Interlude: Training Day

Naruto woke up before dawn and stared at his ceiling sleepily for a few minutes. Life was definitely getting more exciting for him now that he was grown up enough to learn how to be a ninja.

He’d been back on his feet and good as new within a week of the Bee Incident, due mostly to the diligence of his two highly skilled medic-nin relatives who hardly left his side the whole time.

He was no worse off for his little adventure, except for a new unholy fear of bees and a greater respect for staying near Kaa-san, Ero-jiji, and ‘Zune when they were supposed to be watching him, and he’d become a little more attentive when they told him not to do something.

His bloodlimit had definitely woken up and become more active. Plants started acting very strangely around the boy. To say their yard had a dandelion problem would be a monstrous understatement, and while most little boys had puppies follow them home, last week Naruto had been trailed by a tenacious vine of poison ivy. He hadn’t asked if he could keep it.

He seemed to have absolutely no conscious control over his new abilities, and it was annoying as well as embarrassing. On top of that, whenever Ero-jiji showed up, he teased him mercilessly about the mark on his cheek. It wasn’t girly! No matter what the man said, the mark looked like ‘stylized vines and leaves’. Not like flowers. His kaa-san dutifully assured him this was so, and his kaa-san was ALWAYS right, unless there was money on the line, then you always guessed whatever was the opposite of what she said.

Naruto had been training for almost a year now, and they’d settled into a decent routine relatively unchanged by their frequent moves from village to village. His guardians were sticking to the “let him make up his own mind about his future” decision, at least on the surface. None of them were above attempting to pound their specialties into his head when the others weren’t looking and/or in creative or manipulative ways.

They also weren’t above trying to sway him to their way of thinking. Recently ‘Zune-neechan had launched a pro-medic-nin campaign proclaiming that medics were the natural enemies of bees, but he’d seen Jiji’s toads eat all sorts of bugs and never seen her eat even one, so he was pretty sure she was lying.

No matter what they tried, it was pretty obvious that being a medic-nin required a lot of stupid bookwork, and Naruto was having none of that, so he was leaning pretty heavily towards Jiraiya’s side of the argument. Besides, Jiji offered to teach him a FIRE jutsu if he agreed to be a fighter, and everyone knew that setting things on fire was way cooler than healing burns.

Naruto climbed out of bed and started his morning routine. No one else was up yet, but that was nothing new. Everyone else seemed to need more sleep than he did. As soon as he got his shoes on, he stood on tiptoe to open the door, and then slid out silently for his morning run through the village. He loved this time of the day. No one was up and everything was creepy and empty. It was pretty cool.

So far Naruto didn’t feel like he’d made much progress in his training. His Kaa-san was really careful to monitor his chakra use. If it got low enough, Kyuubi’s untransformed energy might leak through and make him sick, and she told him that if that happened he might not be able to leave his bed for weeks and he’d lose all that training time on top of being bored out of his skull! He still shuddered to think of all the crap they’d made him do while recovering from his first bout of Kyuubi-sickness. He’d written all the characters he’d learned so far like three bijillion times, and they’d started him on MATH and HISTORY. He HATED math and history!

That was also when he’d been introduced to The Chart. The Chart was a diagram of the human body with labels in various colors, and Kaa-san had told him in no uncertain terms that he’d better have all the things she’d highlighted in blue memorized by the time he was healed or she’d make him stay in bed even longer as punishment for slipping away from her and Ero-Jiji. The Chart had been used for creative punishments like that every since.

He finished his stretches and patted his tummy over the Fox’s seal indignantly before taking off in as brisk a jog as his little legs would allow. Stupid Kyuubi made everything harder! He’d been really surprised to learn he had a living thing in his stomach and that his dad had put it there. It seemed really kind of gross to him, and he didn’t quite understand how it worked. He’d had bad nightmares for MONTHS of the demon bursting out and eating off people’s faces after they’d told him the truth. He had a pretty gory imagination for a kid his age. Kaa-san called him “creative.”

He waved cheerfully to an old lady who was putting out her cat as he ran past her house. He loved the feel of really pushing himself to the limits, and he was starting to get into his first wind. Training was a million times better than watching ‘Zune read poison books or practicing making his letters. Sure, he hardly had time for tricks and pranks anymore, but he’d only really turned to them when he was bored anyway, so he didn’t need them like he used to.

