Spear & Shield

Spear & Shield
Chapter 44

“Strong Fist…!” 

She caught him easily by the elbow, effectively absorbing his hit with relative ease. Yasu was surprised how easily she controlled her technique after only a few months of practice with Gai. Her skin was buzzing with the feeling of her chakra as it flowed through her system like a swirling tide. From across the clearing, she could feel Neji staring at her with his Byaakugan. She caught his mildly fascinated expression with a self-satisfied smirk. Yasu could only imagine what her chakra system actually looked like when she used her special technique. Neji was clearly not an easy kid to impress, so she would take what she could get, even if she was relying on a schtick. 

“Again, Lee!” Gai shouted, deflecting another swing of Tenten’s manriki chain from across the small clearing. 

Lee didn’t need to be told twice. He came at her again, increasing his speed as much as he could without removing his training weights. She had to snap to the side to catch his punch, her hand clenching around his wrapped hand and twisting. 

Lee went tumbling to the side, but recovered quickly back into an offensive stance.

She cocked a hip, the satisfied smirk never leaving her face. She liked the more casual pace of training with the genin. Her one-on-one’s with Gai had a habit of getting a little too intense nowadays (in more ways than one), and she could really do with the simplicity of training with a lower-caliber fighter. She had never found training particularly relaxing before. But now, she looked forward to it. 

“C’mon,” she taunted the thirteen-year-old, chin pushed out defiantly, “You can do better than that.”

Lee’s eyes glinted with determination as he rushed her again. This time, she blocked him with a curled arm, forcing the energy back out and sent Lee rolling in the dirt again.

“Try again, Lee!” Gai bellowed, spinning to avoid another strike from Tenten, “I know you can do it!”

“Yes, Gai-sensei!” Lee shouted back, pushing himself to his feet once more. 

Yasu’s heart flickered with pride as Lee struck out once more. 

“Leaf Gale!”

Yasu yelped as Lee hit her center with a strong kick. She managed to catch his calf at the last minute, dragging him with her as she slid back a few inches.

“That counts!” Lee declared, not at all bothered by the dirt on his clothes or the grass in his hair.

“No, it doesn’t!” Tenten argued back, now flailing her weapon at Gai chaotically in an effort to land a hit.

Yasu shot Gai a sheepish grimace, which he returned with a jovial grin. Maybe pitting Tenten and Lee against each other wasn’t their best idea… But offering themselves up as targets may have been a worse one.

“Her feet never left the ground,” Neji clarified, “Lee only wins if he knocks her over.”

Tenten’s furious growl cut him off, “Not if I win first!”

Yasu was absolutely delighted at the younger girl's fiery energy. "You would have won by now if you had chosen projectiles," she noted, pivoting to dodge another punch from Lee.

Apparently, Tenten’s “battle of the sexes” motivation was working a little too well. Gai had mentioned that she’s been a little slacking in her training since her defeat in the Chunin Exams. 

“She needs a strong kunoichi to look up to!” he had said, although her optimistic side wondered if he was just looking for an excuse to spend time with her. It hadn’t hurt that he had brought Lee with him when he came to ask her to train with his team. Something about that kid’s face made it hard for her to say no.

So she didn’t mind when Lee sent another sweep-kick to her knees. She even felt a flicker of pride when he spun to elbow her side. “Better!” she cheered as her feet dragged along the grass again. 

“Thank you, Yasu-sempai!”

Grinning widely in excitement, she caught Gai’s eye again. He winked at her over his shoulder, dashing backwards along the perimeter of the training area, keenly avoiding Tenten’s quick strikes. She no longer cared how such a simple action made her blush like a schoolgirl. Or how her heart raced with something other than adrenaline. Or how she grinned back at him like an idiot.

Neji’s groan was heard across the clearing. 

It had been so long since Yasu had been part of a team. She found herself relishing the heat of friendly competition. There was something about the teen’s fiery audacity and the way they took their training way too seriously that reminded her of her own genin days. 

Lee pinballed around her, jumping from one end of the clearing to the next in a wide orbit with Yasu as his center. Her head had to whip around to see where he was coming from next because she knew her chakra defense had a delay between when she registered the attack and reflexively moved the chakra to absorb it. 

