"Kin! You better be dressed and ready!" The grating voice of the taller, crazy haired boy pounds at my door. I startle and find myself in an uncomfortable heap on the floor.

"It's so early!" I will admit that whine was all me and not Kin. I glance behind me and see only the barest of light on the horizon.

"Yeah, duh. I don't care, and neither should you. Get out here now! Like, five minutes ago now!" All throughout my rapid and haphazard morning routine the banging gets more frenzied. Sometimes the banging is punctuated with intermittent shouting of expletives.

I rush out the door and prepare to give the little mongrel a verbal thrashing. Instead, I am instead greeted with a punch to my jaw. I fall gracelessly to the floor and wipe the blood from my mouth with the back of a hand. "You could have chipped a tooth. Zaku." The name didn't come through the haze of cobwebs and disjointed memories right away. But it would be important to use names to acclimate myself easier.

The mummy boy presents to me a stopwatch. "Well, it's a new record for laziest ninja ever. 22 minutes." I pick myself up off the floor and sneer at these rude brats.

"I'll have you know I had a very stressful day yesterday so butt out. You-!"

"Yeah, whatever, drama queen throws up once, gets chewed out by Sensei, and can't handle a D-rank. Some day."

"We don't have time for this. We're already late for punishment for Kin's negligence as it is. If we make it any worse we'll be the next D-rank."

What. The horror of the thought of being reduced to smears on the floor makes me blanch. Zaku seems to have the same thought as me as we gulp in the same breath. Not good.

"Well, mummy b-, er, Dosu. Yeah. Let's go."

He quirks his head towards me and twists his single visible eye into a curious expression. For a moment we stand there in an uncomfortable atmosphere. He decides to drop my faux pas and we turn to walk that same route to the field we met our Sensei in. That was way too close.

-xxx-

"Kin. What is your issue?" Sensei has barely restrained rage on his face as we approach the rocky area. I can't help the way my body curls into itself like I was punched in the gut. In a way, a social punch can be worse than a physical one. At least with an actual punch I don't have to talk.

I begin to bow and start my apology but I am cut off as soon as I incline my head downward. "I don't care. Don't be late again. Ever. Last chance."

Zaku looks worried, Dosu flicks his eye at me then returns his gaze to Sensei.

'I'm sorry Kin...' putting an adult in a situation like this is awful, but a teenage girl...

"We'll start with laps. Thirty to the boulder at the base of the hill and back for the boys, one hundred for you Kin."

'Sigh.'

Not a light punishment but better than literal medical grade torture. 'I've got to toe the line, for my sake and Kin's.'

We three form a line and prep ourselves into classic runners poses.

"Well, at least we aren't getting punished for your ineptitude." Dosu says it like it is the most normal thing to say to a person. I can't squash the rising shame in my chest. Even though I'm not invested in their opinions, they're the only people I know. If I lose their consideration... I'll be stranded.

Zaku doesn't say a word.

"Start!"

We blast off in the same moment. For a second I am surprised at my sheer speed. For a few strides, I'm in perfect step with the two boys. Though, I begin to lose pace and make it to the destination while the others are already a quarter of the way up the hill.

'This is going to suuuuck.'

-xxx-

I come running, well, more so ungainly bounding over the crest of the hill. I fall to my hands and knees at the feet of Sensei. He presses his boot to my back with a sneer on his face. "Get up Kin, you're just embarrassing yourself."

I bit by bit I push up, my face flush and my hair sticky. It is difficult to control my breathing but, I realize if I don't, I'll pass out. I wipe my face on my camo scarf-wrap which clears me of the most odious of my snot and sweat. I look around to see Zaku toying one of those ninja stars that I only ever saw in paper form before. Dosu was hunched over, tinkering with some metal bracer on his left arm.

Sensei claps once and immediately we all turn our visages to him. "We will be learning a basic Chakra control exercise today. I expect you all to practice in your own time." He shoots a glance towards Zaku who sighs and ambles over.

"What is it Sensei?" Dosu jumps to his feet and pads over to join the group.

"In general it is known as tree-climbing. Yet, due to the lack of trees in our environs, that's a bit of a misnomer. Still, that's the common name." He strides over to a particularly spire-like boulder and does the blatantly impossible. He walks up against a vertical surface with certainty and without changing his stride in the slightest. He reaches the top of the boulder and perches there like he was standing on flat ground.

