The Life I Lived Afterwards...

We walked into the house.

I stood directly behind Ryuji. Shinko was in the kitchen with her back facing toward us, humming a tune while cooking. She wore an apron and had a spatula in her hand.

I couldn't help but call out to her, "Shinko!"

Shinko turned around with her mouth agape and dropped her spatula, "Rin! You're finally awake!"

I smiled at her, "I'm back."

She rushed up to me while ignoring her dropped spatula, "How are you feeling? Are you having any problems moving?"

I wryly smile, "I'm not having any problems."

"Ehhh~, that can't be the case. You didn't move for two whole years."

Ryuji interjected, "She really doesn't have any problems. Well, not too many at least. Even the doctor was surprised at how fast she recovered. Typically, you need several months or more to recover from being in a coma."

Her mouth dropped and her eyes widened, "Oh, is that so? Well regardless, since that is the case, why don't you rest for a week first? Then you could start your training with my husband."

"But..."

She sternly told, "No buts. You should do at least this much, we were all worried for you. Now that you've finally awoken you should rest. Don't stress your body."

I reluctantly agreed, I didn't think there was a possibility of winning against this tiger mom, "Okay."

'There's no winning against a mother figure, for sure.'

...

For one week I rested in the house, and nothing too exciting happened. My days were filled with laziness and expectation for finally being able to train.

One week later...

I woke up, and stretched while yawning.

'Today's the day. We are finally going to train.'

I jumped off the bed and woke Asuya.

"It's time? Already?"

She slowly got up from bed, stretching and yawning.

"Time sure does fly."

She stretched a final time after getting out of bed.

"Whelp. Let's get going, shall we? Don't want to make dad wait for us any longer."

"Right!"

We quickly got changed, and ran towards the back yard. Ryuji and Jun were already there, waiting for us.

We were out of breadth and panting, "Did you wait long?"

Ryuji denied, "No, everyone's just woke up. No need for worry."

Ryuji sat on the porch, and all of us gathered around him.

He cleared his throat, "Let's get started."

We took a seat on the grass surrounding him, our ears perked up.

"We'll start with the basics. First of all, what is chakra? Do any of you know?"

Asuya raised her hand and answered, "Chakra is our physical energy and spiritual energy combined. We can't perform jutsu without it."

He nodded, "Yes that's right. Chakra is the elemental life energy a ninja uses in jutsu. It's the source of our power. This energy has two forms, physical and spiritual. Physical chakra exists in all part of our body and it is increased with exercise and endurance training. Spiritual chakra is from our mind's consciousness. It is increased with studying, meditation, and experience. When these two energies become more powerful, it makes our chakra itself more powerful. Thus we must train everyday to improve."

"Now then, let us start practicing with our newly gained basic knowledge. We will go over more detailed explanations of chakra and jutsu as we go on."

He took Rin's and Asuya's hands in his own. His thumb in the middle of their palms, "I'm going to let some of my chakra flow through your chakra system. Cross your legs and try to feel it moving inside of your body. Try to sense the current."

Crossing legs, they closed their eyes. As her eyes closed, she tried to feel the chakra moving inside her body.

He slowly started to insert his chakra to the tip of his finger, slowly releasing it into their bodies following their chakra system.

Rin tried to sense the chakra in her body moving inside of her.

She focused and erased all thoughts from her mind.

Rin could feel a warm current moving throughout her whole body.

"I can feel it!"

Asuya's eyes shot open and glared at Rin, "I can't feel it..."

Ryuji sighed, "She must be an abnormal case, to be feeling it already... Well all is good, as long as she can feel it."

He let go of her hand, and held Jun's in it's place.

Jun seeing this, excitedly crossed his legs and closed his eyes.

Rin pouted, "Hey, what should I do?"

Ryuji smiled, "Just sit tight and wait for the rest to feel it so we can move on."

They both meditated and tried to feel the current moving throughout their bodies. It took them both a few hours to get it, but they got it quickly due to the help Ryuji gave.

They both opened their eyes, shouting out with a look of wonder on their faces, "I can feel it!"

He smiled and his eyes became crescents, "Good, good... Now then, we are now ready to move on to the next subject we'll be covering. Do you know what you just felt?"

Asuya raised her hand and explained, "That was the chakra moving in our body, Sensei injected some of his as a stimulant to help us find ours easier in the future."

