1zara-uchiha1 and I don't own the Naruto cast or anything else you might recognize. 1zara-uchiha1 owns Laura and I own Kahlan. Together we own the plot.
Chapter 87
Note: When trained by the Akatsuki they expect you to take part of war without any complaints.
~Kahlan's POV
Once over to the other side of the pond, I run my hands through my hair. Thankfully, before I came outside to check on Laura I put on some ointment in case there is more fire training. Itachi turns to me and I let my hand drop.
"Sasuke had informed me that the two of you were going to start tree climbing."
"Yeah," I reply.
He nods then says, "You're going to learn how to walk on water instead. Once you learn to walk on water tree climbing won't be difficult."
"Understood," I reply then replay what he said. I'm going to learn to walk on water. Holy hell, that's freaking cool I'll actually be able to walk on water like Jesus did. This is so awesome I can't help but start smiling a little.
Itachi walks over to the water and I watch carefully. He takes a step onto the water but doesn't go through. He then walks out a few several or so feet then turns back around facing me. I'm starting to question if Jesus was a ninja or not.
"Water is a liquid and is constantly moving, so keep in mind that because of that reason you'll constantly have to change the amount of chakra you'll be gathering at the soles of your feet."
"Sounds legit," I reply. I walk over to the pond then stop just before my feet touch the water. I place my hands in the position Sasuke taught me and concentrate to guide my chakra to my feet.
"Keep calm and don't lose your focus," Itachi says quietly.
I nod then stop what I'm doing for the moment. Knowing my luck I'm going to suck, so I take off my shoes and throw them to the side. After that, I go back to concentrating and guiding my chakra to my feet. It takes a few minutes but I'm able to lightly have the chakra cover the soles.
Opening one eye, I take a step forward. The water makes a hissing sound as a small amount of steam comes up. It confuses me and that distraction causes my foot to sink through. With a sigh, I pull my foot out and start again.
The next time I ignore the hissing and steam as I step onto the water. I try to carefully change the amount of chakra I'm using, again still ignoring the hissing and steam. By my third step I fall through, thankfully the water is only ankle deep and my shoes are off.
With a sigh, I walk out and go to stand in my spot but stop. Where I've been standing there are scorch marks that were not there before. My eyes slightly narrow confused by the fact. How is that possible? Never mind I'll ask later.
Getting back in position I once again go through the process. For about thirty minutes I'm trying to walk on water. Each times I'm able to go a few more steps forward than the last time. But each step I take causes the water to hiss and steam to rise. I caught Itachi slightly lift his brow as it happen but he made no comment. Of course when I want to ask him about it, I fall through and had to quickly swim to the surface.
Finally I make it to Itachi with the water still doing it's crazy thing. Keeping the flow going and changing it with the way the water moves I grin up at him proud of my accomplishment. I have walked on water like Jesus. The grin slowly disappears though when the image of my grandfather passes through my mind. I wonder what he would do if he was here. How would he take the fact of the ninjas walking on water? Would he still hold onto with his beliefs?
My eyes widen as I feel the chakra go out and I start to fall through. Itachi quickly reaches out, wraps his arm around my waist and holds me up with my feet just above the water. My stomach does those weird flips and I can feel my face start heating up. It's just from embarrassment, mental nods; yeah that's exactly the cause.
"Until you've master this, don't get lost in your thoughts."
"Yeah," I mumble.
"Gather your chakra so you can stand on the water," he says.
With a nod I do as he instructs. A few seconds later I give another nod and he sets me down. Once again I'm standing on the water as it does its crazy thing. Itachi then starts heading for land and I follow him. Back on land I stop the flow of chakra and continue to follow until we stop at a tree.
"Now, try walking up the tree. This time you don't have to worry about changing the flow but instead you must worry how much you use. Too little and you fall, too much and you break through."
I nod having seen Laura do it. I gather chakra in my feet then runs towards the tree. Honestly, as cool as this is, I must say it makes me feel a bit stupid as well. Reaching the tree I run up it about six feet of the ground before I start falling. Quickly, my hand reaches out for a branch. I hiss in pain as I stop from my fall. Carefully, I climb down like a normal person does.