The old woman waved back. She opened a bakery every morning and often saw him pass by on his daily stint. The child seemed to have inexhaustible energy; she wondered what kind of mischief he’d get into without his physical outlets? He was a sweet thing, but she was glad he had something constructive to do with his time! “Swing by on your way back, Dearie, and I’ll give you a sweet-bun!” She called. She’d always firmly believed in rewarding hard work.

“Yosh! Thanks Baa-chan!” he called over his shoulder.

‘Well, he was sweet, but that lazy no-good-mother of his should really teach him some manners! Poor Shizune-san, to have to put up with that lay ‘about gambler for a mentor!’ She shut her door and went to start preparations for the day with a huff.

Naruto continued on his circuit, now in even better spirits. The Old Bakery Lady made AWESOME sweet buns! Not as good as ramen, but Kaa-san wouldn’t let him eat that more than once a day, anyway. If he somehow managed to wrangle ramen out of someone for a pre-breakfast snack, she’d definitely make him eat with Yuhei-san, the village babysitter, whose husband owned the clinic they were helping at, instead of grabbing the tasty noodle-y food with Ero-jiji later in the day, and THEN he’d have to put up with the other village kids. They were just plain STRANGE.

Training was way better than any dumb game the village children here played. The seemed to have a weird obsession currently with a game involving pointy metal bits and a rubber ball in a circle. They called it “Jacks” he called it “Stupid”. The jacks weren’t even sharp, you probably couldn’t even kill someone in their sleep with one, and they certainly didn’t explode.

He reached the end of his route and turned around to head in the other direction, feeling the pleasant pulling and tingling in the muscles of his legs. As he ran he tried to make his mind stop wandering, so he could go over the list of plants in his head that ‘Zune had given him to memorize. As soon as he could identify each one and tell her what parts were good and what parts were bad – which ones made people better and which ones made people sick, she’d promised to buy him a set of these cool new training straps that had just come out on the market which acted like weights. If you put chakra in them, they got heavier, and they helped you with your control too, because you had to always concentrate a little to make them work!

They only got so heavy and you couldn’t wear more than one set at a time, so they’d only help so much, but Naruto still thought they sounded really cool…and they came in ORANGE!

That occupied him for the rest of his run, interrupted briefly for the enjoyment of delicious bakery goodness.

Once he made it home he ran in to get a quick shower, then grabbed “real” breakfast with his ‘Zune. Growing up he’d had a bit of confusion over what he should call his ‘Zune. Kaa-san got really sad looking when she tried to explain how Shizune-neechan was related to them so he mostly called her whatever he felt like, but he’d first called her ‘‘Zune’, since that had been his first attempt at her name and that’s how he usually thought of her in his head.

While he ate his cereal, ‘Zune grilled him on her plant lessons. She wasn’t supposed to teach him stuff when it wasn’t actually her turn. It was some kind of agreement the adults had come up with to try and torment him into playing with the creepy other kids more, but none of them stuck to it so he didn’t mind, much. He just had to be careful not to tattle on them to each other. Mommy always woke up late in the mornings, so she never knew that he usually spent the time before and during breakfast on ‘Zune’s extra lessons.

They’d just put the books away and Shizune was cleaning up the kitchen while Naruto finished his milk when Tsunade finally wandered in looking like she was still half asleep. Naruto hopped up and put his glass in the sink, accepting the mug of Kaa-san’s morning coffee from ‘Zune while he was there, and carefully carrying it over to the table.

Jiraiya said coffee was like a henge jutsu that turned zombie!Kaa-san into normal!grumpy!Kaa-san. Naruto didn’t know about that, but it did make her raise her head off of the table and make grabby hands in the direction of the cup, and after she’d consumed half of it, you could usually tell what she was trying to say if she talked to you. They never worried about Kaa-san noticing them studying at the table, because ‘Zune said she wouldn’t know if TonTon tap-danced on her head until she’d had at least one cup of coffee.

After all of them had managed at least a little breakfast – the amount Tsunade consumed dependent on how late she’d been up the night before and if Shizune had let her go to the casino – it was time for chakra-control lessons. He was only allowed to work on that for a couple of hours and he was only supposed to do it with his Kaa-san’s supervision. This didn’t stop him from sneaking out at night to keep at them on his own. He had to be really careful to stop practicing when his coils started to burn even a little; he’d be caught for sure if the Nine Tails made him sick again. If that happened, he’d probably have to memorize even MORE of The Chart before he was allowed back into his normal routine.

