Chapter 3: Starting the ninja path
The next day.
I was rudely awoken from my sleep, by my mother. I knew she got up early, but it was still dark outside.
"Get up sweetie, you promised your aunt to meet her in an hour" my mother said "I think you should back some food, as it might be a long day"
I was still half asleep, and just barely registered what my mother was saying. Getting out of bed, took most of my willpower. I zombied myself toward the bathroom, to get some cold water onto my face. I vaguely registered my mother laughing before walking away. 5 min later I vaguely heard the front door opening and closing. At this point I was pretty much fully awake. I still had some time before meting my aunt, so I made breakfast, and packed some bread, water and fruit for later.
I left the house and started running towards training ground 27, which is where my aunt would be waiting for me.
When I arrived at the training ground, my aunt was already there waiting for me.
"Today we will be starting on your path towards becoming a ninja" Kaina said "The most important part of becoming a ninja is chakra. Chakra is the life blood of a ninja. A balance of spiritual energy, and physical energy. Increasing both spiritual and physical energy will also increase chakra, but increasing only one of them will not effect chakra. Chakra is used for everything, that a ninja can do. Chakra can allow you to create powerful elemental techniques, or enhance your taijutsu prowess. There are even some ninja, who according to legend, can create moons or tidal waves"
Kaina took a break, to see how much of this sank in. I looked back at her and nodded at her. Kaina then continued:
"Chakra however is only usable for some people. Not everyone can use it, and not everyone has the spiritual or physical power to manifest chakra. In general we say that the difference between a ninja and a civilian is the ability to use chakra. However this is not always the case, as some retired ninja technically are also civilians. There are even some other groups, such as the samurai who can use chakra. However that is a tale for another time."
"Today we will confirm if you have chakra, and awaken it if so" Kaina continued, "to do this test, I need to push my chakra into you, to prime your chakra network, and draw out your own chakra. After this initial test and priming, you should be able to use your own chakra. Then we can start planning what to do from there"
On Kaina's instruction I sat down into a meditation pose and closed my eyes. After asking if I was ready, Kaina started to push her chakra into my chest. At first I didn't feel anything, but slowly there was this feeling of a cold liquid pouring into my veins. Everywhere the liquid moved, it left a itching feeling, which was very uncomfortable, as I could not itch it. Finally the liquid converged onto a single spot between my stomach and gut. When the liquid reach this spot, it was like an explosion happened, and the cold liquid was pushed back by a liquid that was on fire. The fire liquid didn't stop until all the cold liquid was pushed out of my body. At this point it was like my entire body was on fire.
"Good. Remember this feeling, this is how to circulate chakra around your entire body. This is the basis for chakra training. A slow and basic level to learn chakra control, and increase chakra limits" said Kaina.
After a few moments, the fire in my body kinda "burned out", like a fire that had no further fuel to burn. A big wave of fatigue overcame me. Looking very tired I asked my aunt:
"So what is next?"
"Well looking at you, I would say next is rest, maybe some food, and then we will continue" Kaina said.
I hadn't noticed, but the sun was already high in the sky. Guess its almost midday. The unlocking of chakra must have taken much longer than it felt like.
My aunt and I sat down, and got something to eat, while she continued explaining about chakra. She went into more detail about chakra, and talked about several ways to improve chakra control and expanding chakra amount. Most of it I already knew, from watching the anime. However it was new information to me, that the chakra amount naturally expands over time, as the body gets older. There are several ways to take advantage of this, and it explains why the best time to learn ninjutsu is in the teenage years. The childhood years are the best to learn control and expanding the chakra amount.
"Lets continue" Kaina said, motioning for me to get up. "The next step of your training, is the ninja basics. Taijutsu, Ninjutsu and Genjutsu, the more advanced forms of ninja arts will come later.
Taijutsu is in general about hand to hand combat and martial arts. This does however also include combat with weapons and throwing starts.
Ninjutsu is the a general term for affecting or controlling the world with chakra, like elemental jutsu. It is the most versatile group of jutsu.
Genjutsu is the term for jutsu that directly affects the mind using chakra. This is generally to try and control or incapacitates opponents.
