Chapter 7

Next Morning

"YOU'RE LATE!" Sakura shouts at Kakashi.

"Hn." Sasuke grunts with a roll of his eyes.

"You see there was a little old lady that needed help with her groceries." There's Kakashi's lame excuse.

"Is she okay now? Does she need more help? You can go back if you need to. I understand." And my sassy retort.

"This is why you are my favorite student."

Now that the morning ritual is out of the way, down to business!

"So, Kakashi, what are we doing today? Sparring? Cardio? Stamina? Teamwork exercises?"

"Actually, I thought we could test all of your elemental affinities."

Hell yeah! My plan worked! Subtle hint drop about wanting to test my affinity and Kakashi brings the chakra paper! I wonder, could Kakashi have been such a bad teacher simply because he has never done it before? Does he really have no idea what to do so he is just waiting for us to ask? Let's put that idea away for later.

"Me first! I wanna go first!" This is going to be awesome!

"Alvarcus you're going last." Mean Kakashi-sensei! "Sakura, you are first. Come here."

Kakashi handed over a piece of paper to Sakura. She looks so confused.

"Kakashi-sensei? What do I do?"

"Channel chakra into the paper. Depending on how it reacts, it'll show your chakra nature. Earth nature turns the paper to dust, wind nature cuts the paper, water nature soaks the paper, fire nature burns the paper, and lightning nature crinkles the paper. Go on! Let's see what you get!"

Sakura channeled chakra into the paper. We all looked on in anticipation. The paper... got wet.

"I got water! Water is good right?" Sakura has a water affinity.

Good for her! That might prove useful in medical jutsu, the human body is made of a ridiculous amount of water.

"Elemental affinities are neither good nor bad. It depends on the user." Words of wisdom, brought to you by Kakashi-sensei. "Sasuke! You're next!"

Sasuke took the paper. Using one hand (show off) he channels chakra into it. The paper immolates.

"Fire." He sounds oddly smug about that. Well in cannon he does like his fire jutsu.

"Alvarcus. Your turn." Kakashi hands me the final piece of paper.

The moment I have been waiting for! What do I want? Wind? I could make giant string blades! Lightning? I could use that to paralyze my enemies! Water? Earth? Fire? Oh I don't care I have good ideas for all of them!

Taking the paper very carefully, I channel some chakra into it. The paper immolates. Fire, my primary affinity is fire. Who would have guessed that in the land of fire, I would have a fire affinity. I should have known.

"Woot! Fire! Oh man! Kakashi-sensei! You need to show me how to use fire chakra! Can you imagine it: Fire Whips! Muahahahaha! Picture it! Ten whips of pure fire flying around the battlefield!"

"Alright. We will start it tomorrow." Kakashi half-heartedly agrees.

There is move evidence that Kakashi doesn't have a clue how to teach. Is he just following my suggestions?

"For now why don't we have a free for all spar? Sasuke vs Sakura vs Alvarcus! Winner decides what D-rank we to this afternoon."

"Deal!" "Alright! If I win you can choose Sasuke-kun!" "Hn!"

We split apart from each other, making a triangle.

"On my go!" Kakashi says.

"Go!"

Sasuke immediately whips out two kunai and throws one and me and the other at Sakura. I deflect mine easily, you'll have to do better than that Sasuke! Oh crap he threw 2 kunai at each of us! I don't have time to block it again!

Without thinking, I do what I have been doing all week long: Use a chakra string. I attach a string to the airborne kunai, whip it around my body, and launch it back a Sasuke. I miss horribly.

"Did you see that! That was so cool!" I happily yell to my shocked teammates.

I can't believe it. I redirected his kunai back at him. With a chakra string and centripetal force. And Kakashi thought strings were only good for puppetry!

"Do it again! Throw something at me!"

Sasuke and Sakura are more than happy to grant my request. Our 3 way spar devolved into a fun game of "try to hit Alvarcus with stones."

