Not in trouble, yet. [Sachiko, Hinaji]

[redeyedavenger]

[backdated to October]



Perhaps, Sachiko thought as she simply walked a lap instead of running, she should really start reconsidering how she did things. Training to the point of dropping was good, except when you were doing other things the same day, besides training. She still had an art class to go to in a few hours and she really did want to be conscious for that. She'd already had the team-training for the day, too. Such a pain. There weren't enough hours in a day!

Well, there was a waterway not too far ahead; maybe she'd just detour to there and sit for a bit. After all, Leigh did encourage breaks when necessary. Who was Sachiko to argue when she agreed?

Admittedly, she wasn't expecting to see Hinaji training on the water when she got there. He was definitely working on something, what with that visible chakra swirling around. Faintly, but it couldn't be anything else but chakra. She itched to activate her doujutsu to better See it, but chose against. For one, Asuka had already made her "opinion" on non-permissible Sharingan-use clear. Painfully clear, with only words necessary. For two, it wasn't polite to not give warning. So Sachiko kept her distance, but watched and hoped he wouldn't mind.

Hinaji had long ago found that the waterway was a good place to go to train himself. The Hyuuga ignored anywhere outside their compound, and most people didn't go near the damp area. It was quiet and peaceful, and he felt comfortable there.

So he never kept his guard up as he properly should have while he trained himself. In all the time he'd been coming there, no one had ever even come close, so it came as a shock when another chakra signature suddenly came into view through the thin membrane of his own chakra.

He stopped instantly, water splashing down around him as he searched for the person watching, and his eyes widened when he Saw Sachiko nearly out of his range.

"W-what...?"

Sachiko waved in reply. "Sorry; didn't mean to interrupt your training. I was only taking a break from mine. ...Was that the Kaiten?" she asked, unable to keep the curiosity fully contained. She had heard of the fabled Kaiten (mostly from Naruko) but she had never seen it before. It looked awesome.

Hinaji felt his face turn red. "N-n-not...really..." There was no way his kaiten could be called that. No matter how he tried he couldn't turn it into the smooth wrap of chakra it was meant to be.

He stepped off the water and moved closer to Sachiko, letting the Byakugan go as he walked. He blinked a couple times as the world dimmed, and then gave the other ninja a rather mediocre smile. "I didn't think anyone else ever came here..."

"It's not on my usual route," Sachiko agreed, "but I decided to take a break and thought this place would be quiet as it's out of the way." Obviously the same reason Hinaji used it as a training area. She studied his face and his posture, debated, then chose. "I'll let you get back to your training, then. Good luck with it," she said sincerely before turning to leave.

"Ah--!" He started to speak before he realised, and looked down quickly to stop himself. He felt guilty, like he was chasing her away. But while she did interrupt it wasn't that he wanted her to leave, exactly. "Um. You don't have to go." He shifted a bit. In all honestly the company was appreciated, but there wasn't any way he could say that. But he hadn't been able to talk with anyone since talking with his mother and...

He turned and headed back towards the water. "I was almost finished, anyway." He paused and glanced back as an idea struck him. It was wrong--so wrong, he knew, and he would only make things worse for himself if his family found out--but... "...And actually, I could use some help, if you're willing?"

She glanced back when he called out, and said nothing while he spoke more. An eyebrow lifted when he asked for her help. When was the last time anyone had done that? Usually she was the one who had to ask. And that talk with Hoshino regarding Kiba didn't exactly count as far as asking for help as technically Hoshino hadn't asked. Sachiko'd said her piece anyway.

"I can help," she replied, keeping a careful watch on body language. Nervous along with discouraged. Though if he was working on stuff like the kaiten, that was bloodline-specific. She wasn't sure how much she could help, but she would do what she could. That's what mattered, right?

Relief flooded through him when she agreed. He'd been afraid he had made a foolish offer again.

"Thank you." He moved out onto the water again and turned to face her. "Um. You said you can See chakra when it's active, right? Could you, um... Point out the flaws in the web?" He blushed again and glanced at the water. To not see his own flaws was embarrassing. Well, it wasn't so much he couldn't see the flaws--they were obvious--but that he couldn't see all of them or think of how to fix them. And since he couldn't ask his family, having someone else who was so good at chakra sensing there to help would be a blessing.

