|| [Hatake] : Fascination : [Kakashi] || [PartI] ||
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“Hokage-sama, you requested my presence…” Kakashi began politely, already fully knowing why he was in Tsunade’s office. He resisted the urge to shift from one foot to another, still feeling uncertain as to the wisdom of the decision she made.
“Hai, Kakashi, she’ll be here any moment, please try to be patient with her – it’s quite a shock,”
“I know, I know, the briefing was thorough,”
“Then I’ll assume that the reason you look so uncomfortable is because you think this is a bad idea,” Tsunade looked carefully at him with her chin resting on her clasped hands, smiling internally, he looked even more uncomfortable (although covered by a cool Kakashi-revere pretending he hadn’t a care in the world, of course) but Tsunade knew him well enough,
“Yes, she’s a stranger here and we have no idea where she came from or who she is, and we’re going to train her in ninjutsu?”
“It’s not like we’re going to give her all of Konoha’s secrets, she has strong chakra and a sharp mind; if we don’t get her allegiance then she’ll become our enemy – these are dangerous times Kakashi and we’ve had enough trouble with the Akatsuki as it is, we can’t afford anyone who might be of use to us to not be fully utilized.” Tsunade leaned back in her chair as Kakashi sighed lightly, shifting the weight from one leg to the other as the door opened. Shizune (along with Tonton, her pet pig, in her arms) walked in through the door, being followed by Kakashi’s soon-to-be trainee.
“Ah, there you are, how are you feeling, Oriko?” Tsunade directed her attention to the young woman, now stood beside Kakashi,
“F-fine, thank you… How are you?” She asked in return, feeling a little silly for asking it,
“Well, thank you. This,” She gestured, “Is Hatake Kakashi, he will be training you in shinobi skills, he will do all he can to help you,” As she said the last part, she directed an intense glare at Kakashi; although Oriko didn’t know, she felt sure that they’d had some conversation before she’d arrived. Was he so resistant to teach me? Again, she didn’t know why her becoming shinobi was causing such tension. Tsunade looked once more between Oriko and Kakashi, from the both few and short conversations she’d had with the young woman, she sense that the stranger and Kakashi had some similarities that would make the coming months a little easier than it seemed for the moment.
“Dismissed.” Both Kakashi and, although a little delayed, Oriko bowed politely and she turned to follow him out of the door; they walked in silence – Oriko feeling a little uncomfortable and unsure what she was supposed to say to her rather stern and silent new teacher. Eventually, they made it to an open space of green grass that showed signs of regular use, but was well maintained, Kakashi came to an abrupt halt which she found almost impressive considering his leisurely gait.
“Okay,” He began as they stood in the shade of a large tree, “I think it’s time we introduced ourselves,” He looked at her carefully, she was just shy of his shoulder height and looked to be only a few years younger than him. Her curly, messy light hair reaching to mid-neck length complimenting her dark blue eyes, tinged with flashes of bright green. She was attractive, but Kakashi ignored it and concerned himself with testing exactly how ‘strong’ her chakra was. She eyed him equally carefully, noting how bored he and his demeanour looked,
“Why don’t you tell me about yourself?” She narrowed her eyes in suspicion at his question, everything about him but the words themselves showing boredom and disinterest, she ignored her instincts,
“What do you want to know?”
“Uh… hobbies, likes, dislikes, the typical stuff,” He shrugged,
“Hmm, well… reading? Uh… writing?” She offered, rhetorically asking questions as answers for reasons she wasn’t sure, “Well, as I seem not to be in my world any more, I suppose most of my hobbies are meaningless,” She grumbled under her breath.
“Well, do your likes or dislikes still stand?” He pushed, seeming vaguely more interested, she wondered what a man hiding beneath a mask would want with random information about herself.
“I suppose so…I don’t like insincerity,” She shot quickly a frown and a look to match her tone, Kakashi nodded, sensing that she also didn’t much like being pushed for answers she didn’t have or didn’t want to give.
“Well then, we should begin training, what do you know of shinobi skills?”
“Not much, only a mention but no detail,” He nodded in understanding,
“Chakra?” He questioned, but only receiving a blank stare in return, “Well, there are three basic branches of skills, nin, tai and genjutsu those being ninja, body and illusion techniques. In order, to perform nin and gen jutsus you must be able to mould chakra, which come from the body’s spiritual and physical energies mixed together,” He spoke swiftly, wondering how many seconds it would be before he had to repeat it.
