Naruto : Path of Wind

The training ground is quiet. The blanket noise of Konoha activity is far away and the air is still. The area is, unsurprisingly, devoid of any and all wildlife, and the nearly ever present sounds of steel on steel or fist on flesh are also absent. Not a good sign. I do my best to keep my breathing even and slow, but nonetheless my every exhale seems thunderous.

Carefully, I creep from my perch in a high branch among the forested area of the training ground, down the trunk and to the ground. In my right hand I clutch a kunai, in my left, the wind.

My chakra fluctuates to and fro, weaving between my loosely held fingers; it's a comforting presence, if nothing else. I peer through a shroud of drooping branches into the training ground's dirt clearing, and the three metal boxes lying innocuously in the middle. My mouth waters.

I ease back, circling around just within the boundaries of the miniature forest until I'm on the opposite side of the plainly decorated bento boxes. I slip silently past a reaching bush, huddling behind another tree. I'm only going to get a split second to do this. I have to make it count.

"There you are!"

I bite down on a gasp and adrenaline surges in my veins. I lunge to the side, kunai and wind immediately forgotten, aiming for the protective confines of a large clump of bushes. An iron grip closes around the back of my collar and yanks.

I'm dragged flailing and gagging like a baited fish out of the protection of the growth and dropped at the sandaled feet of my sensei. He crosses his arms, looking at me with stark disapproval.

"And just what do you think you were doing? A heavy-assault nin does not skirt around the conflict to grab the objective, especially when their teammates are already engaged in said conflict."

"I lasted longer than them, though, didn't I?" I manage to say between coughs. I flinch away from the predicted smack upside the head, but it comes from the right this time. My abused ear screams in pain.

"Yet you still failed. Like a coward this time."

"I'll take this over getting beaten to hell while Sakura and Sasuke kawarimi themselves to safety, thanks," I say sourly.

Kakashi cocks his head. "Who said I'm not going to beat you to hell anyway?" I glare sullenly up at him and the stupid trio of bells dangling mockingly from his waist, rubbing at my ear. He sighs. "Did you ever consider asking them to stay with you when I started using Taijutsu?" He asks mildly.

My hand reaches up of its own accord to scratch the back of my head. "I guess not," I admit reluctantly.

"Shocking."

"Yeah, well. Can I at least get some consolation food for being the last man standing?" I beg. Yes, I beg. I'm already on my knees, so I might as well go all in at this point. I'm hungry, damn it.

Kakashi blinks in surprise. "But Naruto, I'm the last man standing," he points out in mock confusion.

"You're the worst," I groan, pushing myself to my feet.

Kakashi smiles. "So you say. Now run along. I prefer to eat my lunch in peace."

I stalk away, bringing my impotent fury and rumbling stomach with me. I arrive at the small pond training ground seven features in time to see Sasuke latch onto a branch near the top of one of the taller trees after a short vertical sprint up its trunk. Out on the pond, Sakura walks slowly atop the waters, an intense expression of concentration on her face. Even in my anger I can admit she looks pretty cute.

"Finally decided to show up?" Sasuke calls down scornfully at me. I give him a one fingered salute.

"Got tired of getting my ass kicked in close combat while you guys practised your Kawarimi!" I holler back. Sasuke snorts and drops down, retreating a few feet away from the tree and sprinting for it again.

Spotting a nice little patch of grass in the shade, I take a seat and pull a scroll free from my weapons pouch. The label reads Advanced Shape Manipulation for Novices. I find the spot I left off at easily enough, considering I've been reading the same page for the last five days.

The theory behind shape manipulation is pretty simple. About as simple as the nature transformation for. It's basically just honing your control over your chakra through a bunch of little tricks until you have enough skill to hold it in whatever shape it is you want it to take.

The only issue is that while shape manipulation and elemental transformation are rather simple by themselves, elemental shape manipulation is hard. The Yondaime couldn't even do it.

He spent years trying to incorporate elemental transformation into his Rasengan, to no avail. The Yondaime. It involves a split in concentration that's almost impossible to maintain in the heat of battle. It's something that only the most skilled shinobi can pull off.

Fortunately, I don't have to worry about the nature transformation because of my trusty old chakra defect, so split concentration won't be an issue. Unfortunately, it also renders information on vanilla shape manipulation virtually useless to me. And as if that weren't enough, combined shape manipulation and nature transformation is so rare that there isn't a scroll on it in the Academy library.

