Run Boy Run

"Tomorrow is another day, and you won't have to hide away"

Around me, the world was side-ways.

The fingers of my left hand dragged lightly against rough tree bark and those on my right clenched the smooth wood of my staff. For now, it was quiet. Leaves rustled gently in the breeze. Birds chirped to my left, in the canopy. A butterfly landed calmly on the tree trunk, just five inches beside my fingers.

Then...

"Aha!" the battle cry came. And the world was momentarily swallowed in flames.

At least by now, I didn't have to think about reacting to it. My body uncoiled automatically as I launched myself up, up and away. The air whipped around my haori. Red and green swirled in my peripheries. For a brief moment, it almost felt like flying.

Then my feet found a new tree to anchor to, and I shot upwards, running like a girl on fire. Or almost on fire, at the very least. Behind me, a trail of scorched black ash followed.

Shisui was getting better at controlling the size of his fire jutsu, so he could chase me with it after it missed the first time.

Quickly, before I ran out of tree, I grabbed a kunai and hurled it towards the ground. It embedded itself into a patch of wet moss, severing a piece of ninja wire that I'd hidden there earlier. A barrage of shuriken unleashed on my teammate.

Shisui yelped, and I heard the clang of metal deflecting metal.

That was my cue.

I planted my left foot hard on the bark, feeling my toes tingle from the sudden rush of chakra sent to them. The bark splintered a little underneath my sandal. Using my momentum, I swung myself in a tight circle. My foot was like an iron pivot. For about five seconds, I felt horribly disoriented. The world spun around me. When I finished redirecting though, I could see Shisui crouching on a tree fifteen meters away. Shuriken were scattered in the ground all around him from my spent trap, and he was twisting the kunai he'd used to deflect them back into his pouch.

We made eye contact. His sharingan were spinning. I let a grin break onto my face.

"Arghh!" I let out a barbarian cry as I launched myself towards him with almost reckless abandon. His shoulders tensed, fingers running rapidly through hand-signs.

I whipped my staff forward and started twirling it like a fan as a fire jutsu plumed right in my face. Heat curled around me. My vision was completely obstructed with reds, yellows, and oranges. All the while, I spun my staff faster, faster, faster. There was no time to double think it. For a second my fingers burned like I'd stuck them in a toaster oven on high. Then, just when I thought I couldn't handle it any longer, it passed.

I emerged through the other side of the fire ball still screaming like a banshee, and cracked my staff hard down towards Shisui. He brought his forearm up to block it. My staff collided with him, with a loud thwack! He skidded back a few feet on the tree, still maintaining perfect blocking taijutsu form.

Even so, that had to hurt.

I started to spin, ready to fall into my graceful bojutsu dance. A light laugh started to bubble in my chest as Shisui ducked underneath the next swing of my staff. I could feel it in my core- Shisui had let me in too close - this spar was mine.

Then, just as I pivoted for another blow, all of my momentum was abruptly countered. I suddenly felt like I had run full force into the edge of a countertop. The air was forced out of my lungs in a rush of pain. My vision blurred, and stars danced in the black of my peripheries. The tight-handed control I'd been exercising over my chakra network was disrupted from pain, and I felt my feet disconnect from the tree I'd been standing on.

There was a moment of confused free-fall, before my back collided sharply with the ground.

Yeah, ouch.

I blinked up at the tree I'd fallen from several times before I finally realized what had happened. Asuma was up there now, dancing around with Shisui.

He'd just sucker punched me in the gut.

Collapsing back, I groaned and sprawled out on the ground like a starfish. Well, it was too late now. I'd touched the forest floor. I was disqualified.

It only was about another thirty seconds before one of the boys trounced the other. Ninja fights were ninety percent posturing and ten percent actual fighting. We'd spend an hour running around the training field, setting up traps and hiding from each other. Once someone engaged though, it was only a matter of time before it was all over.

This time, Shisui took the 'W'. He blocked two good punches with his forearms before ducking down and sweeping Asuma's feet out from underneath him. He wasn't able to regain his footing from that kind of misstep, and a moment later Asuma landed with a screech on the ground beside me.