“Alright, Naru-chan! To the wall!” He’d originally been given a tree-climbing exercise, but that had turned into wall climbing instead when the trees kept cheating.

“Hai, Kaa-sensei!” Tsunade rolled her eyes at the stupid nickname and blatant abuse of the language and watched him get to it. He was a determined little bastard; she definitely had to give him that! She let him work on it until 10:00, and then called a halt so he’d have time to re-energize before his lesson with Jiraiya in the afternoon. The old pervert wasn’t around very often or for very long stretches, but he always insisted on training time when he was in town.

Naruto sighed and reluctantly stopped charging at the wall. He hated it when chakra lessons were over because then, he had to practice his normal people lessons. This was stuff ‘Zune insisted everyone, even future awesome ninja like him, had to know like letters, numbers, and history. He hated them now just as much as he’d hated them when they’d first been introduced to him, so he usually turned them into stealth and evasion lessons instead. He was getting really good at evading, but his ‘Zune kept cheating and having TonTon help her find him. TonTon was a traitor and he wasn’t ever again giving that pig scraps from his plate if she kept it up. She wasn’t even going to get his peas!

He somehow managed to slog his way through a chapter of his Konoha-centric history text. It was big, and he didn’t always know all the words, but he got quizzed once a week, so he had to try and learn it. Luckily, they only made him do history once a week. It was almost as bad at Kaa-san’s medic lessons, which didn’t even need a place in the rotation because he got in trouble enough that he ended up studying those really frequently as it was. He didn’t know why they bothered to make him learn this crap, he always just forgot it later, but they were adults and you had to humor them sometimes.

Kaa-san liked to try and motivate him by telling him that she’d show him how her strength thing was done if he didn’t complain about the schoolwork, but she’d gone and ruined it by telling him he’d never be able to do it as well as she could because he hadn’t gotten her natural chakra control. She seemed to think there was some magic in having to sit down to pee that gave you more natural aptitude for that kind of thing. He totally didn’t get it. He’d show her though! As soon as he could weasel the basics out of her, he’d try it over and over and over again until he could do it just as well as she could through PRACTICE and hard work! He didn’t need any pansy ass short-cuts like she did! Bah! ‘I’m so cool! I’ll show her!’

He was allowed to put his books away before lunch, which was always a hurried affair. “Hurry up and eat, Naru-chan! We’ve got to get over to the clinic by 1:00.” Shizune said.

Tsunade rolled her eyes, “Give the kid time to digest. If there’s an emergency they’ll come get us.”

Naruto ducked under the table. It was time for a Responsibility Lecture with a side helping of, Don’t Be a Bad Example for Your Son. ‘Zune’s eyes always sort of glowed demonically, and she seemed to grow about ten feet when she laid into Kaa-san about those things, and he couldn’t make himself watch. It was just too horrible.

“Naru-chan,” Tsunade eventually stuck her head under the table and winked at him. She was really brave to be able to withstand ‘Zune’s lectures like that, “Crawl out from under there and go get Orange. It’s time to go over to Yuhei-san’s until the Pervert comes to pick you up.” Jiraiya wasn’t allowed over to the house until well after lunch so he could only mooch one free meal a day from them at the most.

Naruto blanched. “No!” He hugged her legs. “Don’t make me to go!” He made his eyes really big and felt a faint zinging sensation that he’d learned to ignore zing through his face and chest. They had this conversation every day that Jiraiya was in town, and he always won. He didn’t know why this worked, but it definitely did. It was a good thing too because He was supposed to be babysat while playing with Yuhei-san’s twins at the park, and waiting for Jiji, but when they weren’t playing “Jacks” they liked to pretend they were ponies, and he had no idea what that was about and wanted no part of it. Besides, he wasn’t a baby anymore, so he definitely didn’t need ‘sat. He was sure his plushy frog, Orange agreed.

The little monsters tried to dress Orange up as a kunoichi sometimes, and he hated that. He’d told Naruto so.

Tsunade predictably melted. It was completely useless to resist Naru-chan when he used The Look. If she didn’t know better, she’d think it was some kind of secondary kekkei genkai or some element of his original one, but people weren’t Bijuu, so that was impossible. She sighed, “Alright, Naru-chan…go get Orange and your books and you can study at the clinic while you wait. I don’t’ know why you don’t like to play with the Yuhei girls. They’re perfect little angels with decent manners…unlike some rude, grungy, brats I could name.”

