My shoulders and back hurts. Why you may ask? Let me tell you.
We were about halfway to Tazuna's house when Naruto couldn't take it anymore mainly due to him being shorter and smaller than us, so Kakashi sensei's body was really weighing down on him.
So, as the 2nd tallest person I had to switch with Naruto and help Sasuke carry Kakashi sensei back to Tazuna's house.
"Otou-san!" a long haired woman with dark blue hair opened the door and came rushing out. She was wearing a pink shirt with the end of her sleeves and collar being red and a long blue skirt.
This must be the daughter Tazuna-san must be talking about.
"Ohhh!!! Tsunami, tadaima!" Tazuna-san smiled upon seeing his daughter and went forward to greet her.
"Otou-san, I was worried about you! Did you manage to get help?" Tsunami asked him before noticing us. "They are?"
"Ah, they are the ninjas whom I've hired to protect me. Kids, this is my daughter Tsunami." Tazuna placed a hand on her shoulder and introduced her to us.
"Ah... yoroshiku! I'm Sakura!" Sakura immediately bowed in respect and introduced us. "This here is Naruto, Akiko, Sasuke and Kakashi-sensei."
"Oh, I see. Thank you all very much for escorting my father home." She smiled at us.
"Ano...." I began and everyone turned towards Sasuke and I. I don't know about Sasuke but I'm pretty sure I'm starting to shake from Kakashi-sensei's weight on me.
"I don't mean to be rude but, our sensei has used up his chakra and fainted. Do you have a bed so we could lay him down to rest? He's.... pretty heavy." I mustered up a smile, pretty sure I had sweat dripping down the side of my face.
"Ah, I'm so sorry for not noticing earlier. Yes, I do. Come in, we can let him rest in one of the guest rooms." With that, Tsunami turned and disappeared inside her house while we followed.
Sasuke and I kicked off our sandals by the front door and followed her upstairs to a room. There was a futon on the ground in the middle of the room with a wardrobe and cabinet next to a window.
Sasuke and I quickly walked over to the futon and laid Kakashi sensei down on it. I unzipped his flak jacket and we covered him with the blanket.
"Ah... tsukareta." I whined, carrying a grown man was really tiring and painful even though Sasuke was there too.
"Hm, I don't have many rooms so why don't the boys share this room with your sensei? I have another spare room for the girls." Tsunami told us as she opened the cupboard revealing another 2 sets of futons.
"Sure! No problem! Thanks Tsunami- nee chan!" Naruto grinned and ran over to help bring out the futons.
Tsunami then gestured for Sakura and I to follow her, we left the room the boys were in and went to the room next to it. It was roughly the same size as the boy's room and had the same amenities.
"Sorry about it being simple and bare, but you should have the things you need. If you need anything then just call for me. I'll be downstairs making lunch okay." Tsunami then left the room.
Sakura and I got to work in getting the futons out from the cupboard and laying it down on the floor. After we were done, I removed my shuriken holster and tool pouch and set it down on the drawer, Sakura did the same.
"You should get some rest, Akiko-chan. I'm sure you must be tired from carrying Kakashi sensei all the way back here. We can't do much while Kakashi sensei is in this condition anyways."
"Hmm, you're right." I untied the the cloth of my kimono cardigan and removed it folding it neatly and setting it on the drawer next to my forehead protector after removing it. "What are you going to do then?" I turned to ask Sakura.
"I'll help Tsunami-san with lunch. It's the least I could do and I didn't use much of my energy just now anyways. I'll wake you up when lunch is ready."
"Sounds good then." I didn't say anything else and collapsed onto the futon, closing my eyes and drifted off into dreamland almost immediately.
~~~~~~
I could feel someone shaking my shoulder.
Nngh, who was it?
I opened my eyes and saw that familiar black bangs and knew immediately who it was.
Sasuke.
"Okite." (Wake up) Sasuke told me softly once he realized I had woken up.
"What time is it? Is it lunch already?" I asked him groggily as I sat up, trying to rub away the sleepiness from my eyes while I was at it.
"Yeah, but also Kakashi sensei just woke up."
"Eh? Really?" Sasuke nodded and stood up, waiting for me.
As I stood up and followed him out of the room I could hear Tazuna-san's voice coming out from the boy's room.
"But you know.... he did take down a powerful ninja like that! We probably won't need to worry for a while."
