Spirited Away: Wind and Sand

The Life of a Shinobi

I suppose I had never really thought about these things before. The careful choice of clothing, the education and training these people had to go through. I really wondered what kind of training I was going to be doing with Gaara. Why Gaara of all people? Wasn't he busy with his Kazekage duties?

The woman finished the measurements quickly and smiled.

"Oh I have the perfect outfit in mind for you," she said excitedly before leaving.

I wondered what she might have in mind, but before I had time to really think about it in too much detail, I saw a familiar face enter.

"Gaara?" I said in surprise.

There he was, standing in the entrance to my room. For one thing, I couldn't believe he actually came to my room to get me.

"Are you ready?" he asked in his same level voice as always.

"Um," I looked around kind of foolishly thinking that I might need something but I figured out that I really had nothing of my own here, "I guess I am."

"Come with me," he said as I followed him out the door.

I don't know why I felt so awkward following him around but somehow I felt like I had to say something. The only problem was I didn't know what to say to him at all. I didn't want to mention anything about his past because that probably would be out of line. I sighed as I gave into his silent guidance. Maybe it was better not to say anything.

He lead me to an area just outside of the village with wood posts where he then turned to me. We seemed to stand there for a while as I just stared at him. I wondered if his expression ever really changed.

"Do you know how to summon chakra?" he questioned calmly.

"Well," I felt a little embarrassed, "I read about it but I don't really know how to do that. I don't think I even have chakra."

He didn't say anything to this and kept staring at me. This silence thing was making me nervous. I was about to say something else but suddenly spikes of sand came at me at a high speed. I screamed and closed my eyes, putting up my hands to protect myself. I felt a strong wind sweep from behind me and everything stopped. I opened my eyes to see that the spikes of sand looked like they had been cut. The sand then fell back to the ground leaving me stunned as to what happened. I stared at Gaara wondering if he had done that. He seemed unmoved so it must have been him but why would he attack me?

"Did you feel it?" he asked.

"Huh? Feel what?" I didn't know what he was referring to.

"Your chakra . . . You seem to release it in when threatened," he stated, "Pay attention to the point when your chakra releases."

He lifted his arm as some small groups of sand lifted up with it. With a small movement of his hand, the sand turned into needles. I felt my heart skip a beat and my blood seemed to drain out of me. Maybe training with Gaara wasn't such a good thing. With a flick of his hand the needles came at me. I stared, stunned, as the barrage of sand needles come at me. I then felt it, the feeling I thought to be chakra. It was like a feeling of an electric water flow in my body. The flow exited my body naturally through my palms mostly, but seemed to exist randomly on my body. The wind would gusted from behind me and in a blink of an eye the needles were grains of sand again, blown upward. The feeling stopped as the sand rained down harmlessly.

He was staring at me and I knew what he was waiting for although I couldn't believe it myself, "I felt it, but I didn't do anything, it just happened on it's own."

"Learning to control your chakra is essential to using ninjutsu," he stated in his level voice, "Concentrate on summoning chakra then focus it to a certain area."