Kakashi stayed true to his word in the weeks that followed. They started to meet up at the training ground every other Sunday, and Akira worked hard to try and learn wind style. But it did not come as easily to her as earth or water style had. In fact, she was hardly making any progress, and it frustrated her to no end. Usually, they would end up sparring for a while after a couple of hours, then getting ramen for dinner. Akira first had to cut a leaf in half using wind chakra. That had been hard enough to do on its own. Then, Kakashi started teaching her a basic wind-style move, gale palm.
After the first few sessions, Kakashi wasn't able to train her anymore due to an uptick in the number of missions he was going on, so Akira did her best to train herself. She used books from the library to study with, but it was difficult to learn.
She had been training on Sundays since it was her team's day off. Yuhi had the day off as well. The girls had still been meeting up most Sunday mornings for breakfast, and that day in particular, Akira had asked Yuhi to teach her medical ninjutsu.
"You want to learn medical ninjutsu?" Yuhi repeated.
Akira nodded. "My team already has a medic, but if I want to get into the ANBU then I figure I should learn as many skills as I can."
"Well, I can teach you some, but without proper training at the hospital you won't be able to do a lot. I can teach you how to heal minor wounds and examine a patient, but if you want to do anything major you will have to train at the hospital."
Akira couldn't help but feel a little disappointed. She didn't have time to train at the hospital. But she would take the training she could get from Yuhi.
The girls made their way to the training ground, and Yuhi began to teach Akira the basics of healing. She showed her the basic healing technique first, and explained how to balance her chakra to achieve the result.
"If you don't control your chakra stream into the patient, you risk inputting too much chakra and injuring the patient further. It is a careful balance. This jutsu speeds up the body's natural healing process. It's best used in situations when a medical facility is out of reach, and works best on external wounds. Though it can be used for internal wounds as well, it just will take longer and use more of your chakra."
Akira nodded. Yuhi trapped a mouse in the field, and used a kunai to cut its little leg. It squeaked in pain and squirmed around.
"Alright, hold him still for me."
Yuhi handed Akira the mouse. She held it firmly, but not so hard as to hurt it further. It squirmed in her fingers trying to free itself. Yuhi held her hands over the mouse, and a green light began to emit from them. The chakra surrounded the mouse, and Akira watched as the cut healed itself. When Yuhi finished the jutsu she lowered her hands and smiled.
They spent that morning practicing on mice. It was a couple hours until Akira could actually heal one of them. Akira felt bad for them, especially when she almost overloaded one with chakra at one point. Thankfully her chakra control was decent enough that she was able to turn it down a notch and save it from a rather gruesome fate. The girls were deeply concentrated when they were distracted by someone else in the field.
"Hey! Akira!"
Akira stopped what she was doing and looked over her shoulder. Ranka was approaching them with a smile on his face and hand waved in greeting. Akira waved back with her own smile.
"Who's that, Akira?" Yuhi asked.
Akira turned back to face her friend, who was still holding an injured mouse in cupped hands.
"That's Ranka, he's one of my teammates." Akira held her hands out over the mouse again. Green chakra started to swirl through the air.
"One of your teammates, huh?"
Akira glanced up at Yuhi. She had a knowing smile on her face and an eyebrow raised. Akira blushed. "Yeah, he's also a medical ninja."
"I've seen him around the hospital a few times."
"How's it going?" Ranka asked when he reached them.
"Good," Akira responded. "This is Yuhi."
"Hi!" Yuhi said.
Ranka smiled kindly. "Nice to meet you. What are you guys working on?"
"I'm teaching Akira medical ninjutsu. So far she can heal a scrape." Yuhi said teasingly.
"Quit it, Yuhi!" Akira whispered under her breath as Ranka laughed.
"Oh, a scrape huh? Impressive."
"I just started," Akira snapped, embarrassed. Of course Yuhi would try to pull something like that. That's what Akira got for telling her too much about him.
Ranka sat down next to the girls and watched. Akira started to sweat nervously, now anxious that she would mess up and explode the mouse.
"Remember, you're encouraging the cells, not trying to do the work for them," Yuhi said.
Akira nodded in response. The wound on the mouse's side gradually closed up. When it was fully closed, the mouse leaped out of Yuhi's hands and scampered off. Akira sat back on her heels and wiped sweat away from her face.
"That's a lot harder than I thought it would be," she said.
Yuhi nodded. "It takes a lot of practice. You'll have to train really hard to get anywhere without going to the hospital and doing it."
"That's okay, we can train at the end of our training sessions each day," Ranka piped up.
Akira looked over at him, her face feeling a bit hot suddenly.
"That's a great idea! You'll be able to help heal people in no time, Akira!" Yuhi said brightly.
Akira shot Yuhi a glare.
"Though like I said, it's not going to be perfect training. Though you will be able to assist other healers, and that will make a difference. You two will make a great team for that!"
Ranka laughed awkwardly and rubbed the back of his head. Akira's face burned hot, and she pointedly looked away from Yuhi, who was grinning. She couldn't help but feel incredibly embarrassed. Yuhi was practically outing her.
