"Firstly we shall educate you on how to manipulate chakra into natures. Then we will teach you five basic elemental jutsu of earth and water respectively. After that we will practice properly utilizing each in a sparring match. Any questions?" Danzo asked, stopping his predatory circling of the drowsy Yuma who was looking at Danzo with ire and irritation.
"Damn right I got questions!" Yuma roared grumpily.
"Firstly, why did you kidnap me and bring me here. And secondly, why did it have to be three in the fucking morning!" Yuma said lowly, trying to sound intimidating, but ruining that attempt with a cutesy yawn.
Danzo chuckled.
"Kidnapping is such a strong word, I prefer 'appropriated' you." Danzo said.
"Appropriated? What am I, an object?" Yuma said with a snide snort.
"Technically yes, since you were marked as research and containment material by the law due to your unique ability, you are marked as property of the village by the orders of the Hokage himself." Danzo remarked.
"As if I needed more reason to hate that bastard." Yuma said.
"Oh? You dislike the Hokage?" Danzo asked with interest.
"You would too if he fucked with your memory. I only put up with him because I realize his intentions were noble, but I still hate his guts..." Yuma grumbled.
"Your vocabulary seems to be pretty colorful when your tired." Danzo remarked with amusement.
Yuma said nothing, choosing to merely scoff.
"Well then, we got a busy day, from this point on, at three in the morning till twelve a.m. of the next day, I will train you." Danzo said.
"Good, I didn't have anything planned today anyway. Might as well use this Wednesday for something productive. Lets start already, Danzo-Sensei." Yuma said while getting to his feet and stretching his arms out into the air with a grunt, accidentally making his shadow-like arms extend to the ceiling twenty feet above himself.
"Whoops..." Yuma said dryly, bringing his arms back to regular size.
"So, who's gonna be my teacher or teachers?" Yuma asked cracking his neck.
Danzo smiled darkly.
"Oh, I believe you have already met him. He did move in next door to you recently after all. Come out." Danzo remarked.
Yuma froze upon seeing who had walked out from the door on the other end of the dark room.
"Sai...I should've known." Yuma said, shaking his head in irritation.
"I don't know if I should feel happy to see you or strangle you for deceiving me. But if your gonna help me get stronger, then I can deal." Yuma remarked as Sai finally stood beside Danzo, a blank expression on his face.
"Lord Danzo positioned me there to keep tabs on you, nothing more. I meant no ill will in keeping it a secret." Sai explained without seemingly a care.
"Of course." Yuma said with a scoff.
"You are to teach Yuma everything you know, and be done by the time I return. Understood?" Danzo questioned Sai.
"Of course, Lord Danzo." Sai responded with a monotone air.
Yuma raised his eye brows in confusion, turning to see Danzo walking to the door.
"Wait, your not going to stay, Mister Danzo?" Yuma asked.
Danzo stopped, his hand hovering over the door knob. He turned his eyes at Yuma, piercing him with his gaze. Yuma froze up, noticing a strange glint shooting through his eyes momentarily.
"Contrary to your belief, Yuma, I have many duties to this village that take priority over your training. I assure you Sai will make for a suitable replacement, I shall return in three hours for our sparring matches." Danzo remarked.
"W-Wait, three hours!? You expect me to master my elemental chakra natures in three hours!?" Yuma said, his eyes wide in shock.
"Exactly. Why do you find that so hard to believe?" Danzo asked.
"I-I'm not like my teammates, how in the hell do you expect me to master chakra natures in three hours!?" Yuma asked.
Danzo finally turned to Yuma with a small smile that did not fit on his cold professional face. Yuma stood frozen as Danzo tilted his head and closed his eyes, the smile growing larger.
"You should have more faith in your own abilities Yuma, I expect great things from you after all."
Yuma's world stopped, as he stood with his mouth agape. Danzo walked out of the room, the door shutting behind him with a loud click. Yuma fell onto his knees, still reeling from the shock he had received from Danzo's seemingly kind words. Sai looked at Yuma with a blank stair, unsure if he should say anything. Sai was about to break the silence, when Yuma began to speak.
"That was the first time...the first time anyone has ever...said that they have faith in me..." Yuma said, his tone low and quite.
Sai's eyes widened, a weird thump beating in his cold heart at Yuma's words. All was quite for a good minute before Yuma finally stood up. He turned to Sai with a determined fire blazing within his eyes. Sai's breath became caught in his throat, emotions he did not realize he still had resurfacing to the forefront of his beating heart.