Oriko nodded, seeming to understand as he continued,
“A good beginners’ trick in learning to mould chakra is mastering how to climb a tree using only your feet,” He raised his hands up to his chest, forming a basic seal as a small cloud of dust appeared at his feet he walked over to the tree trunk they were near too, and stepped up; he was soon walking vertically up the trunk and eventually came to a halt, upside down on a tree branch, still maintaining his blank, bored expression. Oriko found it slightly amusing that for something so seemingly unnatural to her as walking vertically up a tree, he could look so bored doing it.
“Try to feel your chakra and collect it at the bottom of your feet; you’ll need a bit of a momentum to help you, so try running at the trunk at first,” She nodded clearly at him and walked away over to a nearby tree as Kakashi maneuvered himself so that he was now sat on top of the branch with a clear view of his pupil, with his back to the trunk and book in hand.
Oriko stood a few feet away from the base of a tree and collected herself, bearing in mind all that Kakashi had said, she attempted to sense her chakra and push it down to her feet, seeing a little cloud of dust appear, she took it as something of a healthy sign and took a gentle run up to the tree, placing a foot onto the trunk her other foot fighting the force of gravity with less resistance than she expected.
She was in reach of the first branch but could feel her foot slipping, pushing off from the tree she leapt up and grabbed onto the branch, suddenly overcome with amusement at the predicament she was in and allowing a breath of laughter to escape her.
“That doesn’t count,” She heard Kakashi’s voice call over to her, she reorganized her chakra to her feet and stuck to the truck, looking over to him as she was again attached to the tree by her feet, she couldn’t resist another laugh,
“Don’t I get points for ingenuity?” She called back, turning to walk down the trunk,
“No,” He returned, looking back down at his book, expertly hiding his pleasant surprise at the talent he could see in the woman opposite him. Kakashi redirected his attention to reading his book but barely got through two pages before he glanced up to see her stood upside down on the branch do a strange form of sit-ups.
“What are you doing?” He questioned, she paused to look at him,
“Training,” She responded with a shrug, returning to her exercise as Kakashi kept his eye on her, wondering how she mastered the task so quickly – and at what an interesting person had flown into his lap.
The Copy Nin, after about an hour of leaving her to train as she wished, and occasionally glancing over to her to observe her progress, stood up from his seating place and leapt to the base of her tree – where she was currently doing a form of pull-ups – with chakra focused in her hands. Although this took her a little longer to manage and she’d fallen out of the tree a good few times, overall, he could see great determination, improvisation and sheer talent; a good combination for a skilled shinobi.
He stood for a few moments, hoping her attention to naturally direct to himself, but he soon saw how absorbed she was in her training,
“Hey!” He called out suddenly, surprising her to the point that her chakra flow was disrupted and her connection to the tree was broken, resulting in her promptly falling out of it. Kakashi, quick on the draw as ever, appeared beneath her and in doing so, broke her fall,
“Oof!” She immediately met his eyes, and furrowed her eyebrows in what was obviously a feign anger, “Hid you really have to do that?” She questioned, her expression shifting to an irresistible smile as he set her back to her feet,
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to surprise you,” The amusement in his tone clear but still quiet, “I will end the lesson here for today, but I recommend that you go to the library in your free time and read up on the principles of ninjutsu as that will be the topic of tomorrows lesson,” He spoke clearly, the dullness of his tone returning, he flashed what she supposed was a smile as his eye closed in an amicable fashion. She stared at him oddly, not understanding his change of tone, but again keeping her questions to herself,
“Good work today, keep it up; we’ll meet here at nine tomorrow morning.” His voice becoming disembodied as he disappeared in a puff of smoke, leaving her stood in the middle of the training grounds, having no idea where the hell the library was. She allowed a breath of exasperation to escape her as she stood alone, wondering if her teacher took his duties a little too seriously and literally or took them as simply a burden, hence his sudden departure.
She walked slowly back the way they’d taken when first leaving the Hokage’s office and found herself back in the centre of the town, she would take Kakashi’s advice and head to the library to read up on the principles of ninjutsu – after lunch, at least.
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It was currently eighteen minutes to ten o’clock the next morning, Oriko having arrived a few minutes late only to find Kakashi himself an absentee. Having now waited the best part of forty minutes for him, she decided that she may as well attempt to put into practice some of the techniques that she’d been reading about the day previous. Calling to mind some of the hand seals she’d memorize she attempted the first ninjutsu technique which the book recommended for beginners: bunshin no jutsu.