"Yes, spot on! What you just felt moving in your body is the chakra that flows along our chakra system. You will now try to manipulate the chakra in your bodies on your own. Try to make the chakra in your body flow in a tight spiral in your abdomen. Whether you are to spin it right or left is entirely dependent on the way your hair grows, Asuya and Rin's grows left, and Jun's grows right. Try to picture it."

We all went back to closing our eyes, sensing the chakra in ourselves without his help this time.

Closing my eyes and sitting with my legs crossed, I tried to sense the chakra in myself once more. Within ten minutes, I could already feel the warm current in my body flowing, although only faintly.

I pictured the energy flowing through my body going faster and spinning in a tight spiral in my abdomen. However, I couldn't quite grasp it, and it didn't seem to work.

I stopped what I was doing.

'What am I doing wrong? Ah, that's right. Sensei told us it was dependent on our how our hair grows. I was spinning it right, I need to spin it left. Speaking of which, how could Sensei tell my hair grew left?'

Dismissing my thoughts, I quickly went back into it, picturing it and trying to grasp it's manipulation.

Within a few minutes, I finally felt I had finally grasped it. The chakra in my body slowly started to speed up, and I pictured it flowing into my abdomen and forming a tight spiral. I felt the warm current flowing into my abdomen, forming a circle and speeding up. My abdomen felt ticklish and warm, I succeeded.

"I did it!" I opened my eyes, smiling at Ryuji.

He had a look of helplessness on his face, "You are certainly talented in this area. Now we just have to wait for the others to be finished."

I expected to be waiting for a while for the others to finish.

Ten minutes later Jun finished.

"Done!"

He sat next to me, waiting for Asuya to finish. Another ten minutes passed, and finally Asuya finished as well.

Asuya sighed, "Ugh, it seems I'll always be slower than you two."

Ryuji told her, "That's okay. It's already really good to finish as soon as you have."

Ryuji continued his lecture, "What we just did is a meditation to increase your chakra's capacity. Every ninja has a maximum amount of chakra they can use, so it is important to build it up. However, your chakra can only be increased within the limits that your genetics allow you. It is a long and tedious process, requiring constant practice. However if you practice everyday, then in a year you will have made a good amount of progress. This is one of the many ways we will be training in the future."

"For the next few weeks we will be doing this exercise, and going over other exercises to increase our control. For now, you must focus and constantly swirl it in a tight spiral. Do this everyday when you have time."

All of us focused and tried to grasp what we had earlier, spinning it into a tight spiral when we grasped it.

We did this for hours, to which many of us complained. It seemed as if we would never get through to him.

...

Three hours later...

"Alright. Now that you have this down, let's go over the other ways of increasing chakra capacity and your ability to control it. Chakra can be increased with spinning your chakra in a tight spiral in the abdomen. But as I said earlier, chakra is made of two different energies, physical and spiritual. We can increase physical energy with training and exercise, while spiritual energy is increased with training our mind. We can study, meditate, and gain experience to increase this type of energy. For example: We as shinobi might practice a technique repeatedly to build experience, which in turn makes your spiritual energy higher. This applies to physical energy, except you must improve your endurance instead. Understood?

All three us of shouted, "Yes, Sensei!"

"Now that you have succeeded in manipulating your chakra we can continue onto the next subject. As shinobi, we release this chakra outside of our bodies through one of the three-hundred and sixty one tenketsu in our bodies. We do this by guiding the chakra into one of those points, and use hand seals to help with making it form outside of our body. Hands seal reduce the amount of chakra we use and it helps us form the chakra outside of our body. Those who are skilled can use one handed seals or even use none at all."

Asuya raised her hand, "Sensei?"

"Question?"

Her face showed curiosity, "How skilled must a shinobi be to use one-handed seals or even none?"

He pondered a moment before answering, "Hmm... You would need to have peak level control and ability. For example, our Hokage and Anbu can use one-handed hand seals, along with a few other skilled individuals. While only the Hokage can use seal-less jutsu."

He demonstrated each hand seal as he talked, "There are twelve hand seals in total. They are monkey, dragon, rat, bird, snake, ox, dog, horse, tiger, boar, ram, hare. You will need to memorize all of them, or at least the most basic ones."

He got up from his spot and took a nearby stick.

