her. "By my judgement, I believe you are roughly chuunin level in your taijutsu, which is quite an accomplishment. We have also managed to get it to the point that you are able to use your chakra to enhance your physical abilities – you are particularly good at making yourself move faster, I must admit."
Holly blushed under the unexpected praise, ducking her head.
"-Although," Tanaka added, frowning, "I do believe that I am going to ban you from picking up any weapon, period."
"Hey!" Holly protested, "I am totally… okay, so maybe I am that bad, but I can use my daggers! I had them before I met you!"
Tanaka rolled her eyes, "Well I haven't seen you using those daggers, have I? And you are absolutely horrible with every other weapon that I have let you handle – you almost broke my wakizashi!"
"I said I was sorry for that!" Holly protested, shoving a finger in Crazy Lady's face, any lingering solemnity from the previous few minutes disappearing, "It was not my fault!"
Tanaka rolled her eyes again (it really was becoming an alarmingly common habit), "Fine. Ignoring that, I have discovered that you have absolutely no aptitude what-so-ever for using jutsu."
"Ninjutsu, how I loath thee." Holly muttered under her breath, scowling at the thought of all the time she had wasted trying to perform any form of chakra manipulation outside her body, only to discover that, because of the remaining disparity in chakra-balance between her and a regular person/thing/animal/living thing that she would never be capable of it.
"Yes yes." Tanaka said, waving a hand dismissively, "Build a bridge."
Holly pursed her lips and scowled.
Tanaka ignored that and tapped a finger to her lips thoughtfully, "Hmm, I think I have the perfect idea of what I can do for you as a last favour and to see if you're really ready to go out in the big wide world."
Holly stared at the old woman's face, getting that vague feeling of a Not Good Thing approaching rather rapidly.
"You should do fine with the taijutsu and what you can do with your chakra – walking on walls/water, moving faster and stuff – after all, ninja don't need to be able to do the big, fancy flashy stuff; most of the time it's the really basic shit that can be deadly, and you've got that down. I know you've been stuffing around with sealing – and no, I do not want to know what the hell you were doing. Plus you've got your blood limit, which gives you a way to avoid pursuit and escape from sticky situations." Tanaka analysed.
Holly raised her brows – it sounded like she knew a lot more than she felt she did when Crazy Lady listed them like that.
"Perfect!" Old Lady Tanaka declared, crossing her arms and nodding happily to herself.
Ignoring the general gut feeling telling her that she really didn't want to know, Holly chipped in. "…What's perfect?"
Tanaka smiled. "We're going on a road trip, you and I."
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A/N: Hey! Ok, just a note about fast improvement ect: There is a BIG difference between this tutoring and the Official Shinobi Academy. There, the shinobi are introduced to the whole gambit - ninjutsu, genjutsu, stealth, battle techniques & tactics, history, all that 'social charmeleon' stuff, 'how to complete missions', and 'Konoha is the greatest village ever' ect ect... Holly IS NOT recieving ANY of this - it's been plain physical conditioning, with a bit of chakra use on the side. She can't perform jutsu, and Shiori isn't going to go on about Konoha's politics or background. Also, Holly is mentally much older than the children, so any knowledge read would be understood much easier than giving kids a kunai and saying they have to kill for the village - Holly hasn't learnt ANY of this, Shiori's priority and INTENTION was to teach her enough so she could RUN AWAY from a ninja battle, instead of die uselessly as collaterol damage. (plus we all want the story to go on...)