The Strength of the Weak {A Naruto Fanfiction}

The Strength of the Weak - Chapter 37

3rd Person P.O.V.

"The next step involves conjuring you own flames whilst keeping your hand protected. This will be much more difficult, requiring all of your concentration. Let's start by having you coat your hand in chakra, go ahead and do that first," Ryouichi says, holding his hand out and coating it in chakra, just like how he instructs his student to do it.

Satomi holds out her left hand, still quite injured from the burns, and builds up her chakra slowly but surely, exactly as her sensei had done it.

"Good, now I want you to try to produce your own flames on the same hand," Ryouichi instructs as his hand ignites with a roaring flame. Satomi, in turn, tries to conjure up her own flames. Slowly, her hand is engulfed in her own fire, a smile coming to her face.

Her smile fades just as quickly, though, when her protective coat of chakra begins to burn away. Satomi quickly douses her flames, smoke rising from her hand as it fades away.

"Sensei, how am I supposed to do that simultaneously? I'm already putting all of my concentration into keeping my hand safe," Satomi questions her emotionless sensei. He relinquishes his flames, turning around abruptly and walking away.

"Once again, you need to figure it out yourself. As much as I'd like to help you, this is the only way you will master your chakra control to such a great extent. In the long run, learning this on your own will help you with any and all ninjutsu and genjutsu you may use in the future," Ryouichi states, not giving away any hints.

Satomi watches silently as he retreats from the clearing once more, sighing and looking at her left hand warily. The skin was practically charred, peeling and blistering everywhere. She shakily tries to close her fist, although the fingers are only able to slightly curl in on themselves before her hand refuses to go anymore.

Rather than jumping head first into the training like she did for the first step, Satomi stops herself and thinks about some sort of strategy she could use to do this. All of her concentration was going to keeping her hand coated, so adding the flames was a whole different challenge in itself.

Nonetheless, Satomi sits down and closes her eyes, working on her first strategy for completing the second step.

::

Another couple of weeks go by, Satomi once again having a lot of difficulty with her jutsu. Ryouichi checked in from time to time, every time not surprised by the fact that she hadn't found a way to add the flames yet, merely stating that she would figure it out soon.

"Ne, Naruto-kun, how are you doing with your jutsu?" Satomi asks, jogging over to her good friend, who was finally starting to get the hang of bursting his rubber ball, having made a hole in it. He smiles brightly as Satomi comes over, having been yearning for some conversation for quite some time. 

"Better! I can finally make a hole in the ball, but I need to burst it completely! Pervy Sage isn't much help, all he has done is put this swirl in the middle of my palm, telling me to focus my chakra there," Naruto grumbles, showing Satomi his hand.

Satomi gazes at the circle, glancing down at her own charred hand and back with calculating eyes. Naruto watches her in confusion, not understanding quite what she was currently doing.

"Naruto-kun, do you mind if I try my jutsu right here? You gave me an idea," Satomi says, holding her left hand out in front of her. Naruto eyes her severely injured hand warily, thankful that his jutsu wasn't so taxing.

"Yeah, no problem!"

Exhaling slowly, Satomi closes her eyes and coats her hand in a protective layer of chakra, before turning her hand around 180 degrees so that instead of her palm facing down, it was now facing up. Furrowing her brows, she slowly begins to add a stream of fire to the center of her palm, being reminded of the mark Naruto had.