I have accepted the fact that I cannot keep my word about the updating of this story. So I shall no longer say when to expect it because I suck at that. If you see any mistakes or have any creative criticism/suggestions you can either write a review or PM me. So enjoy.
(Kakashi's POV)
All I could see was darkness as my mind slowly started to reawaken from unconsciousness. A dull throbbing ripped through my head like a constant drum slowly getting stronger as the moments passed. It seemed the after effects of my Sharingan had affected the rest of my body as well since it was hard to move anything without the pounding getting stronger.
'I guess this is what I get for using it for that long.' I thought. Slowly I tried to open my eye letting it adjust to the bright light of the room. Soon the light no longer seemed as bright and I could open right eye all of the way to see where I was. It was a plain room that had a low table to the left of the futon, which he was resting on, and from the window, on the right side of the
room, he could hear the clashing of the waves. Suddenly the door on the opposite side of the room from him opened and a young woman, appearing to be in her late 20's to early 30's, walked in. When she closed the door she jumped a little from surprise when she noticed my gaze on her.
"Oh you're awake already? Your students will be glad to hear that. My name is Tsunami, I'm Tazuna's daughter."
"Nice to meet you, my name is Kakashi Hatake. How long have I been unconscious?" I asked curious since I could tell from the amount of sunlight that some time has passed.
"Well you arrived here about 4 hours ago so I would assume around there. Your students carried you all of the way here after you passed out. Would you like to speak to your team now?" She asked with a kind smile and pleasant tone.
"Could you hold them off for about 5 minutes? My headache will just get worse from Naruto's hyperactive mouth and I can't remember the last time I had peace and quiet when he was around." My desperate tone made her laugh a little before she said, "I understand, Naruto is a little bit hyper but it does feel nice to have such an optimistic aura around here. Would you me to get you something for your headache?"
"Yes please." When she walked out of the door I let out a little sigh as the memories of the fight came to me. Something just didn't feel right about the way that it ended though. Tracker ninjas never move the body after the target is diseased to quickly retrieve any information that could be used against their home village if their enemies discovered the target first.
'If he was truly trained correctly he never would have carried Zabuza's body away for any reason. Not only that but Zabuza's body was much larger than his own which can only mean that the boy is Zabuza's accomplice, trying to help him escape. This is probably the scam that they play to get him out of any danger he can't handle. If this is the case then he will show himself again to finish off Tazuna soon. But he will need some time to recover before that happens. These kids are going to need an extra boost in training if they're going to survive the second assault at all. This will probably be the best time to teach them –' My thoughts were immediately cut off when the loud SLAM of the door hitting the wall caused my headache to increase tenfold.
"Hey Kakashi-sensei! You're finally awake!"
"Shut up Naruto! He just woke up so try not to kill his eardrums would ya!" Sakura shouted as she punched the back of Naruto's head. Her shouting just made me want to drift back into unconsciousness to avoid their bickering.
"Sorry sensei." Naruto mumbled trembling in fear of Sakura's wrath. They all took a seat on the floor around my futon; Sakura and Naruto on the left as Sasuke and Akina silently took a seat on my right. Tazuna and Tsunami walked in as well and took a seat as well at the end of the futon; Tsunami joined her father after she placed a glass of water and two pills on the little table for me.
"So how do you feel Kakashi-sensei?" Akina asked. I sighed as my headache subsided for the time being.
"I should be fine with a few days of rest; it's nothing to worry about." I tried to sound optimistic to ease any of their worries but even I could hear the slight exhaustion in my voice.
"Kakashi-sensei even though the Sharingan is cool and everything maybe you shouldn't use it this much. Especially when it takes up so much of your chakra and it leaves you like this." Concern shone through Sakura's teal eyes as she said this. With what energy I could muster I slowly sat up to look at everyone more clearly.
"Don't worry about me I have been in worse condition before but right now we have more important matters to discuss."
"What could be so important now? We just beat Zabuza so now all we have to do is protect the old man and then go home. Right?" Naruto said with total confusion and annoyance.
"What's important is that the fight isn't over just yet. Zabuza is still alive."
(Akina's POV)
'Not what I was expecting to hear.' I thought rubbing my eyes a little bit.
"What are you talking about you practically demolished that guy? There's no way he could still be alive after that." Tazuna said in total disbelief.
"You said so yourself that his heart stopped. How could he be alive?" Sasuke said, actually engaging in the conversation.
