The sounds of explosions, rumbling thuds and shockwaves emanating from ground shaking punches and steel clanging followed anyone who would have spent a day in the Konohagakure Training Grounds complex. Smells of smoke, burning, sweat and packed lunch both annoyed and caressed one's nose as they passed by a duo of old friends working out together or a team of newly graduated genin in their team survival drills.
The smell of someone's egg and bacon sandwiches tightly packed together made Meiko's stomach churn and her mouth water, the blacksmith just kept rubbing her tummy, despite having eaten maybe a good thirty minutes ago. Thirty minutes spent wandering around Training Grounds and looking for one particular person. Ever since the blacksmith saw the Eight Gates technique and heard about the fact that it was easy to pick up, she thought it was a perfect jutsu for her. Now all she needed to do was pick it up in the over seven days that she had for preparations.
After prolonged searching, so long, in fact, that Meiko considered finding Mana first and asking her to use her chakra sensory to help the blacksmith out, the redhead finally found Sugemi's team training in one of the training grounds. In the cold season the whole place was different – the ground was rougher, frozen solid, grass was rare and greyed out and the lakes looked oddly calm and waited for the surrounding weather to drop one more degree so it could freeze over.
Daidao pointed his armored arms at Sugemi and fired off a blindingly excessive cloud of smoke in his general direction, which was supposed to surround the Nara and blind him completely. Sugemi barely even resisted the smoke surrounding him. He just calmly looked around and listened in, as his teammate charged in, using the sounds of clanging armor pieces, turning gears and smoke getting pushed out to enhance the speed and strength of Daidao's strikes to aid him in tracing the direction, angle, number and velocity of his opponent's attacks for a successful evasive dodge.
"You should've joined into the attack. Sugemi is a taijutsu user, my sole efforts won't be enough to push him sufficiently for an actual work out", Daidao objected, staring angrily at Nanaba who just sat on her butt, capriciously, and pouted, firing blazing glares at the boys who were working out as if they were to blame for the reason for her ire.
"I told you! I lost my arms! I can't fight without them, I feel like I'm naked without them!" Nanaba shrieked out in a rather annoying pitch, which made Meiko rub her ears, figuring that the high-pitched screech would make them actually bleed.
"I… I don't even…" Daidao twitched for a moment trying to comprehend a single response for this utter insanity.
"You invented those arms like… Months ago, you've been fighting for over three years completely without them. You're a goddamn Jinchuuriki, to top it all off – your chakra pool surpasses that of anyone in the higher ninja ranks by at least couple of hundreds of times, or something…" Sugemi noted as he sat down, feeling annoyed about the lack of good challenge.
"Ummm… Sorry to intrude…" Meiko let Team Hawthorn know that she was present seeing how neither one of them bothered to notice her, their quarrel must've been so intense and people must've been passing by so frequently that arrival of another ninja passed completely by their radars.
"Oh… Sorry, do you have this place booked, or something"? Sugemi squinted at Meiko dismissively. "Because if you don't, we'd really like to keep on training here. We won't mind if you just train somewhere nearby".
"Uh… No, I… Wanted to ask you something", Meiko rubbed her foot in the dirt, still trying to figure out if asking Mana's past teammate for a favor was that smart of an idea. Did Masen-Z not give the blacksmith that weird idea for a potential future technique she could use? No, that technique utilized concepts that may have very well been in space, from where Meiko was staring. Imbuing weapons with that much chakra sounded like fiction to Meiko, pretty good one, yet fiction nonetheless. She needed this.
"Well"? Sugemi encouraged Meiko to shoot it with a bored expression. By then he may have realized that hoping to push his abilities by training with his teammates while everyone held back to their utmost ability to avoid injuries was foolish. He may as well have seen how deep this thing with the blacksmith went.
"Actually, I was really impressed by the Eight Gates technique you used. I'd really wish to learn it and I know it's not that difficult to learn but… I'm not that bright and I will need a teacher even for a simple technique, such as that one", Meiko asked with a very practiced and honed pleading expression. Faces like that usually worked on Mana, there was more than a solid probability it would work on one of her past teammates as well.
"Nah, sorry, I'll pass", Sugemi flipped his wrist dismissively at Meiko, before blowing out air from his mouth, through tightly pressed lips, in a manner not unlike a horse would have done it.
"B-But… I…" Meiko stopped there. She wondered if there was anything she could've offered or bargained with the Nara with. That was always Mana's way, the magician was always smart about things and always pulled perfect bargaining chips and aces – things she knew she could bargain with but also things that would please the opposing party enough to accept unfavorable conditions. A compromise that only the opposing side mistook for a compromise. There was nothing like that in Meiko's mind, nothing at all.
"I don't want to end up facing off against another gate user in the Chuunin Exams, that'd just be too boring. Plus, it's just like you said - you're not too bright. Using the Eight Gates that way would only lead to premature permanent retirement and a crippled body. Not something I need on my conscience", the Nara calmly explained, this time granting the blacksmith a bit more attention than he did before and treating her a bit more welcomingly instead of outright dismissing her request.