She could see the frustration starting to show on his face, slowly eclipsing the determined stare he wore before.

“Lee!” Neji barked from the sidelines, jerking his head sharply to beckoned the other boy over.

They whispered for a few seconds, both wearing serious expressions and speaking in short, concise sentences. Yasu wrung her bottom lip between her teeth, hiding her amusement. She wanted to make a face when they kept glancing back at her, but indulged their seriousness with a challenging stare and a raised brow.

Lee nodded at Neji, eyes glaring once more with determination. Yasu met his stare with a smirk before re-centering herself. She was ready.

He came at her quickly, too fast for her to see. She felt him dash behind her, aiming high near her shoulder. She pushed her chakra, bracing for another blow--

A breeze and a blur passed by her knee as he darted around to her front.

The kick to her stomach knocked the wind out of her, sending her reeling as she fell backwards. Yasu’s back smacked into the ground with a loud “thump.” Her vision spun, but she didn’t feel any worse for wear. She barely registered Tenten’s cry of defeat and Lee’s victory shout. 

“I’m okay!” she wheezed, heaving herself up on her elbows. 

She met Lee’s beaming grin with a soft smile, feeling a conflicting mix of humiliation and pride. She smiled even wider when Lee looked over to Neji, sharing his triumph with a thumbs-up. She flopped back into the grass, taking a deep breath of fresh air through her nose. For the first time in a long time, she didn’t think of giant snakes and rubble. She didn’t think of explosions and screams. Instead, she thought about takoyaki and fallen leaves. She thought about the scent of ozone and a gleaming smile. She thought about green tea and the sound of a whet stone against a blade. She thought about these three crazy kids and their even crazier sensei.

She felt safe. She felt comfortable. She felt okay. It was nice.

“Wait... Yes!” Tenten’s piercing cry of victory broke temporary peace. “I got you, Gai-sensei!”

Gai paused his flitting, bewilderedly staring down at himself.

“Your shoulder!” Yasu called over, pointing to her own to show him.

Sure enough, there was a small tear in his signature green jumpsuit. The pair joined her in the center of the clearing. Yasu brushed off bits of grass and dirt as she stood, inspecting the tiny nick. She pinched the torn edge of fabric, pulling it gently, “She didn’t even break skin. You didn’t catch on a branch, did you?” 

“No,” Tenten answered for him, “I got him.”

“It’s a clean tear,” Neji agreed. “Can only be done by a blade.”

Yasu looked to Gai, “But Lee still won. He knocked me over before Tenten could hit you.”

“Not fair!” she pouted, re-sealing her manriki, “He got help from Neji.”

Gai hummed in thought, looking back at Yasu. She shrugged in response, “We never said that was against the rules.”

Neji huffed, crossing his arms, “I only told him about Yasu-sempai’s chakra delay. He figured it out on his own from there.”

“I had to be faster,” Lee supplied, beaming widely.

“We'll have to work on your speed, Yasu-chan,” Gai murmured with a pointed look. 

She shot Neji with an annoyed glare, to which he merely shrugged smugly.

“We’ll call it a tie,” Gai eventually declared after careful deliberation. 

Immediately, Lee and Tenten broke into a squawking protest of, “But Gai-sensei!”

They were cut off by the cry of a hawk circling overhead. 

The two adults flashed a rather serious stare, shattering the playful atmosphere of the morning.

“I’m being called to a meeting,” he told his students sheepishly. “We’re due for a D-rank in the afternoon, so you all should head to the Tower, too.”

The kids shared a look, “Yes, Gai-sensei.”

“Meet me at the mission’s desk,” he gave them all a thumbs up before disappearing from sight.

Yasu was conflicted by Gai’s sudden summons. It seems to be happening more and more lately. Come to think of it, she hasn’t seen Kakashi much, either. Something was going on. 

‘Hopefully it’s nothing…’ she schooled her expression before turning back to the genin. “Eh, I might as well walk with you. I have a service order for one of the upper-floor offices, anyway.”