Jiraiya's Second Chance

Finding Bonds

Sakura woke up with the smell of tea being brewed.  She has to find her bearings a little bit and ask why a tea should be brewing downstairs when she is still upstairs in bed.

Then she heard some sounds and cluttering in the kitchen, then the sound of the broom on the floor.  Oh, Aikiko is starting today.

Sakura slowly went downstairs and big bright blue eyes met her gaze at the kitchen.

"Good morning Obaachan. I cooked some breakfast." – Aikiko chirped happily.

Sakura saw some food on the table she pretty sure knows did not come from her pantry.  The fact is she is not a cook and her pantry would have practically nothing in it.

She tasted the bread in front of her and the hot miso.  It tasted good in the chilly morning. 

She watched the young lady dusting the store cabinets, and sweeping the floor.

An early bird, she thought. 

Sakura pulled some needle and the threads, and with a little cloth she handed it to Aikiko.  "Show me what you can do. " Aikiko, very nimbly thread the needle and was about to do the embroidery.

She has started doing some pattern when Sakura stop her. "In my shop, we don't use hand to embroidery we use chakra." Aikiko just stared at the lady blankly. 

"Ok, do this, try doing some ice pikes." commanded Sakura.

Aikiko face looked paled, "I can't... I might hurt you."

"No you will not, just do a single one." came the stern reply.

Aikiko looked at her new master and slowly put her hand down to floor. 

"Do it slowly and feel the energy in your palm as you create your ice."  Aikiko did as told.

"Imagine there's a dot in the middle of your palm and now imagine there's a dot on the floor... connect the dots with your chakra."  Then true enough a very thin ice shining with a whitish blue attached from the floor to the middle of Aikiko's palm.

"Good!"  She heard the old lady said... "Now do it with another hand..."  Aikiko stopped the chakra flow on her right and the ice disappears and she starts to do the same with the left. 

The ice suddenly splinters and flew to the direction of Sakura. She easily deflected it with her chakra strings.

"Obaachan were you hurt?" Said a worried Aikiko.

"Baka child, I'm a Jonin, little ice speck like this is nothing to me.  Now continue with what I told you to do.   So try the right again and feel how your chakra flow and do the same on the left. Practice now and I think I'm going to read my morning paper first. Don't laze around now."

So Aikiko did the exercise the whole morning.  In the afternoon, the old woman asked her to concentrate the chakra points from her fingertips.   There were a lot of mishaps with ice daggers flying all over the place but the old woman have strings of chakra deflecting or diffusing them before they break anything.

Aikiko for the first time felt safe using her ice because she knew her new master can readily control it.

Her hands were shaking by 3pm. The old lady gave her some balm for her hands and told her to come back early the following day.

Aikiko gave the old lady a hug before running out of the door. She can see the surprise on the old lady face but she just run off like a child with a sheepish smile. She has to go home do her chores but she can't wait to come back to the old shop, to a place where she feels wanted.