(For those of you who have read my other stories, do you think I'm doing alright for a third person story? Or should I switch this one over to first person? I would love a response in the comments.)
Hige set Toki's arm back into it's socket after he blew through the hand seals for the jutsu he was offering to teach. It hurt, but Toki was old enough to keep it down to a few whimpers. The stressed tissues were swollen, but there was little she could do about it. None of them knew medical ninjutsu well enough to help, more than hinder, the tender damaged tissues.
Toki gave him a dark look once she was done and then glanced towards her teammates. Kushina- her leg bandaged- sat alongside the pond, attempting to do a smaller version of the Ninja Art: Hidden Mist Jutsu, before blowing it apart with Wind Release: Gale Palm. She had managed to get a moderate sized cloud of it over the pond in between her blasts of air, but Ahi kept disturbing it by casting genjutsu on her. He had been tasked with learning Demonic Illusion: Hell Viewing Technique, and he was not quite good about tormenting Kushina with his illusions. She usually broke it fast enough that not all of her mist had dispersed.
Her mind shifted from the pain onto the Jutsu he'd demonstrated for them all. One of them was the Body Flicker- something he informed them that he expected them to have learned before they returned from the mission.
"Many people die because they're pitted against someone who knows this technique," he had told them, "and I'll be damned if you're one of them. You will know this and use it until it becomes second nature. You need to enhance the chakra flow to your eyes so you can see while you do this. You'll need to figure out the balance yourself. It is different for everyone. Ahi- you wont need to do that once you obtain the sharingan."
It was a simple technique- consisting of one hand seal (tiger) and precise chakra control. Toki had a general idea of how to do that, but she didn't want to just leap headlong into it. It dredged up a brief memory (being on the couch with Lauren watching Bleach) and Toki couldn't help but compare it to Flash Step from Bleach. With that thought in mind, she flickered over to the other side of the clearing.
And promptly vomited as her stomach caught up with her.
She would have to work on that later, then.
"That's beyond gross, Toki." Kushina admonished from the pond. "Good flicker though. I didn't see you move."
Wiping her mouth and trying to ignore the bitter taste of bile, Toki did not respond as she considered the Jutsu she was aligned towards. The one he had taught her that pertained towards her lightning affinity was not one that had a name. It involved churning the chakra inside her coils and electrifying her skin, or her weapons. If she could get it to have high enough voltage, she had been cheerily informed that it was useful enough to usually stop the heart of anyone who wasn't primarily a wind type. Alongside that, she was supposed to figure out how to do the Water dragon jutsu. If she could manage it, Hige had hinted she could apply the lightning technique to the dragon to make it faster.
She flickered over to her team- managing to keep her stomach from expunging itself again- and settled behind Ahi as he cast another genjutsu onto Kushina. A careful application, taking a few moments to make sure she mimicked the feel of her chakra to that of Hige's when he had proceeded to zap Kushina, and she decided to see if the zap technique worked or if she had flubbed.
"OW!" Ahi squawked, stepping away from her prodding touch to stand on the pond. "What the hell, Toki?"
"Success!" She exclaimed happily. "I wanted to see if I could zap you."
"Well," he rubbed his upper arm with a grumble, "you did. It felt like you scooted across the carpet in only your socks."
She frowned. That wasn't nearly as strong as she had hoped. "I sorta hoped it would have numbed your arm. But I guess I need to work on it." She shrugged regardless, and then sat down to dip her feet into the cool water of the pond. She took a moment to rinse her mouth- because vomit taste left to stew was worse than just the initial aftertaste- before carefully forming the seal needed for the water dragon jutsu. Chakra leached down into the water, where a nobbly bit of it started to lift into the air. She turned her focus to it, and grimaced as she strained to make it rise and form the shape of a dragon.
"That looks like a very angry noodle." Ahi commented mildly from behind her as she managed to make it hunch over in 'attack' position.
"More like a worm, I think."
"Thanks, both of you. Such encouragement." The Nara sighed. She let it be small, but began to work on the shape of it instead. Slowly, with careful work of her chakra, more water gathered and it began to look more like a dragon instead of pasta. When gazed at her with glimmering eyes, she brought it closer and lifted it from the water. She sunk her fingers into the shifting water, and let herself feel how her chakra was effecting it.
It was strange, as if the water were alive with her essence. If she added just a bit of her lightning nature to it… It wavered with instability, until she was forced to withdraw any trace of electricity that had danced within it.
"Focus now on making sure you can make it move as you need it to. Flexibility first before you try and add a second nature to it." Her sensei murmured from somewhere behind her.
She snorted at him, but did as instructed. Leaving it the size it was- about the length of her leg- Toki fell back on the times she'd watched Avatar with her daughter. Waterbenders handled water as if it were an extension of themselves. There was no reason that she couldn't do that too.
Slowly, she moved her hands, trying to make the water follow her movements. It did, for the most part. It twisted circles, bobbling up and down as she infused more and more of her chakra into it. As it became more and more heavy with her chakra, her control of it became easier than she expected to manipulate it.