He took a deep breath to relax himself and make sure she was ready, and then activated the Byakugan. The water around him stirred as his chakra flared out around him in a chaotic circle, large and small gaps cutting through the web he was slowly forming around him. The water made it easier to See the gaps, and he worked hard to pull and tweak the chakra to fill in the blank space, but that usually just made them move to a different spot. It was frustrating and tiring, and he could only keep it up for a few minutes before he let the jutsu fall roughly around him. His mother made it look so easy...

But thinking of his mother only filled him with anger and confusion, so he pushed the thought of her away and focused only on the jutsu. Whether or not he was Branch he needed to master this.

...Yeah. When they were done? She was going to need to tell him about not mentioning anything to Asuka about this.

Everything changed when she activated her doujutsu. The kaiten was more vivid, more full, and moved a lot more than what she might have assumed. ...But then, Seeing how it originated...hell, it came out of what she supposed were the tenketsu as there were threads that flowed off of the chakra pathways to weave into the kaiten. Once the shell formed the threads condensed to thicker and fewer tether lines that pulled the shell into the rotation as the body spun in the center.

There were holes, though. Some big, some small, and all over. They shifted, some mending as others opened, but what had her frowning as she Watched, however, was why the hell was he working a fuuton over water? Water's flow would mess up the air flow; he should be working over the ground.

Hinaji waited a few moments to get his breathing under control before he stepped off the water to approach Sachiko. He couldn't stop his hands from fidgeting, though.

"...You Saw them, right? The holes." He glanced back towards the water. "Even with the water I can't see where they begin." He scratched the back of his head sheepishly. "I know it's something wrong with my part, but I can't pinpoint what. The chakra is just too thin and weak. Tentsuke-san had been trying to help me with that, but..."

Sachiko's eyes returned to normal when he stepped off the water. "Yeah, I saw them." Curious that he would use the water to help find the holes; she wondered how that was accomplished. "Kaiten's a fuuton, right? Then I suppose what I would do is work on it over land instead of water. The current in the water probably isn't helping you maintain cohesiveness as you rotate, especially when the rotation moves against the current." Maybe practicing over water would be better when he got to the refining stage, but not right now.

He frowned and glanced back at the water and then her. "But." He stopped and looked at the ground. Even if the kaiten did use wind, his family was predisposed to wind and water. Using the second element shouldn't interfere with the first. But he'd asked for her help, so he nodded slightly and moved farther away from the water. "...Alright, let me try again."

He took another breath and activated the jutsu again. It felt weird without the water around him, but not having to expend chakra to keep himself afloat meant he had more to piece together the holes. And she had been right about the currents--the wind flowed smoother and the webbing seemed more stable. But it still wasn't enough. The holes appeared the same as before, constantly moving despite his attempts to patch them up, and he eventually released the jutsu to come to a slow halt.

"...I don't understand why." The words were soft, mainly for himself. He'd studied his cousin and mother's kaiten so many times. When he'd been allowed he'd looked in the scrolls describing the jutsu. Intellectually he understood it, so why couldn't he bring it out?

Sachiko scratched her head, this time leaving her doujutsu active. As far as she could tell, the form was fine. Granted, she did have no experience whatsoever to draw upon so she did take that into consideration. The other part was that the white color that declared the jutsu to be wind-based didn't really seem all that bright. Which may be the problem? If the kaiten was an advanced fuuton...it could be specialized enough that not only did you need the genetics to release the chakra in that specific way, you needed to be a certain kind of elementalist. So if Hinaji wasn't a wind-elementalist, then it made sense he couldn't do something so advanced.

Given the lackluster wind-glow, that was definitely an option.

"Ne, can you show me some other element-based jutsu? Katon? Suiton? That sort of thing? Doesn't have to be advanced; I just want to check something. I'm not looking to copy anything."

That caught Hinaji by surprise. "Um...alright." He couldn't see how they connected, but he trusted Sachiko's judgement in this. More than anyone, she took training to great lengths. He searched through the list of jutsu he knew and frowned. Taijutsu was his clan's specialty--things like the kaiten were special. He'd never been very good at anything else, really.