Yuhi got to her feet and started walking away. She waved over her shoulder. "Alright, well I gotta run. You two have fun!"
"See you later, Yuhi!" Akira called back.
"Let's find another mouse for you to practice on. You're definitely not practicing on me yet!" Ranka said with a grin.
Akira bit her lip and looked down at the ground. "Yeah, I almost blew one up earlier. Poor thing's fur started to smoke."
He laughed. "That happens at first sometimes."
They spent the next couple of hours working on medical ninjutsu. Akira progressed slowly, and by the end of the day she was able to heal a cut.
And she was exhausted.
She and Ranka went into town for dumplings afterward, then he walked her back to her apartment. Akira couldn't help but feel a little giddy that night.
In the weeks following, Ranka and Akira stayed later after almost every training day to work on medical ninjutsu. Except for the days that they arranged to get dinner with Muta. And Akira couldn't help but develop a bit of a crush on Ranka. She had always admired his wind style usage, and now that they had spent more time together, Akira appreciated how funny he was. He made her smile. It was a nice change. Akira started looking forward to those hours more and more.
They started to make it a habit to go into town and walk around for a bit after training. Ranka would make jokes about things they saw in the windows, making Akira laugh. They would get dumplings from different shops and compare them to others they had had.
In time her medical ninjutsu steadily improved. Ranka began allowing her to practice on himself. He would give himself a small cut on his forearm and she would practice healing it. That, or she would heal the bruises and cuts that he received on missions. After a few months, Akira was confidently able to heal larger wounds. Ranka also started to teach her about anatomy, and how to target specific areas of the body to heal.
They sat in the library, pouring over books about the human body.
"When healing, you'll want to start at the site that needs the most attention. That being said, you need to know how to find that. Arteries, veins, and organs come first. Especially the heart and the lungs. A working heart and the lungs are vital for a body to heal itself. But arteries and veins are also important, especially the major ones. They carry a large supply of blood, and the patient can internally bleed out in minutes if a major one is damaged."
Ranka taught her how to target those areas in such injuries, with Yuhi's help. They used squirrels to practice on, which Akira found awful but without the hospital she didn't have any other choice. More than a few squirrels died in the process, which was disheartening.
"It's okay, you'll get it." Ranka would say. Yuhi would explain what Akira did wrong while Ranka would go and catch another one. And finally, she was able to do it.
Her skills had progressed very far, though they were nowhere near perfect.
"You've about gotten to the point where there's not much else we can teach you outside of the hospital. But we can teach you how to assist other medics." Yuhi said one morning. Ranka nodded in agreement.
"As a medic, something we can do is give our chakra to others who are healing people. When dealing with a severe injury, and there's a trained medic nearby, it'll be the best way you can help them," he added.
Akira nodded. "Let's do it."
They showed her how, and with practice, Akira was able to supply a steady stream of chakra to theirs to assist in healing.
A week after learning how to do that, it was her birthday. Akira woke up to her alarm blaring, and begrudgingly turned it off. She rolled onto her other side and stared at the wall. It just so happened to be a Sunday, which meant she had the day off. Yuhi was out on a mission today, and Ranka was training at the hospital. Yuhi had given her a card the day before and apologized that they couldn't go to breakfast together, but had wished her a happy birthday. She made sure the exchange was quiet and away from people, which Akira appreciated. She didn't like celebrating her birthday now. It was close to the anniversary of the attack, and she missed her parents too much. It was only a day of pain.
She dragged herself out of bed and put her running clothes on. Akira strapped her weapons pouch to her leg, then left her apartment. She pushed herself as hard as she could, trying to replace the emotional pain she felt with physical pain. Her lungs burned, but she didn't stop. Not until she got to Kakashi's apartment.
She jumped straight from the ground to the tree branch, and almost fell backward off of it again in surprise. On days like today when her emotions got the better of her, Akira had a tendency to reduce her sensory range to nothing, shutting herself out from the world. It was much easier to do that than feel everyone else's chakra.
Kakashi was sitting on the windowsill with a book in one hand and a plate in the other.
"Morning," he said with a smile. He held out the plate. It was piled high with french toast, sliced strawberries and bananas on top. Syrup was drizzled over it, topped off with a sprinkle of powered sugar.
Akira sat down on the branch, jaw dropped. She took the plate from his hands and stared at the food in wonder.
"Happy birthday."
"Thank you," she said softly. The first bite was like heaven, and Akira was sold.
"You didn't think I forgot, did you?" Kakashi asked.
Akira shrugged. "I don't celebrate it much anymore."
"Well you wouldn't let me not celebrate mine, so I'm just returning the favor."
He didn't like celebrating his birthday either. Two weeks ago, Akira had insisted on taking Kakashi out for barbeque. He had just gotten back from a mission and wasn't thrilled about the idea, but Akira didn't let up. Eventually they settled on her treating him to Ichiraku's.
When Akira finished eating, Kakashi took her plate and handed her a book. "Here's your gift." He said.
It was a book of wind jutsu. Akira smiled. "I'll have to learn fire and lightning styles so I can get a whole set from you."
