Iris [Naruto Fanfiction]

Pandora

Kakashi sensei took us into the forest to do some training to help us fight Zabuza. I'm not sure how this is going to work when he's in crutches, but we'll see.

"Alright, it's time for your training," Kakashi sensei announces. "We'll begin with a review of chakra."

Chakra? That's that blue stuff, right? All Aiko told me was that I need it for jutsu and stuff. There's more to it?

"We know that," Sasuke says in a bored tone.

"He's right," Naruto joins. "A long time ago we learned about, uh, cattra."

"Its chakra, Naruto," Kakashi says. "Sakura, please explain."

In summary, chakra is essential to all the jutsu a ninja performs. It uses both physical and spiritual energy that is in the body and hand signs focus and release that chakra.

"Right on all points. In this exercise, you'll be learning to control your chakra. Controlling your chakra must become second nature to you. And to achieve that, you have to be ready to put your life on the line."

I gasped. "What? What are we doing?"

"Climb a tree."

"Climb a tree?" we said in unison.

"Yup. There's only one rule. You can't use your hands."

"You're joking," I say.

"Am I? Let's see." He did a single hand sign and and started walking towards a tree. He put one foot on it's trunk, then another, and started walking up a tree. I really do feel like this is all just one long unrealistic dream that I just cant wake up from. Soon, he was standing upside down on a tree branch.

"The point of this exercise is for you to be able to focus chakra into certain points if your body. The soles of your feet are the hardest to focus chakra into. If you could master this, you could master any jutsu. Second, it'll help you maintain your chakra levels, even while in battle. This'll help maintaining chakra become second nature to you." He threw four kunai down at us, a single one landing in front of our feet. "Focus chakra into your feet and try to climb your tree. Use the kunai to mark the point where you were able to climb without using your hands. And try to get past that point each time. Start by running at the tree, Get ready."

I hesitated to pick up my kunai, but I did. The rest will probably be better at this than me. They've been in school way longer than I have, and they have a better understanding of chakra and controlling it. I only just got here and didn't know a thing about chakra, only that it I use it for jutsu. I might just embarrass myself right now, but I guess it's worth a shot.

I was so busy over thinking that I didn't notice that my teammates already started focusing their chakra to their feet. I quickly do the same hand signs as them and close my eyes, trying to do the same. Sasuke, Sakura and Naruto already dashed towards their trees. Sasuke reached pretty high before his foot broke through the tree bark, causing him to fall. Naruto didn't reach that high up and ended up falling right onto his head. But Sakura was able to make it to the top of her tree.

I knew it. They would be ahead of me. While they're climbing their trees, I'm still trying to focus my chakra into my feet. I become focused again and decided to stop thinking about them and just think of myself. Just focus on that blue chakra inside of your body. Think of it being brought to your feet. Concentrate. Concentrate.

Once I feel something tingly in my feet, I open my eyes and dash towards my tree. I was now running up a tree trunk, staring straight ahead at the tree branches and leaves. I must've gotten too excited and pushed myself off of the tree. Before I started falling, I quickly made a shallow line intro the tree trunk and started falling. I didn't realize that I had gotten very high up and a fall from this height could be deadly.

Panic took over me when I realized I might die, then I stopped. Literally. I was no longer falling. I turned to the ground and saw that it wasn't even getting closer to me. I was about a foot above the ground and the mark that I made on the tree looked like it was miles away.

It's probably me who's doing this, I thought to myself. To check, I tried using my mind to put me back on my feet. My body slowly rotated in the air until I stood up straight on my feet. I'm honestly not surprised at this point. There's many strange things that I could do.

I look around to see if anybody was looking but they're all too focused on their tree. I let out a sigh of relief at that. I don't need to give them another reason to be weirded out by me.

I look back at my tree and look at the line I made before I fell. It was so high up I had to squint to see it clearly. I smile to myself. "You're not that bad, at all."

***

I leaned my head against the tree trunk while I sat on a branch. My kunai laid next to me as I panted heavily. I look down the tree trunk and say the dozens of shallow marks I made while attempting to climb this tree. And now I finally made it.

"Seems like the female members of the team have mastered their chakra control," Kakashi says. I smile slightly while Naruto and Sasuke look annoyed and angry.

When I reached for my kunai, something sparkly caught my eye. I tried to look for it again but I couldn't find it. The sunlight hit the object again and I was able to see it twinkle again.

I climbed down the tree and walked towards the spot where I remember seeing the object. What can I say, shiny things attract me.

When I get closer, I see that it's something made out of gold, but it's buried. I start digging around it with my bare hands until there was enough of it showing that I could pull it out. Once enough of it was showing, I could make it out as a pandora box. It was made out of wood that was patterned, and the gold that I saw were at the corners.

I struggled to pull the box from out of the dirt because it was heavy. I dragged it out placed it on the floor. The sound of things clanking and hitting each other came from inside the box. I tried blowing the dirty off of the box and wiping it down as best as I could. My fingers ran followed the patterns on the box and my eyes saw something writing on the box. I looked closer at it, and was surprised to see that it was writing in english. It read, "This box can only be found, opened, and used by a witch."