“Ha! Yes!” He cheered, ignoring her jibe and ran off to get his stuff.

Bookwork was bookwork, but he didn’t mind more of it so much if it was a choice between that and death by dresses for him and Orange.

Luckily for him, Jiraiya had caught on to their routine and he’d been chased out of the local bathhouses earlier than usual that day, so he was waiting for them when they finally arrived at the clinic. “You ready for training, Gaki?”

“Don’t call me a Gaki, Ero-jiji!” he scowled, marching over to the much taller man and glaring up at him, his ragged toy frog clutched tightly in his fist.

Jiraiya chuckled, “I’ll stop calling you a brat when you stop announcing that I’m a pervert in public!”

Tsunade rolled her eyes and strolled past them. They had a variation of this argument every day. “Shizune and I will be home around the usual time, unless something comes up…again.” Jiraiya had to train Naruto at their house because if he were allowed to pick the spot, he’d inevitably find somewhere with naked women within spying distance.

“Alright. We’ll see you then. Come on, Brat,” he grabbed the back of Naruto’s favorite bright blue jacket with the orange froggie hood and began towing the kid back the way he’d come, “we’ll see you when you get there.”

“Bye ‘Zune-neechan! Bye Kaa-san. Try to do your share of the work today!”

A vein in Tsunade’s temple throbbed painfully as he screamed that out at the top of his lungs for the whole street to hear, “If his father weren’t dead, I’d beat him senseless. There’s no way he gets that mouth of his from me.”

Shizune sighed and preceded her mentor into the clinic. Sometimes she didn’t know who the more childish one was.

†

Jiji was only supposed to train him for couple of hours, then turn him loose, but he never did. This was fine with Naruto, he’d probably just keep training anyway. What else was there to do? If he pulled more pranks, he’d just end up having to study more boring biology, and it just wasn’t worth it when he wasn’t bored.

Orange watched him from the porch as he kicked the log. He loved the kicking the log game. Jiji had introduced it to him as a reward one day after he’d shown “initiative” by asking a billion questions after practice a week ago. He’d set it up near the target practice dummy especially just for Naruto. It was so great! Naruto wasn’t sure what initiative was, but it must have something to do with asking ‘why’ a lot and bugging the old man to tell him what the whole point of standing on one foot on one of the thin clothesline posts was during the endurance portion of their session.

He’d also been ‘initiative’ during the taijutsu portion that day, he guessed, because he’d asked a lot of questions behind the stupid taijutsu form he was having trouble getting. He couldn’t seem to set his feet ‘just so’ all the time, and it felt awkward. Jiji had been pretty sidetracked and kept brushing him off while he worked in his notebook and giggled a lot, and hadn’t SEEMED to want to answer, but since he’d given Naruto such a great reward, he guessed it was some kind of test.

When Jiji wasn’t wherever they were currently living, Kaa-san took over the afternoon sessions and made ‘Zune go to work and heal people by herself. She called it her “prerogative” because ‘Zune was her apprentice. It didn’t sound like much fun. Naruto was pretty happy he was her son instead, but he definitely wanted to get him one of those prerogatives so he could make someone else do his maths.

Kaa-san always made him do the normal things like laps and sit-ups and pull ups, but when Jiji would usually have him work on Taijutsu afterwards, she liked to throw things at him. She called this dodging practice because she said a good medic-nin should never be wounded so they could always heal their teammates. The kids in the last village had a variation of this training but both sides got to throw things and try to dodge, and they usually used balls instead of whatever random things they could quickly pile up and lob at you when you weren’t ready for it, so it couldn’t possibly be as much fun as Kaa-san’s version.

†

When the girls finally got home from work, Shizune always oversaw his senbon practice. He really liked throwing the needles at the target dummy. It had been especially made to look like a person’s insides, and as he threw, ‘Zune barked out different targets he was supposed to be trying to hit. It was kind of annoying because then he had to remember his anatomy lessons at the same time, and sometimes she’d forget what he’d been taught and hadn’t, so she’d tell him to aim for the Hypopottamus or something, and he had NO IDEA where that was.