I entered the room to see Kakashi sensei indeed awake, even though he was still lying down. Sakura was kneeling next to him while Tsunami was standing on his other side. Naruto and Tazuna san was standing near the doorway.
"Yo Akiko-chan, had a good rest?" Naruto asked me once he saw me.
"A very good rest. What did I miss?"
Naruto shrugged "Just Sakura telling Kakashi sensei not to use his Sharingan too much if it does that to his body."
"Anyway, that kid with the mask... What was he?" Sakura asked aloud. "He was an ANBU black ops from the Kirigakure village." We all turned to Kakashi sensei, waiting for him to continue his explanation.
"It's a mask that the elite Hunter-Nin Unit wears. They're commonly known as the body erasers, and their duty is to erase all traces that a ninja ever lived. You see, a ninja's body reveals a variety of things. Ninjutsu secrets, herbs and chakra characteristics which reveals things about their village."
By then, Naruto, Sasuke, Tazuna san and I had sat on the floor listening to Kakashi sensei explain about the hunter-nin.
"For instance, if I were to die, every secret about my Sharingan would be investigated thoroughly, and in the worst case, there's a danger that my entire jutsu could be stolen."
I gritted my teeth and clenched my fists after hearing that. Those ninjas would definitely have found out about every single secret regarding my doujutsu. Heck, they may even know more than I do! Sandaime told me that he would do his best to track them down, but are they that hard to find? Why is it taking so long? What if my clan's doujutsu secrets have already been exposed to the other villages?
"In other words, hunter-nin are specialists that prevents their village's secrets from leaking out by killing Rogue ninja who've run away from their village, and completely eliminating their bodies. No sound, no smell.... that is a ninja's end."
"Ugh.. so that Zabuza guy has been chopped up and disposed off? Scary!!" Sakura shuddered at the thought of it.
Hm, if I were to put aside the thought about those ninjas. A hunter-nin huh, they're part of the ANBU. Since I was looked after by the ANBU for so many years, you can't blame me for having an interest in being one of the ANBU. Maybe I could consider joining it, after I deal with those ninjas of course.
"What's going on sensei??" I looked up at Naruto's question to see Kakashi sensei sitting upright looking as if he is in deep thought.
"Hm? Oh.. so to continue my earlier story.... Hunter ninjas take care of the bodies of people they've killed, immediately and on the spot."
"So what about it?" "Don't you see? What did that masked boy do with Zabuza's body?"
"How should we know? That masked guy took Zabuza away!"
"That's right... If he needed proof he'd killed Zabuza, he could simply have taken the head... And the question is the weapon the hunter ninja kid used to kill Zabuza.."
"A regular senbon..." Sasuke told us before he gasped "That's impossible..."
"Eh?" Sakura and I turned to look at him, confused.
"Right.... It's impossible??" "What have you guys been talking on and on about?" Tazuna-san being a regular person and not a ninja could not understand what we were saying and asked.
"It's probably that... Zabuza's alive!"
Silence......
"EHHHHHH!?!!?!?!?" Naruto, Sakura, Tazuna and I shouted at the top of our lungs.
"What the heck do you mean?!" "But Kakashi sensei, you made sure that he was dead!" "So we got fooled?!" We asked one question after the other without waiting for him to answer.
"Well, yeah I did, but that was most likely a temporary death."
Temporary death?? You can do that? I didn't know you can just die temporarily and come back alive.
"The senbon needle that the hunter-nin used has a very low ability to kill a person unless it hits a vital spot. It's something that was originally used for medical treatment such as acupuncture therapy."
"But isn't the neck a vital spot though sensei?" I voiced out.
"Hunter ninjas know all about human anatomy thoroughly, putting someone in a momentary state of death is probably easy for them. Besides, he went to the trouble of carrying away Zabuza's corpse which was probably much heavier than him. Secondly, he used a weapon that has a low probability of killing." He held up 2 fingers for us as he listed out his facts on why Zabuza is alive.
"These two points indicate that the young man wasn't aiming to kill Zabuza but in fact to save him."
"Aren't you reading too much into it? Hunter-ninjas are supposed to kill missing ninjas." Tazuna-san suggested.
"No, with all the suspicion we need to prepare before it's too late. That's a shinobi rule. Besides, Gatou may have hired someone even stronger to replace Zabuza."