"That's what you get for siding with him," I said as he let out a pained noise.

Asuma replied with some colorful language that he certainly hadn't learned from Biwako.

Then Shisui hopped down from the trees and landed in a crouch next to us.

"Good fight," he chirped, looking mighty happy with himself. "That was a pretty cool trick with your staff Natsuki-chan."

"Yeah, I thought I had you there for a second," I sighed. He offered me a hand and helped me to my feet, while Asuma pushed himself up beside us. There was already a pretty nasty looking blue bruise pluming on Shisui's forearm where I'd nailed him with my staff. I'd count that as my win today.

"Asuma, you've gotta work on your finesse still," I commented lightly as I started dusting off my pants.

"You've got to pay better attention to your back," he grumbled in reply.

Touche.

All being said, this was actually a pretty successful spar for the three of us. Everyone had the upper-hand at one point or another, and Shisui only won after they'd essentially teamed up on me. When we had first started team training like this two weeks ago, Shisui almost always came out on-top, given that he had the most well rounded arsenal of techniques.

Now, it was kind of a crap-shoot.

Of the three of us, I almost always won a straight forward taijutsu stand-off. Because of my staff, it was hard for the two of them to get close enough to land a hit once we turned it into a fist-fight. Shisui was best-off when he could end the fight early, with fire jutsu or a shuriken trick. Meanwhile, Asuma was a bit of a wild card. He was certainly the biggest and the strongest member of our team when it came to brute strength. If he landed even one good punch, that was usually the end of things. When it came to technique though, he had some room for improvement. Usually, he relied largely on traps or the element of surprise -which admittedly he was pretty good at. His stamina was also pretty outstanding, if he could turn the fight into a taijutsu battle of attrition, he'd also typically turn out on top.

I'd made the mistake of grappling with him once. That hadn't turned out well for me.

Today, however, when we were focusing on tree-walking battles, the rules had worked against him. Had Asuma been on flat ground, a simple leg sweep would never have taken him completely out of the fight. He would've hopped back up and kept going like the proper juggernaught that he was.

"Want to grab lunch before we go do our D-rank of the day," Shisui asked lightly.

"One minute," I said. "I want to ask Sensei something before we go."

"Bout what?" Asuma gave me a side-ways glance.

"New jutsu."

That seemed to catch both of their attention, because the boys tailed after me as I trotted over to the area where Sensei had been waiting for us.

He usually took our sparring time as an opportunity to catch up on some form of reading or do 'special-chakra training.'

Whatever that meant.

See, Sensei always seemed to be doing some form of research or another. Into what? I wasn't sure yet. I hadn't been able to convince him to share his studies with me, despite several attempts that included arguing, begging, and puppy-eyes. That was okay. He'd break eventually.

Occasionally we'd do three-on-one team training, but the three of us were undeniably outmatched against him. It was more productive to do regular genin-on-genin matches and save the boss battles against him for special occasions.

Today, we found him sitting cross-legged in the grass, a little ways away from where our fight had ended. He had a fairly large scroll spread out in front of him, and he had filled half of it with long scrawling ink kanji. At first, I thought it might've been some sort of seal, but no. I think they were notes. It was hard to say, because the kanji weren't any sort that I recognized. He probably had encoded it with something only he'd recognize.

"Hey Sensei," I said in the sugariest tone I could muster. His eyes flicked up towards us.

"You kids done already?" he raised an eyebrow, like he hadn't somehow been watching the whole thing. "Who won?"

"I did!" Shisui beamed.

"But only by a little," Asuma said.

Sensei smiled.

"Sakumo-Sensei, I have a question for you," I said, getting us back on track. He raised a white eyebrow at me. "I want to take a break from learning some of the D-rank survival jutsu to do something different. Maybe something that would, um, give us a little bit more utility in battle."

"More utility in battle?" he repeated, squinting a little. "You want to learn something more flashy you mean? I told you when we first started training why we were starting here with the basics."

