Here's the looooooong over-due Chapter 13!!
-'-'-'-'-'-'
It was a week before the Chunin Exams, and I still hadn't had any special training. Isamu-sensei decided against splitting up our team for training. He claimed he wanted to work with each one of us, but so far he's only worked with the Twins. He's been working on their chakra control, making them climb trees with no hands and walk on water. They've been catching on pretty quick. For idiots.
The last three weeks have been incredibly boring and I didn't know boredom existed on such an advanced level. Isamu-sensei insisted on me being present during training sessions, for who know's what reason, so I was stuck either practicing throwing kunai at a tree stump or watching the Twins drown. He also forbade me from practicing any of my Jutsu, saying it'd distract the Twins.
As I stood there, absentmindedly throwing kunai at the painted target, a thought occurred to me: I'd never seen what the Twins were actually capable of. I'd never seen any Jutsu, advanced fighting or anything from either of them. Surely they must be capable of something, or the Hokage wouldn't have put them on my team. So far they'd proven pretty useless in battles, though.
"Hey, Sensei?" I called, wanting to ask him about the Twins. He ignored me, back turned. I made a face at his back and threw a kunai at him. He caught it effortlessly and turned to look at me, eyebrow quirked.
"Is that what you do to all those who ignore you? Throw a lethal weapon at them when their back is turned?" he joked. I shrugged.
"Sure, whatever," I replied, quickly changing the subject, "What sort of skills to the Twins have?"
Isamu-sensei blinked a few times but gave no answer. I sighed.
"I know they're not as useless as they lead on. The Hokage put them on this team for a reason, that I know, but we can't be expected to work as a team if we don't know each other's abilities."
The Twins, who had stopped practicing when they noticed Isamu-sensei wasn't watching them anymore, walked over to where we were standing.
"You haven't told Yumi about us yet, Sensei?" Hoshi seemed quite surprised.
"I figured that if you wanted her to know, you would have told her. It's a very personal matter and not something I should talk about for you. You two need to learn to take responsibility for things like this," he replied.
Hoshi said, "You're probably right." at the same time Miki said, "Why us??". Isamu-sensei sighed.
"All right, before this is dragged out any longer than necessary, can someone tell me what the heck is going on? I don't care who tells me about it, it could even be a group effort, just tell me," I said through clenched teeth.
The three boys all glared at each other, silently holding a staring contest until one of Miki's eyes twitched and Isamu-sensei jumped up and pointed at him, a triumphant, extremely childish, "Ha!". Miki grabbed his face with his hands and groaned painfully while Hoshi patted him on the back, shaking his head. All the while, my anger mark was growing bigger and my patience was running out.
"WILL SOMEONE JUST TELL ME WHAT IS GOING ON??" I had completely snapped. Was it really that difficult for them to just tell me what the big secret was? It wasn't like I asked them to choose one of themselves to eat; I just wanted some answers.
My outburst seemed to have woken them up from whatever funk they were in and they all sat down on the ground. I followed suit.
"Yumi, you're not the only one who's lost people you care about. Miki and I are just two of three... We had a sister," Hoshi paused and looked over at Miki, who sat perfectly still, a blank expression on his usually smiling face. "Her name was Kiyomi and she was our triplet," Hoshi's voice cracked and he quickly cleared his throat. He opened his mouth to continue, but Miki placed a hand on his arm and smiled a small, sad smile.
He turned back to me and continued the story, "Kiyomi was the youngest, she was born five hours after Hoshi," Miki's voice was hardly above a whisper, "She always loved reading about strategy in battle and listening to our parents' stories about missions they'd been on. She'd listen for as long as our parents would talk, much longer than Hoshi and I ever would. We'd get bored and go play ninja outside, but Kiyomi would always stay...
"She was also extremely headstrong. If she had her mind set on something, nothing would be able to change it, and she never thought before she spoke," a look of reminiscence passed over Miki's face as he spoke, "Together, we were a force to be reckoned with. The three of us made a pact to learn our Clan's trademark joint jutsu. Every ninja from our Clan must learn it before becoming a Jonin, so we figured we might as well get a head start..." Miki trailed off and sniffled. Hoshi started again.
"One day, Kiyomi went off to the river by herself to get some fish for dinner. She wanted to surprise our parents when they came back from their mission. We wanted to go with her, but she said she wanted to do it on her own and promised she'd be fine... After three hours of waiting for her, Miki and I went down to the river. There was a crowd of people all standing around something on the bank," Hoshi squeezed his eyes shut for a moment before continuing, "It was Kiyomi. She must have fallen into the river when she was catching fish. She never learned how to swim.
"Miki and I never forgot about the pact we'd made with Kiyomi about learning the joint jutsu. We spent all of our time on training after she..... And we finally accomplished it last year, making us the youngest Ekiguchis to ever learn it. And... That's really the only outstanding ability we have. We spent all of our time perfecting that jutsu, so we never really learned much else. That's why Sensei is working on all this basic stuff with us," Hoshi finished, wiping his nose on his sleeve.
The Twins sat there, wiping eyes and noses on their shirts, and I did something I hadn't done in a long, long time: I reached forward and hugged them. It wasn't long, it wasn't big, there was nothing special about it, but I could tell it meant a lot to the two boys who had lost a part of themselves.
-'-'-'-'-'-'
I really am super sorry about how long I took to get this to you guys! I had a busier Christmas break that I thought and then basketball happened. I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter, though! LOVE YOU ALL!!!
Comment-
Vote-
Fan-
Follow-
Stay awesome>
Kumiko Sakamoto
YOU ARE READING
The Girl From the Land of Waves (A Naruto Fanfic) *On Hold*
FanfictionDate Started: 9/20/15 Yumi was born to the only ninja clan in the Land of Waves: The Isoya Clan, which called a small, abandoned island it's home. She grew up just like every other young girl, she had friends, a large family and anything she co...
