Kiyomi sighed happily after Hanasaku sat back and the green flashing light of the woman's healing stopped. The young heiress of the Yamanaka clan had just met this brown haired klutz and while she was impressed by the sheer awesome power of the woman, her skill with healing could've used a lot of polish. Hanasaku smiled like an idiot with a full-teeth smile and gave the girl a thumb up, her thumb then was dropped as horror changed to woman's expression.
Hanasaku's horror ignited the dark flames within the blonde as well, she shook uncomfortably and asked the woman "What's wrong", being a bit worried that she may not want to know the answer.
"Your nose… It's… It's on your cheek at the completely wrong place, it happened to me again!" Hanasaku shouted out slamming her own forehead in frustration.
Kiyomi jumped up and started running around frantically, completely lost and unable to get even a single idea of what she should have done in that situation. This woman… She bumped the girl's face and now she ruined it for good, what will the clan elders say? They will immediately remove Kiyomi from the line of heirs that much was for certain, what kind of a husband would've wanted a wife with a nose growing out from her cheek…
The girl dashed to a small leaking pond and looked at her own reflection. She then touched the point where her nose would've been normally feeling it up. It was only then that Kiyomi realized that her nose was completely normal and Hanasaku's heal was totally fine. The blonde felt a gentle pat to her back that sent her flying over the surface of the pond like a stone tossed at the ocean bouncing into the horizon before sinking like a brick in the middle of the pond.
Kiyomi swam up and got onto the surface of the water using her "Art of Water Climbing", a technique that she was taught after leaving the Academy. There were many sensei that gave her tons of meaningless techniques to work on, they had to occupy the attention of the young heiress so that Kiyomi felt that she was learning something useful when in fact she was learning something completely trivial like walking on water…
"What was that all about!?" Kiyomi yelled having lost all semblance of composure, at this point she was pretty much barking insults and lashing out on the woman while Hanasaku was rolling on the rocky dirt where she accidentally sent Kiyomi flying all the way to the other side of the pond.
"Sorry, sorry, I never get used to my own strength…" Hanasaku finally managed to stop rolling on the ground and give the blonde a reply, the woman then pointed to the side with a smile and rubbed her own nose, "That's what this training was all about, I was learning to restrain myself…"
Kiyomi wiped her hair rubbing it over with her hand and letting the excess of water just flow off of it. This idiot was unbelievable! The blonde stepped off of the pond's surface and deactivated the jutsu she used to walk on it. "Who on Earth are you? My clan elders will hear about you insulting the future heiress of the Yamanaka clan!" Kiyomi shouted out. She was acting like a diva, she had no idea why, after all she hated all of that over-glorified childish pampering that she got. Maybe she just wanted this woman to pay for this transgression but she knew well that she couldn't have matched up to her in any way.
Hanasaku made that weird guilty look, almost like a little puppy and introduced herself. "I am Hanasaku, I have a clan name but I don't like to throw it around because I grew up in a normal family of clanless villagers…"
Kiyomi's eyes shot up wide and her mouth opened almost to the ground in shock.
"Wait… Hanasaku… Chestnut Hanasaku, Konoha Sannin!?" she asked yelling out and completely losing any semblance of cool she may have preserved before that, even that façade of a pampered child was blown away, no way that could've been true…
"Why do you have to go around telling your people this… I'm sorry, I don't want to have to beat them up, you know!" Hanasaku exclaimed with little to no restraint to her tone, she was so outspoken and extraverted that she pretty much almost yelled her words out.
Kiyomi rubbed her chin like a supervillain plotting her next scheme, she could almost feel the hellfire burning behind her and a devilish cape growing out from her back, together with the small evil horns to complement the whole set! There was no way that any of her elders could've ever found any muscle who could've left a scratch on the Chestnut Hanasaku, that was exactly what Kiyomi always wanted, that was a chance for her to become strong, to break free of her shackles, of her cage and become an amazing ninja! Someone actually worth the mettle of being the next leader of her clan instead being just a sissy lady with a fancy dress and being all name.
"Ummm…" Kiyomi thought out loud before flipping back and falling on her butt and slamming her head into the dirt, trying to make her fall look convincing. "Owwie, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch! That slap, why did you do that… Oh no… I think I'm really hurt… I… I may be dying, in fact!" she started faking an injury. Hanasaku shot up to the fallen girl and started freaking out.
"Oh no! What?! Wait, what'll I do!? I killed the heiress of the Yamanaka clan, Shiyomi!"
Kiyomi lifted her head off the ground comically.
"Kiyomi… I mean… I decided to temporarily postpone my death to remind you that you're a medical ninja…" she said out quietly, almost whispering like the autumnal trees dropping their leaves.
"Wait…"
Kiyomi shook on the ground, shit, her act was outed, now she'll be announced as fake!
"I think that you might have an internal fracture!"
The Yamanaka couldn't help it, she leaped back on her feet and started yelling at the woman from the deepest abyss of her lungs, so hard that even the deafest of all pigeons took off in fear for their life.