I sighed. "Yes, but when we were fighting those Iwa nin, it wasn't tree-walking or water-walking or the camouflage technique that nearly got us killed. It was because they were close-range fighters and we didn't know any jutsu to put them at a distance. Er, well, maybe Shisui was better off. But I didn't know any good jutsu and it was a hazard," I argued. "Asuma wouldn't have known any either."

"Hey!" Asuma started to protest.

I caught his gaze and held it. "It's true though." I insisted.

Do you want to learn cool new jutsu or not? I communicated with my eyes. He stopped fussing.

"C'mon Sensei," Shisui joined in, looking too innocent to be genuine. "I bet all the other Sensei are teaching their genin new jutsu. It'll be fun."

Sakumo-Sensei gave us a tired and slightly offended look, then sighed and held up his hand. "Fine, fine," he said, with an expression like he already regretted this. "I'll bring some learning tools with me tomorrow, and show you a good starting point for new ... utility techniques, but team training hours are still going to be spent on the survival skills. After the first lesson, you'll have to work on the new jutsu in your own time, or we can maybe have some weekend hours to put towards it if you think you need some help. Okay?"

I grinned. "Yes! That's perfect Sensei!" Then I leapt at him, engulfing him in a hug. He caught me - mostly because I was probably going to end up tackling him otherwise- and returned it sheepishly.

Later that afternoon, when we had finished helping the Inuzuka clan walk many, many dogs for a pro-typical D-rank mission, I said good-bye to my teammates to take a detour and run a few errands.

If I had been doing anything else, I might've taken Asuma with me, but he hated shopping more than I did. The whining wasn't worth the company.

I didn't mind having a little time to myself though. The village was peaceful at this time of day. I liked the way the sky glowed orange as the sunset, the way light reflected off the plaster walls and fell onto the streets. Shops were still open, but the owners were wrapping up for the day. People out sweeping their doorsteps and taking out the trash, and the restaurants weren't quite rowdy with the night crowd yet.

My errand list for the evening was more domestic than ninja-related. I wanted to buy a few new books to read in my waning moments of down time, and we needed some groceries to have around the house.

The books came first, of course. After a day of hard work, I wanted to reward myself with the dusty smell of wooden bookshelves. Weaving around a corner bar, I set my sights on the bookshop that Tsunade used to take me to when I was younger.

But I didn't quite make it. Two steps down the crossroad, and a low whistle interrupted my train of thought.

"Are my eyes deceiving me," a deep voice rumbled to my left. "Is that Natsuki Senju! It can't be. When I left, she was practically a baby. Who is this kunoichi?"

A brief wave of confusion washed over me. It had been a very long time since somebody had cat-called me, and now that it was happening, it didn't quite make sense. I was eight after all. Who in the world was whistling at an eight year old?

For a fleeting moment, I didn't quite feel like I belonged in my own body.

Then, my neck swiveled to the source, and everything made complete and utter sense. A very loud, very large, white haired man was hanging off the edge of the bar I'd been walking past, with a cup of sake sloshing in one hand.

"Jiraiya-senpai!" I blinked, feeling the grin twist onto my face automatically.

Of all the people I thought I'd see when I returned to Konoha, Jiriaya hadn't been on the list. Last I'd heard, he was off in Ame, training three orphans to be ninja. I figured... that it would take longer.

Not that I was going to complain, I don't think I'd even realized how much I'd missed him.

Running forward, I jumped up and gave Jiraiya the biggest hug I could muster. He smelled like the wilderness and alcohol.

"I didn't think you were going to be back for ages," I said. Jiraiya's shoulders shook as he laughed.

"The best ninja always shows up when you least expect it," he said, with a tone of faux wisdom.

I rolled my eyes at him, because I wasn't Nawaki and I didn't hang on his every word. The first thing anybody ever needed to know about Jiraiya the Toad Sage, was that ninety precent of the time, he was completely and utterly full of shit.

"Well next time you decide to leave for two years, you've got to at least write. I missed you Jiraiya-senpai," I admonished.

His eyes crinkled around the edges as he set me down.

"Well if you're going to be reprimanding me, then the least you can do is let me buy you a drink kid," Jiraiya teased.