"Trust me, you're better off treading your own path, this imbecile keeps overdoing it and he's just on his Third Gate. One of these days it'll outright cost him a battle…" Daidao angrily glared at his teammate, even though the emotion in question was more implied as it was impossible to tell his exact feelings through the rubber mask and goggles. Then again, it seemed pretty angry, gesture-wise.
"I see. Thanks for your time", Meiko flicked her wrist before placing her hands inside her pockets and walking off saddened by lack of success but also a slightly new perspective from Daidao's words.
Would she truly succeed in the exams treading Sugemi's walked path? The boy had years of experience with the technique, she would just be picking it up. In a fight she'd be pretty much signing her loss warrant by focusing onto just the Eight Gates. She also had to agree with Sugemi's conclusions, she wasn't too bright and would be just the type of person to wreck herself by getting too emotional or too trigger-happy.
Meiko would just have to walk her own path. Become her own kind of strong and define that word in her own kind of way.
Journey to the Yamanaka Resort was not nearly as adventurous as it was when Kiyomi had travelled there recently. Frankly, it was kind of boring, not that the blonde would've needed or loved a long forgotten nemesis of hers trying to claim her head out of nowhere… By now the kunoichi had reached that level of strength where travelling alone to the resort was sort of achievable and even the minor bandits and lowlife mercs that roamed the area weren't too threatening to her.
She was not quite a clan heir just yet. It was Kiyomi's uncle who held the title of being the clan head but the title was supposed to be passed on to Kiyomi the moment she got married. Still, she held considerable influence in the clan and was pretty much little royalty, hell, she was treated as such her entire childhood, she may as well have gotten something out of it…
Once Kiyomi arrived to the Yamanaka Resort on the second day, doing her best to train and meditate a little bit on the road all throughout the first one, she did not make that big of a deal as she entered the Yamanaka Mansion and requested a meeting with her uncle. She did not quite like the man, that being said, she did not have to meet him too often, meaning that he was not quite her actual nemesis or that the kunoichi wished him his eventual passing.
Kiyomi was glad to hear that uncle picked up on her small details and agreed to meet her without a big fuss, just calmly talk to her alongside his silly assistants who went everywhere uncle went and oftentimes spoke on his behalf even. While it did kind of tick Kiyomi off, it was not that off-putting remembering how old uncle really was and oftentimes he appeared to doze off or even appear almost dead-like in the middle of conversation. Certain amount of advocacy was kind of expected at this point.
"Kiyomi-san"! both assistant girls bowed, they both had awfully exotically colored hair, one having it bright blue whereas the other one wore it gloomy green and wore Chinese style dresses with the Yamanaka symbol on them. Their apparel looked quite sophisticated and expensive but their shape looked sharp enough for them to not look completely useless in battle either. Despite the apparent strong look, there were two additional guards present in the conversation, something Kiyomi was not overly fond of either.
"Uncle", Kiyomi nodded, making the gesture appear close enough to a bow that she did not raise any lumps but far away for her pride to remain intact. "Thank you for agreeing to meet so soon… Uncle"? The blonde addressed the massive dumpling of flesh with human sized ponytail of snow-white hair, the bright Yamanaka locks appeared to grey out in an especially unique shade of white.
"We've heard you've moved forward with the Chuunin Exams, you're honoring our clan, future heiress", one of the assistants smiled deceitfully. Kiyomi wasn't sure why exactly the youngling faked the smile to such a disgustingly venomous extent, was she planning on marrying uncle, thusly prolonging the reigns' passage until her own untimely death, or was she merely trying to annoy Kiyomi for her own personal amusement.
"That is exactly why I'm here, uncle", Kiyomi addressed her slumbering giant of an uncle who appeared to only wake up to stuff his massive face, drink up with wine and then lift his weights a couple of thousands of times to compensate for the massive gain of calories but never burning it all off. No amount of weight lifting would compensate his solitary, narcoleptic lifestyle. "I wish to learn more of the Yamanaka hijutsu, something to help me honor the clan further by actually ranking up. I think I've deserved this much…"
The two assistant girls oddly looked at each other before whispering something to each other's ears. The green haired one then removed a large chained hook from behind her back, sized like an anchor and rubbed Kiyomi's uncle's back, trying to hook his flesh just to wake him up.
"Hmph… Yes, indeed…" the massive lump of flesh woke up, thundering out with his voice as his large whited out ocular orbs wandered down at Kiyomi.
"You would deserve being taught another Yamanaka hijutsu, if there were any more left to learn", Kiyomi's uncle yawned lazily, shifting the butt-cheek that had to maintain more of his bodily weight as he laid slothfully in his stony throne befitting more of a large monumental statue rather than the man in whose honor it'd be built.
"Wait, what"? Kiyomi raised her eyebrow, "This can't be true, uncle"?
"Want to bet on it, my sweet niece? I have massive gambling debts so some of your sweet dough would help cover it up", the man stroke his rugged chin, the fact that the gargantuan relative of hers even dared bet on it made Kiyomi back off a little bit. Her uncle was not a bad gambler, not by a long shot, it was just that he often fell asleep during his gambling and skipped entire matches and would've gotten robbed clean if it wasn't for his assistants.