"How an idiot like you could have finished medical ninja education, you're supposed to study at the Konohagakure Hospital for that!"
Only after realizing that this time she outed herself for real Kiyomi just coughed and scratched the collar of her top in discomfort. She raised her palms up to calm the Sannin down and explain her intentions, Kiyomi was pretty good at playing people whether it was via her mind control hidden clan techniques or otherwise. However she didn't count on how difficult it'd be to actually be playing an idiot, a complete buffoon!
"Fine, I'm not really injured… Just… Look, you offended me, you made me slam my face into dirt, then you scared me with that prank and then you threw me into the water, I could've drowned you know… Actually, it might be an actual miracle that saved me from having my spine break from all the backflips I did after you slapped me over the water."
Hanasaku just stood there and looked at Kiyomi with the dumbest puppy eyes possible, it was quite not out of the park that the woman didn't even realize where the girl was going. No. She must've struggled with the basic concept of most of Kiyomi's sentence structures as she looked like she'd appreciate having a notebook to write all of it down.
"The thing is… I want you to train me in return to repay the harm you caused me today." Kiyomi declared her terms of how Hanasaku could've avoided the horrible fate of having to beat her clan elders and their hired muscle effortlessly.
"Oh… Okay, you should've just said so… You go around and around and around and I get really confused, when I train you, tell me how it is. I should really teach you to talk, you know…" Hanasaku pouted like a little baby wrapping her arms around her chest.
Kiyomi rubber her temple with her fingers angrily, she struggled to believe that this Hanasaku was an actual adult human being. She looked like she was at her late thirties yet it was hard to tell as medical ninja often enjoyed a much more youthful and beautiful appearance since their healing prowess somehow managed to affect them indirectly as well. The woman should've been much older, maybe in her mid to late forties if all those stories of her participating in that huge battle at the Tower of Bones was true… That scuffle actually formed what was known as the Mammoth Graveyard – a giant pile of bones and crushed and grinded soil north of the village walls.
How could a half-wit like this be one of the strongest ninja in not only the village but the whole world? Even more, the famed Chestnut Hanasaku was among some of the most powerful of the Sannin among all of the villages, the top percentage of Sannin. How could she ever be so numb-witted? How did she survive daily activities? How didn't she cut her hands off when making a sandwich or cutting fish? Kiyomi sighed, trying to push all rude thoughts away. After all she wanted to learn from this woman and demoralizing thoughts didn't help anyone…
Hanasaku leaped up into the air and landed right on top of the dummy's head, settling down in a meditative position. She must've leaped well over ten meters into the air to make that jump and the precision was incredible. Still, a chuunin or a jounin could've made a jump like that. Kiyomi couldn't help but still be a bit sceptical, after all, most jounin level ninja she met were absolute geniuses not only in terms of combat experience and strategy but also in such subjects like geometry, mathematics, literature and philosophy, some higher ranking ninja were even world known authors themselves. They travelled a lot and saw a lot of what life had to offer after all!
"So… Why do you want to be my student, Kiyomi? Don't you have a sensei? If I have to beat someone up to rip you from your old team I won't do it" Hanasaku asked seriously, she seemed to have dropped the goofing around tone, at the very least she could still do that much…
"Actually… I just want to train. I had multiple different sensei in just the last three months, some of them were actual genin, hired to play around with me, some of them were really good but my clan ditched them because they wanted me to stay safe" Kiyomi explained, she didn't lie, she told things how they were with all of the feelings and frustration intact with those emotions. Hanasaku smiled.
"Why would they do this to you? Why would they hold you back? That's a terrible idea, if you're a weakling you'll die outside the village walls!" Hanasaku asked viewing Kiyomi's expression of desperation and frustration as some manner of a joke. The girl pouted, she felt a bit offended that the woman found something to laugh at, this was her life, her pain, her deepest and most honest feelings, were they all just a joke to this brute!?
"Because they don't want me to be a real ninja! They just want me play one. Since the Academy I was bred to be some child bearing princess mare, I was never taken seriously. "Oh no, Lady Kiyomi, that knife cut your precious finger, let's fire your teacher who let that happen!" and bullshit like that was what I grew up with! It's more important to them how good I look in the royal kimono than how I can handle myself in battle..." Kiyomi's face switched quickly from anger and frustration and locked feelings of angst into teary eyes and sadness.
Hanasaku just sat on that dummy and looked at the Yamanaka for a while, her face was serious and she did look like she had a certain amount of empathy in her heart. She actually appeared to be lamenting the fact that Kiyomi was being spoiled.
"I won't teach you" Hanasaku declared.
Kiyomi leaped forward, trying to grab the woman but the brown haired fury just concentrated all of her chakra and let it go in a burst sending the blonde back as if a hurricane had just blown her way, the blonde's furious attack didn't even break Hanasaku's delicate balance!
"Why!? I thought we had an agreement!" Kiyomi shouted out angrily. She was both depressed and angry at the same time, she was thankful to whatever sick God oversaw this world that Hanasaku was a powerful ninja who could've taken all that Kiyomi could've dished out in her blind fury or else the blonde could've done something she'd later regret.
