The Way Of Ninjutsu: Part One
It’s been a while since I last did a fan fiction of any kind, not since I was very young anyway and just getting into the whole writing thing. So hopefully you should enjoy it, I may choose to add to it over time, but I’ve got a lot of stuff to do.
—-
Silence hung over the Konoha training grounds, light was just breaking out and cresting the horizons.
The ninja’s of the hidden village hadn’t shifted from their beds for another day of training or work, excluding one, the usual exception, Hatake Kakashi, the copy ninja or the sharingan user. He had many aliases that suggested him to be a formidable enemy. How surprised his students had been.
A small breeze blew across the grounds, growing the further it weaved through the long grass, and to Kakashi. It blew his fringe from his face as he stared at the cenotaph before him.
Even though his silver hair covered his eyes, he didn’t betray his quiet and solemn attitude. His respect to his fallen comrades who were killed in action.
A heron called out from somewhere near a lake and thrust itself into the air with a powerful flap with it’s wings, and again, the training grounds fell silent, the way it had done for all of these years at the early hours.
Kakashi looked at the sky, adjusting his green padded jacket so that it rested comfortably on his shoulders.
“Not a day goes by without me thinking of you, my comrades. I’m sorry I couldn’t do any more for you, the remorse and regret never dies.” he spoke with gloom.
“It will be winter soon, the cold will bite through this jacket, but that will not stop me. I must repent for those sins from years ago. Until tomorrow, goodbye.” Kakashi turned, after hours of staring at the dark and gleaming rock baring the names of great ninjas from the not so long past.
—
“You’d think that after all of this time, he’d start to get a little earlier after our scoldings, wouldn’t you?” Naruto groaned as he watched his two team-mates, Sakura and Sasuke sit in silence engage in the same activity as they did every morning. Which was usually Sakura blushing and giggling as she looked at Sasukes thoughtful and grave face.
Naruto smiled, some people never changed. Sasuke would always be the reclusive one, and Kakashi would be the sensei that would always be later than usual. They were a dysfunctional group, and yet they had been the only one to be passed by Kakashi.
“Don’t complain, Naruto” Sakura punched him hard on the arm, though inwardly she agreed with Naruto, the fool always seemed to annoy her by being right about the obvious, and rather intelligent when it came to battles, even if he was rather hasty.
“My apologies, my group. One of my dogs got hurt so I thought that I’d…”
“Kakashi-sensei? How many dogs do you have exactly?”
“Erm…Eight?” Sakura worked out the fairly easy sum in her head and turned to face Sasuke and Naruto.
“So that excuse will only work twice more”
Naruto watched Kakashi’s face as his visible eye closed in an innocent smile, but then he caught sight of the X-rated novel in his hand, the one that he’d usually pull out whenever he could just to ’see how the plot would work out’, in fact, he was that skilled a ninja, that he would even read it during combat.
Okay, so maybe his smile wasn’t that innocent Naruto corrected himself.
Kakashi was often open with his emotions, he was laidback and was often perceived as lazy and unreliable, but he had not yet allowed any of his team to be hurt, excluding Naruto who always found himself stuck in some kind of predicament.
But there was a part of him that Sasuke, Sakura and Naruto didn’t quite know yet, there was certainly more to the 26 year old Jounin. There were many reasons for them to think this, firstly because a large percentage of his face was hidden. A navy blue fabric mask concealed the lower half of his face and nose, his forehead protector rested just above his right eyebrow but slanted to hide his left eye. The Sharingan, a powerful tool to ninja’s of particular clans.
Other than that the sensei wore his usual dress code, as a Jounin, he wore a dark blue jumpsuit that hugged his athletic and slender limbs, and his sea green jacket that ninja’s of his position wore.
Other reasons of his secretiveness had been shown on various missions they had been dispatched to. Many other outlawed ninja’s had wanted him annihilated, though their reasons had never been clear.
“Alright then, I’ll try to be a little more earlier from now on, of course, you could always arrive late too?” Unsurprisingly, none of the three teenagers didn’t seem too pleased with this idea. He chuckled, brushing his spiked silver hair from his face and decided to move on quickly, if looks were going to start killing soon, it would be better to change the subject.
“Okay, let’s see if we can improve our chakra levels a little more today” Suggested Kakashi as he observed the position of the sun in the sky.
“As it seems, learning any no justsu techniques in the time we have would be pointless…” He noticed Sasuke huff at this comment, Being of the Uchiha clan, and bearing the skill of Sharingan, he already had high chakra levels in his body, it was genetic and only natural that he, being the highest scorer of the graduation test that he should be bored. Sasuke instantly fell behind his reserved mask once again. Kakashi smiled, he could fade in and out of a picture as he wished, mostly coming out to surprise with his amazing combat skills.
“Standing up everyone, focus! Concentrate!” he barked and smiled as he always did when Naruto had the expression of deep concentration on his face, which could easily be mistaken for a surprise case of constipation. Sakura tried to keep on task, easily distracted by Sasuke, who was fully on task and generating a strong sense of power.
My fools, don’t ever change he thought as his mind began to wander.