She stood, going through a standard set of katas slowly at the start. As it proved to be able to keep up, the water dragon whistled faster around her body as she began to speed up through her practiced motions. It's mouth gaping with sharp looking fangs, Toki brought it full scale around again, and opened her canteen to 'sheathe' her weapon of sorts. Surprisingly, the densely packed water settled into her canteen without issue of space.
Many ninja canteens were usually engraved with various seals for storage, so one could put more water in that could normally be held. Her canteen was no exception. Dai was good at what he did, and he ensured her it would hold a pond or two so if she had to cross the desert, she wouldn't be caught without water and be left to dehydrate.
She thanked him mentally as she tried to draw the chakra from her canteen. The water didn't want to give it up, much to her confusion. "Sensei? I have a problem."
"Hm?" He didn't appear, but she heard him not far off from the tree tops.
"I can't get my chakra out of the water."
He made a noise that might have been amusement. "Water is one of the easiest elements use for the fact that chakra binds to it very easily. You wont be getting your chakra back until you're older- it takes a master of the element to withdraw it fully. Might as well hang onto it, no? You'll have water that'll be easier to manipulate."
Toki frowned, but shrugged. "Might as well make my canteen into my battle canteen. I'll need to get another from Dai." She could start stockpiling her chakra-water that way. "Is it still going to be safe to drink?" She inquired. Idly, she knelt down and began to gather more water to her hands to imbue it with her chakra. It never hurt to be too prepared, after all. And it's not like she didn't have the spare chakra at the moment.
"Of course. It'll be thicker than normal water, but it should quench thirst well enough. And if enemy's drink it, you might be able to pull it out of their bodies and gut them at the same time." He hummed ponderously. "Either way, get good enough with water, and we'll work on teaching you more lightning aligned jutsu. I'm not as familiar with lots of those. So, water it is."
Lightning was his opposite element, if Toki remembered right about the charts shown in school. She understood his lack of knowledge with those. She could work with water so long as it was in small amounts. "Of course, Sensei. Thank you."
"Get good enough, and with your chakra capacity, if you took a mission to Wave, you could cause tsunamis." He continued with amusement.
She made a face. "I'd rather not. I don't like water that I can't see the bottom of." She muttered. Having gathered more blobs of the seemingly solid water, Toki stuffed it into her canteen. The Nara felt depleted- but also felt as if the chakra on her hip was right where it should be. Theoretically, if she needed a boost, she could just drink the chakra water and absorb it through her stomach like normal nutrition.
Hmm… She'd need to test that later.
"Dammit, Toki!" Kushina hissed. "You took some of my mist in your water blobs. Stop that."
"Ahaha, sorry, Kushina." She flushed at the tips of her ears, and ducked her hands deeper down so as not to thieve from the cherry haired girl's mist. "Your mist is doing good. It's very thick over the pond."
"Yeah. problem is, it isn't thick where there isn't water. It's dry everywhere else."
Toki covered an amused snort with a cough. "Not actually, Kushina. There's water everywhere. In the human body, in animals, in plants, deep, deep in the soil. There's water everywhere- you just need to feel for it."
An ugly look crossed the injured girl's face. "Easy for you to say. You're more water aligned than I am. I'm more angled towards wind natured."
"I'm equally aligned, but water is easier to handle. At least you can go pester some of the villagers at home for jutsu. Lightning type jutsu is almost unanimously used by Lightning country natives, and their country and ours don't really get along." Toki splashed at her playfully, and then sat upon a rock. She shoved her feet in, alongside her hands. "Just stick your hands into the water, yeah? Just feel it. Feel it with your hands, with your chakra. See how your chakra plays with it, and lifts it from the surface. It's a lot like moving a solid shadow."
Grumpily, Kushina did as told. "It feels good on the bite," she remarks, "but I don't see what you mean by feeling. It just feels like water."
Kushina jerked suddenly, when Toki sent over a small influx of chakra coated water to brush over her fingers. "What was that?"
"That's what water feels like when it's filled with chakra. Memorize it, and try it for yourself." Toki encouraged.
At her back, she could feel Ahi watching her, and wondered silently what he thought of her method. Slowly, he approached and sat down with her. His feet sank deep into the water that she was charging with her chakra, and Ahi let out a very pleased noise. "Chakra-water feels great on aching feet."
"Aren't you supposed to be practicing genjutsu?"
"Yeah, but I wanted to take a break. Besides, we're a frontline team. We're not going to be planning ambushes or doing intimidation tactics. We'll be sent out where other teams wont, to eliminate the problem with violence, not diplomacy."
"True," Toki admits quietly. "Alright then. Practice your fireballs. I want you to make them small. As small as you can, and as tightly packed with fire as possible. Precision and speed is better than size and it being slow. Try to hit my dragon. We're gonna practice together, yeah?"
