Unbreakable (Book 1) #Wattys2015

Fine- Kakashi

                                                                               One Month Later

Kakashi back-flipped in retreat in order to narrowly avoid a mediocre blast of chidori from Hibiki's outstretched palm. Through the last few weeks of training, the young boy's echo clone jutsu had proven nearly flawless. He had been ready to learn something new.

And Kakashi could think of nothing more befitting for the young boy than one of his own jutsus. Now Hibiki was making immense progress. The boy had already mastered the basics of the jutsu; all he needed to perfect it was more practice.

"You can do better," Kakashi commented, partly in truth and mainly just to increase the boy's determination. He dove to the side, rolling to his feet to escape another discharge of the blue-white electricity.

Next to them, Katsu could be seen training Erika, Tamiko on break having already completed her training. The red-headed girl was now observing all the action from the shade of the slanted bamboo stalks on the outskirts of the clearing.

All around Katsu, a small pack of wolves growled and snarled at the Genin student before them. Summoning jutsus were what Katsu excelled at. She could probably call on a massive army of ferocious animals if she wished to. It made sense that a jutsu of summoning nature would be what she first taught Erika.

The young girl's lightning jutsu, like Hibiki's echo clones, was flawless but she was only able to practice it when real storms and rain showers occurred as not to attract unwanted attention. Storms that commenced out of nowhere would surely raise suspicion.

Erika was doing even better in her progress than Hibiki. She was so close to mastering her new jutsu, it was most remarkable. She learned with a peculiar ease, rarely making mistakes and never the same one twice.

Loud hisses distracted Kakashi from his training with Hibiki. Glancing over to where Erika stood, he caught sight of the girl surrounded by her own small army. But instead of wolves, her army consisted of pythons, the deadly serpents coiled and ready to spring in response to her commands.

"Well done, Erika," Kakashi heard Katsu say before sudden strong volts of electricity were blown into his chest, sending him flying.

When he hit the ground with painful impact somewhat thirty yards away, Kakashi looked up to see Hibiki with a triumphant look on his face, his fingers crackling with electricity. "Got you," he said as if that weren't evident enough.

Kakashi groaned and stood up, checking himself for injuries. He was fine, his muscles just sore from the electrocution. "Yes, it would appear so," Kakashi admitted, scratching his head awkwardly. Though he had briefly averted his attention to Katsu and Erika, he had to acknowledge that he had been hit with Hibiki's most powerful chidori blast yet. It was surprising that Kakashi hadn't been knocked unconscious. "That was quite impressive, Hibiki. Well done. That's enough training for now. Go break with Tamiko."

With a nod, and a mischievous grin, Hibiki went to do as he was told, extinguishing the volts of electricity sparking in his hands.

Tamiko had trained with Kakashi earlier in that day. In the past weeks, the girl had quickly assembled a crude puppet meant for attack purposes. Though the wooden craft was indeed a work in progress, Kakashi swore the puppet was looking more intricate every day.

Tamiko was a fine craftsman. Her puppet, the Red Deer, was shaped like a humanoid that scuttled on all fours and clacked eerily as it did so. Its mouth was a wooden slot that opened to reveal hidden knives coated in poison designed to shoot wherever they were aimed. It's ligaments were covered in odd protuberances so that when they spun, they could do considerable damage on a human's skin when making contact. With more adjustments, the puppet would surely be an ideal teammate to have in a battle.