Naruto was pretty thrilled with the overall arrangement. He got to spend one-on-one time with all of his family members, and even if it was really exhausting and painful sometimes, it was way better than running around on his own or playing with stupid dolls like some of his peers had to do because their parents wouldn’t put up a log in their yards for them to kick. His greatest dream was to be a really cool ninja like the stories Ero-Jiji told him about his dad, and if he had to learn a few wimpy medic-jutsu to get him there, he was willing to make that sacrifice. He absolutely loved loved loved loved LOVED training for the most part. It was super fun, and he was really getting stronger.

Someday he’d be strong enough to make a name for himself and become a hero! He’d protect everyone, and make Kaa-san, and ‘Zune, and Jiji really proud of him. Jiji said that when he was old enough he’d take him back to Konoha to become his apprentice, and that they’d be really surprised to see him, (but they couldn’t tell his mom about The Plan until he was older, or she might not agree to it).

He didn’t know how he felt about that, because there, everyone would know his as “the Legendary Tsunade’s Son”, and they WOULDN’T know about his dad or Kyuubi. He thought it might be kind of hard to deal with not letting his secrets out, and it would really piss him off if everyone in the whole village expected him to be a super med-nin or something. It really made him mad when people did that. He was Naruto and his Kaa-san was his Kaa-san!

They’d see how awesome he was though, and it wouldn’t be an issue. He was sure of it!

He grinned, put the leaf back on his head, and set it to spinning. It still had a habit of falling off when he started to gloat mentally, but he was sure he was getting better at it. He threw another handful of senbon at the target dummy and whooped when they all hit it. Now he just had to fine-tune his aim so they all hit the specific targets and not just the dummy itself!

“How’s it going kiddo?” Naruto glanced over his shoulder to where he’d heard his mom approaching. He didn’t know why she wore such stupid shoes with high heels on them; she definitely wasn’t as sneaky as Jiji when she was wearing them, and HIS shoes were those weird platform sandals with the name that reminded Naruto of cheese. Geta weren’t very sneaky. “Ready to quit for the night?”

“It’s good!” He slipped his remaining senbon back into the neat ninja pouch shaped like a frog that Kaa-san had gotten him for a New Year’s present and ducked his head a little when she insisted on ruffling his wild blond hair. “Do I have to go inside now? I wanted to kick the log some more before bed time.”

“Aren’t you getting sick of practicing, Chibi, and what’s your obsession with that stupid log?” He looked up at his kaa-san while she spoke, “why don’t you ever want to go play with the other brats?” She frowned a bit as she caught sight of his knuckles from the variation on Kick the Log Ero-jiji had shown him today after seeing the neighbor’s niece sunbathing in the next yard over. He called it Punch the Log. Jiji SUCKED at naming things. She immediately took his hands in hers to heal them for him.

“No! I keep telling you, the other kids are WEIRD. They all want to pretend they are mommies and daddies instead of ninja, and even when I can get them to play ninja, they don’t want to run laps or throw senbon or even play the original version of Kick the Log! It’s MADNESS!”

“Er, sweetie, kicking a log isn’t really much of a game. What about hide and seek? You love hide and seek!”

He nodded enthusiastically, but then his expression fell a bit, “They don’t let me play that one anymore because they all suck at hiding AND seeking. They can’t even find me by my chakra, and you and ‘Zune and Jiji can ALWAYS find me by my chakra. ‘Sides, they all use smelly soaps that make them really easy to track.”

Tsunade frowned, “I’m sorry, Kid. I wish I could get you some other ninja brats to run around with, but your dad had a lot of enemies, and I’m worried they might notice the resemblance in most Hidden Villages. Maybe we can try Hidden Mist or Sand. They’re on decent terms with Konoha right now. I know it’s not very fair of us to keep moving only to these larger civilian villages.”

Naruto hated more than anything to see his kaa-san looking sad. “It’s okay, Kaa-san! I really love training. I gotta keep at it or I won’t get strong!”

“Being strong isn’t the most important thing in the world, Naru-chan.” His mother knelt down in front of him so she could look at him on his level. Kaa-san was really tall. “You know we’ll love you and be proud of you no matter what you do or how strong you get, right?”

Naruto nodded solemnly, “I know, but I really want to be a really strong ninja like Great-Granddad and Tou-san so I can protect you and ‘Zune and Jiji someday. I’ll even be able to tell people who Tou-san was, because *I* won’t need protecting anymore! I’ll be really cool, and no one will give us shit. Not even debt collectors!”