For the first 5 minutes, I got a lot of new bruises. Stones hurt. But I got better at catching and throwing them back. Pretty soon it was even. For every one stone that hit me, I hit one of them. Then I hit them twice. Then three times. By the end of an hour, I could catch all the stones they threw at me easily. No problem! Then Sasuke stepped his game up.

He started throwing handfuls of stones at me.

Before I could easily use my 10 strings to keep up with their onslaught. But now? Impossible. What to do?

Each stone needs one string. I can make 10 strings, so I can reflect 10 stones. I need to make more strings.

How do I do that? I only have 10 fingers. Oh, there's an idea! Who said the strings need to come out of the fingers? I know for a fact that Sasori didn't need to use his fingers.

I make strings come out of my back.

That's right, back strings. It worked brilliantly. Sasuke and Sakura are gobsmacked. They have never seen me use strings from anywhere but my fingers. Hell I am pretty shocked too! This is great! Ten isn't my limit anymore! Just imagine how quickly I can paint fences now!

"Take that you stone throwing demons! I can take whatever you can dish out!"

Sasuke and Sakura make eye contact. They share a demonic grin between them both. Not good, not good!

"Uh... I take it back?"

"ATTACK!" They yell in unison.

Very soon I look like a mini stone tornado. I have a crazy amount of stones whipping around my body. Sometimes I could catch a stone and release it on the first rotation. Others I had to swing around multiple times. Like I said, mini stone tornado.

I have to say, that practice was really fun.

Later that Day, Mission Office

"Team 7, reporting for duty Hokage-sama. What missions do you have?" Stupid Kakashi, saying he gets to pick the mission because we didn't technically spar. I count that as a spar! I have the bruises to show for it!

"Hmm... Let's see." Sarutobi Hiruzen idly browses through a stack of mission scrolls.

This is my first time seeing him up close. Every other time we've come to the mission desk he hasn't been here. The one thing that really stands out to me is his age. The Hokage is seriously old. Like keel over and die at any second old. I'm impressed he managed to live this long, this is a world full of killers. I bet more than a few have tried to claim his life.

"We have a babysitting mission, a gardening mission, and a Tora mission." The Hokage tells us.

Tora? Why does that sound familiar?

"Team 7 accepts the Tora mission. They deserve it." Kakashi gleefully accepts the scroll.

That is not good. Kakashi is too happy about this. His happiness means others pain. Usually Team 7's pain.

"Oh really Kakashi-kun? This is quite the punishment." The Hokage sounds mildly surprised.

"I know. That is the point."

Why do all the older nin look like they are in on the joke of the century?

"Your goal: return the Daiymo's housewife's cat to either her or me. Good luck!" The Hokage finally tells us our mission parameters.

Oh. It's this mission. The demon cat of doom mission. Great. This is going to suck.

"Let's go team! The record is 4 hours! Let's try and beat it!" I hate you Kakashi. I really do.

We head out of the door. This is going to be difficult.

"Hokage-sama, isn't that a little, well, mean? Those kids have no idea what they are getting into." Iruka asks.

"It is better this way." The Hokage puffs on his pipe.

"I have to say, those kids are in for one long D-rank. What was the record? For hours?"

"Four hours and seventeen minutes. Think they can beat it?"

"I'll take that bet! They will beat the time. Sasuke is the rookie of the year, and even if he doesn't look like it Alvarcus has a sharp mind. Winner leaves an hour early. Deal?"

"Deal. Iruka-kun you should know that the record is 5 years old. Tora has only gotten more elusive and cunning with age. I'll enjoy going home early!"

"And you should know that they were my students for four years. I know what they're capable of."

The door opens. Team 7 enters.

"Oh? Give up already Kakashi-kun? That won't look good on your student's records."

5 Minutes Earlier, with Team 7

"So. We need to catch a cat?" I really hope this is not as bad as the anime, Tora was crazy.

"Correction: you three need to catch the cat. I'll be here when you are done." Kakashi you suck.

We're idly standing outside of the Hokage tower. Where could this cat be? Hopefully not all the way across town.