"Well let's think about what happened. What kind of weapons did the tracker use to take down Zabuza?" Kakashi asked.
"He used Senbon also called throwing needles. Which means that the boy was helping Zabuza to get away." I said understanding what Kakashi was trying to get us to see.
"Very observant Akina. Senbon are rarely fatal, they can only kill someone when they hit a vital point. Nothing in the neck is a vital point. Not only that he carried Zabuza's body away, which is much heavier than his own, when he should have started working on the body immediately as trackers are supposed to do."
"But sensei he still had no heartbeat so how could he still be alive?" Sakura asked still confused.
"Tracker ninja are specially trained to know every detail about the human body. To put someone in a temporary death state, while keeping the organs functional, would be an easy matter for them."
"So what are you going to do now that he's still alive and will come after me again?" Tazuna asked, a small hint of fear in his eyes.
"We must prepare quickly since he will only need a little bit of time to let his body recover from being in a death state."
"What do you mean by prepare? You're not exactly in the best of shape to do anything sensei." I asked with genuine concern for his well being. Even I could see that sitting up had required the little energy that he has at the moment and it was clear that his muscles were tense from using his Sharingan. He let out a small amused laugh before he answered, "I can still train you even in this state."
"Now wait just a minute! How is a little bit of last minute training going to help us against Zabuza when you could barely beat him the first time even with your Sharingan? We have to think this through first." Sakura freaked out.
"Sakura, why was I able to beat Zabuza? Because you all helped me, you've grown. Especially you Naruto, you've grown the most." Naruto was shocked at Kakashi's words before his signature grin appeared on his face.
"So you've finally noticed sensei! Don't worry things will continue to get better, believe it!"
"No I don't believe it!" Everyone turned their heads to look at the source of the exclamation. At the door stood a boy who appeared to be 10 years old; wearing a white hat with 2 navy blue stripes, a faded yellow t-shirt, and a green overall. His expression was blank but I could in his eyes a tortured sad look, a look I haven't seen since I was 5 years old.
'He must have lost someone as well, someone very close.' I thought as I watched the boy run into Tazuna's arms, welcoming him home.
"Inari that was very disrespectful of you. These ninja helped your grandfather get back here safely so act like you have some manners." Tsunami said with her hands on her hips.
"Oh don't worry about it I'm rude to them too." Tazuna said as he hugged Inari. Inari wasn't looking at her though as his eyes passed over us, as if he was judging our capabilities.
"But mom don't you see these people are going to die! Gato and his men will come back and kill them all. Don't you get it?" A furious Naruto stood up and pointed to Inari as he yelled out.
"Hey listen here you disrespectful brat! I am a super ninja and one day I'm gonna become Hokage. This Blato or whatever is no match for me, I'm a true hero!" Inari just stared at him and said, "There is no such thing as a hero. You're just full of dumb ideas." Before Naruto could go over there to strangle him Sakura grabbed from behind in a headlock and held him there, yelling at him to calm down. Looking at Inari again as he was walking out I could see that a deep anger had taken place in his eyes, something that appeared when Naruto had called himself a hero.
"You guys should just go back to where you come from, you'll only make things worse." With that he walked out of the room despite Tazuna calling for him to come back. Tsunami turned to us all and apologized for Inari's behavior. Looking at Kakashi I quickly noticed that the two pills were gone and the glass of water was completely empty.
'How the hell did he do that without any of us noticing? I still want to see his face.' Knowing that will have to wait as I asked Kakashi the most important question at the moment.
"So sensei, when you say prepare for the next battle how are we going to do that?" At that moment everyone turned to look at Kakashi; curious to know the next lesson as well. He just gave us that closed-eye chuckle and gave me an answer I wasn't expecting.
"We are going to go climb some trees."
In the nearby forest….
"Alright are you all ready to begin? First we need to review chakra, the most basic tool for a ninja. If you can completely understand chakra then you be able master all kinds of jutsu." All of us were standing in a small clearing completely surrounded by tall thick trees. Kakashi still hasn't told us about what the training exercise is until we had reached the forest. My teammates were waiting for Kakashi to explain as he situated himself, along with is crutches, to stand right in front of us.
"Yeah yeah we already learned all about –uh catra back at the academy so why do we have to review it?" Naruto said making all of us sigh at the fact he can't even say chakra right.
"First of all Naruto it's pronounced chakra. Sakura will explain the rest for you." Kakashi said with slight annoyance.