She winced a bit at that. “Wouldn’t you rather be a medic-nin, Naru-chan? You can save people and take care of them, without worrying nearly as much about having to kill or getting hurt on missions.”

He closed his eyes as she threaded her fingers through his bangs and into the rest of his thick hair. It always felt awesome when she did that so he didn’t mind even if it made him seem a bit like a baby to so visibly enjoy it. “I know, but I still want to be a protecting type ninja. I’ll still learn the medic-jutsu if you want, even though I really suck at it, but more than anything I want to be able to take care of myself and protect people like Tou-san did – even dumb kids who only want to crawl around pretending they are puppies all day! Watch me, Kaa-san! I’ll be a hero and everyone will know me for me instead of you and Jiji! I’ll be so cool that they won’t even care about Kyuubi! Even if I have to train every day until I fall down, or learn to kill, or whatever! I promise, Kaa-san, someday I’ll be really great like Tou-san and Uncle Dan, and we won’t even have to move around all the time anymore unless we want to, because no one will chase you out of race tracks even if you can’t find me to pick horse names for you after you lose all of our money.”

He paused to take a breath, “I’ll make sure everyone knows they can still chase Jiji out of bathhouses though, ‘cause he’s a pervert.”

Tsunade felt a little ill as a sense of maternal pride warred with her instinctive terror of her son someday returning to Konoha and trying to become Hokage and summarily being stolen away from her like everyone else she’d ever loved who had the same dream. She had an instinctive hatred for the term ‘hero’ and it made her a little sick to think of her son wanting so badly to become one. She knew most little boys wanted to be like their fathers, but most little boys didn’t have a father stupid enough to throw themselves in front of giant demon kings.

“It’ll be okay, Kaa-san. I know you worry about it, but I’m going to be even better than Great Grandpa Senju and Tou-san so I won’t die. It’s a promise, and you said a man can’t ever go back on his words.”

She sighed. This was all Jiraiya’s fault, she could tell. He was always filling the kid’s head with stories of Konoha and its great ninja, especially his father. Looking at her son’s determined face and seeing how hard he’d been working, though – her fear subsided, just a little.

“I’ll tell you what brat. You promise to become as strong as you can, and let me put my Sōzō Saisei (Genesis Rebirth) seal on you, AND don’t argue about wearing the monitoring seal the old pervert is working on no matter what the charm ends up looking like, and when you’re old enough that the other kids your age will be graduating from the Academy, I’ll let your godfather take you back to visit Konoha and get your forehead protector.” She didn’t trust the Kyuubi to always take care of him, and sometimes it might be better to lose a few years off of his total life span than to be sick in the middle of a fight so she was putting the Sōzō Saisei seal on him whether he liked it or not. She poked him in the head, right where her seal’s diamond shape would go, and her frown finally turned into a bit of a grin.

“You’ve got to prove to me that you can handle it though. I’m not letting you out of my sight until I know you can take care of yourself. That means mastering my super strength as far as you can and being able to take a hit from it. You’ve also got to be fast enough to dodge everything Shizune and I can throw at you, so you’ve got to get a lot faster and a lot stronger.” There, that was a good way to hedge her bets, there was no way he’d be able to achieve the chakra control necessary for the strength, at least during combat. With the Kyuubi taking up an unmeasured portion of his chakra at all times, he’d never had the pinpoint precision it took, and his ability to concentrate quite frankly sucked.

What she failed to take into account was how well he could commit something to reflexive memory if he tried it often enough so that he wouldn’t have to concentrate on it – and he wasn’t at all adverse to trying something as long and often as he had to in order to make it reflexive.

†

Japanese Notes:

Sōzō Saisei - Genesis Rebirth. This is Tsunade’s seal on her forehead that lets her regenerate but takes time off of her total lifespan to do it.

A/N: I have a qestion for you guys! After the next chapter is a mini-story arc of three chapters which my beta recommended I cut out because he thinks they seem a bit like filler. He's usually right about these things. ;) The problem arises in that I need something to fill that time gap, and I don't have anything else planned out or written for it. Also events from it will effect the plot later and be refered back to occasionally.

So, my question is, would you prefer to wait longer between updates until I figure out something else to go there, or would you like to read the three-chaper long mini-arc? Some of the information is kind of important, but it could be referred back to in things like flashbacks (which I hate ;_; but may be willing to do, just for you, my precious readers! ^.~)