He drew them onto the ground, "The ones you might use the most in the future are affiliated with elements. The elements are respectively fire, earth, lightning, wind, and water. Tiger is affiliated with fire and earth. Snake is for earth and lightning. Bird is for wind. Dog is used for water. Now, these are not always going to be the ones you use. However, most of the time, these hand signs are used with these element's release. Do you understand so far?"

All three of us nodded, "Yes, Sensei!"

"I don't expect you to memorize them immediately, which is why we'll be getting into practice with them soon. Let's begin practicing each of the basic hand seals for now, then we'll call it a day. First is Tiger..."

...

The day passed by quickly. We had practiced our basic hand seals and by the time we finished, the sky was dark.

Shinko opened the sliding door, "Time to eat!"

All three of our voices resounded together, "Okay!"

We rushed inside, exited to escape our demon Sensei's clutches.

Ryuji face palmed upon seeing us run away, 'Well, at least we had finished. I have to go back to work as an Anbu soon, so I need to drill it into them while I have time. But I wonder... If they are already tired after just this much, then just what will happen later on?'

He went in after the kids, and we all sat down at the dining table. Shinko served our dinner, and we all ate a hardy meal and went to bed.

---

Early morning the next day...

We were all gathered into the courtyard.

He came out of the house, coming out with a three small square pieces of paper in his hand.

"These are for testing your element. Hold this in your hand and release your chakra out of your fingers and into the paper. Once you do that, this paper will react to your element."

We each stepped up to take a paper, all of us putting one in our hand.

"Now put your chakra into it."

I slowly guided my chakra into my fingers, slowly releasing it into the paper.

The paper in my hands ignited and turned into ashes.

"Good. You posses the fire element, that's a good element."

Jun and Asuya both put their chakra into the paper, Asuya's paper became wet and Jun's split into two.

"Asuya has water, and Jun has wind. These elemental affinities you have will make it easier for you to learn a jutsu of that element, while other elements will be harder to learn."

"Now then, let us get into the more... practical experiences. Now that you can release chakra and know your element, we will have each of you start practicing the most basic of jutsu. I will be teaching you the most basic jutsu, E-rank jutsu."

He quickly went into the house and grabbed three long pieces of rope, "Let's first start off with learning the Rope Escape jutsu. This is the easiest to learn, and also a necessary technique to know. I will demonstrate this technique and then we will bind your feet together. You will try to guide your chakra to your feet, directing it into the rope while imagining the rope unbinding itself. First, I will demonstrate it for you."

He bound his legs in a knot and started instructing us, "First, send the chakra to your legs."

He then made the rat hand seal, "Then, while performing this hand seal direct your chakra into the rope and imagine it loosening or unbinding itself."

The rope on his legs came undone, almost as if unraveling itself.

He got up and smiled towards us, "That's how you do that. Now try to copy the hand seal I just made."

He demonstrated as he talked, "First, you place your palms together. Then move your right hand up over your left hand and extend two of your left hand's fingers. It should be just past the palm of your right hand. Tuck the two smallest fingers outside of your right hand's palm. Then curve your right hand over it like this. Your thumb should be outside, while the right hand's index finger should be directly on top of your left hand's index finger."

All of us followed his instructions, coming up with our lousy rat seals. Walking over, he looked at each of our demonstrated hand seals and corrected us each individually. Finally, each of us were ready to begin.

He clapped his hands together, "Alright, let's get started."

He walked up to each one of us, one by one, tying our feet up in a loose knot.

"First, imagine the chakra in your body moving towards your calves."

I closed my eyes. I quickly grasped the warm feeling of chakra and directed it towards my calves.

"Then perform the rat hand seal I showed earlier and direct the chakra into the rope while imagining it unbinding itself or loosening."

I directed the chakra while performing the rat hand seal we practiced earlier. I could feel the current flowing outside of my body, presumably into the rope. I felt something loosen and I opened my eyes.

My mouth dropped, "It worked?!"

The rest of them coughed blood on hearing what I just said.

"Ugh, just ignore her. Take your time to do this."

Within forty minutes Asuya and Jun both completed the the rope unbinding jutsu.

---

He cleared his throat and smiled dazzlingly at us, "Alright. That's enough for now. Next is physical body training. You will run five laps around the house for now. If you aren't tired after that, then I will increase it till you are tired."

Asuya looked incredulous, "Ehhh?!"