I hesitated, quirking my lips into a deep frown.

"Uh, Jiraiya-senpai, I think Biwako-san will be mad if you-"

He completely ignored me as he started steering me into the crowded bar. I did not really want my mother to murder me later tonight when she realized I'd been here. And there was no question in my mind that she'd find out one way or another.

Biwako always knew.

"C'mon, you're too young to be a kill joy," he said with a devilish grin. Then he snickered at the blatant worry on my face.

I didn't get a chance to actually protest anymore though, because by this point we reached a cushy-looking booth in the back of the bar, where Jiraiya had two other shinobi waiting on him.

"Look what the frog hopped in," he boomed as we arrived.

"Oi, that doesn't look like Orochimaru," a smug voice, almost louder than Jiraiya's, rang back.

Jiraiya slapped fifty ryou on the table. "Guess he's not coming, eh, Kushina-chan," he grinned.

Kushina Uzumaki sent him a feral look back, and collected the money off the table. Beside her, a young man sporting a wild mop of blonde hair and a standard issue flak jacket sighed.

I blinked.

When I imagined meeting Minato Namikaze, future Hokage, for the first time, not once did I think it was going to be at the bar.

His eyes perked up a bit when he looked down to see me staring owlishly at him and Kushina.

"Hey, you're Natsuki Senju, aren't you?" he said with a warm smile.

Butterflies swirled anxiously in my stomach at the sudden attention. It occurred to me that both of them looked much younger than I'd expected. Minato's arms still had a vague skinny lankiness. Kushina's face was a little round. They were adults by every measure of ninja society. But... they were still much younger than I had been when I had died. Teenagers, probably.

You could never quite tell that in the anime or the manga. How strange.

"Um, yeah, that's me," I nodded.

Kushina's chin tilted up. "Senju? huh," she said, looking suddenly less interested in the money she was shuffling into her wallet and much more interested in me. She didn't even try to hide it as her fierce grey eyes gave me a full once over.

"You're Tsunade-hime's cousin aren't you?!"

It was more of an accusation than a question.

"Didn't realize I was famous" I said hesitantly. I knew rationally that there was a lot of reasons that they might recognize me. I'd been through this routine before - with people like Genma at the Academy. But this was different. Minato and Kushina were, well, Minato and Kushina. Surely they had more important rumors to be following to care about Tsunade had a kid cousin?

"Sorry, you must not know who we are," Minato said, misinterpreting me. "My name is Minato, and this is Kushina. I believe you went to the academy with some of my students - Rin, Obito, and Kakashi? Are you friends with them?"

Oh.

I blinked. That was a fairly reasonable explanation for things.

"Um, yeah, I am. Obito and Rin always ate lunch with me and my brother at school," I said. Then I hesitated, searching for the right thing to say about Mr. Let's-Be-Rude-To-Guy Kakashi Hatake. Minato was his teacher though. I'm sure he had to know that the kid was horrible at making friends.

"Kakashi is - well, I'm on Sakumo-Sensei's squad now." It probably could've come out smoother.

Minato didn't have a chance to reply though, because Jiraiya slapped his hand suddenly on the table and let out a low whistle. "No way! You made out kid. That Hatake is something else."

An unexpected warm smile tugged at my lips. I guess that would be real news to Jiraiya, wouldn't it? It was about time somebody looked happy Sakumo-Sensei was influencing the village youth.

"He is pretty awesome," I agreed. "We saw him do his White Fang jutsu on our last mission. It was the coolest"

"I've seen him do it before," Jiraiya nodded, looking earnest despite the ominous statement. I'm sure there was some crazy war story there. Maybe I'd ask Sensei about it later.

Kushina looked like she had something to say to that, but we were interrupted briefly by the waitress showing up. She sashayed up to the table with a tray and hand and a suspicious glint in her eye, like she knew she was about to make some good money from us. Whether that was because of Jiraiya's reputation or just the celebratory atmosphere was debatable.

All of the adults got drink refills, while Jiraiya threw an arm around my shoulders.