"Alright Naruto I'm going to explain it to you in the best way possible for you to understand. Chakra is the elemental life energy a ninja uses for jutsu, it's the source of all of their power. This energy has two forms; spiritual and physical. Physical energy lies within all of the cells in the body working together whereas spiritual energy is primal power gained through intensive training and experience. In order to perform jutsu both types of energy must be used in equal amounts or else the jutsu won't perform correctly. Finally, hand signs are used to draw these powers together to perform the jutsu."
"She is correct on every point, it seems that Iruka sensei had some excellent students." Kakashi said impressed.
"But what's with these long complicated explanations? The whole point is to perform the jutsu right so who cares about this stuff." Naruto yelled out in frustration. What was surprising though for all of us was when Sasuke spoke up.
"Naruto is actually right about something for once, we're already using chakra in our jutsu."
"No! You haven't even scratched the surface of this power, you've only been guessing and it's been working fine for right now. For each jutsu there certain proportions of the two types of energy that must be used to make the jutsu successful. Even if you have a lot of chakra, if you can't control it then the jutsu won't work at all or it may be a dud. You waste a lot of chakra this way and soon you'll just be a sitting target with no chakra."
"So how do we avoid that?" Naruto asked, sheepishly rubbing the back of his head.
"Act as if you're life is on the line which will make you train so hard that controlling chakra becomes second nature." There was dead silence after his statement, thinking of how hard it will be to master chakra control.
"So how is climbing trees going to help us with our chakra control." Sakura softly spoke up.
"You have to climb with no hands."
"How can someone climb a tree without any hands? That's impossible." Naruto said.
"Just watch." Using the sheep hand sign we watched as a small layer of dust brushed away from his feet. He walked towards the closest tree and when he was right in front of it he placed one foot on the trunk and began to actually walk up the tree. Even with his crutches. He picked one of the lower branches to stop at and was actually standing upside down.
"Wow that's amazing." Sakura exclaimed.
"And he's not even using his hands at all." Naruto said in awe.
"Well you guys get the idea. You must focus your chakra to the soles of your feet in order to stick to the tree."
"So how is this going to help us fight Zabuza when we see him again?" I asked since I was very curious as to what we'll actually gain from it.
"This will be the key advantage to fighting Zabuza, which is the whole point of this training. First you will learn to draw a precise amount of chakra to a precise point of the body. Something even advanced ninja struggle with. This climbing requires that you use a mix of both spiritual and physical energy. And the feet are the most complicated place to concentrate chakra. Is any of this starting to make sense now? Master this training and soon you can master just about any jutsu there is. The second point of this training is that you learn how to maintain your chakra. In battle a ninja must always have control over his chakra and learn how to maintain it or else the consequences are deadly. Now instead of talking about this all day it's about time you apply this in order to truly learn it." Pulling 4 kunais out of his vest Kakashi threw one in front of each one of us.
"What are these for sensei?" Naruto asked.
"You're going to use these to mark your highest point on the tree and then try to surpass that mark each time. When you start run at the tree to gain momentum so that you can make it to your highest point until you can get used to it. If you have any more questions save them for later."
"Don't worry sensei I'll finish this in no time. Like you said I'm the one who's grown the most." Naruto said as he grabbed his kunai, his signature grin on his face. The rest of us did the same as we prepared to start the training.
"Well you are certainly the one who talks the most now get focused and do it." Naruto mumbled something under his breath as we performed the sheep hand sign and summoned chakra to our feet. I could feel the chakra building up in feet by the slight tingly feeling.
'GO!' I thought as I ran towards a tree. When my foot made contact with the tree it felt like we were two magnets being attracted to each other. I felt this even as I went farther up the tree and I almost lost focus when I heard Naruto's moan of pain not even 5 seconds after I started.
'I guess he didn't make it too far.' A few seconds later my foot slipped because I couldn't maintain my chakra much longer so I quickly marked the spot and grabbed on to a nearby branch. Once I was situated on the branch I turned to look down and saw that I was pretty far up the tree, I was at its halfway point from the looks of it. A few trees to my left I saw Naruto rolling in the grass while holding on to his head. To my right I saw that Sasuke had made it about a fourth of the way up. From the crushed tree bark I could see that he had used too much chakra.
"Hey this is a lot of fun!" Shouted an excited Sakura. I didn't notice that she picked the tree next to mine and we were at the same height basically.
"Well well it seems like the female members of the squad have the most advance chakra control. Well done Sakura and Akina."
"Yeah! Way to go Akina and you too Sakura!" Naruto shouted with excitement.
