In the morning I wake up to the sound of Kakashi’s breathing. He no longer held my hand, instead he has me in his arms. It was like he was trying to protect me from my bad dreams and suffocation. He was warm, I close my eyes again, knowing that I won’t fall back to sleep but I didn’t try to move of his arms. I didn’t want to, I liked how I felt in them.
From this close I can feel his chest extend as he breathes in and out. I can see the stubs of hair from his chin. His hair is laying on his pillow, while I was pulled away from my own. His muscular arm is my pillow for now. I take a deep breath, smelling the morning sun and Kakashi’s scent. This is what helped stay calm throughout the night. My legs were entangled with his, not a cold spot on my body. I layed on the ground with him, even though his bed was comfortable I didn’t mind lying here.
I stare at his face, but I realize just how odd that must seem so I close my eyes again. I wonder who Kakashi takes after, his mother or his father. I took after my mother and my father, but I had no idea where I got my black hair. Both my parents had brown hair. And my green eyes, where did they appear? So odd.
“Kiyoko,” Kakashi whispers in his morning voice.
“Yes?” I open my eyes, and see that Kakashi still had his closed.
“Did you sleep well?” He loosens his hold on me but I don’t move away from him.
“Yes. I did, thank you for staying with me,” I say. Kakashi hums, but doesn’t open his eyes. Maybe I should get up, but I didn’t.
“Tonight do you mind if we share my bed? The floor is too hard,” He says finally opening his eyes. I think about our current position, and imagining us in his bed. It made me feel very warm all of the sudden.
“No, I don’t mind. It was only until you held my hand that I was able to fall asleep without any worries,” I tell him. He smiles, it has been a while since I have seen an uncovered smile.
“Is it that you’re afraid of losing me? Is that why you have to hold on to the physical me?”
I nod, “we were both drowning in my nightmare. I watched you struggle to breathe, you didn’t make it. I don’t want to see that anymore.”
Kakashi tightens his hold on me once again. He smooths my hair.
“I can swim if that makes you feel any better. As long as you and I are together, we can’t be beaten. Remember you and I are the deadly ying and yang combo. I call it the black and white fang duo.” He gives me a bigger smile. I laugh at the ridiculous name, fang, just like his father except now I was part of the equation.
“You’re just going to have to be by my side,” He says and sits up stretching. I was going to have to be stronger if I was going to stay by his side. I get up too, breakfast wasn’t going to cook itself.
It was not until later in the day that Tomoko flashes into the living room. Thankfully Kakashi wasn’t home at the moment, but she still gave me a scare. Just one day, one day that I had before I was back in the Shikkotsu Forest. I leave my load of laundry in the washer, and I am summoned to Sage Moriko’s presence. I was still not entirely over what she did to me the other day.
“Sage Moriko,” Tomoko says as she takes a seat on my shoulder.
Sage Moriko sighs. “I’m sorry for forcing you to participate in an activity that was not comfortable to you. I will try to take your emotions in consideration and it would be a pleasure if you return to training today.”
She didn’t sound too genuine, but it still made me laugh with the look on her face.It was better than not recieving an apology at all. I agree to return to training.
“I’ll return as long as you don’t take all of your frustrations out on me anymore. You tend to do that a lot,” I say.
“I do not do that!” She exclaims.
“Yes you do,” Tomoko and I say at the same time. She frowns, but smiles it off, because it was so true.
“Very well. As you could already take life force away from others, wood technique will go faster. It just about giving life force, lets go over the previous jutsu, this time you’ll try it,” She says. I’m glad she wasn’t going to make me create any shadow clones anymore.
I remember exactly how to make this arm jutsu. I flow my earth chakra and water chakra to my right arm, making my connection of my arm and body the converting site. Its there that my chakra gives it life. I see it form wod, it covered my arms, and grew, and grew to the direction I wanted it too. I tried to do what Sage Moriko has done, creating branches of spikes from the main body. They protrude. As long as my chakra guided my chakras, I could do what I wanted to do with my wooden arm.
“Outstanding. Even I the creator of Wood technique did not get this technique so well done on my first try.” Sage Moriko praises. Everyone else who does not know about Sage Moriko and her forest, which is the rest of the human population, except me, believes that Hashirama Senju made this technique, but really Sage Moriko created it. Hashirama was the only human to manage it, but now I was getting there. I stop my chakra, and pull my arm out of the wood, it falls with a very loud clunk.
“Now that is learned. practice it on your own. The next jutsu is Tree binding flourishing burial. It is a long name, but it is very deadly, hence burial. It begins with wrapping your enemy from wood underneath them. It creeps up their body, creating a tree in the process. The tree acts like a holder, keeping you enemy tangled in wooden roots and branches. At the users will the wood can squeeze the opponent to death. Once you’re trapped in this jutsu it is very hard to get out of, unless you’re a wod user, but thankfully there aren’t too many that I know of out there. I’ll show you how it is done,” Sage Moriko smiles. She weaves her hand and a shadow clone appears. Her own shadow clone thankfully.
It stands in front of her, and stays as small saplings of tree grew around the shadow clone’s legs. They got thicker, as it grew. A tree began to form behind her, branches bound her hands to the new trunk and wrapped around her only keeping her head out.
“You see, this jutsu is great with restricting your opponent, as long as you get the wood around their legs, once you have them, they are your’s. This jutsu is deadly at this point.” Sage Moriko brings her snake seal formes hands in front of her and then I see the wood around her shadow clone get tighter. Soon enough her shadow clone disappears in a puff, and there is nothing left.