"And we'll have one apple juice for the kid," he said. "Spike it with a sugar packet or two."

I made a show of rolling my eyes at him, while the waitress nodded and shared a wink with him.

Buy me a drink, my ass.

"You must be going on some pretty exciting missions then, huh? If you saw the great White Fang throwing around A-rank techniques," Minato said lightly as she walked away.

"I bet he was just showing off," Kushina shook her head.

"Just the one mission," I admitted, blushing.

I wondered if Minato had already heard about it through ninja gossip channels. We'd been back for a little bit now. I knew for certain that Isamu had been talking about it with some of his chuunin friends, and Asuma had been telling just about anyone who would listen. Were Sakumo, Hiruzen, and Biwako doing the same?

I went through a quick retelling of our mission, name dropping Fura because she was apparently someone people recognized, and trying to make the whole thing seem very brave and dignified. This was actually the first time I had to tell the whole thing by myself. Usually one of the boys were around to do most of the theatrics for me.

Basically, I did my best impression of Asuma.

They gave me a more lighthearted reaction than Hiruzen or Biwako. Maybe it was because they were in an old-war-stories kind of mood. The atmosphere wasn't right for all the seriousness. Still, Kushina and Minato made eye contact briefly when I mentioned Hidden Cloud.

"I leave the village for a few years and suddenly the genin are out fighting missing nin," Jiraiya drawled dramatically when the story ended. "It's a good thing I came back when I did. Somebody's gotta maintain standards around here."

Kushina smirked at him. "Better warn the Hokage that things are about to get worse, eh Minato," she said sarcastically.

Jiraiya made a face.

But I blinked at him, looking past the jokes.

"Is that why you came back?" I asked seriously.

There was a stiff moment of awkwardness - almost imperceptibly short - before Jiraiya let out a burst of booming laughter. It was so loud, so genuine, that I almost believed it.

"Glad to see you missed me kid," he brushed me off. "Didn't know I needed a reason to come home."

I pursed my lips and didn't ask anymore questions.

"Well, at least it sounds like you stood your ground pretty well," Kushina said. "It'd be lame for you to die on your first mission out of the village."

"Lame?" I repeated, baffled. Lame was the understatement of the year.

"Well yeah, I'm an Uzumaki, dattebayo. My family's been pretty close with you Senjus. We could be cousins or something," she said.

I opened my mouth and closed it again. Now that she'd said it, I realized that I might've already been aware of this. Hadn't Mito Senju been the last jinchuriki? She would've been Kushina's mentor before she had died.

Still...

A sticky lump formed in the back of my throat as I thought about the ramifications of her statement.

Kushina was half a stranger to me. But I was running tragically short on cousins in this world. And I still missed Tsunade with the whole of my being.

When I looked at Kushina now, she just seemed... immediately more important.

Shit.

I swallowed. Looking at the wolfish glint in her eyes. I had a feeling this wouldn't be the last time I'd see her. Even if I wanted it to be.

Jiraiya took over the conversation again after that. He had three years worth of stories to catch us up on after all. Each one of them was a little more strange than the last. Maybe I should've expected that Jiraiya the Toad Sage would thrive in the swamp that was Rain country. Hearing about all the way's he'd weaponized toads and mud though still surprised me.

Interestingly enough, he only mentioned the Ame Trio briefly in passing. Like they were barely a foot note in his long absence. Minato and Kushina didn't even realize they were important enough in his stories to ask more questions about them. I chose to overlook it in the interest of being inconspicuous.

About an hour later, I made a polite exit. Jiraiya and Kushina had downed three more shots in that short amount of time and the two of them were getting louder by the minute. Being a child still, I was starting to feel more and more out of place.

Anyhow, I still had some errands to run. If Jiraiya was back for good now, we'd have plenty of time to catch up more later.

The following Sunday - usually my day off - I found myself standing in the usual training ground with the boys, huddled around Sensei.

"Know what this is?" Sakumo-Sensei asked, holding a small rectangular piece of paper between his pointer and middle finger.

My smile bloomed automatically. This was exactly what I had in mind when I had said 'cool jutsu'.