"Tch whatever." Sasuke said broodingly. I watched as Sakura's confidence was ripped away from her by those two words, her head now hung low and she just muttered Sasuke's name with a tone of despair. I got slightly angry because she is letting him bring her down when she should be happy by her success. I moved closer to her since our branches were right next to each other and sat down so that no one would hear us very well.
"Hey Sakura. Don't be ashamed of your success just because someone is not at the same level as you. So be proud at the fact that your chakra control is more advanced than Sasuke's instead of hating it. Besides, as females it should be expected that we have more control than the boys. Since girls our age are usually more mature than boys." She picked up her head and started to laugh a little bit, her depressing demeanor immediately gone.
"Well I do have to say that you're right about that. Thank you Akina. It's just that I want him to notice my skills so that maybe one day he would actually want to be around me voluntarily. Since we're forced to be on the same team." I couldn't help but let a sigh come out.
"Sakura even though I haven't known you guys very long I can-" I immediately stopped what I was saying to turn around and see Kakashi standing there leaning on his crutches.
"Gossip hour is over you two. Even though Your chakra control is pretty advanced you still have some training to do. Both of you need to work on maintaining that control so that you won't end up like Naruto or Sasuke. So get started." He suddenly poofed away and I saw him appear at the ground level, in the same white smoke, now watching how the boys were progressing. Or in Naruto's case landing on his head again.
"Well thank you again Akina for giving me that boost of confidence. You're a really nice person." Sakura said as she got up and jumped back down on the ground. I smiled at her compliment and got up to join her on the ground. All of us now focusing on our individual progress.
2 hours later….
All of us were panting after 2 straight hours of running at our trees. I was a few feet from the top of my tree trying to catch my breath, leaning against the trunk of the tree.
'My calves are going to kill me tomorrow.' I thought as I watched the sun lower into the earth casting an arrangement of reds, blues, and some purple into the sky. A breeze blew by rustling the leaves of the forest almost as if they were dancing. The cool wind felt good on my sweaty skin.
"Alright everyone it's time to go. You all did pretty well for your first day of training although some of you still need some work." Kakashi's voice rang out through the clearing so that everyone could hear him. I began my descent down from the tree to join the others who had been resting on the ground instead. It was mostly a quiet walk back to Tazuna's house except for Naruto chatting with Sakura about something I couldn't hear.
"Hey." I didn't notice that Sasuke had started walking next to me with his usual stance; both of his hands in his pockets and his eyes closed.
"What's up?" I asked very curious as to why he was actually speaking to me.
"Well I was just wandering. How do you do this exercise so well?" His cheeks turned a slight shade of pink as he asked this and it took me a few seconds to answer because I am surprised he is asking for help.
"Well first things first you need to stop forcing your chakra so much or else you'll just keep smashing your tree. You need to let the chakra flow through you naturally. For me I like to empty my mind and only focus on my feet and the tree. That's the best way for me to explain it." He seemed to be deep in thought before he spoke.
"Thanks." It may not have been a lot of words but I know that he had let go of his pride to ask me so I accepted it.
"Akina and Sakura. Since you both made it to the top you will follow Tazuna tomorrow and guard him. While Sasuke and Naruto will continue their training." Kakashi had stopped to look at us as we made it to Tazuna's house. Naruto started to complain about how he wanted to guard Tazuna instead of training as we all walked in the house. Tsunami was in the kitchen preparing something when we walked in, Inari and Tazuna were sitting at the table talking to each other.
"Well looked at what the cat dragged in." Tazuna said noticing our slightly dirty clothes and tired expressions.
"Hello everyone how did your training go?" Tsunami asked as she turned her attention from the stove to us.
"They did fine for their first time." Kakashi answered as we all joined Inari and Tazuna at the table. The table could sit eight people; three chairs on both sides and one chair on each end. Tazuna occupied one end chair and Inari was sitting to his right. Naruto and I sat in the two remaining chairs on Inari's side as Sasuke, Sakura, and Kakashi sat on the other side. Leaving the remaining end chair for Tsunami.
"That's good, well dinner should be done in a few minutes." We were all silent as the day's events began to catch up on us. Then an important thought popped in my head.
"Hey sensei."
"Yes." He said as he looked at me with his one eye.
"What are the sleeping arrangements while we're here?" Immediately all chaos broke loose due to Naruto suggesting it should be girl with boy, followed by Sakura beating him to a bloody pulp for even thinking about it.
'Oops.'