Sakura and I exchanged worried looks at each other, perhaps it's a good thing that i brought my ninjutsu scrolls with me. Now's a good time to start learning new jutsu.
"Sensei, what do you mean by preparing before it's too late? You can barely move." Kakashi sensei started to laugh to himself after hearing Sakura's question.
"I'll assign you training!"
"What kind of training?" I tilted my head to the side.
"C-chotto mate yo! Even with training, we're not gonna be that strong. I mean, our enemy is a ninja whom even you struggled against, even with the Sharingan!"
"Sakura.... who was it that saved me while I was struggling? You guys are growing rapidly." He looked towards Naruto and smiled "Especially Naruto! You've grown the most!"
Naruto gave a shy smile upon being complimented by Kakashi sensei. I smiled, I bet it's rare for Naruto to get compliments, this could boost his confidence.
"But obviously, this is just training until I get better, you won't be able to defeat him without me, even with this training."
"But if Zabuza is alive, he could attack us at any time right? I'm pretty sure it wouldn't take him long to find out where we are." I bit my lip.
"About that, a person being put into a temporary death state.... it should take them a while before their body returns to normal..."
"I see! So we train until then, sounds like a lot of fun!!" Naruto was hyped up, he had clenched his fists and was grinning from ear to ear.
"That's not fun." An unfamiliar voice came from behind.
"Huh?" We turned around to see a small boy with black spiky hair with black coloured eyes, just like Sasuke. He wore a green jumpsuit with a yellow shirt beneath it and a blue and white striped bucket hat, and he was staring at all of us.
"Who the heck are you?" Naruto demanded. "Naruto! Don't be rude!" I gave Naruto a disapproving look, after all we are the guests here.
"Ohhh!! Inari!! Where have you been?!" Tazuna san was smiling so wide now and held his arms out to hug Inari.
Inari seeing that quickly ran over to hug him, "Okairi jii-chan!"
"Inari, what sort of greeting is that? These are the ninjas who escorted your grandpa!" Tsunami walked over with her hands on her hips and nagged Inari, who I'm assuming is her son.
"It's okay, it's okay. Right, Inari?" Tazuna was stroking Izuna's head fondly.
We all stared at Inari which he did the same. Then, he turned towards his mom and told her while pointing at us "Mom, these guys will die... There's no way that they can oppose Gatou and win."
"What did you say? You little brat!!!" Naruto immediately stood up, clearly offended. I was a bit too, not gonna lie.
"Now listen up, I'm a superhero who's gonna become an awesome ninja called the Hokage in the future. I don't care if it's Gatou or whatever, I'm not worried about those guys at all!" Naruto gave his Hokage speech as usual.
"What are you, stupid? There's no such thing as a hero! I bet you can't even defeat those people from the Akiyama clan, much less Gatou!"
Sensing my anger rising, Sakura quickly placed her hand on my arm to hold me back, after all I shouldn't be lashing out on this kid. But Naruto on the other hand.....
"W-what did you say?!" Naruto stormed over, wanting to give Inari a beating but got held back by Sakura "Stop that, Naruto!!"
Inari looked back, "If you don't want to die, you'd better hurry up and go home..." before continuing to leave the room.
"Inari, where are you going?" Inari opened the door before answering his grandfather "The sea... I'll be looking at the sea from my room."
Both Tsunami and Tazuna-san could only watch as Inari leave the room, closing the door behind him as he left. "I'm sorry for that." He looked at us apologetically.
Naruto was still gritting his teeth, clearly unable to accept Inari looking down on us ninjas.
"We'll start your training after lunch then everyone." Kakashi sensei announced to the group.
"Wakarimashita." I stood up from kneeling and followed Tsunami downstairs, it looks like the table was already set up.
"Ah, I'll take up Kakashi-sensei's food Tsunami-san." I offered to bring up the tray of food that she has prepared for Kakashi sensei. "Arigatou Akiko." She smiled.
I took the tray of food and turned around only for Naruto to snatch it out of my hands. "I'll take this to Kakashi-sensei Akiko-chan! You just go ahead and eat first!" Before I could say anything else though he had already ran up the stairs with the food.
"What's gotten into him?" I asked out loud but sat down at the table with the others and we ate our lunch.
Naruto had a sullen look on his face when he did come back down a while after. "Oh, I should probably get Inari down for lunch." Tsunami made a move to get up from her chair when Naruto stopped her. "Ah uh, I don't think we should disturb him right now. He seems to be busy....." he said the last part quietly.