He glanced at the water again and hesitated before moving closer. He felt more comfortable there, and it would help with the suiton he knew. After a quick glance back at Sachiko to make sure she was ready, he quickly did the hand seals and performed the jutsu, spinning the water around him rapidly before directing it away to crash into the ground across the waterworks.

When he finished he looked back at Sachiko for her reaction.

He definitely looked to have a knack for suiton. The deep-blue glow was quite strong. (Had he been paper-tested so he could work on the masteries yet?) Not only that, but the chakra flow was smoother, as was the control. Much different from the grasping at the kaiten's wind. "Okay. Do you know any katon?" That was one of her masteries; if anything was wrong there she would definitely recognize it right away.

Another test? "Only low-level. The Hyuuga don't usually focus on these types of jutsu..." Especially not fire. It wasn't like those two elements fit very well, water and fire. He frowned again as he picked through his mind to find an appropriate jutsu, not even wondering about the paper test. It was a given that Hyuuga were masters with wind and water--there was no reason to test them.

Once he had the katon he wanted to use, he backed away from the water and her and took a deep breath. He hadn't done this since the Academy. But the seals came easy, and he felt the fire burn up and out as he released the jutsu, letting the flames light up the waterworks around them for a few seconds before stopping the flow of chakra. He was surprised to find himself breathing heavily as though he'd finished a particularly rewarding training session.

"...I didn't think I could do that."

Sachiko grinned. "You'd probably do a lot better if you inhaled a bit deeper, but that was good." Very good. True, it was only a pithy regular fireball, but it was still good. The fire-glow wasn't as strong as the water, but if Hyuuga didn't focus on fire then it could simply just be a simple dearth of practice. "Now, do a low-level fuuton for me? I'm just trying to compare and contrast what I See," she explained.

He lifted an eyebrow at that. Did she mean she could See different elemental jutsu? ...He wouldn't put it past an Uchiha, but the idea seemed a bit strange. Chakra was chakra, after all. Elements shouldn't really come into play at all. But he nodded and did as she said. Finding a fuuton was much easier than remembering the others, but when he performed the jutsu it felt heavy to him, and the effects seemed weaker. He frowned at that and tried again, putting more effort into it. If he couldn't make this stronger, his kaiten would never grow.

Maybe he was lacking confidence since he'd been failing at the kaiten all day? He tried the fuuton a third time with a little more success, but it still didn't feel as good as the previous two. The way his stomach seemed to sink didn't make him feel any more confident, either.

"...I think I must be tired." He tried to laugh a bit and scratched the back of his head again. "Maybe I've been training too long?"

"...No, I don't think it's because you're tired," Sachiko replied slowly. The contrast between the fuuton and the katon was remarkable. True, the jutsu was better-done than the kaiten, but it was still...not sloppy, but the glow was weaker and though she knew he was trying, the control wasn't the same. "I don't think you've got a wind affinity. You did this jutsu a lot better than the kaiten, but it's also a low level and you still struggled with it. You did a lot better with the suiton and the katon."

Now that Hinaji just couldn't really believe. "But. Kaiten is a wind-based jutsu." Most the Hyuuga jutsu were. How could he not have a wind affinity? His chest tightened at that thought. "I-It's not right for me not to have a wind affinity." But he couldn't deny that it had felt difficult while the other two had gone smoothly.

But that was even more wrong, wasn't it? She hadn't said the other two weren't his affinity. But fire and water didn't mix at all! And if he didn't have an affinity for wind it meant he could never master kaiten. Even though he was Branch now...he had wanted to hard to prove himself to his mother.

"...It has to be a mistake."

"Does it? How did those three jutsu feel, when you did them?" Sachiko returned. "The fire and the water flowed better, felt better than the wind, didn't they?"

"...Yes." It felt like a betrayal to admit, but it was the truth. The feeling in his stomach intensified and his hands clenched at his sides. This... Was this why he was such a bad Hyuuga? Because of a lack of affinity? That was just too much. No matter how hard he trained or pushed himself, he could never compete with the rest of his clan?

The thought left a bitter taste in his mouth.

Sachiko said quietly, "I can see the kaiten's important, but... if you haven't got the affinity, Hinaji, then you're going to forever struggle with the advanced jutsu. At least, with the kaiten, mostly because it's so specialized. I think. I'm not a Hyuuga, so I don't know." She wished she didn't sound so depressing, but really--if you haven't the talent, you weren't going to be able to perform the jutsu.