As time wore on, and she was very close to performing a perfect bunshin her mind drifted to her teacher, she couldn’t help by wonder why he was late, surely tardiness isn’t something highly desired for a ninja is it? From what I saw yesterday he seemed a little reluctant to be my teacher and he’s trying to put me off? She hadn’t taken full notice of the fact that she’d completed the jutsu and they both sighed heavily, looking a little down,
“Why both faces so sad?” Kakashi appeared from nowhere in front of her, again managing to surprise her and the jutsu ended, she immediately covered her show of negative emotion and looked at him carefully,
“No reason,” Oriko muttered, averting her eyes from him, wishing he hadn’t taken just that moment to show up; Kakashi cleared his throat lightly, as he looked almost unsure,
“It’s been brought to my attention that I was somewhat neglectful in my training yesterday-” He began as her eyebrows furrowed gently in slight confusion, “What?” He questioned upon seeing her expression, his attempts to be more attentive immediately obvious,
“Did Tsunade shout at you?” She asked, hitting the bull’s eye smack on,
“…Well anyway, it was brought to my attention,” That’s a yes! She thought with amusement, “And I apologize for leaving so abruptly yesterday rather than helping you find your way around Konoha,” The shinobi finished, eyeing her small smile at his actions,
“Well, you were ordered to train me in shinobi skills, not to be a tour guide,” She replied, feeling a little remorseful and guilty as his getting a hard time from Tsunade for not doing what he didn’t want to in the first place, “But thank you,” Kakashi again flashed a hearty smile in her direction (or what she could see of it) with only roughly a square inch or so of his face visible,
“Ah-ha-ha, that’s good, I thought perhaps you’d be angry with me,”
“Why would that matter? I thought you didn’t really want to train me,” She commented, feeling a little unintentionally rude as she did so,
“Well…” He paused for a moment, choosing his words carefully, “It’s not that I didn’t want to, it’s rather that I wouldn’t have chosen too had I not been ordered; I am a rather lazy individual when I choose to be,” Kakashi finished, satisfied with the answer and not really caring that it wasn’t completely true. He could see well-disguised disbelief written all over her face, but ignored it, “Shall we begin today’s training, then?”
She shot him one last unimpressed look but nodded and stepped back to a more relaxed posture, her face too turning to a more passive expression it being immediately obvious she was listening. “You seem to have easily mastered already the bunshin no Jutsu, so perhaps I should begin teaching you a few more complex jutsus, but first,”
He paused to reach into his pouch, and drew out two small slips of paper, “I need to know what chakra type you are,” he smiled. As he held on slip of paper between his index and middle finger the paper suddenly crumpled violently as though it had just received a large electric shock.
“There are five primary types of chakra: fire, wind, lightning, earth and water. I, for example, have lightning based chakra and in order to know what jutsus you will need to learn and which will be most effective for you to use, it’s important to know what natured chakra you have,”
He finished, observing her nod whilst her attention was still focused on the crumpled paper between his fingers, “Here,” He took a pace closer to her and stretched out his arm handing her the second, fresh piece of paper, which she took without question. “Channel your chakra into it,” Again she obeyed silently and the paper was immediately severed in two.
“Oh!” Kakashi commented in mild surprise, “You’re a wind type – good for mid to long range battles… and quite rare too,” She averted her eyes from the paper to Kakashi, still too ignorant of shinobi customs, techniques and of the world itself to fully realize the significance of her knew found knowledge. “Well… there is a lot of information that I could tell you about the positives and negatives of being wind natured chakra, however, I think you’d benefit more from some practical experience; besides, there’s a library to give you the written info…
“So you’ve already got an idea of molding chakra, but this needs furthering as well as you need to know how to perform some simple ninjutsu tricks which will be practically useful to you as well as helpful when you begin to learn more complex skills or develop jutsus of your own,” It seemed to only just occur to him that he was going very fast, and that if he’d been talking to Naruto he’d already have been stopped and asked to repeat it all – probably three times over.
“Oriko?”
“Yes?” She responded, seeming to take it all in,
“Am I going too fast?”
“Nah, it’s alright,” He eyed her suspiciously, not really sure if she was telling the truth, but she understood well enough yesterday, and thought it best to leave it to her.
“Before you learn anything about dealing with your wind chakra, do you know the hand seals for henge no Jutsu?” She nodded, “Good, when you’ve mastered that, I’ll show you the seals for the kage bunshin and we’ll call it a day,” She nodded again and Kakashi leapt into a tree to read whilst she practiced; he knew that technically the kage bunshin was forbidden, but from the talent he could see in her, she needed more to work with at the moment than the pathetic henge and bunshin.
Although his book was out, his eye lingered over her form, he wasn’t sure where all of her determination came from… was it the natural intelligence which gave her such interest as to work hard? He didn’t know, but was excited at the prospect of what she could become, as well as looking forward getting back to being free of students to train… although he was beginning not to mind this one too much.