"I won't… But I am pretty sure I've seen plenty of Yamanaka use techniques I've not heard of before. Aunt Chanbara is able to kill people with the Yamanaka hijutsu alone, that is no hijutsu I've ever heard about", Kiyomi stated her case.
"That's true, Kiyomi-san", one of uncle's assistants spoke up seeing how the massive giant nodded off asleep again, "Chanbara-sama is able to destroy people's minds from the inside using nothing else but the Yamanaka mind transfer techniques. Your uncle Bakuchi is also capable of crushing his enemies by simply transferring his mind. All of these are no Yamanaka hijutsu – they're their signature innovations on the basics".
"Innovations…" Kiyomi looked down confused. It was not something she was used to, not something that could just be mastered in one week. She had no experience innovating on anything. Her whole life she just asked for clan hijutsu to be taught to her and she got it, she was skilled at them and picked them up quickly. Due to her skill picking the hijutsu up she thought that it was all that was required of her. Innovation was completely outside her alley. Creating new techniques on the basis of the old was more of Mana's thing…
The other young lady picked up a large dislodged chunk from a column towering nearby and smashed it right to the center of the top of uncle Bakuchi's head. The massive shinobi slowly opened his eyes as if warm sunlight had softly kissed him in the cheeks.
"Hmmm… Yes, as Cho and Han already explained, you've already been taught the basic and the intermediate - all of the Yamanaka hijutsu. What separates the advanced and masterful Yamanaka clansmen from the intermediate ones, or the beginners, is their ability to innovate and create new ways to dominate their enemies while drawing from the same roots everyone came from", Bakuchi explained with a raspy and irritated voice.
Kiyomi looked down frustrated, she had just wasted a couple of days just getting here, if she was to return home empty handed she'd have wasted almost half of her allotted to training and recovery time for nothing but travelling and on the road training that could've been compared to daily warm-ups at best.
"Can't you just teach me your jutsu"? Kiyomi wandered before realizing, much to her outrage, that uncle was already asleep, having sprawled out and almost completely slipped down from his massive stone throne as he snoozed peacefully like a baby.
"If it's training you seek, Kiyomi-san, we can train you for however many days you have left. Taking care of Bakuchi-sama is basically watching a narcoleptic old man sleep whole day and we often get rusty", Cho spoke up before Han stretched out nearby before nodding in agreement.
This was not that bad of a deal. Cho and Han were competent kunoichi and while they were not exactly Yamanaka clan members themselves, having just very irrelevant percentage of blood relationship to the clan, they were capable combatants in their own right. Cho was fast, she could wield that chained anchor in a manner deceitful enough to give Meiko headache and Han was much stronger physically than she looked.
"That's not quite the deal I came here for…" Kiyomi shrugged realizing she hesitated to consider the deal for quite a long time.
"Well, we can say that your perception could still use some work, you've been giving everyone in this room weird looks, almost like you didn't trust them. Me, Han, those two guards to the left and to the right… But you forgot the rest, or did you not see them"? Cho teased Kiyomi as at least six more ninja with Konohagakure chuunin uniforms came out of the shadows. They stood in a submissive stance, not a threatening one so this must have just been a show of force.
"You sly foxes, you", Kiyomi could not help but crack a grin, "You knew why I came here so you planned this show this whole time. Was it all just to train me"?
"To our defense, serving our duty to Bakuchi-sama is a very limited part time job. We get plenty of spare time and nowhere to direct our energy. Why don't we all play together like we used to in childhood, huh, Kiyomi-san"? Han grinned, softly stroking the chunk of the pillar she had pulled out previously and used to hit Kiyomi's uncle in the vital point of his head to wake him up.
"You may have come here for Yamanaka hijutsu, but you're just fine in that front. What you lack is basic ninja arts. We can make you faster, stronger, more perceptive, remind you of your ninjutsu and genjutsu which you've forgotten over the years", Cho brandished the chained anchor blade in front of her, stroking the chain and clanging it demonstratively.
"Because make no mistake, Kiyomi-san, you'll need to use every tool in your box to survive our training. None of us want you to disappoint yourself and the clan, do we? Bakuchi-sama would be so disappointed when he woke up if he was to hear you being taken out so early…" Han added.
"We may have played together as children but, once you joined in on the rank of every pamperer in the clan, I really came to despise you two harpies. Fine, I'll take whatever chances I've got for a decent training", Kiyomi bowed even if it almost made her throw up a little to do so.
It was the most grueling and scary training week in a long while for Yamanaka Kiyomi. Those same two girls that were once her good playmates, turned into her guardians pampering and spoiling her every step of Kiyomi's path, whether the girl liked it or not, now felt like the exact opposite of who they once were. Where before the goal of these two was to turn Kiyomi into a pretty spoiled princess, now they trained her as a true future heiress of the clan. As a proud, strong and diversely skilled kunoichi.