"Now I know I'm hallucinating." I can't stop myself from the comment. That's impossible. "Gravity doesn't say 'oh sure, Sensei, go ahead and walk right up this big rock. I bet everyone will be super impressed by how nonchalant you are about it.'"

Sensei shoots me a bemused look. The others chuckle. Irritation boils in my stomach at having my perfectly reasonable expectation brushed aside.

"People can't walk up ninety-degree angles as though they aren't even a little bit difficult! It's impossible!"

"I appreciate the sentiment. You have to realize that using Chakra in certain ways has its advantages, Kin. It is no different to the paper sticking exercise that you learned all those years ago. The only difference is that you have to mold and maintain your Chakra in a more difficult place than your hands."

I turn to Zaku and Dosu. They'd back me up on this. This is utter insanity. Though of course, following the script, they're huddled together glancing at me.

"You must have jarred something in her brain yesterday. I'm telling you, Dosu."

"What I did was no worse than you punching her this morning. Maybe she was experimenting with a particularly fun Genjutsu and it fried her brain? Not that it makes much of a difference anyway..."

"I can hear you!" My eye twitches in annoyance at them. Chakra, Genjutsu. What is this!? How can people be so casual about this stuff!

Dosu chuckles. Zaku snickers.

Sensei is starting to look annoyed at our antics. "Alright, Kin. Since you seem to be having the most difficulty grasping this simple concept I can see you're going to need extra time on this. You're up first. Now, mold your Chakra into your foot and stick it to... that boulder." Sensei indicates a boulder a few meters to his right around half the height of his own boulder.

"Mold... Chakra? What does that even mean?" I apparently can't help myself from digging a deeper hole for myself. By the time the day is done, I'll be halfway to this world's equivalent of China.

Sensei, in a gesture that's starting to seem painful, sighs and jumps right off the rock and lands right in front of me. He places his hand on my stomach.

"Here is your Hara. It is where your spiritual and physical energies mix and form your Chakra." His hand glows blue and I gasp. I clutch at my stomach as I step back.

'What in the world.'

He doesn't even blink. "Gathering up your excess energies, you can perform various Jutsu. You can also augment your physical abilities. It is said that Ninja can live 30 days without food or sleep on nothing but their own Chakra stores. Though I wouldn't recommend that, personally. Any more inane questions that I know you know the answer already?" His eyes darken.

"N... no sir." I can't take my hands off my stomach. I can't stop feeling it, Chakra.

It's as though blood was able to be sensed. I could feel the coursing of my Chakra as though it were a path so well traveled by so many people. It emanates from my center and radiates outwards like a beam. Then returns back from my tips like light reflecting off a mirror. I didn't feel it before because it wasn't called to my attention. Yet, there it is, a new sense. Chakra. I look at Zaku, Dosu, Sensei. Nothing seemed off about them. They looked like regular people.

'They have this inside of them too.'

What are the implications of using such a wondrous new resource? What else can I do to defy basic physical boundaries? I turn to look at the rock which Sensei indicated that I climb with only my feet.

'I, too, have that ability.'

I shuffle my way to the rock. I billow the Chakra. The motion, for lack of a better word, radiating downwards my legs and ending at my toes. I take a single step onto the rocky face. I take another step onto the surface. I find myself hovering on a vertical surface.

The disorientation of gravity causes me to lose focus on my 'dam' and fall flat on my back.

Zaku laughs out loud, Dosu snorts, Sensei sighs, and I groan.

-xxx-

Half a workday later and we break for lunch. Four hours of falling on my ass. I got over the disorientation but found that I couldn't manage more than two steps before losing my grip. At the very least the others seemed to be having similar problems.

Dosu kept destroying the rocks he attempted to climb. He was unperturbed at first but by the third hour of the same results, he began to look aggravated.

Zaku did better than me by a small margin. He would slide down the surface and curse every time without fail.

Sensei tells us we'll be expected to master it within the week. I can't help but feel that's a bit reaching, but what choice would we have. Not learn how to do this? I'll have to experiment and read. It'll be nothing more than testing and isolating hypotheses.