I get back in position and notice the scorch marks in the shape of my feet. My eyes slightly narrow, but I shake my head gathering the chakra then running to the tree. This time I get about twelve feet high and my slight fear for heights start kicking in making my chakra flicker and gravity to do its job of dragging me back to the ground. Not wanting to break anything I once again reach for a branch. I grind my teeth from the sensation of my arm feeling like it was getting pulled off.
Taking a deep breath I climb back down. My hands shake a little as I go back to my spot. I start to do the process again but stop. Biting on my lower lip I turn to Itachi. He nods and I suppose that means I can speak. Still I continue biting on my lower lip trying to decide if it's okay to ask my question or not. And I'm not debating because of pride because I know everyone has fears. I am debating to see if I can allow myself to suck it up or not.
Sighing, I come to my conclusion that no I really couldn't. The highest I've been besides the plane ride is on the top of roof houses. I was choking the ninjas to near death (well would have been if they weren't ninjas) because of that fear.
"How high do you want me to climb," I ask.
"To the top," he replies.
Biting down on my lower lip, I look up to the tree. It's huge and has been in this yard since for as long as I remember. If I'm estimating correctly the tree is a good hundred feet tall. Shaking my head I look back to Itachi.
"Half way…please."
He stays silent for a moment but then nods. I let out a sigh and turn back to the tree. I go through the process on more time. With lots of effort, I push my fear down until I reach the half way mark of the tree. Once I do, I get onto a thick branch that's able to hold my weight and then hug the tree. I take calming breaths refusing to look down. After a few moments I carefully make my way down.
"We'll move onto making clones now," Itachi says as my feet hit the ground.
For the next few hours all we do is train with few breaks that last about five minutes. I learn how to make clones, which had taken about fifteen minutes to do. For about three hours after that we did combat training and weapon training with the use of chakra to enhance the attacks. After that there was exercising techniques that he taught to use when I have no training. He's also taught the body replacement technique, which was cool and fun to do. It had taken about ten minutes to learn.
Training comes to an end as the sunsets and it's time for dinner. With Konan and Laura's help I made chicken alfredo with cheese covered broccoli. Dinner was actually going calmly probably because everyone looked a bit exhausted from training. About halfway through I decide to speak up.
Placing my fork down I say, "I have a question that deals about what happen today at training."
Leader looks at everyone with a quite-down look. He then looks at me saying, "Go on."
"During my training with Sasuke he had given me a bit of his chakra and it worked for a moment but then by body fought back rejecting it. Then a while after that I was able to cloak my hands in my chakra and went to attack Sasuke. He had dodge and went to swipe my legs from under me but I did a backflip and when I look back I saw scorch marks where my hands touch the ground. Then with my training with Itachi…sensei…when I went to walk on water it started to hiss and create steam and when I walked on the tree again there was scorch marks. I wanted to know if that was normal."
"That is interesting," Leader replies then looks to both brothers. "Anything else you two might want to add?"
"She never landed a hit on me but…." Sasuke says then trails off for a moment. "When she just barely missed and I was grazed by her chakra it burned like fire." Leader nods and looks to Itachi.
"The longer she kept her grip on a weapon that she was applying her chakra too the more it glowed red."
Leader nods then looks over to Laura. "Have you noticed anything about your chakra?"
"Um…when I was climbing the trees it left wet marks behind."
"How the fuck is that possible?"
"So it isn't normal," I question.
"No," Leader replies deep in thought.
"I think the reason," Itachi speaks a moment later. Leader looks over to him. "Is that their world is different than ours making their chakra act differently than our chakra."
"So…does that mean our chakra is different because it is the chakra from our world which is somehow different for all your chakra," Laura asks.
"If that is true," Leader says. "Then anyone from this world would have chakra that acts similar to the two of you."
I nod and say, "Sounds legit."
After dinner, Laura goes to show me what she learned during her training with Kisame. I grinned giving her a hug and congratulated her. Soon after that my training started back up.
For the next month Laura and I train every day. I train longer because of the deal but I don't complain. At first it was a little too much for me, but then I got so used to it that to ignore a majority of my body's protest to stop. Besides, I liked how much I was getting into shape a lot better than when all I used to do was run a few miles. Though training was never easy.
