Invisible- A Naruto Fanfiction

Chapter 41

I wake up early and make my way over to the training ground. Taka’s already there, meditating in the center of the clearing. As I enter he says, “You have two days until your exam, right?”

“Yeah,” I respond quietly. “Just today and tomorrow.”

“Good.” He pulls himself off the ground. “Today, you’ll be training with a weapon.”

My eyes widen and a smile forms on my face. “Really? What weapon?”

“I’m not sure yet,” he says, laughing quietly. “It’s your choice.” I get to choose the weapon I want to learn how to use? That’s going to be really hard, I want to learn how to use them all. “We’ll go into town and you’ll find the weapon that feels right to you, and then I’ll teach you how to use it. Oh, after we buy it, of course.”

My smile falls as he says that last sentence. “I’m sorry, Taka,” I mumble, “I can’t afford a weapon. I sent all of my money for the month on food already.”

Taka places his hand gently on my head, rubbing it softly. “Don’t worry, kid. I’ll buy it for you. It’ll be your prize for surviving a month of training with me.”

I wrap my arms around the tall man and murmur into his chest, “Thank you.”

In town, we go to all of the best weapon shops, but can’t find anything that seems right to me. The swords feel weird, the knives are too simple, and everything else just feels… wrong. Plus, one of the shop owners keeps trying to get me to buy a bow and arrow. What the hell am I supposed to do with those when I get into a close combat fight?

I sigh as we exit yet another shop empty handed. “I never would’ve pegged you as a picky girl, Ayaka,” Taka teases lightly.

“I’m not picky!” I growl back. “You just told me to find what feels right and, so far, nothing does!”

Taka chuckles at my frustration. “There’s still one more shop in town that sells weapons, kid. There’s still a chance.”

“Not really,” I mutter.

The final shop is old and smells like mothballs. I walk across the creaky floor, examining everything. I drag my finger across a long sword on display, picking up dust. I blow on my finger softly, allowing the dust to return to it’s home in the floorboards. It doesn’t look like there’s anything here, either, but I continue to walk through the creepy old shop until my foot hits something on the floor. There’s a large chest sitting in the center of the floor. I bend down and open the lid to see what might be inside.

On the bottom of the lid, there’s a sign. Discount weapons. Below is a pile of dusty, old weapons. There’s yet another bow with some rusted arrows, a large shuriken, and a small axe. I move past all of them, focusing only on the soft gleam of light I see at the bottom of the chest. I reach down and grab two identical curved blades. They both appear to be perfectly sharpened, although, the wrappings on one of them are a little ragged.

I hear footsteps behind me, and turn around to see Taka standing there, watching me with his blank eyes. “Hey,” he smiles. “Did you find something?”

“Yeah,” I murmur in response, while pushing myself off the ground and making sure to avoid the blades.

He laughs and says, “Are you going to tell me what it is?”

“Umm… They’re, uh…” What was it Iruka called them? “Gosh, they’re… sickles… Yeah, sickles.”

Taka’s empty eyes meet mine, and even though I know he can’t see, as he smirks, I swear he’s staring straight into my soul. “It looks like you’ve found your claws.”