Don't Mess With a Namikaze

Chapter 27

She flopped on the ground in the middle of the deer herd, needing a moment to herself to simply exist. She was pretty used to the trials of war from the feudal era, but there were still things she saw that got to her. The small, slightly burnt, doll laying on the ground next to her was one of those things. She carried the small thing around with her constantly, a type of comfort. Not the most healthy of comfort, but comfort nonetheless. She had been seconds too late to save a small girl from a rouge nin. It always hurt to see children needlessly die. Her mind flashed back to the multiple towns they had come across in the feudal era completely razed to the ground by Naraku and his minions for no other reason than him being bored. Yeah, she was no stranger to civilian deaths but it still hurts to see. She looked up from the doll to glance around her, realizing that the sun has drifted quite a bit since she got here. Huh, she hasn't lost time like that in a while. Most of the deer were laying around her, one of the fawns she had first met (now all grown up) was curled up at her side leaning on her. The head buck was standing at the edge of the small clearing, standing guard. The fact he felt like he needed to protect her made her feel warm and fuzzy inside. She loves animals, they were always so true to themselves. Honestly, she was tempted to just take a nap and sleep the rest of the day away. She knew she couldn't though, she had things that she needed to do.

A few days prior she had been told that once she was officially cleared by a medic-nin, Jiraiya and herself were being sent on a long training trip that for some reason is taking place outside of the village. Neither the Hokage nor Jiraiya were letting her know what it was about which was rather annoying. But she was looking forward to it at the same time, it's always nice to learn something new. And when Jiraiya can actually pull himself away from the ladies and booze he's actually a very good teacher. She's made quite a bit of progress the past year, but there is always more that she wants to accomplish. Her mind went to the small mental checklist she keeps on what she wants to work on next.

She wants to devote some more time to practice with her bow. She's grown a bit since the last time she tried to use it so she may finally be tall enough to use it effectively in battle again. She doesn't want to lose her accuracy with the weapon. She also wants to spend more time learning more about Fuinjutsu, the past month was definitely progress but not enough. She's progressing fairly well in that aspect, but she wants to get a bit more advanced. If she gets better at it there is always the chance that she could mix it more with her sutras and she was all down for that. The possibilities were endless. Her barriers mixed perfectly with Fuinjutsu so she knew it was possible. Another thing she wants to try experimenting with is something she had done once and then kind of forgot about. Her healing from a distance. It was something she really should have been working out a long time ago but had put it on the back burner for other things. She didn't exactly know how to go about doing it though. She couldn't exactly heal people who weren't hurt, and she didn't want her friends hurting themselves just to test out her healing. She also didn't want to take advantage of her side work at the hospital as she wasn't quite ready to have just anybody know about her advanced healing. She didn't want that information getting out to the wrong hands. She also wants to work on new jutsus, learning how to do amazing things like that never ceases to amaze her.

Her mind switched topics and thought over what she's accomplished through the past year. It has been practically filled with either missions or training. Now, that she was a chunin, most of her missions were A or S. She's even been put on a few SS missions with some Anbu, which was definitely a new experience. She wasn't always paired up with Jiraiya either. She's been on missions with many different shinobi and teams. It was fun to work with others, but she still worked best with her sensei. Her repertoire was building up as well. She has finally gotten the hang of throwing shuriken which she was beyond glad of. She worked hard to learn new jutsus, some even outside of her chakra release nature. She was trying to get the hang of lightning release as if she could try to combine it with her water whip jutsu it would be a great combo.