'This must be what others call, anticipation.' Sai thought to himself.
"Teach me all you know, and I swear I will master it within the next three hours, Sai-Sensei!"
〰️➿〰️
Sasuke woke up to the blinding sun shining through his windows, as well as the loud banging on his door. With a groan he crawled out of his bed and walked to his bedroom door in a daze. Blue eyes met charcoal as the blond haired Naruko stood behind the door with a large smile. Sasuke wiped at his eyes in irritation, releasing a heavy and annoyed sigh.
"What?" Sasuke asked.
"I need your help!" Naruko responded brightly.
"With what exactly?" Sasuke asked, rubbing his head.
"With thinking up ways to become Yuma's friends obviously!" Naruko said.
"...Fine, just let me get ready real quick." Sasuke said with a sigh.
And so began Sasuke's day.
Naruko and Sasuke sat at the Uchiha table, eating with the rest of the main Uchiha household. Fugaku remained stone faced as his wife smiled and talked with Naruko about random happenings. Itachi ate silently, standing from his seat and leaving without a word upon finishing his breakfast. Fugaku left the table shortly after his eldest son did so.
"Sorry if everything is too quiet here Naruko. The boys can be quite stony!" Mikoto, Sasuke's mother said, eliciting a snort from Sasuke.
"She needs some quiet in her life, trust me." He said snarkily, his mother shaking her head at him.
"So, what is it your doing here so early? I mean your always welcome, but I was still surprised. Are the two of you going to hang out today?" Mikoto asked.
Naruko finished wolfing down her breakfast, patting her belly in satisfaction before responding.
"Yep! Him and me are trying to think of ways to get our other team mate to quit being such a stick in the mud!" Naruko proclaimed.
"Oh? Other teammate? You never told me of this Sasuke." Mikoto said, Sasuke glaring at the cheekily grinning Naruko before responding with a sigh.
"Because it didn't seem all that important." Sasuke said, drinking a glass of milk to cover his embarrassment.
"Well that sounds important to me, maybe we should invite him over for dinner tonight!" Mikoto said, causing Sasuke to cough up his glass of milk.
"B-Bad idea mom." Sasuke said, remembering how the dinner at Naruko's the night before went down.
"And why is that?" Mikoto asked in confusion, tilting her head to the side.
"W-Well, uh, he's not a people person miss Mikoto." Naruko said with a nervous chuckle.
"I see, that's too bad then. I would've loved for him to come over." Mikoto said.
Naruko laughed nervously as Sasuke shook his head at her in exasperation. They finally finished their breakfast and were ready to leave the Uchiha Compound. Mikoto waved her son over much to his embarrassment. Bending over, and kissing her son on the forehead, left Naruko in a sorry state as she attempted to hide her amusement.
"Don't get into trouble Sasuke, I know how you and Naruko can be sometimes!" Mikoto said as she waved her now tomato red son out of the door.
"I know mom!" Sasuke yelled out in a fluster, much to Mikoto's amusement.
"Be careful out there! Love you Sasuke~" Mikoto said.
At that point, Naruko lost it and began laughing uncontrollably as Sasuke dragged her down the street in an embarrassed huff.
〰️➿〰️
Danzo walked into the dojo, the sun shining in through the door temporarily before being snuffed out entirely upon the door closing. Danzo walked into the main training room, pressing the palm of his hand onto a seemingly random part of the wall. The wall made a noise before sliding seamlessly out of the way, a stair case leading down into the dark abyss below.
"...Ha...Ha...Ha..."
The sounds of tired huffing could be heard from below, Danzo remained passive however, knowing exactly who and where the sounds were coming from. Slowly but surely, a artificial light began to take over, as he reached the bottom. He arrived into a wide room with a cement floor that was drenched with water and cracked with several recently formed dents. Dimly lit lamps were hung along the walls, shining upon the tired and drenched body of one Yuma Ito.
Sai stood at attention, having been sitting down at the rest bench at the far end of the large training room. Danzo approached Sai as the young ROOT member bowed before his leader.
"He has become adept at the nature transformation jutsus, and has mastered basic elemental ninjutsu per your instructions, Lord Danzo." Sai said.
"Good, on to the next regiment then." Danzo responded, walking over to the downed Yuma.
"You did good, I knew my faith in you was not misplaced, young Yuma. Now get up, there is still more for you to learn." Danzo said.
Yuma grunted, picking himself up from off the floor, wiping the excessive sweat from off his forehead. His legs felt shaky, and like jelly. Danzo smirked, as Yuma's body wavered.
