Hatake Pride

Part XVI

~Kashin~

The next morning Shino Sensei had us outside for physical training, shuriken techniques specifically. I don't exactly know if he was trying to see how good our hand-eye coordination was, or trying whether or not we had the basic skills for this. He tried to explain to us that we were at the academy to learn, so it didn't matter that we messed up now, but the other kids in class were so excited that they cut him off by starting to throw shuriken. I looked from the shuriken in my hand to the target and then back at all the kids watching.

'Maybe I should cut my skill level again...' I think to myself, narrowing my eyes at the last layer of the target.

I brought my arm across my chest, twisting the shuriken before hurling it at the target.

'Uh!?' I stare at the shuriken that embedded itself squarely in the middle of the bullseye.

'Ok, then...' I pull six shuriken out and hold them between my fingers.

I take a breath, looking at the target before crossing my arms and closing my eyes, maybe if I don't aim I'll miss... I thrust my arms out, keeping my eyes closed before I heard mumbles and murmurs from the kids behind me.

'I guess I missed all of them then huh?' I open my eyes to look at the target but paused and gasped.

Every single shuriken hand embedded themselves in the bullseye all in a neat line.

"He's really good..." I heard Shikadai's voice.

'Damnit! Why can't I miss?' I grit my teeth at the target.

"Hey, Kashin?" I turn to look at Boruto standing behind me.

"Why'd you close your eyes?" He asked me.

I stared him dead in the eyes... the corner of my eyes catching the shocked looks set on Shikadai and Inojin's faces.

"He~ he closed his eyes?" Shikadai

"And still got all of them?" Inojin.

"Were you trying to miss?" Boruto added.

I stared at him, swallowing before speaking.

"I don't know what you're talking about," I told him before walking past and away.

I retrieved my shuriken, standing to the side as I watched the other kids try their hand at the sport. Shikadai and Inojin didn't do too badly themselves, but the next kid to do well was a boy named Metal Lee. He did this whole dragon dance stance before throwing his shuriken at the target, both landed in the bullseye so I won't judge, but it may be more efficient if he subtracted that little side dance.

I watched him ready himself to throw his next shuriken but once he realized that Shikadai, Inojin, and I were watching, his confidence in himself seemed to drop to below 10 and he threw the shuriken quite poorly. I tilted my head, not exactly sure what happened before shouting reached my ears and I turned to watch Boruto run up with a Demon Wind Shuriken in his hands.

'Eh? What's he doing?' I think.

"Demon Wind Shuriken... go!" And with that, he threw the shuriken toward the targets.