Another Take (A Naruto Fanfiction) (Complete)

*Ch. 3: Just a Little Girl

~But I will not be drawn into the past again. Cause all of this was all that I could take, and you could never understand the demons that I face~

Training with Fenrir was not fun.

The wolf was ancient, and had no mercy in getting me to learn what I needed. We started with physical conditioning, which was something that I would always need no matter what I ended up specializing in. I was in good shape, but Fen excelled in pushing my limits.

After that came ninjutsu. I wanted to work on the three basic jutsu we learned in the Academy- Transformation, Substitution, and Cloning. Since we'd done Transformation in class today, we didn't spend time on that. Instead, we started with Substitution.

I had the Transformation jutsu down pretty well, so we spent the least amount of time on that. And right now, we were working on the Substitution. The jutsu required that I switch places with something else in order to evade an attack, so Fenrir and I rigged a mechanism that would drop kunai on me, forcing me to either use the jutsu or get some injuries.

Needless to say, I improved. 

Of course, it wasn't without a lot of scratches, but I got there. It obviously wasn't perfect, but my Substitution was good enough and quick enough for me to evade knives falling at the speed of gravity. We both agreed that should be good enough for the exam, and moved on to Cloning.

My Clone technique had never been very good. I've been able to make one or two reasonably good clones before, but I figured the exam could require up to five. So we began work, after a break of course.

Contrary to my expectation, Fenrir was a good teacher. Since he'd been around for so long, he was very attuned to the flow of chakra, and could tell me what I was doing wrong that was preventing me from creating more than two clones. 

After snapping at each other a few times we really got down to it. I would make an attempt, and Fenrir would let me know where I was going wrong. Then I'd try again and the cycle would repeat. 

After a few repetitions, I noticed my chakra was getting low. "Fen, time to call it a night," I said as I released the jutsu. I'd managed four clones, though the fourth looked a little lopsided. "I don't want to be burnt out for tomorrow."

'Understandable,' the wolf replied. 'Let's head back home and get food, then rest. You've improved a lot, and I think you're good for tomorrow.'

With a sigh of relief I began picking up stray kunai that were still scattered around after my Substitution practice. No point in leaving them out here when I can reuse them. Those knives aren't free, after all.

The sun was beginning to set by the time we started walking back to the house. It was still early enough that Hachi wouldn't get on my case about being out too late, and I could go to bed early. I did take the long way back though, just enjoying the scenery and calm atmosphere of the forest. 

I opened the door to the house and saw Hachi heading upstairs. He paused and turned around when he saw me, saying "Hey kiddo. Food is on the table. I've had a long day, so I'm turning in. If I don't see you before your exam tomorrow, good luck!"

"Thanks Hachi," I replied, watching him finish going up the stairs. I headed into the kitchen, where there was a still-warm kettle of water on the stove and a package of cup ramen next to it on the counter. 

'Dinner of champions,' Fenrir grumbled as I scarfed down the food. I shrugged as I finished, throwing the cup away. The sun was officially down by that point, which meant that it was time for some sleep. Finally.

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The morning of the final exam was cloudy, but warm. Both Fenrir and I were quiet as I walked to the Academy. I was mentally going over concepts that would most likely be on the written exam. Basic physics, history of the village and the other villages of the world, some easy ninja codes, and some others.