"How was the training?" Danzo asked sarcastically.
"Like hell." Was all Yuma responded with, too tired to even complain.
"Good, that means it was effective." Danzo remarked.
"So...what...is...the next...lesson?" Yuma asked tiredly.
"Simple." Danzo said, throwing a weird object to Yuma.
Yuma caught it, analyzing what Danzo had thrown him in confusion.
"...This is...the kunai that Zabuza gave me..." Yuma said aloud.
"I procured it from your apartment, its essential for our next lesson." Danzo stated.
"And the lesson? What is it?" Yuma asked.
"You will spar against Sai for the next eight hours. You are not allowed to use anything except for that kunai. No taijutsu, no medical ninjutsu, no shadow merging or manipulation, nothing except for that kunai." Danzo said.
"Wha-!?"
"However, Sai is able to use everything at his disposal on you. Be it elemental ninjutsu, taijutsu, medical ninjutsu; nothing in his arsenal is off limits." Danzo responded, nodding at Sai and beginning to walk to the stair way leading up.
"W-Wait, you can't be serious, r-right?" Yuma said in a panic.
"Your training begins now, goodbye. Sai, hold nothing back for the next eight hours." Danzo remarked, completely ignoring the scared Yuma.
The sounds of Yuma's beat down began, bringing a small smile onto Danzo's old wrinkled face as he ascended up the stairs.
'The pain will help you grow, young Yuma. Endure it, fester in it, and thrive in it. For only through the pain can a ninja truly grow.'
〰️➿〰️
"I honestly think there is nothing we can actually do Naruko, the guy is more stubborn then the both of us combined." Sasuke complained, as he and Naruko discussed what it is they should be doing to get Yuma to be their friends.
"So where you! But I still managed to get you to stop being an insufferable ass remember!" Naruko responded, waving off Sasuke's concern.
"That was different, I just had an arragonce problem. But Yuma has experienced the worst the world has to offer from the start, he is beyond us. Do we look like psychologists to you?" Sasuke said, finishing it with a rhetorical quip.
"And that's why he needs us! We need to show him that it can get better ya know!" Naruko replied with her usual blind optimism.
"Naruko, usually yes, I would agree with you. But Yuma is a different matter. Besides, he doesn't really like us to begin with." Sasuke responded.
"Yeah, but he's coming around! Slowly, sure, but he is still warming up to us!" Naruko said back.
"It doesn't help that last night he got mad at us when we brought up him becoming a medical ninja Naruko." Sasuke said, making Naruko flinch.
"Yeah, I agree, that was bad..." Naruko said with a downcast look settling on her face.
The two prodigies sat, silence taking over. Neither could come up with anything that could help them with Yuma. The sounds of a chime rang throughout the coffee shop, as they heard a group of familiar voices enter the establishment.
"Come on Hinata I said I was sorry! Akamaru didn't mean to get all that dirt in your hair! Come on, back me up here Shino."
"...I think you should apologize to Hinata. Why? Because it was you who insisted upon dragging her into the training grounds so early."
"T-thank y-you S-Shino."
The students of Team Eight entered the tea shop, Kiba trying to get Hinata to stop freezing him out. Naruko's eyes lit up upon seeing who it was that had entered the shop.
"Hey, guys over here!" Naruko said loudly waving them over, much to Sasuke's shock.
"Hey, Naruko what're you doing!"
"What does it look like? I'm going to ask them to sit with us, I wanna ask them for advice!" Naruko responded.
"You idiot, you want advice from them!? Don't you remember!? It was Kiba who used to bully Yuma all the time!" Sasuke whispered harshly.
"O-Oh uh..." Naruko stammered, realizing her mistake.
"W-Well whatever! Its too late now." Naruko grumbled.
"Kami your an idiot!"
"Hey! What're you guys doing here!" Kiba responded with a grin, Team Eight coming over to their table.
"Oh, well were just thinking of ways to get Yu-Oof!" Naruko began to speak, but received an elbow to the gut courtesy of Sasuke.
"We were just hanging out. You know how hard it is to find time to ourselves with missions and all that." Sasuke responded with a smirk.
Kiba looked at the two of them with confusion as Naruko muttered 'dick' to Sasuke, before breaking out into a grin and sitting down at the same table. Hinata and Shino followed suit, each taking a seat.
"H-Hello Naruko and Sasuke, i-its nice t-to see y-you." Hinata said to each of them, bowing respectfully to each of them.