"Chakra paper," I said, bobbing on my toes. "You use it to learn what nature alignment you have."

"Know it all," Asuma rolled his eyes beside me. I ignored him.

"That's right," Sensei nodded. Shooting the two of us a look. "Shisui, I imagine you already know your type? Fire?" he asked.

"Yep! My sister says all Uchiha have a second affinity for lightning too," he confirmed, cheerfully.

Sensei considered that for a moment before shaking his head. "We'll work on that another day," he said. "I think I've got something else for you to learn that you'll like better than lightning jutsu. Hm. Maybe you should run a lap or two while I work with Asuma and Natsuki. You'll want to be warmed up to work on this new technique."

Shisui cocked his head at Sensei then looked at the two of us. "Okay, if you say so," he shrugged. Then proceeded to lope off and run a perimeter.

"As for you two, why don't you give it a shot?" Sensei handed Asuma and I a piece of paper and waved his hand in the air for us to start.

I closed my eyes, summoning a small amount of energy from my core and moving it along my arm.

When I opened them, I found that the paper had flopped forward and was sticking limp to my palm. Wet.

"Water," I said aloud, as I carefully peeled it off my hand. It made sense, given my lineage. I imagined an older version of myself, throwing around a water dragon, and grinned. Then I thought about it a little more... "Oh! Water has an advantage against Fire. I'll be strong against Shisui in our next spar!"

Glancing over nosily at Asuma, I saw his paper had been sliced in half. No surprises there.

"I'm wind," he said, catching my look. "I'm same as you Sensei!"

"Very good. Asuma," Sensei said. He was always so calm so it was hard to tell. But I think he was pleased. "That will make things easy for us later on."

"Cool," Asuma beamed.

"How many elements can you manipulate Sensei?" I asked with off-handed curiosity.

"All five to some degree," he replied with a grin. "Earth is by far my weakest element. It's lucky you're water. I'll be able to help you more now."

"What's the cool jutsu you're going to teach us?" Asuma cut in. He shoved his hands into his pockets and somehow managed to look smug while he said it.

Sakumo-Sensei sighed. "Well first, I think we need to talk a little bit about chakra theory," he said.

The giddy look fell from Asuma's face, as his expression turned skeptical. Sensei just forged on.

"First, you need to understand that there's two ways to create a nature-jutsu," he said. "The first, is to literally transform your chakra into the element that you're working with. Watch me."

He held one hand forward, palm facing the sun, and formed the other into half of a bird seal. Then, just like that, water started to spray from the heel of his palm.

Like he was a spider-man themed water-gun.

I buzzed with excitement. "I want to do that," I declared.

Sakumo-sensei's lip quirked. "Maybe once you start practicing some more," he allowed. " The second way, is to manipulate nature as it already exists." He made half a Ram sign, and the wind around the field started to whirl. We gazed around in amazement as Sensei closed his eyes, and the whooshing got worse. Even the trees at the edge of the field, one hundred yards away, started to sway, as leaves started to rip from the branches.

Sensei lowered his lowered his hand and the wind stopped.

"See the difference in scale?" he asked.

We nodded mutely.

"It's much easier to do it the second way. Creating elements from scratch with your own energy is one of the hardest fundamental techniques you can learn as a ninja. Not to mention that it burns five times the energy. Lots of ninja never bother to learn the proper way at all. I personally think that's a little short sighted. I think you'd agree that if we're talking… utility techniques, then it's always better not to be dependent on your environment. Yeah?"

I glanced over, exchanging a look with a frowning Asuma. I quirked my eyebrow at him, and his dark eyes hardened a little. Hell yeah, this was about to become some sort of competition.

"That being said.," Sensei went on hastily. "If you two want to be able to use the new jutsu in your next combat scenario, then we don't have time to start with hard part. I'm going to show you the theory for classical nature transformation so you'll know what to practice in the future. Then I'll give you each a jutsu to work on in the mean time. Asuma, you first."