“Flourishing, funny name. It wasn’t my original name for it, but Hashirama changed it. He was in a very foul mood at the time. Very angry, maybe that is the reason he wanted this jutsu’s name to be changed. I still remember what he said at the time, ‘this tree will flourish with the blood of those who dare to interrupt peace.’ But then I would scold him and he would get depressed. He was a very sensitive man,” Sage Moriko laughs. It made me shudder a bit.
“Okay enough of reminiscing, its time for you to try, and if it bothers you to use your own clone, I will supply the clone for you,” She gives me an encouraging nod. I don’t know if her clone would make this any easier, it was the fact that I will be staring at her clone while I crushed her that makes it difficult.
I begin to extend the wood around her feet, but once it covers two thirds on her, I could finish the rest of her, I couldn’t attach her arms to the trunk. I couldn’t hurt Sage Moriko even of it was simply a shadow clone.
“What is it now?”
“Its just not the way I learn. I do it myself, not on others. Can we substitute a log instead?” I ask. She sighs, and dispels her shadow clone, she inputs a log like I request. I thank her and continue to do what she has done. I wrap my jutsu around the log, the branches connect to the tree trunk making it impossible for the log to move an inch.
“Very good, now use your chakra to crush the log,” Sage Moriko said. I wrap it tightly around the log, it was just wood, thankfully it wasn’t too hard to do what she says. The log splinters off into millions of pieces, and the place where it was is hollow. I flattens out to the trunk making it look like a regular tree.
“Two jutsus down for the day. They aren’t perfect yet they still need work, but you’ll have to practice on your own. That is how we’ll get more down. I’ll teach you the jutsus here, but you’ll practice on your own. I think this way we can get more done,” Sage Moriko nods like she was convincing herself to this teaching style. I didn’t disagree, it would be a great way to practice, its just that it would be more dangerous that someone could see me.
“Okay, the next technique I will show you is called Cutting Technique. It has to uses. Your body produces sharp wooden spikes from your own body. It acts like a sword, but it can extend to your will. A lot like the great forest technique you already know. But this jutsu can be thrown as well. It can protrude the opponent, and as soon as it makes contact with water it grows inside the human. You already know that humans are made of sixty percent water, so if this jutsu lands than it it deadly. One of my favorites if you ask me.”
She shows me the ram seal that I need, and a long wooden spike sword grows from her wrist, she holds it like a sword. It grew the way she wanted. Handy. Then she shows me the second use of this jutsu. She uses a log for my sake. She stands a great distance away from it, she has another wooden spike sword growing from her wrist. I watch as she throws it to the log, it makes contact right in the middle, but is doesn’t expand in the log like it should.
“It works better with really flesh, this log is dead, so it didn’t work very well. If we cut it open than we would see small spiked growing from the larger one. That, in a human, would puncture vital organs killing enemies in seconds. Its great for outnumbered matches, just grow and throw,” She chuckles at her little rhyme. All I need to do is grow and throw.
I practiced those three jutsus as long as I could in Shikkotsu Forrest. It was already dinner time when Tomoko sends me back to the Leaf Village. The great thing was that she left me in a small dirty alley, I brush off the dust and sweat as best as I could, before I quickly got home. When I open the door, I see Kakashi making a sandwich in the kitchen. I feel bad for not being here early to make dinner properly.
“Oh good, Kiyoko I made you a sandwich. We’ve been assigned a mission, so go get your things ready.”
He was eating his sandwich as he said it. I didn’t have time to freshen up anymore, I guess this is how I’ll be going on another mission. I just hope that we’ll be back for the lantern festival. I get my pack filling them with the necessary things. Kakashi slips on his shoes, as I grab my sandwich and head to the door. I can feel him rushing, being very impatient.
I eat my sandwich and follow Kakashi to the main entrance.
“I already gathered all of the information from Lady Tsunade. I’ll tell you now Kiyoko, this is an A rank mission. Sakura and Sai will not be accompanying us this time. I’m only taking you because you can keep up with jounin movement. That and your jutsus will help us immensely. If we weren’t short of jounin, then I would want you to be substituted for your safety. We aren’t even able to fill in Sai’s spot, Guy stepped in for Sakura. It’ll be just us three.”
I see Guy waiting for us at the entrance.
“What exactly is the mission?” I ask. It was supposed to be a jounin level mission, it made me feel nervous, really nervous.
“We’ve managed to locate Orochimaru’s hideout, and not too far from it, people from a small village have spotted Sasuke, walking around with Kabuto. If there is any chance that I have to bring him back I will not let it pass by,” Kakashi says. Sasuke, we could bring Sasuke back. No wonder Kakashi is in such a hurry. I won’t slow them down, no, I want to help him bring back his student.
“Hello there Kakashi! Very nice to see you Kiyoko. It looks like fate has brought us together. I look forward to battle alongside your powerful youth,” He smiles. He seems much more energetic and smiley than Kakashi. Kakashi just wants his student home, and I was going to do everything in my power to bring Sasuke where he belongs.
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Chapter notes: Here is another chapter! I'm really excited to write the next couple of chapter for many reasons.
Chapter end notes: Thank you for reading! Let me know what you guys think. I love everyone who takes their time to read my story!
Until next chapter!