"Because you've been spoiled, it's been too long, you're a ruined child. I've no time to waste on you, there's a low cap of skill where even I can't help. I won't hold back, I'll give you all of the challenge right from the get-go because that's the kind of person I am. If I only used half of the teaching methods it'd be doing just what you hated – I'd be spoiling and pampering you. You'll either die when I get serious about training you or you will become a liar to yourself when I treat you like a little pampered lady once again" Hanasaku explained.
Kiyomi fell down on her knees, she clutched her eyes together desperately trying to restrain her tears. She wasn't a crybaby, she couldn't have been, it's just that all of it hit her so hard, so recently… Her brother dying, the clan becoming even more annoying with the pampering than they usually were and now Hanasaku refusing the deal to teach her. The blonde pounded the ground, again and again, opening the wounds that she had on her knuckles from before, blood ran wildly on the rocky ground dyeing the whole training area crimson red, almost like a petal storm of roses had just been brought its way.
"I… Brother… I'm sorry I'm so weak!" Kiyomi shouted out in angst and frustration. She was literally shaking in tension.
"Brother?" Hanasaku asked curiously when Kiyomi shook her head, her wild hair slipped out from the hairband and flowed down covering the girl's crying and pathetic face.
"He… He counted on me, he wanted that I became a real ninja, he always saved me, saved me from this stupid life of being just a toy, just a little doll heiress. Saved me from death and pain too…" Kiyomi couldn't stop crying, she stood back up and wiped her teary eyes looking at Hanasaku with brave and determined eyes.
"I wanted to become as strong as he was so that I could've been able to fight the people likes of which killed him. He died after he made an enemy from the wrong people, bad people, strong people. People who defy the rules and moral norms, people who are worse than scum! I want to learn to punish rogues, I want to learn to kill them like they killed my brother!" Kiyomi shouted out from the bottom of her heart. Hanasaku sighed and stroke her own wild brown hair.
"Well I guess then you have a motivation that'll keep you from dying. Let's make a deal, I teach you and go balls out on you, I'll literally break you and then pick up the pieces off the floor and grind them to even smaller dust. If you die in the process – it's on you, you'll be a disappointment to your clan and your brother, if you live that'll be because you have a determination to live to fulfil your goal." Hanasaku smiled extending Kiyomi her hand.
The blonde walked up to Hanasaku and the two shook hands, driving them together. Kiyomi shouted out in pain as her shoulder instantly shot out from its socket and her elbow twisted in a very grotesque manner snapping her hand in two. The girl fell onto the floor and Hanasaku forced her back up to heal her arm back. Even when the bones were being mended they hurt. Hanasaku was a lousy healer, her healing hurt even more than the injury itself, usually healing was supposed to feel relieving and good.
"We'll get there eventually…" she calmed Kiyomi down.
"It's fine…" the girl stopped whining and closed her eyes to endure the pain. "It's better to fall a thousand times and break every bone in your body while running than to keep crawling."
"You dummybutt, why would you crawl? You'd just get into more dog-poop if you're closer to the ground…" Hanasaku laughed.
"I… It was a meta… Why am I explaining metaphors to you… Ugh…" Kiyomi grunted in frustration but then the sensei and the student shared a laugh. The two didn't even know each other for more than an hour and they already felt like friends, something about Hanasaku made her pretty easy to get along with. It had to be her insulting lack of intelligence and brutal honesty because of her inability to think of both the reality and her lie at the same time…
"Hey, twinklefuck! Get up!" Hisako slapped Kiyomi waking her up from her glorious slumber she deserved so justly by passing out. "Do you have any idea where idol-bitch is? Did you see which direction she left at or maybe saw how she's doing? She's been away for a pretty long time and we see no signs like your burning forest to come to her aid…"
Kiyomi sat back up and shook her head.
Quack walked up to her and kneeled up to her level. "Did you at the very least get the bloody fucker?"
Kiyomi smiled, "I sure as hell hope so… Hate rogues…"
"You and me both, blondie…" Quack replied quickly popping a pill of some sort. Must've been one of those crazy medication things he had, what could it have been for though?
"You're a damned rogue, Quack!" Kiyomi snapped at him angrily.
"Not if everything goes according to plan, babe, plan to legitimize myself right after we off those fuckers and bring the richboy back… I healed the lives of you two lovelies far too many times for me not to become man of the year when I bring the three of you back." The young man smiled before coughing up like an old smoker. Black rings appeared below the youth's eyes all of a sudden, if those pills he was popping were so poisonous why would he take them Kiyomi wondered…
"Not if Mana dies, she's an actual idol to the kids, Konoha's Sorceress they call her, heard her magic tricks ain't too bad…" Kiyomi smiled looking at the thickness of the forest.
"Pffft, please, kids idolize everything these days, they'd tattoo their bodies with all sort of bullshit if they let them. You've no idea how many tits I could've signed out here…" Quack looked pretty sceptical about Mana's ability, that couldn't have been helped, the last time he saw the girl she was unconscious and burnt up, with smoking rags in place of her uniform…
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