While Ninjutsu and Genjutsu require better chakra control, than what you can do now, Taijutsu is relevant and beneficial through all you life as a ninja."
After this "speech" aunt Kaina started testing my aptitude in different areas, to see where I should focus. After an exhausting day of testing, my aunt and I was sitting down, when she brought out a notebook:
"I will note down each of you performances today on this piece of paper, and let you self study until next time. In this way you can see your improvement, and know what to focus on. There is an explanation in the book, but this is an explanation about well you perform things on average"
I opened the notebook and read the performance from todays
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Notebook performance
F = Academy student, E = Academy graduate, D = Genin, C = Chunin, B = Tokubetsu Jonin, A = Jonin, S = Kage
Taijutsu:
- Hand to hand combat: F
- Throwing weapon: F
Ninjutsu: -
Genjutsu: -
Chakra control: F
Chakra level: B
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"As you can see, most of what is important as a ninja, you are bad at right now" Kaina said "And yet, there is really nothing to write on about Ninjutsu or Genjutsu right now, as you don't know any of it yet. However you have a big pool of chakra, which I suspect you get from your fathers bloodline. This is both good and bad. A large chakra pool is great, but it also makes it much more difficult to control. That's why I recommend that you work on chakra control using the leaf method, work on performing hand seals and continue working on taijutsu for now."
With that recommendation my aunt turned around, made a few hand seals and disappeared in a storm of leaves.
And with that my first day of ninja training was over. Exhausted I walked home, for dinner, making sure to take a few leaves with me on the way back.
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*Time skip one month*
During the last month, I have trained every day, with the exercises that my aunt recommended. 2 hours of hand to hand combat, 2 hours of shuriken throwing, using the remaining time to circulate chakra through my body before lunch. Having lunch, then back to training, now low on chakra, to practice better chakra control for the remaining of the day. Then back home for dinner, and using a leaf to stick to my forehead for the remaining of the day (even while sleeping). Most of the days I would wake up next day, and the leaf would have fallen of. However the last few days the leaf still sticks to me in the morning.
Right now, I am waiting for my aunt at the training ground, tomorrow is the first day of the academy, so today were meting to go over my status again.
"Hey Anya, how has training been?" Suddenly a voice rings out behind me, while I am in my thoughts.
Looking over my should, I see my aunt standing there. I could have sworn she wasn't there a moment ago. I don't know if she was sneaking, or used some kind of jutsu to get here. She is a jonin after all, so not unusual that I could not detect how she get here.
"My training has been fine, and I feel like I have made good progress" I said to her, and I really believed that to be true.
"All right, then lets test out your performance" said Kaina.
We spend the rest of the day testing again, and here was the results for the things I trained in over the last month.
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Notebook performance
Taijutsu:
- Hand to hand combat: F+
- Throwing weapon: F+
Chakra control: F+
Chakra level: B
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After looking over my new performance ratings, I was disappointed. I worked so hard for a whole month, and none of the things I worked on had a notable increase in performance. It was at this time I really hit me, just how far away from kage or even jonin I was.
From my estimation, there is only 3-5 years left, before the nine-tails attack on the village, and at that time my goal is to be able to protect myself and my mother. To be able to do that, I would need to work hard over the next years.
"Disappointed about your score?" Kaina asked.
"I would have thought that my score would have been higher, after a whole month of training" I nodded at my aunts question.
"To become a ninja, there are no quick and easy road. Why do you think most ninja graduate from ninja academy after 7 years? That is because to get to even the starting line of a ninja (genin), you would need years of training" Kaina said.
I nodded at my aunts words, steeling myself for the years of training that would be coming.
"Are you ready for the academy tomorrow?" Kaina asked. Before answering, my aunt continued: "It would be best if you get home now, and rest up for tomorrow. Remember respect your teacher, and try to make plenty of friends in the academy. In the future, the friends made here, might save your life".
On that rather grim note, my aunt made a few hand seals, and disappeared once more in a bunch of leaves. With nothing better to do, I returned home to start my leaf exercise, and get ready for another day in the village hidden in the leaves.