Every few days Leader would put us through a couple of test to see how far we've gotten and then put us against one another. There was never a winner between us because Leader would stop before that could ever happen.
I hardly ever called Itachi sensei (unless Leader is around), it just didn't feel right. I just felt weird when I was around him and my stomach would twist and flip as if I was sick. It annoyed and confuses the hell out of me so I tried my best to keep distant from him as much as possible (still do). In addition, Laura and Kisame seem to enjoy calling each other sensei and my student. Watching them interact with one another was fun to see.
During what little breaks I have been able to get I worked on my music. I was even able to play the guitar Itachi had gotten me a few times. Seriously, I adored the guitar almost as much as Rellik…maybe even more.
As of now it's been a week since our training has stop. Of course that doesn't mean I don't still go out to exercise and train, I didn't do all of that for nothing. The Akatsuki have been a bit distant these past few days but I never ask them about it. Right now they are having one of their meetings in the parlor while Laura and I are in the living room playing on my DDR.
"Okay you win," I say with a chuckle as the game comes to an end.
"I'm awesome," she replies with a grin jumping down.
"Yes you are," I reply laughing.
"Laura and Kahlan," Leader says. Looking over we see him in the doorway. "We're all leaving."
"Awesome," Laura grins. "Where are we going?"
"Into town," Leader replies. "Be ready in five minutes."
With that said Leader walks off. Okay that was weird, but oh well. With a grin Laura and I race up the stairs. I make it to the top first and Laura pouts. Chuckling, I pat her head then head to my room. Quickly, I change out into new clean clothes and put on my shoes. Finished I meet Laura in the hallway and together we once again race downstairs with me winning.
"Ready," Laura sings out as we meet the Akatsuki standing in the foyer. They're all looking serious and are wearing their cloaks. Sasuke has a sword strap to his waist and this causes me to raise my brow. Something isn't right here.
"Take these," Leader says. He hands Laura the samurai sword she's been using while he hands me the hidden blades I bought from the anime convention as well as the Sais. Something really isn't right here. "Remember what you were taught during training."
Like that Leader turns around and leads everyone out of the house. I follow behind a happy Laura as I place the weapons on me. What reason could we possibly have to be going into town like this?
Outside, Deidara makes a giant clay bird. He jumps on it with Sasori following behind him. My eyes drift from face to face and then I quietly gasp. They're going to be doing some kind of attack but what…the war.
"Meet you guys there, un," Deidara says with a smirk and then flies off towards town.
Leader nods and then Hidan, Kakuzu, Tobi and Zetsu leaves. Zetsu through the ground and the others by running with ninja speed. Leader then looks over to Laura and me.
"The war starts today," Leader says. My hands slightly clench in worry and fear. For whom I know not. Laura, her smile disappears as she soon starts slightly pouting a look of worry on her face. "You two along with Sasuke will be part of Itachi's and Kisame's team."
Before I can ask are you kidding me, explosions start going off in town. Smoke rises in the sky and even from this far away you can hear screaming. Oh damn, the military is going to get involved with this for sure.
"I can't," Laura and I say at the same time causing Leader to give a slight glare.
"You're both taking part in this war, and you'll do as you're told," Leader says as more explosions go off in the distance.
Leader then turns and quickly leaves with Konan. Laura looks upset and I don't blame her. I don't like this but keep my mouth shut. Kisame pulls Laura onto his back. I don't take the offer to get on Itachi's back, and so the five of us take off heading into town. Though I'm not fast as the ninjas (it would take more time and training since they've been doing this most of their lives) I am still able to keep up with them all the way to the Village Inn.
Who do we run into there? The Konoha ninjas and their allies. With them is Tsunade shouting out orders telling some of them to help the citizens to safety. Kisame places Laura down just as Tsunade looks over. Grabbing Laura I have us hide behind the three men. I don't want to fight them. Maybe I can come up with some escape plan…ah who am I kidding we're so screwed.
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And so the war has now officially started. We both hope that you have enjoyed this chapter and are enjoying the story. Thank you to everyone who has been reading, adding this to their favorites and/or alerts and for reviewing, it means a lot to us. Please stay tuned for the next update and once again thank you. Reviews are much appreciated and loved; until next time. ^.^