Tsunami and Tazuna-san shared a knowing look between themselves, however she didn't say anything more and sat back down and continued eating.
"Are you alright, Naruto?" I whispered to him as he sat down next to me, he nodded. "Yeah, I'm fine. Don't worry Akiko-chan, let's eat and then start our training."
He certainly didn't act okay but based on the room's vibe I didn't push him for answers.
~~
Kakashi sensei had led us into the forest nearby after lunch. "We will now start the training."
"Alright!!!"
"But before that, let me again explain the basics of chakra."
"At this point....do you really need to..." "Of course we know about that! Chatora right?"
Sasuke, Sakura, Kakashi-sensei and I turned to Naruto with a blank look. "It's chakra....." Kakashi-sensei already sounds defeated. "Sakura, please do me the honours."
Sakura then went on for quite a few minutes in giving Naruto a summarised lecture on chakra which any genin should know by now, except for well Naruto.
"Sono toori! Wow, Iruka sensei sure has some good students." he praised.
"Whatever! I may not understand difficult explanations, but I'll just learn it with my body!" Naruto defended himself, eh but Sakura had already explained it pretty simply though....
"Naruto is right, we can already use jutsu." Woah, Sasuke is actually backing Naruto up.
"Nope! You guys are still not using chakra efficiently."
"NANI?!!!" "Efficiently? What do you mean by that, sensei?" I had never known about that up till now.
"Well, listen.. As Sakura mentioned just now, to release chakra you have to bring out both the physical and spiritual energies and mixing them together within your body. The amount of each energy, the preparation of the energy changes based on the Jutsu you want to use."
"And right now, you guys aren't using chakra effectively yet. Even if you're able to combine a lot of chakra, if you're not able to control it in a balanced way, the Jutsu's effectiveness not only will be cut in half, but it may not even be activated at all."
"Ohh, so that would explain Naruto's clones back at the academy?" I thought back to when Naruto tried making clones in class but failed.
"Wasting energy will prevent you from battling for a longer period of time. These are some of the weaknesses that can occur if you don't learn how to use chakra efficiently."
"So... what should we do?"
"You need to learn to control chakra with your own body! It's difficult training that requires you to put your life on the line to master!"
"Uh... sensei are you exaggerating things by chance? What are we even gonna do?" There was no way he would be giving us a training this tough right? Right?
"Hm?" He paused for dramatic effect before continuing "Tree climbing."
"Tree climbing?!" We al shouted in disbelief.
"That's the training we have to put our life on the line to master?! Really?!" Man, I should've known he would exaggerate things again!
"That's right. But it's not just simple tree-climbing. You'll climb without using your hands."
"Eh? How?" Sakura doesn't believe that you can climb trees without using your hands.
"Well... just watch." He let go of the crutches that he was leaning onto and made a handsign. Then, he started to walk towards the tree.
What is he gonna do?
He placed a foot onto the tree trunk, and then the other foot, and then he started to 'climb' up the tree trunk as if he was walking on the ground!
"Woah...." "He's climbing..." "Vertically.... and with just his feet!"
Kakashi sensei even walked on the underside of the tree branch and was standing upside down, however he didn't fall off "You understand now? Focus the chakra on the bottom of your feet and make them stick to the tree trunk. If you use your chakra well, you can do stuffs like this." he gave us instructions with a smile.
"Chotto matte! How is climbing a tree without our hands going to make us stronger?!" Sakura demanded.
"So here's the main point, the aim of this training is to accumulate the required amount of combined chakra to the required spot. This can be difficult even for a skilled ninja, the amount of chakra used for tree climbing is very subtle. And the bottoms of the feet are the most difficult place to gather chakra."
"So basically, if you can master that control, it will be possible to master any jutsu! Theoretically, that is. The second aim is for you to develop the stamina needed to control chakra properly. Ninjas have to combine the most chakra during battles. Under such situations, 'control' and 'maintenance' of chakra becomes most difficult."
Hm, so theoretically if i master this training, I would be able to perform any kind of jutsu? Then, I definitely have to master this as my doujutsu allows me to perform any jutsu of any element! I got motivated after listening to Kakashi-sensei's explanation.