CRASH

All three of us gennin flinch at the loud noise. A cat knocked over a trash can.

"Meow." It happily trots over to me.

"Shoo kitty. I can't play with you right now. I need to go find Tora with my team."

Actually, Tora is a cat. Could this be Tora?

"Hey. Kakashi-sensei? What does Tora look like?" No way. This is not happening. There is a 0% chance this cat is Tora. Tora hates people. So why is this cat rubbing against my leg and purring?

"Mostly black with a bell on her collar. The caller has 'Tora' etched into it."

I pick up the cat. Yep, it says Tora on the collar. The cat - Tora – decides she wants to snuggle my face. How embarrassing. Turns out cats love me.

"I have Tora." I say to the rest of my team.

"Excuse me?" Kakashi asks.

"See? It says Tora right here on the collar." I peel Tora off of my face and hold her out so the others can see her collar.

They lean in for a good look. Tora instantly starts hissing and clawing at them and they all reflexively jump backwards.

"Well then. Good job team!"

Smooth Kakashi. When weird things happen, just act like everything is normal.

"Let's turn in the mission!"

Back to the Present.

"Oh? Give up already Kakashi-kun? That won't look good on your student's records." The Hokage disapprovingly says.

"We've finished." Kakashi blandly responds.

"Excuse me?"

"We have Tora. Mission complete." Kakashi pushes me forward with Tora happily lounging in my arms.

"But... that was 5 minutes!"

"Would you look at that! I get to go home early Hokage-sama!"

I hand Tora over to the Hokage. Immediately Tora starts hissing and scratching the strongest shinobi in the village.

"This..." the Hokage says while holding Tora at arms length and a great deal of disdain on his face, "is most certainly Tora. Good job Team 7. The new record for Tora retrieval missions is... 5 minutes and 47 seconds?"

An awkward silence settles over the room.

"Easiest. Mission. Ever." With those parting words, I leave the room with my team.

Outside of the Hokage Tower

"Good work today. I'll see you tomorrow at 5 am sharp." In other words, we will see you at 8am. Thanks Kakashi.

"Hey, Kakashi-sensei. Since we got done early could you-" POOF! "-and he's gone." So much for getting a head start on fire whips. I swear that man hates work.

"Sasuke-kun! Want to get some lunch together?" Sakura hopefully asks while being her eye lashes at the object of her affection.

Sakura you naive girl, he is never going to say yes to that. Acting cute isn't the way to win him over.

"No. I am going to train."

"That's fine too! We can train together."

"Alone." Ouch. That has to sting.

"Oh. Okay. See you around, Sasuke-kun."

Ah, great now Sakura is sad. "It'll be okay Sakura. He'll come around eventually. Once we get some more experience and complete some real missions together he will warm up to us."

I am so bad at making people feel better. Sakura looks like a kicked puppy! A bright pink kicked puppy.

"You really think so?" She asks with big hopeful eyes.

Did I just give hope to her? That might be a bad idea, Sasuke could still defect after all. I need to stop that. Step one will be getting Sasuke friends in Konoha, then he might want to stay. Where better to make your first friends than your gennin teammates? Maybe I should take my own advice. I rarely talk to anyone but family outside of training.

"I do. We just need to wear him down. We need to be friends with him, not just teammates. I know! We should start having team dinners!"

Now that is a good idea. I can expose my family to more shinobi and get to know Sasuke and Sakura better at the same time.

"We could invite Kakashi-sensei, but I think he will just show up late and miss everything." I can see him doing exactly that.

"That's a great idea! We can have the first one at my house! I'll go ask my parents right now!"

Sakura goes running off, leaving me all alone.

What to do, what to do? The sun is still up so going home is frowned upon. I guess I'll go back to training ground 7 and work on my strings some more. Hmm... one of the major problems with chakra strings is that my chakra control is sub par. If I want to be able to make an insane amount of strings I need better control over my chakra. That settles it! Chakra control exercises it is.

With a plan in my mind I head back to the training ground. Picking up a leaf off the ground, I stick it to my forehead.