Sensei proceeded to launch into a quick beginner's-guide-to-wind-jutsu lesson for Asuma. The basic exercise that he'd need to work on to achieve true mastery was the same leaf-cutting technique that Naruto would learn many years from now. Asuma's back was soldier-straight as he

I mused to myself while Asuma learned. He was lucky to have a wind typing, in a way. Wind was everywhere. If he ever found himself in a situation where there was no air around to use for a jutsu, well, then he probably had bigger problems. With a water typing, meanwhile, I imagined I would probably be hurting for a lake in many upcoming battles.

Of course, it would still be better for Asuma to master direct chakra conversion - and he would if my knowledge was worth cents. Environmental wind jutsu required a lot of space and tended to be noisy. Plus - everything was a knife to a master of wind jutsu.

"Alright, let's go over the jutsu now," Sensei said.

We moved to a tree for him to demonstrate. Sensei took a wide sturdy stance for us, ran through three hand signs, and then punched forward.

"Air Cannon jutsu," he said calmly, as his fist stopping a centimeter from the trunk. There was a half second delay before the gap between Sakumo-Sensei and the tree rippled. The tree was then suddenly ripped backwards, its limbs creaking and straining against the blast that had come from Sensei's knuckles.

When it settled again, the tree was still standing, but it certainly looked worse for the ware. There were deep lacerations in the bark closest to the center of the blast.

"Awesome," Asuma muttered. He crossed his arms and beamed at me. Distantly, I wondered if Sensei had ever seen us so engaged.

The two of them took another minute or two to discuss how to actually do the jutsu, before Sensei turned to me.

Then turned to me. "Well, you next Natsuki. Let's head down to the water."

I scurried after him as we walked over to the river that wrapped around the corner of our training ground.

"Water jutsu is a lot like wind jutsu in some ways," he said, as we walked. "Because you're still manipulating a fluid, and a lot of the power for your jutsu will come from pressurizing it."

"Otherwise I'll just be splashing people, right," I nodded, following along.

"Yeah, there's a lot more finesse techniques in water jutsu though," he agreed. "Water blasts can be powerful, but you will have other options if you want to explore them. You could learn to breath underwater or you could drown someone where they're standing. The mist village has a whole doctrine of jutsu focused just on creating and utilizing fog."

I considered that for a moment.

"Blasts are probably still a good place to start though, right?" I asked hopefully. Although, the whole breathing underwater thing seemed awesome as well. I wanted to start out with the obvious. I would learn the big guns first, so when I started using little ones, it would take people off guard.

Sensei sighed.

"How about I give you two jutsu okay?" he offered. "The water clone technique, and the water bullet?"

I grinned. "Sounds good to me!"

"First the basics though," he smiled. Then he walked me through the steps for the classic water nature transformation exercise.

It was more of a dance actually than an exercise.

In order to turn your chakra into water, you had to change its properties. It has to thicken and swirl. In a sense, you almost had to loose control of it.

"Think of yourself as a guide, not a sculptor," he said. "You create the current. You point it the way you'd like it to go. But if you try to hold it still, you'll loose it. More than any of the other elements, water nature chakra does not like to be stagnant."

I imitated the dance steps he had performed and nodded. "I think I get it," I said carefully. The idea was to give your whole body momentum to make the chakra flow like water inside your coils. One day, when I got the feel for it, I'd drop the steps and do be able to move it instinctively.

In a way, it reminded me of my early days of staff training. The dance analogy was a good one. I wondered vaguely if Sensei had picked the exercise out specially for me. My fighting style was becoming a very fluid sort of thing. This would fit right in.

"Good," Sensei said, when he was satisfied with my form. "Now for the jutsu…"

It was strange. Water jutsu came easier to me than almost anything I'd tried before. By the following week, I had managed to go from splashing around in our training ground stream, to throwing water globs a good fifteen feet.

The jutsu was far from perfect. Like Sensei had warned me, I had to pressurize it more if I wanted it to ever do any damage. Right now, if I hit somebody, they'd just end up a little wet, as both Asuma and Shisui had learned - much to their chagrin. Still, I was proud of myself. Asuma had barely made a third of my progress with his wind techniques. And it'd only been seven days. It'd taken me three times as long to see any results with the tree walking technique.