"So anyway, nothing's really gonna happen with me saying this and that, you'll need to learn it with your bodies." He took out 4 kunais from his holster and threw it at our feet.
"Use that kunai to mark how high you make it up the tree based on your strength now." I picked up the kunai slowly and looked towards a tree.
"Next, use that mark as your goal and surpass it. You guys won't be good enough to walk up the tree from the start, so run and use your momentum to get used to it... Got it?"
Naruto pulled the kunai out of the ground and huffed "This training is nothing! Hah, it's too easy for me! After all, I'm the one who's grown the most!!"
"Enough with the talk.... now get to it. Try climbing any tree."
Alright, my aim is to get to that first branch on my first try! I told myself after eyeing the first tree branch. All I have to do is to make sure I gather enough chakra at the soles of my feet and control it right? Here goes nothing!
We made a handsign and started to focus. I squeezed my eyes shut and imagined combining my chakra and gathering them at the bottom of my feet. He said the amount of chakra needed for this is really subtle so.... I have to make sure I don't gather too much, or too little. Okay, I think this should do! I opened my eyes and smirked to myself.
"Alright, here I go!!!!" As usual, Naruto was the one to shout first, we then started running.
Focus, focus! I told myself as the tree trunk got closer and closer. One leg first, yosh! I praised myself once I got one foot on the tree trunk and quickly placed my other foot down.
Good job Akiko! Now, don't lose this momentum you've got and keep running! I made sure to control the pace of my breathing and focused on maintaining the chakra on my feet. I could feel myself getting high and higher but I didn't dare to stop or look down.
I could hear Naruto yell in pain and someone else landing back on the ground. Don't get distracted, focus! I told myself. Then, I could start to feel my right foot sink in just a bit more compared to my left. Oh no! Too much chakra maybe? Focus, Akiko! I quickly regained my focus and tuned out my surroundings and imagined myself controlling the amount of chakra in my right foot, I must've lost my focus back there for a bit and gathered slightly more chakra on my right foot!
I continued to run up the tree until I could feel myself getting tired, controlling the same amount of chakra is way harder than I thought! I was starting to pant, I quickly used my kunai and made a mark on the tree before jumping onto the tree branch of the same level.
Alright, let's see how high I've gotten - Woah!!!
I wasn't THAT high but, I could see Naruto on the ground and...... SASUKE?! Did Sasuke fell off the tree before reaching a branch or something? I looked towards his tree and saw an imprint of his shoe on the trunk, with the sides surrounding it splintered. Ah, I guess he used too much chakra based on my own experience just now?
Sakura had made it onto a tree branch just like me, but she was on the same level as Kakashi-sensei while I was..... slightly higher than both of them!
"I DID IT!!!" I shouted with glee for everyone to hear and had a huge smile on my face. That was really tiring and tougher than I imagined but I was super proud of myself! Eheh, I know we didn't make this into a competition but winning something against something just made me happier as well.
Everyone immediately looked up at my direction and gasped. "Ohhh! Looks like Akiko is better than Sakura in terms of controlling chakra, still, they're both girls." Sakura and I immediately gave a cheeky smile at the boys.
"WOW!!!! Way to go Sakura-chan, Akiko-chan!!!" Naruto was amazed by our abilities, I smiled seeing how he was happy with us even though it seems like he has injured himself while falling off the tree.
"Tch!" Sasuke of course was not happy that he 'lost', he gave me the look that reads 'I'll be there soon before you know it!'
"Well, not only does Sakura have knowledge about chakra but her control and stamina are pretty good!"
"Not to mention Akiko either," Kakashi sensei looked towards my tree and eyed the spot where I had the same problem like Sasuke "She noticed that she was gathering more chakra on one feet and quickly reduced it so that she wouldn't end up like our dear Sasuke. Furthermore, she has slightly more stamina than Sakura as well, good job on that and keep it up girls!" Sakura and I looked at each other and smiled, obviously proud that us kunoichis managed to do better than the boys.
"It looks like they ma be the closest one to becoming the Hokage... unlike someone else." He was obviously referring to Naruto.
"And also, the Uchiha Clan isn't that much great, the Akiyama Clan and Haruno Clan seems to be better!" Kakashi was obviously trying to rile Sasuke up now.
"Shut up, sensei!!!" As expected, Sakura was the first to defend Sasuke.
Well.... looks like the next few days of training are gonna be interesting.