Fighting With One's Self

Chapter 17 - Back On Track

Yume's POV

Yoku seems ... different. Ever since Kakuzu operated on her. It's not something I can pinpoint exactly, and to be honest, I'm not sure that I want to. I saw her yesterday, through the window. She healed the fish. Her usual glow was on her face for just a moment, but then it was replaced again by something I don't recognize. I don't recognize it on her, anyway. It's despondency.

The Yoku I'm familiar with would have tried to get the attention of everyone around her to show them that she had succeeded. It's not that she was ever boastful. Just in constant need of congratulation.

Itachi called me away before I could go tell her that she'd done good. He's been drilling me to the point of death. He tells me that I'm weak more than ever, and I can see that he really means it now, because the Leader saw it too. Most of them are looking down on both Yoku and me. I think that Pein is regretting his descision not to kill us, which is my biggest motivation to become strong.

I just hope that Yoku gets better. She needs to, for her own sake, but also for mine.

***

Yoku's POV.

I asked a few of the others if they would help me train, but all of them are too busy with their own training. I've never really trained by myself. I don't know how. Pein said that I'm slow, but I don't really know how to improve it. Feeling foolish and useless, I make three Water Clones and the four of us run all around the building as fast as I can. The building has three floors, but everyone is either outside or in the training room. Pein's room is on the fourth floor. So I have the corridors of three different floors all to myself.

I do this for about a week. My muscles feel as though they want to tear, but I can still feel myself becoming faster. For a week longer, I run with chakra in my legs, the whole day, resting as little as possible.

During the following week, I started doing target practices and fighting dummies along with the others, but I couldn't believe how weak I was. For four days straight, I was beaten to a pulp by the Beginner dummies, not being able to dodge a single hit, not to mention landing one. On the fifth day, I was able to dodge a few hits, and on the sixth, managed to land one once.

I formulated something of a program for myself: upon waking up I practice my medical skills. After that, I run around the building with three Clones and chakra in my legs. After lunch until before dinner I'm in the training room, and after that I heal a fish again before going to sleep.

It's exhausting. Even though I get a full ten hours' worth of sleep, it takes me several seconds before I actually wake up, and dark shadows start forming under my eyes. During my continuing pursuit to become stronger, I never see Dei-kun or Yume-chan except during mealtimes. I feel bad about it, but I'm determined not to be a waste to the orginasation.

Finally, two months after Kakuzu operated on me, Kisame-sensei catches me mid-run on the thrid floor.

"You look awful, Yoku," he tells me.

"I've been training like everyone told me to," I say.

"It's good to train and also good to obey orders, but there was no need for you to exhaust your body like-"

"Yes there is!" I say angrily, "You wouldn't understand, sensei! You've never been weak. You've never been looked down upon by absolutely everyone around you-"

"Nobody looks down-"

"They do!" I interrupt him again, "The Leader, I can understand, to some extent. I can even understand Itachi-san. But the rest of you ... You don't actually say it, but I've seen the way all of you shake your head at me with smirks on your faces when I can't defeat those damned dummies! Dei-kun won't say anything, but I know-"

"Those weren't Beginner dummies," he says. I freeze, believing I heard wrong.

"What?"

"Hidan played a prank on you. Those were Intermediate level dummies. That's two levels stronger than what you thought you had been fighting. Everyone shook their heads and smirked because they were impressed. And the stuff Kakuzu has been instructing you to do ... no person except him that I know of got the hang of it by themselves. I'm proud of you, Yoku."

It takes several seconds for Kisame-sensei's words to sink in. I swear, he probably thought I had gone mentally ill or something. I literally froze, didn't breathe or anything, for a full ten seconds.

Then I exploded.

"Kisame-sensei, how on earth could you do that to me?!" I demand, running forward and punching him on the chest repeatedly, "I've gone weeks, weeks, without resting, barely eating, drilling my muscles until they were about to start tearing, sleeping, and then just waking up to do it all over again! You guys played a prank on me! Seriously?! A prank?! Do you have any idea what I've felt like these past two months? I felt useless!"

I continue ranting for several minutes, until finally tears start streaming down my face. I can see Kisame-sensei is trying his best not to start laughing, and that only makes me angrier. My wolf ears and tail even appear. But through everything, getting it all out makes me feel better. I haven't felt like myself lately. I've never been such a gloomy person, and feeling useless was tiresome. Now I know that I have done good, what most people can't do. I feel my old self coming back again.

Eventually I stop punching him, and I step back with a few sniffs.

"Are you finished?" he asks, still struggling to maintain a straight face. I nod silently. "Go get some rest. You need it. I'll call you for dinner." I nod again, turn around, and walk away.