Chapter 12, Far Away From Home

Mirai's body felt completely empty. She hadn't put in this much effort in many years. After a while she even started losing the competition during the missions!

After a week without rest she looked at the two boys next to her with wonder. 'What had they done these last few years to still look this healthy?' She even saw them practice their chakra after the team was done each day.

Both Hikaru and Tsukune really grew in her eyes for each time they ended a mission with a wide grin. She had to catch up! In the middle of these thoughts she heard Sai declare he had a surprise for them. It was a new kind of scroll. 'Was this a C-rank mission!?'

"We're going to the land of Fangs to guard the stage for their festival. And that's not all.." Sai snapped his fingers and looked at them all, hoping for excitement "I'm going to use the spare time to give you all some extra training. We have a couple of days to spend in the town after all and I intend for you three to use it well."

Mirai was a bit conflicted. On one hand she was excited to get outside the village and getting a C-rank mission, on the other hand, she could use one day's rest. Though when she looked at the boys high fiving, she knew it wasn't the time to bring it up.

"Are we leaving right away?" Hikaru asked Sai, to which he shook his head. "No, but pack a light bag and meet me at the front gates in an hour. Then we leave." After saying his words, Sai flickered away.

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Hikaru ran back home and packed the few essentials he had. Then he ran to the front gates immediately. He figured if he got there early, he could do some small warm up exercises before they head out on the journey. When he got there, after only ten minutes, he realized that Sai was already standing there waiting.

"Sai-sensei, why are you already here?" Sai sighed, and looked up "I'm just checking how each of you get ready for your first long trip, is your plan to warm up or why are you here?" Hikaru nodded and begun doing his exercises. For the entire time, Sai examined his moves.

After about 20 minutes the other two showed up and was surprised to find the rest already by the front gates. It was at this point Sai said "Okay, let's go!" The three genin were all surprised "What? Sometimes you don't have an hour. Always get to the mission site as quickly as possible. So we might as well leave right now" This made sense to Hikaru and he nodded in agreement.

And so, they were off! It wasn't a very long journey for Sai but to the rest of team 2 it was a long way away from home. It was also going to be very tiring since Sai didn't want to stop, even once, before they reached their destination. This was going to be hours of running without stop. Hikaru of course knew that Sai slowed down to make it easier for them, but it was still going to be a right struggle.

"Now usually you'd want to take breaks to always stay in top shape, but today I'll be protecting you if anything happens so use this as a work out instead." Sai hadn't even broken a sweat as the trio begun panting. This went on for many hours and the sun had time to both rise to the top and go down below the horizon before they reached the village.

Right before dawn would arrive, Sai suddenly stopped. "Okay, now gather yourselves as we want to look respectable when we enter the village." Hikaru could feel sweat running down his face but it wasn't that bad. By his standard they were going in a pretty slow pace after all. The same could not be said about Mirai who instantly fell to the ground and gasped for air. "Thank god!!"

Hikaru and Tsukune stood over her and snickered "Did the little clangirl forget to work on her fitness?" They were just teasing her a little. By now she knew that they were just kidding with things like this and Hikaru saw her return the statement with a grin.

"Oh I'll get you back for that one. You just wait until I can stand again and then you're done!" Hikaru broke out in laughter and sat down next to her, handing her a bottle of water.

After a small recovery period they were ready to enter the village. As soon as they reached the gates, the guards sent them up to a building Hikaru could only guess was the Daimyou's building. When they got up to the main office they were met with a man holding a strange book.

'Icha Icha Paradise' was what Hikaru thought it said when the daimyou looked up from his book with red cheeks "Ah, there you are! A lot quicker than I expected from you but we're happy to provide housing for the five days until the event, of course!"

The man was very round but had a sort of nice grandpa vibe about him. Team 2 bowed their heads and Sai responded "Thank you. We'll be ready when you call for us. I think we'll spend most of our time in the fields right outside the village if you're looking for us."

As Sai-sensei said, they went out to the fields, and once there he put them in a line. "I'll now give you all individual training foci, if you want a different one please tell me but trust that I've spent time thinking of what you need to improve." The genin all nodded and responded in unison "Yes, sensei!"

He started with Mirai "Mirai. Your main trouble right now is your endurance. You have excellent control and powerful jutsus but not enough chakra to fully take advantage of it. I'll put together a workout routine for you to follow while you're here. Both physical and ones where you expend all of your chakra for it to slowly replenish." Mirai seemed to understand fully what he was talking about as she simply nodded and looked at him with determination.

Next came Hikaru. "Hikaru. I intend for you to learn the body flicker jutsu. To manage that I'll need your chakra control to get up to speed. I've seen the practise you've been doing and it's an excellent start, but these few days you'll be working with your feet." He was thrilled at the possibility of learning that jutsu. He had seen it in action and with that he could even easier end up behind his enemy to beat them quickly. Hikaru nodded and Sai went to Tsukune.

"Tsukune..I'd like to ask you to start learning my animation style jutsus. I've seen your scribbles from the academy days so I know you can draw and I'm also impressed with how well you can handle the basics so I want to make you my official apprentice." Tsukune was chocked at these words but his eyes teared up and he couldn't contain a smile so wide Hikaru wondered if it even ended by his ears. "I'd love to! I'm honored you'd pick me Sai-sensei!"

And with that, their few days of waiting had turned into a training camp with Sai-sensei. Mirai and Hikaru had to start working on their own as Tsukune needed the most attention to start out with, but by the third day Sai gave them all equal attention as they made progress towards their goals.