"Hey Hinata, its nice to see you too! How have you been?" Naruko asked nicely, her bubbly nice attitude coming back to the surface.
"We have been doing fine! We have been training real hard! Your not going to leave all us other teams in the dust!" Kiba asnwered, cutting of Hinata.
"She was asking Hinata." Sasuke said back bluntly.
"Pfft, okay." Kiba said back, rolling his eyes.
"G-Guys, its o-okay..." Hinata said with a worried look in her eye, not wanting to start an argument.
"Guys quit it! Your gonna make poor Hinata cry! Jeez, boys am I right?" Naruko said slinging her arm over Hinata's shoulders, making Hinata go 'eep!' in surprise.
"Y-Yeah I k-know huh?" Hinata responded back with a timid smile.
"...I am here as well." Shino said suddenly.
"So, what missions have you guys been doing?" Kiba asked, completely ignoring Shino.
"Well, at first we were just doing those stupid chores around the village, but eventually we were given a mission to kill off some bandits." Naruko responded.
"I see, yeah, same thing here, but that's not what I'm asking! Your the Hokage's daughter and Sasuke's the second heir of the Uchiha clan, surely you have been given more then that?" Kiba asked.
"Well, we were sent to the village hidden in the waves to guard a bridge builder, but then..." Naruko trailed off, the memory of the mission making her mood begin to take a dive.
"What's wrong?" Kiba asked, now confused.
"The mission wasn't actually an escort, that was just what we were told. I was actually a..." Naruko tried to explain, but started to become sick just thinking about it.
"We were tasked with killing a rebellion force trying to free their village from oppression, lets just say it wasn't the funnest mission in the world." Sasuke finished for Naruko.
"Y-Yeah, it got pretty crazy, I don't wanna talk about it..." Naruko said.
"I see...That bad...So, how did Yuma do?" Kiba asked.
"Why does it matter?" Sasuke asked, suspicious as to why someone like Kiba would care.
"I'm just wondering. He probably held you both back right? The guys a total push over." Kiba responded with a smirk.
"What is that supposed to mean?" Sasuke asked, getting annoyed.
"I'm just saying, the guy was bottom of the class for a reason!" Kiba said arrogantly.
"Well, let me correct you on one thing, Yuma is not a push over." Sasuke said back.
"Yeah sure, I'm certain he did a swell job hiding behind you guys every time an enemy attacked!"
"Why do you see the need to talk about him like that? He isn't even here." Sasuke said, his attitude beginning to sour.
"I'd be saying it even if he were. I mean what is he going to do? Fight me? That's a laugh!" Kiba said with a chuckle.
"Uh K-Kiba..."
"The dude has been a push over ever since I've known him!"
"K-Kiba."
"He is a total loser and everyone knows it! Seriously tell me the truth, he totally held you guys back right? Did he cry a lot?"
"Kiba!"
"What is it Hinata?" Kiba asked in annoyance.
And was then pulled up roughly from his seat as a angry Naruko glared at him dead in the eyes. Naruko held him by the scruff of his jacket as his feet dangled helplessly in the air, making him panic.
"Listen here mutt. Don't you ever insult Yuma in front of me ever again, got it!" Naruko yelled, causing everyone in the tea shop to stop and stare at the scene the young ninja were making.
"W-What is wrong with you! Why do you even care!" Kiba asked trying to get Naruko to loosen her grip.
"He's my team mate, why wouldn't I care huh!? He is more hardworking then you will ever be you hear me! I don't wanna hear you talk any more shit about him when i'm around! Am I clear!?" Naruko said, her face becoming fierce.
"Y-Yes, just let go of me!" Kiba yelped.
Naruko threw him down to the ground, anger very apparent on her face. She scoffed, turning her eyes away from Kiba in disgust. Walking away to the tea shops exit.
"Come on Sasuke, we're done here!" Naruko said, pushing the doors open and leaving the shop, forcing Sasuke to quickly get up and follow after her.
The tea shop was left quiet, not knowing how to respond to having seen the Hokage's daughter behave so viciously to another ninja. Kiba got up in a huff, his mood turning from scared for his life to very pissed. A scowl took form on his face as he snarled in the direction in which the two prodigies of Team Seven had left in. A look of pure hatred began developing in his eyes, causing Akamaru to whine. As he bit down on his lip in irritation, blood began dribbling down his lip.
"I swear, the next time I get the chance..."
"I'm gonna destroy Yuma."