And maybe someday, too, she'd figure out how Uchiha could copy and use such a wide range of jutsu. Including elemental jutsu. She'd read about clansmen using techniques across the board, though the levels of success varied from person to person. Kakami had tested her with the paper, defining her as a fire/lightning type, but she knew a decent amount of low-level jutsu of the other types as well as a couple higher jutsu. Like the Rasengan - that was a fuuton, too, but Jimaiya had let her look at how to do it properly (instead of Naruko's mishmash) and then when Sachiko had formed the spinning ball, she'd gotten it on the first try. So... she really couldn't say.

"So that just means you'll need to work on a different element than wind. I'd go with fire, personally. Like I said, when you did the fireball, it looked good."

He shook his head at that. "I can't do fire. There's no Hyuuga jutsu based in fire." There was no way to prove himself to his family if he couldn't do their own jutsu. He'd be looked down on even more. And that the kaiten was out of reach...

"Is there a way to do the kaiten at all?" He felt almost desperate as he looked at Sachiko. There had to be something he could do. Hyuuga weren't meant to use fire. And why had she even suggested that one? He couldn't believe his katon had been that good. Maybe Uchiha had a strong fire affinity?

"Just because there's no Hyuuga jutsu based in fire, doesn't mean you can't do fire," she said, barely succeeding in keeping the dislike for the Hyuuga clan in general out of her voice. "I don't know how to help you with the kaiten, honestly. That's something special to your clan...and your bloodline. Though if Tentsuke-sensei was helping you, he was probably hurling projectile weapons at you. That I can do, if you really want." Problem being she didn't particularly care to see what would happen if a weapon went through a hole in his defense. ...She would just have to not aim for anything vital, she supposed.

Hinaji blushed again at the mention of his training with Tentsuke. She'd hit the nail on the head, so to say. "I'm...not sure that would be wise right now." The senbon Tentsuke had thrown would hurt, but all he could imagine Sachiko throwing were kunai or shuriken and that was a terrifying thought. She was good, but she wasn't the master that Tentsuke was.

He sighed and sat down heavily, resting his elbows on his knees. "Are you really certain about the wind affinity?" He frowned and glanced up at her. "How can you tell, anyway? Is the intensity of the chakra different?" He hadn't really noticed, but he didn't look at his own chakra when doing jutsu, either. From an outsider perspective it probably looked much different. And the sudden urge to ask if it was pretty, like the Byakugan itself, made him flush again. That was not what he should be worrying about right then.

She remained standing, hands in her pockets. And tried not to fidget herself when he asked how she could tell. She didn't feel like sharing that chakra was tinted between elemental and non-elemental, and that each element had its own particular hue. The archives had talked about the colors, and she had Seen some of it herself. "It's a different intensity," she agreed, and felt a whiff of amusement at how the vague-but-true answer reminded her of Asuka-taichou. "And I'm mostly certain about the wind affinity. ...Haven't you ever been paper-tested? Kakami-sensei got this special paper from somewhere that reacts to the elements you have natural affinity for. Unsurprising because of my clan, I'm a fire-type primarily." The Uchiha had been fire specialists, after all. Even their crest signified 'fanning the flame'. And the katon that were considered beginner's stuff, like the goukakyuu, she had been shocked to learn that outside the clan the goukakyuu and similar katon were advanced techniques.

He shook his head slowly. "No, the Hyuuga generally don't paper-test their ninja. Almost all Hyuuga have a wind affinity, so." He shrugged, but he didn't stop looking at the ground. "Maybe I should try it, though." If it was true that he was a fire affinity...

He shook his head to clear it. No point worrying about it right now. He was too tired and uncertain to continue training, anyway. But something else she said interested him, so he finally looked up, his head tilted slightly in curiosity.

"You can really tell the different intensities? But you can't tell between inactive and active chakra? Isn't that a little strange?"