Lunch here is a quiet and unimpressive affair, rice with vegetables. I'm glad that Zaku seems to have been delegated to being the resident cook. He brought plenty for all four of us. Not that I'm complaining, but my cooking expertise begins and ends with microwaves and scrambled eggs.

I decide sooner rather than later would be the better course; so I ask them about something that I'll need to get. "Dosu, Zaku, do you think you'd come with me to the bookstore or library after our team meeting today? I have some things that I want to read about." Dosu takes the comment in stride while Zaku looks astonished at me.

"Sure thing Kin. I'm glad you're finally deciding to see the light regarding reading. There's a whole world of literature out there!"

"What the hell is wrong with you Kin? You never cared before!"

"Now, Zaku, we don't need to worry about our teammate acquiring a taste in literature. If anything, it's a good thing."

"But you hate reading! People don't suddenly just change overnight like this!"

"I don't see what the problem is... they're just stupid books..."

Zaku pauses at that and Dosu sighs.

"Same old Kin." They simultaneously say.

'Smooth... God, I'm bad at this.'

-xxx-

After lunch, we, of course, had another custodial job to complete. I found myself trying to use my Chakra to stick to surfaces while we completed the job with mixed results. All the practice with the strange energy will be required of me. And sticking to walls and slippery surfaces seems like a useful skill to have.

"Zaku, will you be joining us on our grand adventure this evening?" Dosu sidles up to Zaku and poses his question in a teasing tone of voice.

Zaku doesn't even bother to hide his distaste. "Hard pass. I have better things to do."

"Now, now, if Kin can come around I'm sure a little duckling like yourself will come around in no time. Isn't that right Kin?"

I turn my head to regard them. Zaku is bristling at the comment.

'Critical hit.' I can't help the thought of their bickering from giving me a tinge of amusement. I giggle.

Zaku huffs and darts away, Dosu looks pleased.

"Say Kin..."

"Yeah?"

"What is your interest in reading? You don't strike me as a fiction type of person."

"No, you're right. I want to learn more, I'm hoping to find theory and instructional texts. Maybe a journal and some pens."

Dosu, even though his expression didn't change from the amusement from before, sounds disappointed. "I knew it was too good to be true. Those are some boring reads."

"But useful," I counter.

"...Yes..."

-xxx-

The bookstore is rather small and cramped. Shelves line the walls and piles of books are strewn about the floor and on top of chairs and desks. As soon as we arrive Dosu goes to a shelf and immediately picks out a couple of books. He seems content to browse for now.

I don't see any rhyme or reason to how the books are placed with each other. The Asian symbols of the titles supplying me with titles like "Snow Country" and the "Treatise of the use of Chakra in the Production of Precious Metals".

'I'll never get used to this... I don't know a single of these symbols under my own knowledge. But I guess looking a gift horse in its mouth is foolish.'

Not knowing where to begin, I ask Dosu, "where do you think I should start?"

He stares me with his single half-lidded eye. He pads over to a shelf across the room so I follow him. He considers the numerous titles. "What do you want to learn about?"

"Um..."

'How to pass as your old friend. That'd be nice.'

"How about something in depth on Chakra..."

He gives me an incredulous look. "That's a bit too broad. Do you want Genjutsu theory, Chakra control, Ninjutsu styles, etc."

I consider the question. 'I have no clue.' But he sees my hesitation and proffers two books from the shelf and presents them to me.

"Basic Theory on the Application of Chakra for the Purpose of Ensnaring the Senses. Not a wieldy title." I grimace at the thought of heavy-handed academic reading.

'If the title is anything to go by then this book will be a slog.'

I consider the second title. Its It's simply titled "Chakra, Use and Control".

"With how you use your Genjutsu I'm not surprised that you haven't read even that introductory text. The other one should be a good refresher course. Since it seems, you're suffering some amnesiac episode." Dosu shrugs. "Perhaps it'll even make you actually lethal. Though with your inane infatuation with senbon I doubt that."

At this point, the thought of a teenager talking about developing lethal force seemed mundane. I crack a small smile, even. "Thanks, Dosu."

'Now to find a few notebooks and pens...'

-xxx-

Back at my apartment, with newly acquired books in tow. I settle down to prepare some of the random ingredients strewn about her kitchen into an edible meal.

