A C C E P T A N C E

P R O G R E S S

"No, no," Suigetsu sighed as the high collar of his open, black shirt flapped in the breeze. He pushed his white hair up and out of his eyes, trying to hide his growing annoyance. "The first sequence is Ox, Monkey, Rabbit, Rat, Boar, Bird."

"Yeah," I raised a skeptical eyebrow at him. "That's what I did."

"No," he chuckled and shook his head. "You're doing Rabbit twice."

"What? No I'm not."

"Yes, you are."

"No, I'm not! I'm just copying what you showed me."

Another cool breeze lifted from the shore line next to us as I tried to keep my anger under control in my second stage. 

We were in the Hidden Mist Village now, having just arrived the previous morning. Our goal here was to search for the rest of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen's blades since we didn't have any clear direction to go off of. Over the years, we'd managed to locate two of the seven legendary swords (we found the Executioner's Blade in the midst of the war and the Nuibari Blade in the wreckage some time later), but my fluctuating mental state definitely put a hold on things for a while. Although I still battled with my mind everyday, I was just as determined as Suigetsu to find the others and make his dream a reality. It was only coincidence that once we crossed the border to the village, Suigetsu had sparked another idea.

In order for a shinobi to use wood style chakra, they must possess both earth style and water style chakra natures. Suigetsu was able to figure out that if there was wood style chakra implanted into my curse mark, then logically that meant water style chakra had to be part of the equation also. Having never thought of this before (way to go Orochimaru), I decided that it would be wise to see if I could tap into that potential power and have yet another skill under my belt. However, the process was proving to be harder than I thought. We were in the fourth hour of training and I had barely created a puddle.

" 'yuka, I'm not lying to you," Suigetsu said exasperatedly, taking a few steps towards me. "Here, let me show you again."

He stopped an arm's length away from me and performed the hand signs once more, moving slower this time in the hopes that I would retain it.

"See Rabbit looks like this," he demonstrated as he spoke. "And Rat looks like this."

I rolled my eyes in a slightly offended manner. "I know what the different hand signs look like, Suigetsu."

"Obviously not, otherwise you'd have it by now!" he finally lost it before he could stop himself. I bit my lip in response and took a step back, feeling defeated that I couldn't get simple hand signs right. Suigetsu noticed this and smacking his palm to his forehead in aggravation. 

"Look, I'm sorry," he said quickly. "I'm just trying to help. You can do this, okay? So why don't you just try again?"

I groaned and crossed my arms, staring at the ground. "Why should I even bother? This is hopeless. I'm hopeless."

For a moment, only silence followed my words before Suigetsu cleared his throat awkwardly.

"Hey, no you're not," his voice took on a softer tone as he stepped forward and closed the space between us, placing both of his hands on my shoulders in his familiar reassuring way. "C'mon, look at me."

Slowly, I lifted my gaze to him. His rich, purple eyes no longer seemed annoyed as he showed me his famous grin. "Take a breath and don't be so hard on yourself, okay? You're actually making good progress. I'm just being an impatient asshole, that's all."

I nodded subtly, letting out a small laugh at his remark and feeling my face begin to blush as he continued to smile at me.

"I know," I agreed playfully, taking a deep breath. His eyes twinkled as relief washed over his expression. "It just doesn't make sense. How am I able to use wood style so easily, when I can't even perfect water style?"