Chasing Vermilion

Chapter Four- Training with the Serpent

Hey guys! Thanks for waiting so long for me to update. Things have been hectic here lately. Anyways, enjoy the latest chapter! Please give some feedback too- it's always good to hear from people. Thanks!

Chapter four: Training with the serpent

Kana yawned lazily, dabbling at her meagre rations for the day. Sleeping on the hard forest floor was starting to wear on her; it had been three months already, and her bruises were more painful than ever. She sighed despondently. Her training hadn’t been going too well. She thought she was doing fine, but Itachi never seemed to be satisfied, or at least, he never showed it. There were never any smiles or laughter coming from his lips, which always remained straight, and the only times he showed any inflection in his voice was when he raised it slightly for her to stop her training. But, somehow, after the initial setbacks, she was beginning to get used to his presence, and he her.

“Why are you not eating?” he asked suddenly. He was sat leaning against a tree trunk, one leg straight and one bent, with his arm resting on the knee. His cloak rippled with the passing breeze.

It took Kana a while to respond. “Am I a good ninja?” she asked, still poking at her food.

“Excuse me?”

“You never seem happy with me, Itachi-sensei. Every time I do something, you never say it’s good so I don’t know how I’m doing!”

“If you keep on complaining, I can leave you behind here, if you would rather that.”

“No!” she said quickly. “Sorry I moaned at you, sensei… I’ll eat now.”

“You are doing well,” he spoke. “You can already wield chakra to some extent, and your taijutsu is coming along well.”

She grinned. “Gee, thanks sensei!” And with that, her food was soon devoured.

“Sensei…” he mused again to himself.

Kana suddenly felt a vile ring in her ears. “What is that?” she cried. It was like someone was shouting at her, only it was inside her mind, and all she had to do was reply to the screaming to make it stop.

“It’s our Leader.”

Kana squeezed her eyes shut and drew closer to Itachi on instinct. “Make it stop!”

“Answer it.”

“How?!”

She took a deep breath and forced herself to be calm like Itachi. Answer? She tried.

“Hello?” she said.

“Kana, Itachi. It is Leader. I have an assignment for you both. Not a mission, but an order to spend today training with Orochimaru, in order to develop Kana’s ninjutsu. Orochimaru will provide Kana with the theoretical grounding as well as the practical application on many things. I believe the combined training of both Uchiha and Orochimaru’s methods with prove effective in helping Kana to control her… helping Kana to develop as a shinobi. Orochimaru will arrive at your location shortly, as he has already been told of this. Kana- work hard to become stronger, for only you have the unique potential to become… very powerful indeed. That is all I am saying for now. I’m signing out.”

And with that, the buzz in Kana’s brain ceased, and she was left sat in a daze, blinking frequently. She swallowed and noticed that tears were gathering in her eyes. She refused to let them fall now, because Itachi would never, ever cry like that. That experience just then had scared her very much, and every time she thought back to it, she felt something like ice run down her back. She brushed her dark hair away from her eyes and blinked the tears away from the tips of her black eyelashes. Orochimaru… Whoever it was, the name itself made her cringe. Leader’s explanation had been so confusing that she was only able to pick out small bits of it. She wondered if they occasionally forgot she was eight years old.