He chuckled lightly. "With how you're doing with wind style, I don't think you'll be getting to fire or lightning any time soon."
"Hey, rude! I'm doing my best!"
"Just teasing," he said. "I have today off, do you want to go work on it?"
"Yes please!"
He gave her a smile, then turned to go into his apartment. He slipped through the window, and Akira followed him in. She slid the window shut behind them and took off her sandals.
Kakashi headed over to the counter and washed her plate. While he was doing that, Akira caught sight of a cut on his forearm.
She walked over to his side and stared down at the cut. It was more of a gash, and had scabbed over. It looked deep. "How'd you get that, Kashi?" She asked.
"Mission."
She waited until he finished washing her plate and drying it, then she pulled his forearm toward her. She held his arm still with her left hand and held her right over it. Then she started concentrating her chakra into her hand.
"What are you doing?" He asked.
"Watch this!"
She started healing the cut. Kakashi's eyes widened in surprise. When Akira had finished healing him, she looked up with a grin.
"When did you learn medical ninjutsu?" He lifted his arm out of her hand to inspect his forearm.
"I've been training with Yuhi and Ranka the last few months. I can do minor injuries and assist with bad ones, but without training at the hospital I won't be able to do major injuries on my own."
Kakashi lowered his arm and smiled at her. "That's great, Akira!"
She nodded. "Hopefully it will raise my chances of getting into the ANBU."
"It will certainly help. Does Kishi know?"
They started toward the door.
"Yes, he knows Ranka and I have been training together after practice most days." She felt her stomach do a flip upon mentioning Ranka, and it brought a smile to her face.
Kakashi paused putting on his sandals. "Oh yeah?"
"Yeah! It's been a lot of work, but it's been worth it. I've been practicing healing my teammates wounds on missions when we have downtime."
They made their way to the training ground and spent the day practicing wind style. Akira had progressed a bit over the past few months, though not as much as she would have liked. She had put more energy into learning medical ninjutsu than she had wind style, and it definitely showed. Thankfully though, Kakashi didn't seem like he was disappointed in her.
They worked on her gale palm for a while, until Kakashi deemed that it was time to move on to another jutsu. The next jutsu he showed her was a projectile deflection one. Akira used her earth shuriken jutsu to throw shuriken at him, and he demonstrated how he was able to deflect them all at once by blowing a gust of air out of his mouth.
Then it was her turn. She had to use her healing jutsu on herself several times that day. Initially Kakashi only threw one kunai at her, but then he started adding more. She got cut up more often than she was able to block them for a while. But by mid day she had a bit more success with it. Then they went back into town to get some lunch. This time, he treated her.
They had just sat down when the curtains behind them were practically blown apart and Guy appeared next to them.
"Kakashi! I have a challenge for you!" He shouted.
Kakashi rolled his eyes. "Not now, Guy, I'm eating."
Akira giggled as Teuchi stomped over.
"Hey you!" He pointed a finger at Guy. Guy looked up in surprise. "No shouting at my booth! Take it outside!"
Guy hung his head, mood deflated. "Yes sir, sorry sir."
Teuchi went back over to his pot, and Guy sank into the seat next to Kakashi.
"Anyways, Kakashi, Asuma and I are going to the hotsprings later. You should come with us, we can see who can stay in the water longer without passing out from the heat!"
Akira and Kakashi both looked over at Guy with exasperated looks on their faces.
"Guy, are you serious right now?" Kakashi asked him.
"Yes, let's do it!"
Kakashi sighed heavily. "No, that's dumb."
"Oh come on!" Guy groaned. He put his hands together in front of his chest. "Pleeeeaaaassee Kakashi, we haven't had a rematch in forever!"
He continued to beg until Kakashi finally threw up his hands in defeat. "Fine! But only if you leave me alone long enough to eat!"
"Yes!" Guy cheered. He pumped a fist in the air.
Teuchi set two bowls of ramen down in front of Akira and Kakashi. "Happy birthday, Akira!" He said with a smile.
"Thank you!" She said. She broke her chopsticks apart and dug in.
"Akira, it's your birthday? How could you? You didn't tell me? I have to go get you a gift! And a cake!"
Akira whipped her head around to glare at Guy. "No! I don't want to celebrate Guy. I'm happy with just a happy birthday! Please."
For once Guy seemed to actually take a hint. He simply nodded. "Well then, happy birthday my little flower!"
He ordered a bowl of ramen for himself and the three of them ate together. After they finished, Kakashi and Guy headed off toward the bath house, waving goodbye to Akira. She went back to the training ground and continued working on her wind style jutsu for a bit, then went through her shuriken sets. She made her way back to her apartment when the sun started to set. Upon her arrival, Akira was surprised to see a large bouquet of white and purple flowers sitting on her kitchen table. Next to them was a note.
Happy birthday, my flower. Cake is in the refrigerator.
Akira pulled open the refrigerator door and found a small, round, chocolate cake sitting on the middle shelf. She smiled and pulled it out. It was the perfect size for one person, and it tasted delicious. Akira went to bed with a smile on her face.