As it was, Ahi was better with the hand signs, but his control over the fireball was sloppy at best. It was usually average size- little bigger than she was tall, and just about the same size all the way around. She wanted it to be faster and smaller- more solid. His big one broke apart on contact, splashing easily extinguished flames everywhere. The smaller would blast rough whatever he shot it at, with any luck.
"What about me?" Kushina didn't quite scramble to the other side, but she didn't dally where she was either. They were going to be launching fire balls in that general direction, after all.
"If you make a mist, it'll make it harder to see the dragon, or the fireball." A small shift of plans could include their team mate, of course.
"Right!" The grin that split her face made Toki remember that she and Ahi were the only ones to include Kushina without ridicule- and that made Toki give her a warm grin.
"Ready?"
"Go!"
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Tanzaku Gai was just as Toki figured it would be. It wasn't rundown, but it wasn't shiny and 'new', like some of the sections of Konoha. It was a fairly large settlement, most of the buildings built out of the wood from the forest surrounding the town. Many of them were gambling areas, but other than that, Tanzaku was relatively tame.
The villagers eyed them warily, and shied away from them on the streets as the team of five made their way to the drop off point. Toki and Ahi kept Kushina between them- they had reached the town the day after she'd been bitten, but she hadn't healed much beyond scabbing. She was the weakest of them for the rather obvious limp she had- and neither of them were willing to let her be the victim of any gungho assholes.
It wasn't far to the drop off point, thankfully. It was a small warehouse guarded by more than just a few ninja. As they entered, it was obvious that the warehouse was designed to hold a large quantity of supplies. Rows upon rows of scrolls, all of them labeled for their uses. Kunai, Shurikan, food, water, explosives, medicines, bandages. Each had it's own massive tower- and Toki realized that the amount of things that they were hoarding meant that something was no doubt going to happen.
Her stomach clenched with worry- because she knew what would happen eventually. Kushina's relative youth keyed her in at the start, but she'd have hoped that they could have trained more and become at least chunin before… Before the war came.
"Ah, Hige, I'd heard you were bringing your brat-pack." One of the men in the makeshift guard towers gave the group a friendly smile, and waved them into the inner recesses of the building. "Got our supplies?"
"Safe and sound," Hige nodded. He collected the scrolls from each of them, and then set them down onto a table that sat in the middle of the one roomed warehouse.
The guards slowly gathered around it, and motioned Hige to sit. The genin were left to stand, but not left out of the knowledge that was given freely. "Good." The man from before took a seat at the 'head' of the round table. Crossing his arms over his chest, the man, who bore a bandana over his hair and an eye patch over one eye, began to speak. "It's getting worse out here, Hige. You need to let the Lord Third know that there have been more raids and attacks on the borders. The Sand ninja are crossing through the land of Rivers more and more often. We've lost a few dozen ninja in warding them off. I've gotten word from those stationed along Rain and Grass that the Tsuchikage has begun to make moves against us and against Sand. Rochi was running an order to the border of Frost with a few of my post's nina, and he came back with both of his teams in body scrolls. The Raikage is making a move as well. Another of my men ran supplies to the outpost outside of Wave, and we received a hawk to tell us he was murdered by Mist Ninja. It's looking to be full blown war, Hige- and the land of Fire is going to be part of the epicenter."
"I'm sorry you lost some Shinobi, Daro." Hige's lips deepened into a frown. "We've heard rumors, but we haven't heard anything like that."
The man- Daro- snorted sourly. "Such is the life of a Shinobi, Hige. Just make sure you keep out of trouble. I don't want to see your name in the KIA list." He pulled off his bandanna to rub his fingers through the short sandy locks on his head. "To be honest, Hige, we've been dealing with the lesser nations for a few years now. It's been harder to do trade, and there have been confrontations. Money is running low- they're just as desperate as some of the larger nations."
"You're thinking it's going to be another Great War, don't you?" A grim undertone poisoned Hige's voice, and the genin tensed at both the tone and the words.
Slipping his bandanna back into place, Daro gave them a bleak nod. "You know that my father predicted the second, and my grandfather the first. I've got a feeling in my bones, Hige. Something's going to happen, and there'll be war. And, I think, it's going to be a long and harsh one."
"I will inform the Third." Hige nodded tersely. He stood from the table, and motioned to his genin. "We'll head out now. Take care of yourself- I'll do my best to get Sarutobi to send out reinforcements to the places that have the worst conflicts."
"You do that." Daro nodded. "And be careful on your way back. Bad things seem to happen to the couriers of our messages.
Once they left the building, Toki glanced to Hige. "Are… are we going to war?"
"There is the chance that war will happen. Daro's bloodline has proven… strangely accurate about their gut instincts." He sighed. "Before you ask, yes. Our team will be sent to the frontlines, if war happens. I don't know which one, but we will be at war. I don't imagine it will happen this year, or the next. But if it does, we'll be ready, yeah?"
Toki wasn't so sure. "Yeah, Sensei. We'll be ready."