"At least I have a rice cooker..." I muse.

As I wait for the rice to steam I decide to pull up my book on Chakra itself. 'It seems Sensei left out quite a bit with his explanation.'

Chakra, as I understood the book's explanation of it, permeates every living thing. It is the spiritual force of the world made physical, and the physical world taken into the spiritual domain. Not tangible but still mutable. Not quite opaque, like a blue glass. Apparently, it takes years of careful training to 'unlock' it as it were.

"Thanks, I guess, Kin..."

At least the first step of accessing the blood-like spirit energy was taken care of for me. Unnoticed until I touched my clothed belly, a faint swirling pressure permeates my core.

"Ugh."

It makes me nauseated, like bad carnival food being sloshed about after a ride on the tilt-a-whirl. I drop my hand from my core and the feeling dissipates.

I continue my reading. The rice cooker eventually pings that the rice is cooked and I set myself a plate to eat while I shore up my knowledge.

-xxx-

Familiarizing myself with a concept that I both understand how to use innately but have had no actual knowledge of was a novel experience. I could call the Chakra to my hands with a mere thought, a ghostly blue dancing on my fingers. Calling it blood like was, apparently, an apt comparison. As the unrefined and uncontrolled energy seems to drop down my arms. It eventually dissipates into the aether. Directing the flow itself was easy, utilizing it was a frustrating experience.

At first, I attempted to stick a piece of paper ripped from one of the procured notebooks to my hand. I could sense the Chakra make contact but refuse to stick as I attempted to lift the paper from the table.

'I'm going to die, aren't I?'

A negative thought at each failure, a mantra of doom.

'I have to get this right. I won't die again. I can't, I refuse to die.'

The book had some rather helpful diagrams on how to visualize the Chakra. First, billow it out and touch the paper. Then, while billowing the Chakra, the arrows reverse and instruct that a continuous flow backward would need to be utilized simultaneously to make the paper stick. The opposing motions were an exercise in frustration.

'How in the world am I supposed to emit and callback simultaneously??'

I cast a glance at the alarm clock. I was forced to buy it upon Dosu's insistence. Since my internal alarm is currently so messed up, I'd need the help. That, and he and Zaku probably would get sick of waking me up pretty fast.

'It's starting to get late...'

I fold the page in half and place it inside the book as a makeshift bookmark.

'I should probably shower...' feelings of dread and revulsion instantly overtakes me. I grip my arms in a defensive posture and hunch over, my voluminous hair covering my face. 'I should just stop thinking about it. Maybe, eventually, I'll get used to this body.'

-xxx-

I arrive at the team training an hour early, intending to get the necessary practice in taming my Chakra. Not wanting to get it wrecked, I decided to leave the books on Chakra in my apartment. To my surprise it seems Dosu was already there, having the same idea as myself.

He stops in his relentless destruction of those poor boulders to regard my arrival. He then decides, apparently, I am not worth considering. So he turns back to his destructive task. I walk up to a boulder and prepare myself for the inevitable pain of falling from short heights.

We keep it up for the rest of the hour, it seems Dosu was getting better at reigning in his Chakra. He only managed to puncture little foot-shaped holes into the rock. I was having marginally better successes. Sometimes it seemed as though I could walk up an entire half a meter. Then I'd suddenly lose control of my Chakra completely and fall. Other times, my feet would refuse to stick at all. The sheer randomness of the situation alluded me.

It felt like being at war with myself.

"Oi! What the hell!" Zaku bounded up to me with an annoyed look on his face. "Were you really here this entire time? I, the gentleman I am, came to your place to make sure you didn't flake but you weren't even there."

"Oh. Sorry Zaku. I guess I should have left a note." I give him a weak smile. That was sweet of the kid, 'even though he could improve his disposition...'

"I just figured that practicing would be a better use of my time than slee-."

Zaku groans and digs his hands through his hair. "What happened to fun Kin..."

"I think it's a good thing. If she keeps this up, well... we'll only have one useless member of the team." Dosu casually ducks under a punch and sweeps Zaku with his leg in the same motion. Zaku falls painfully and grumbles something I couldn't quite catch.

'We need to work on socializing if this is how we always treat each other.'