Naruto : Catastrophe : Chapter 98

The next day I limp out of training ground seven covered in hurt but thankfully not hungry.

Hatake had gone pretty easy on us, considering how that stupid bell test usually goes, and allowed us to keep our lunches as a reward for getting our first solid hit on him ever. It had been a cheap shot, and one that he'll never fall for again, but that didn't make it feel any less good when it happened.

It had started with a pretty simple tactic. Sasuke and I had kept Hatake busy with some hand to hand while Sakura set up a barrier, and then she activated it around Hatake and I so I could get a Great Breakthrough off on him. The reason that this maneuver, which allowed us to catch an ANBU off guard, never worked on Hatake up until that point is that before the third task it took time for me to prepare a Great Breakthrough.

Against the Iwa ANBU, Sasuke had been good enough to serve as a distraction by himself while I prepared my loop. Hatake is on a whole different level, though, and after the first couple botched attempts at a repeat we realized that if we wanted to give Sakura time to set up her barrier Sasuke and I would both have to keep sensei's attention. The next time we tried it, Sasuke leapt away on cue and the barrier activated without a hitch, trapping me and the elite jonin inside. I immediately started the loop in my throat, my teammates waiting just outside the barrier to grab the bells when my jutsu hit.

In response, Hatake crossed the distance between us in the blink of an eye and backhanded me through the barrier.

We'd given up that particular tactic for good after that day. It was impossible to trap Hatake in a barrier so that I could hit him unless Sasuke and I both focused our full attention on him, and if I didn't have my Great Breakthrough ready to go as soon as the barrier snapped into place he'd just knock me on my ass before I could prepare it. So we conceded defeat and moved on to different, no more successful tactics. And then the third task happened.

Turns out that Hatake had assumed that I'd started preparing the loop for the Great Breakthrough that tore our opponent's Water Dragon Bullet apart well in advance, and was woefully unprepared when I formed one in the couple seconds between Sakura activating her barrier jutsu and him lunging towards me. And even though he used a Body Replacement before Sakura and Sasuke could nab the bells off him, I'll be cherishing the memory of him being slammed into and through Sakura's barrier by my breakthrough for a long, long time.

He'd asked me how I'd gotten it off so fast during our lunch break, and I'd explained how I'd shoved so much chakra into my loop during the third task in an effort to protect Sakura and prepare it faster that I'd ended up making something that was large enough to cover my whole body rather than fit inside my throat. It had left me a lot more drained than a normal breakthrough as a result, but at the same time controlling it had been… easier?

I hum, kicking a stray rock on the path through the training ground district. I still don't know why that is. Iruka-sensei always said that the less chakra you use, the easier it is to control. Why is it different for me? Is that how elemental chakra works? Or is it that my chakra works the opposite of everyone else's, just to spite me?

"Wouldn't surprise me," I mutter, turning off the main path and into training ground ten. Hatake had said that this Asuma guy is one of Konoha's best wind users, which was why he'd decided to hand me off to him rather than train me himself. Maybe he'll be able to figure out my screwed up chakra?

The entrance to training ground ten isn't a bridge like seven or a flower arch like the Hyuuga's private grounds, but an array of stepping stones set in the stream that flows through most of the public training grounds. I spot a pair of shinobi lounging in the clearing on the other side of the stream, one propped up against a tree and the other laying on the ground, and shake off the effects of my session with Hatake. Go time, Uzumaki.

The one propped up against the tree- the jonin who'd spoken out against the old man in the Chunin Exams meeting, I realize- raises a hand when I hop across and gestures for me to join him. I jog over, glancing at the shinobi laid out flat on the ground, and blink.

"Shikamaru?"

My past classmate makes a noise that starts out a half-assed greeting and ends an unintelligible grunt, staring up at the clouds. I roll my eyes.

"Nice to see you, too."

"Don't mind him," The jonin, Asuma, says. He takes a drag on the cigarette between his fingers and then grounds it into the dirt, pushing himself to his feet. "So I'm guessing Kakashi told you who I am?"

"Asuma, right?" I say. He nods. "Nice to meet ya. I'm Naruto."

"Yeah, your sensei told me, among other things." The grizzled-looking jonin leans back against the tree, crossing his arms and giving me a hard look. "Let me just make one thing clear before we go any further: I didn't volunteer for this. I'm trying to get my own team up to snuff right now, but your sensei called in a favor and my old man threatened to drown me in D-rank missions if I didn't do it."

"Wait," I blurt. "The old man is your dad?"

"You call the Hokage 'old man'?" Asuma counters, raising an eyebrow. "I knew he was fond of you, but I didn't know you were on those terms. He barely tolerates it from me." He chuckles. "Wonder if I should be insulted." Then the hard jonin look is back.

"Like I was saying, though, I'm not doing this out of the kindness of my heart. This is a favor to a friend, so I'm not going to put up with any bull. I expect you here at this time every day, and I expect you to work. No whining, no arguing, and most of all no slacking." He hooks a thumb at Shikamaru. "I get enough of that already. Understand?"

I nod firmly. "Yes, sir."

"You better." He sighs, scratching the bridge of his nose. "Your sensei briefed me on your defect and what you're capable of right now, along with a couple suggestions. He also mentioned a chakra exercise that he has you working on, which you're to do on your own time, so I better not catch you messing with it while you're here."

"Gotcha."

"Alright, now that that's out of the way, I have one last question before we start."

I tilt my head. "Yeah?"

"How in the hell can you not make your wind cut after five years of using it?"

I scowl. "Hey, it's not like I haven't tried! The exercises my sensei back at the Academy gave me don't work, he could never figure out why. And since my fighting style works fine without them, I let it drop."

Asuma snorts. "We must be tight on qualified Academy instructors, if that's the case," he says, and before I can jump to Iruka-sensei defense he reaches up and plucks a leaf from the tree he's leaning against. "Here, take this. I want to see something." I take the leaf and he plucks another one for himself.

"Now what I want you to do is hold the leaf flat between your two hands and channel chakra through both. Focus on grinding your chakra together, filing it down to a sharp edge that'll let you cut the leaf. It should look like this." He holds the leaf up, held between his thumb and index finger, and a moment later it splits in half, cut clean down the middle.

"I've already tried this one."

"Just do it."

I hold my own leaf between my hands, grumbling, and start channeling wind. I throw all my attention into the leaf, trying to force the wind to grind on either side of it, but as soon as the two streams of wind hit each other my hands are forced apart, and the leaf is sent skittering away. I cut the flow and give my instructor a pointed look.

"See? The wind just forces my hands apart."

The jonin sensei watches the uncut leaf drift through the air, stroking his goatee, and nods. "Yeah, I know what the problem is."

My brow furrows. "Really?"

"Yeah. Your sensei back in the Academy wasn't trying to teach you how to turn your wind chakra into cutting wind chakra, he was trying to teach you how to turn regular chakra into cutting wind chakra." He shakes his head. "See, the thing about your defect is that it's put you at a unique disadvantage to other wind users. Methods differ, but every traditional wind user learns how to channel their element as cutting wind.

"You, on the other hand, don't. Your wind just buffets, and that's the only way you know how to channel it. If you want to make it cut, you're going to have to find a way to sharpen it completely different from the average shinobi."

Yup, that seals it. My chakra hates me.

...

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