"Not really. I need to know how much chakra to use for a jutsu I'm copying, to know if I can actually reproduce it and if it's something I should use at the time of copying. Last thing I'd want to do is be in a battle, copy a jutsu, use it, and then find out that I've used up much more chakra than I needed to." And in a detrimental way. Copied jutsu were to be practiced in training before being used, unless the caster was confident they could keep going after using it. Generally that worked best for jutsu that could move along previous established pathways. Jutsu that had to forge new pathways definitely weren't to be tried in a battle. That's how chakra got sapped out of proportion to the actual jutsu. Hence why it should be practiced first.

"Ah, I hadn't thought of that." The Uchiha had definitely developed strangely compared to the Hyuuga. But it was fascinating all the same, to find the differences. If only knowing that could help him somehow, though.

But wait. "...You can copy almost any jutsu, right? So you could use a water jutsu if you saw it being used, right?" He felt his hopes perk up a bit. Maybe... "So, there's a way to work with an element that's not your own, right? And make it effective?" He tried not to let the small hope grow bigger, but he couldn't help it. If there was a way he advance himself as a Hyuuga, a way to show his family he was good enough, a way to show his mother he was good enough...

"There's a way, right?"

Later she would ponder why it felt something like a noose had just slipped over her neck. As it was, she had to quell the sudden urge to squirm. "Iiiiit depends on the water jutsu," she admitted hesitantly, "if I could reproduce it or not. Copying's easy. Reproducing's something else. And...yeah, there's a way to work with an element not your own. Kakami-sensei's lightning-type, but she's done some pretty fantastic things with other elements." Water dragons came to mind.

".....Did you have something in mind?" she asked carefully.

Something in mind? He blinked in confusion. He wouldn't have asked for a way if he knew, would he? "J-just. I want to master this, no matter how difficult it will be." He paused and then stood, brushing himself off as he did so. "I don't care what affinity I might have. This is something I have to be able to do, no matter what."

His family didn't trust in him. That his mother hadn't even thought to tell him something so important was evidence of that. It hurt even more, thinking he could never get to a level where he would be considered a worthy Hyuuga.

"So... Even if it's almost impossible, can you please tell me a way?" He clenched his hands at his sides again, the knuckles turning white. "I don't know how I could repay you, though."

"Making sure Asuka-taichou doesn't get wind of this training session's payment enough, honestly." Sachiko exhaled deeply. "I'm, I'm really not sure how to help you with this. The kaiten. I'll do what I can to help, but I'm not a Hyuuga so I can't really understand the mechanics behind it. I can see the chakra flow when you do it, but that's pretty much it. There's no way I can reproduce it - it's specific to your genetics." Sharingan couldn't copy advanced bloodline techniques.

She lapsed into silence for a bit, thinking. "I guess the best thing is to work your way up. You'll need to be good with lower-level jutsu of the same element before you start worrying about the advanced stuff. That's what Asuka-taichou keeps reminding me of, all the time," she added with a faint, wry grin.

Hinaji nodded as she spoke, but he could feel that glimmer of hope slowly vanishing. He'd never been good with jutsu outside the clan's speciality. ....Even those he hadn't been very good with. To have to start from the bottom seemed almost impossible.

But that's what he'd asked for. And if he gave up now he would just prove himself unworthy to his mother. "Low-level, huh? So, I have to make myself better with the fuuton." He smiled softly. "Alright. And I'll keep this from Asuka-sensei." He had no reason to talk to her anyway, but he would respect Sachiko's wish. There were things both of them didn't want others to find out, after all.

He bowed then, as he had when he was twelve and first met Kureno-sensei. "Thank you, Sachiko-san."

"S-Sure," she said. It felt weird--very weird--that he would bow in the way that a student does to a teacher. She wasn't a teacher, she was just helping. It was definitely not the sort of respect she'd expect from anyone, period. "You're welcome."

He straightened out of the bow and smiled brightly. "So. Um. Maybe sometime when we're both free? I don't have any missions lined up..." He frowned as he tried to think of his schedule in his head. "Maybe later this week?"

"Ah..." Did she have free time this week? She could probably skip a drawing class, but--no, not a drawing. The calligraphy class on Sunday she could manage to miss. "Sunday evening work for you?"

Hinaji nodded. "Yes, that should be fine." He bowed again, although not as low this time. "Thank you very much, Sachiko-san." He would definitely master the fuuton, no matter what it took.