𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐒𝐮𝐤𝐢 | ɴᴀʀᴜᴛᴏ

Gaara

_________________________________________

✧˖*°࿐

A week passed by like a blink and Kazumi found herself in a familiar place where faint sounds of running streams and chirping nature surrounded the area. Sanjiro leaned back against a tree in the distance, his eyes focused on a bright coloured book in his hand. The mountain she firmly grasped hadn't changed in the slightest. The only differences she could notice were the grass growing over the dented spots she had punctured all those years ago. Only now, the same spots would be punched in, preventing yet another span of developing nature.

The hidden away forest was deserted. Sanjiro would occasionally look up from his pages to see Kazumi's dangling state against the mountain. Her grip tightened around a loose rock, her last food threatening to slip off with the other. As she heavily breathed, she sucked in one last inhale before reaching for the nearest stable rock near her. However, as she did so, the loose rock broke, her arm falling to her side and her back tilting away from the mountain as she watched the broken rock fall metres to the ground.

"Ack...!" Her eyes rolled, allowing herself to fall back against the mountain whilst her feet applied chakra to keep her from deaths door. 

Sanjiro then shook his head, eyes lowered back to his book to scribble words inside, "Restart!" His strong voice reached all the way to her ears. "Fool!!" And his insults shouted straight after.

For the past four hours, Kazumi had been restarting from the bottom of the mountain each time she'd break the rule of using her chakra. With a beat, fed-up huff, Kazumi slid down the mountain and to the surface. Once reaching the bottom, she smacked her forehead against the rocky wall, deadpanning. 

Urgh, I'm gonna be sick... Is this the type of training Lee went through? I can't handle this without my chakra!!

Kazumi hunched over, pressing her palm to the mountain as she hurled out vomit. Sanjiro was indifferent to this, his grey eyes gleaming with satisfaction over his book. 

"Oh, and don't forget to run around the forest and punch the trees." The old man added, his attention falling back to his perverted book as he regripped the pen in his fingers.

He seemed focused and nearly lost in his editing. Kazumi could hardly know why.

"A hundred laps and a hundred punches..." Kazumi mindlessly mumbled to herself, heavy eyes focused on the dark clouds above as she pushed off the mountain's side to begin the cardio part first. 

Whilst she ran, her steps progressively became clumsy, nearly tripping over the simplest of things like small pebbles and sticks in which she'd stubbornly kick away. When she finished, she'd collapse against a familiar tree that had almost a thousand indents the size of her fists. As her bruised knuckles made the first punch... after a while, the girl let out cries of determination throughout the calculated punches.

Without chakra, her punches hurt. Without chakra, her developing stamina made her lungs burn. Although the hardness of her muscles was proving, the efforts were not in vain... as much as she'd dramatize it to be on the inside. 

99...

As she punched, her mind flashed to the memory of Lee's desperation. He had it a hundred times worse than her. And as she'd replay the sweating, pained state of him, her motivation sparked.