So now, while my teammates defy gravity and balance kunai on their noses, I get to sit here and stare at theoretical nonsense and reverse engineer an advanced method of chakra control, because that's the only thing I can do with my chakra right now.

God but I love being a shinobi.

I shake my head, driving the pessimistic thoughts from my head, and pull a long clear balloon from my pocket. Time for yet another fruitless bout of chakra training. I blow the balloon up to about as large as my head and deftly tie it off.

I've gotten previous ones to the size of my torso before, but I'll be needing room in there for this particular exercise. Holding it gently between my palms, I carefully channel my chakra into it.

Bulges appear on the surface of the balloon as it slowly but steadily scroll suggests starting with simple shapes for this exercise, and then moving on to more complicated manipulations like weapons or animals later. I'm aiming for a cube this time. I keep the image of it firmly in my mind while I wrestle my flighty chakra into a solid shape. The balloon continues to swell. I grit my teeth and focus on reigning my chakra back into a tight formation.

The balloon promptly explodes in my face.

I try two dozen more times before I snatch the bag of balloons out of my pocket and chuck them into the pond with a wordless roar of frustration.

"Sasuke!" I shout. "Branch!" After a brief pause a bare branch about a foot long comes hurtling towards my face like some sort of primitive shuriken. I pluck it out of the air and set to working on a different exercise.

I haven't tried this one yet, now that I think about it. Probably because it's even more basic than the balloon one- all I have to do is mold my chakra to the shape of the stick and hold it like that. According to the scroll I'll know I've got it when the whole thing is glowing a faint blue.

My chakra swirls around the stick, little more than an occasional distortion of light.

… Oh, right. Wind.

The stick sinks into the far side of the pond with a muted plop.

I run through the rest of what the thin scroll has to offer with similar success, and by the time the scroll joins the rest of the misfit chakra control mediums in the pond, Academy-related consequences be damned, the sun is already past its zenith.

Staggering to my feet, I spy Sakura resting with a bottle of water and a scroll unravelled across her knees on the other side of the pond. A faint rustling sound above me accompanied by the steady thump thump thump of sandaled feet on bark alerts me to Sasuke's presence just as he drops down in front of me.

He smirks. "Ready to start training now?" And there goes the final straw.

"Taijutsu brawl, full restrictions," I growl. "To the death." Sasuke's eyes widen and he performs a hasty backflip away as my chakra comes howling to the forefront.

Crouching, I launch myself up into the air and latch onto a low hanging branch, swinging up and disappearing amidst the leaves. Below, Sasuke relaxes into his Taijutsu stance, head swiveling to and fro.

Bursting from the treetop, I throw my arm back for a haymaker. A feinted haymaker. Sasuke leaps out of the way, of course, and I hit the ground in a roll. Bracing my feet against the ground, I pivot and surge forward out of my roll, catching him off guard in his attempted pursuit.

I slam my chakra forward and lay into his hasty cross guard with a clenched fist, sending him staggering. I move forward, but jerk back at the last second as the Uchiha rolls into a backwards somersault and performs a pivot of his own.

I duck the stiff-fingered jab he sends at my throat, allowing my headband to absorb the blow and drop, sweeping his legs out from under him. His other arm shoots out and plants itself firmly on the ground. HIs torso twists, and his leg comes spinning around and nails me full on in the face, sending me tumbling. Pushing myself to my feet, I hock and spit a glob of blood on the dirt. Ow.

Sasuke appears in my face, fingers flashing for my solar plexus. Quickly grabbing for my chakra, I spin around the precise and no doubt mind numbingly painful attack, laying into him with a open palm strike at his nose. He blocks it with one arm and clamps my wrist with the other, spinning and twisting, and heaves me over his shoulder.

I glimpse a tree approaching at perilous speeds and pull savagely at my chakra. A veritable wall of wind envelops me, slowing me just enough enough to catch myself on the trunk in a vertical crouch.

Another push, and I'm rocketing back towards my woefully off guard sparring victim. He throws up another hurried cross block in front of his face, but it's far too late for that. A feral grin twists my features.

"Lariat!" My right arm swings for his throat.

And the stupid asshole trips.

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