I think I'd discovered a piece of something that I'd always been missing through this training. Sensei had warned me not to try to take too much control of my water techniques. The key was to let the energy flow naturually. What he didn't know was that I never really had complete control of my chakra. It had always been wild and unpredictable. My jutsu efficiency was terrible because of it.

Now for the first time, I felt like I wasn't fighting it. My chakra was taking the form of something it wanted to be. It felt good to finally be good at something.

Wading into the water, I closed my eyes to go through my water-dancing warm up to start another day of productive training. My shoes and Senju Haiori jacket were tossed aside on the edge of the stream, and I was up to my knees in water.

Carefully I started to run through familiar handsigns, dipping into a low squat to sit a little closer to the water.

Then, without warning a voice was in my ear.

"Natsuki-chan, look what I can do!"

My heart leapt out of my chest as my eyes snapped open. I lurched forward, diving away on some sort of battle instinct, and started reaching for my staff. In the end, I just sort of splashed awkwardly into the water.

"Holy shit" I screeched, craning my neck up in an effort to regain my bearings.

The sound of giddy giggles hit my ears, short-circuited my defend-and-attack response.

"Shisui!" I breathed, when I saw him bent over at my sore over reaction.

"Guess what I learned," he hiccuped.

I blinked.

When had he gotten here? Last I had seen, he been all the way over by the tree line, with Asuma. Sensei hadn't told us what he was teaching Shisui, but we also hadn't asked. All I knew was that it had to be taijutsu related, the way he had been circling the training ground all week running laps. And now he'd been over there one second, and over here the next.

Then it clicked.

Oh no.

"You learned the body flicker technique," I extrapolated, feeling a wave of unhappiness wash over me.

"Yep! Isn't it so cool? Body flicker speed is so fast," Shisui gushed, still giggling a little from my startle.

Something old niggled at the back of my mind. Something from before...

He'd been known as Shisui of the Body Flicker, hadn't he?

It was just a basic C-rank technique. Almost every shinobi learned it eventually, because it was good for emergency travel. But Shisui waas going to take this simple thing and turn it into his greatest weapon. You had to be something real special for people to name you after a universal technique like that.

And it was all good and well, except...

"You're going to be just popping up constantly now for the rest of forever, aren't you," I deadpanned, already dreading it.

Shisui grinned. The little devil.

"Maybe," he cheered, raising his hands up into an over dramatic hand sign. Then he was gone.

I sighed and stood to wring my shirt out. Shisui may have mastered his technique already, but I still had some work to do.

Things went on like that for another week or so. We trained, hung out with friends and family, took on some easy missions, and trained some more. But of course, the easy routine didn't last forever. About two months after our B-rank disaster of a mission, we found ourselves standing in the Hokage's office again, receiving a C-rank that had been hand selected for the three of us.

"This will be out of country," Hiruzen's deep rumble filled the room. "And I expect that have conflict while you're there."

"We're going to get to fight?" Asuma perked up.

"And it's still just a C-rank" I added skeptically.

Hiruzen smiled and passed a scroll to Sensei. "This will be an escort mission. Hidden Leaf recently asked a small clan called the Kuriki in the Land of Sound to send a liaison over to assist with a project in our hospital. They kindly obliged and were very helpful. Now it's time for us to help return our guest home. You're to make sure she completes her journey safely."

"Our intelligence suggests that Hidden Cloud has dispatched a team of genin to intercept you. You're to let them, understood?" Hiruzen eyed us critically.

"Sounds like fun," Shisui bobbed up and down on his toes.

I frowned a little, mulling the whole thing over. I guess fighting another team of genin didn't sound too bad. It'd be good to test our skills out on somebody who was on our level. Glancing over, I watched Asuma was grin his little smug smile, and Shisui vibrate restlessly.

With a little bit of luck, hopefully this didn't turn out to be too much of a disaster.

Arc Title and Chapter Quote form song Run Boy Run by Woodkid

A/N

Whoops. It's been a while. But I got a long one to make up for it!

Until next time,

Aule