'Okay, focus some chakra to make the leaf stick. Can't be that hard.'

Over the next few hours I stick leaves to various parts of my body. Head, hands, elbows, knees, stomach, anywhere I could think of. Turns out one leaf is pretty easy. So I grabbed another. Then another. Pretty soon I was covered in leaves.

"Take that leaves! I am the leaf master!" My voice echoes throughout the empty clearing.

Thankfully no one was around to hear my stupid declaration. That would have been very embarrassing.

"Okay leaf master, let's mess around with chakra strings now."

Letting all the leaves fall to the ground, I decide to try something new. I want to make a trap using chakra strings. I figure if it doesn't matter where the string comes from on the body, does it really matter if it stays connected to the body? I want to make a kunai slingshot.

So I pull out a kunai, attach a chakra sting to it, and try to attach the other end of the string to a nearby tree.

It didn't work. The second the string left my body it dissipated. Dang it. I will make this work!

"Okay. You can do this. One failure does not mean it is impossible. Think back, when you first tried making a chakra string you needed physical contact with an object. Maybe that is what I need to do?"

Giving it a try, I go over to the tree, connect a string from my fingertip to a kunai. Then I poked the tree and pushed the string onto it. Withdrawing my hand the string stays.

"Yes! I knew I could do it!"

With a lapse in my concentration the string fades. I'll have to always focus on it if I want to make this work.

"Sweet! Now all I have to do is make my strings elastic."

Setting everything back up (string to kunai, then string from hand to tree) I gave the string an experimental tug.

THWACK

"Ohgodthatsrightbymyface!"

The kunai is impaled in the tree a measly 15 centimeters from my face.

"Live kunai is a bad idea. Never experiment with live weapons again."

The good news is that I can make my strings elastic. The bad news is that was not the result I wanted, and I almost killed myself.

Upon further examination, the kunai hit right where the string was connected to the tree.

"Wow. That is actually very convenient. If I can get a string on an opponent I have a guaranteed hit. The string would just pull the kunai in to the target. That could be a cool taijutsu move! They punch me, I attach a string to them then BAM! Kunai to the chest."

As cool as that is, it isn't what I want. I want a slingshot, not a guided hit. I want to be able to aim my traps and not require physical contact with my enemies. Physical contact with enemies is a bad idea.

My elegant solution? Use two strings instead of one. I really did make a chakra slingshot.

Yes, I do have to touch the anchor points for the strings, but that is a minor issue. This technique is for setting traps, not use in the middle of a battle.

Over the next month Team 7 did a ridiculous amount of D-ranks. Which is okay, it is a rite of passage. Everyone had to do D-ranks at one point in time. What was not okay is Kakashi not teaching me how to make fire whips and Sasuke not agreeing to go to team dinners. Those bastards. Surprisingly Sakura and I bonded over coming up with plans to get Sasuke to Sakura's house.

Oh Kami that has to be the worst thought I have ever had.

Repressing! Repressing!

So, team dinners never happened. With Kakashi being stubborn and not showing me how to make an elemental change (which in hindsight could be too much for a gennin to learn without hand signs built into the jutsu to help) I greatly improved on all things chakra strings.

I can make my strings invisible now, except to maybe an activated byakugan or Sharingan. I have gotten really good at my slingshot traps, to the point where I can make 5 at any time. It's not that I can't make more traps, I just tend to forget where they are after I make 5. When I forget about a trap, it sets itself off which is very bad. We've had a few close calls over the past month and I have an awesome scar on my left shoulder now.

Sasuke and Sakura have improved too. Well at least Sasuke has. That kid trains 24/7. His aim is flawless with any thrown projectile and his Grand Fireball is getting bigger and hotter. He also is getting better at taijutsu, learning the Uchiha standard style from his scrolls at home.

Sakura... well she can run farther. She has a little more muscle mass. She hasn't really improved that much at all. She is a sweet girl, but she needs to take being a kunoichi more seriously. I think a good scare will get the job done.

Little did I know I would be the one getting a scare on our next mission.