Overcoming Adversity (Samejima)

[Kazumi]

Much to Yumi's delight, Naoki had agreed to help her train! While it was only a week ago that she had woken up in the hospital, she had been cleared and released just the day prior and wanted nothing more than to triple her prior efforts in becoming a shinobi. She knew the odds were entirely stacked against her and that it was pretty much a hopeless case, but something urged her on in the back of her mind; a dark corner of her brain that wanted to get revenge as it covertly manipulated the rest of her thoughts towards that malignant goal.

Unfortunately she was running a little late that late evening, when all the students had gone home and the complex was almost deserted. She was not sure why Naoki had asked her to meet her at this location, or even this time, but it brought her back not-so-fond memories of that night class which had forced her to wear that garish weighted outfit. She reflected back to when her parents had refused to allow her to wear it while at home with them, and how she had defied their wishes in secret when she could. That thought caused the girl to forcefully blink away the desire to bury herself in self pity; there was no way she could become a shinobi is she couldn't keep herself from crying.

Garbed in a form fitting black t-shirt that didn't quite cover the scarred skin where her right elbow abruptly ended and looser fitting matching training shorts, she jogged into the training pits where Naoki had instructed her to be. She hoped that the girl hadn't left, not that she truly expected such, but there was always that possibility. Across her shoulders she had that familiar black dufflebag hanging on her right side, its bobbing slowing to stillness as she herself slowed to a casual walk, only slightly out of breath from her trek there.

 

[Samejima]

Oooh, I hope I can do this right... I haven't taught anyone about stuff before... What if I end up teaching something wrong or forget to correct her form when she does things? Or if I just casually refer to her arm and end up wrecking the mood, or start being so darn weird that I need to meditate for three thousand years to stabilize my thoughts or-

Clearly, Samejima Naoki was in no fit state to be training others. Despite having trained herself for quite some time already, she still didn't have the confidence necessary to train students, especially not one of her friends. She sucked it up though, and gave herself a few brisk slaps before Yumi got there. Come on! You can do this! Yumi asked you if you could train her, and you said you did so you should! Let's go Naoki, just remember what you did and you'll do fine!

She heard footsteps, and a heartbeat approaching, but was careful not to turn until she could be sure who it was. After snapping her fingers a few times, Naoki turned in the direction of the newcomer. "Yumi, hi! Are you ready?" If she was, Naoki would proceed, but if she had other things to prepare or ask first, she'd wait until those were done.

The first thing one needed to do was ascertain the joints wouldn't be strained, and to this end there should be some stretching involved before each training session... Provided this was indeed what Yumi wished to learn. "Okay, so we should start off with basic stretches, and... maybe a couple laps?" she said, somewhat uncertain.

 

[Kazumi]

Her breathing still slightly labored, she offered Naoki a wide smile as she realized the older girl had not decided to depart before she got here. In retrospect she realized five minutes would not be that much, but there were some teachers at the academy who would have locked her out of their classroom for not being five minutes early. "Mhmm, I think so." She reached over and pulled the bag's strap up over her head so she could set it on the ground beside her. Yumi would not have told the other girl, though it was entirely possible that one of the nurses might have, that her doctor recommended that she take it very easy the next couple of months. Not that she needed to follow such advice, shinobi didn't care about small things such as reopening stitched flesh or aggravating healing injuries!

"Whatever you say Samejima-sensei!" Her words had even more energy than she had when she heard she was to be released from the hospital, and she bounced lightly on her feet with enthusiasm. "Should I do them just around the rings here or?" She glanced past Naoki and over towards the large sand rings, at least a hundred feet in diameter which served as sparring grounds for shinobi who didn't have plans in throwing boulders or balls of fire. Those that did would never receive such nicely decorated grounds.

 

[Samejima]

"Ahh, just Naoki will be fine! I'll get all weird if you call me sensei..." Naoki said, holding her hands up. "We'll jog together later on, after stretching okay?"

She walked over to stand in front of Yumi, starting out with a few basic ones for legs before moving on to the neck loosening and arm pulls, which were done with consideration for Yumi's lack of one of her appendages. Next were back stretches, and those were somewhat less awkward.

"Okay, feeling fine? Nothing hurts right?" She was just released from the hospital after all, what if her head still hurts or something? As a precaution, she snapped her fingers a few times to send sound waves through the area, making sure Yumi wasn't standing funny or generally somewhat odd. If she was, whatever seemed funny would be questioned before she'd start walking towards the jogging area. "Just match my pace okay? Can't go too fast or... the point of the training would be moot!"

...Which was really just a random phrase she'd picked up, whenever she couldn't get an answer for why she went through the training she did. Either way, she needed to prevent the currently very eager-seeming Yumi from going too fast and tripping, reopening a wound or something very, very bad even for experienced shinobi like that.

 

[Kazumi]

"If you say so Naoki-sempai!" She was quite formal and enthusiastic today, which were both rather odd for her. She never was one who lacked energy or eagerness, or a short attention span... but formal enthusiasm was new as far as Naoki would know. She mimicked Naoki's movements with ease, considering the girl was going slow and stead for the newly released student. She didn't even stumble as Naoki expertly avoided any that might have been awkward for the other girl to perform.

Once they were finished, Yumi would spring up to her feet and bounce eagerly on her toes. "Just fine, spent so much time in that bed, I'm just eager to get up and do some stuff." It might cross Naoki's mind that the excess enthusiasm might simply be her way of compensating for any other feelings, or it simply might be all the excess energy she did not get a chance to burn the week prior. In either case she sprung forward to get beside Naoki as they walked towards the track. "So, what all did you have in mind? Anything cool you learned from your teachers and stuff? Advanced genin training techniques?"

 

[Samejima]

Naoki pondered the honorific Yumi used, unsure of how to react. S-senpai... sounds cool... Well, if she doesn't mind... "A-ah, okay then, um.. let's get started."

After the stretches, she heard Yumi asking about training techniques, and replied, "There's not much that's special after reaching genin really... Just more hours of training or more repetition... Oh, but depending on what you wanna do later on, you can have special sorts of training! Like if you wanna be a mednin and cure people, you train with that kinda knowledge in mind, and if you wanna be ANBU and help people... catch other people...? You can see if you have the aptitude for it before asking to join. That'll be in a while though, after we're sure you're good to go for missions and things like that."

"I'm going to be in the Main Branch, which just focuses on the village itself, so I'm just doing basic training and patrols. I heard mednins have a loooot of books to read, and ANBU seems really dangerous since you're dealing with the ones who break the law..." She did tend to ramble a little when it came to these future talks. This talking was done while jogging a little of course, not wanting to slow down progress.

 

[Kazumi]

Despite her enthusiasm on the matter, jogging was still an awkward beast for Yumi to tackle. On her way here she had used the bag as a counter weight, and now with only one arm to keep her balance as she ran it looked and felt awkward. Pushing through that, she pressed forward to keep up with Naoki as she compensated as best she could, listening all the while as her instructor talked. "I think I've had my fill of hospitals for the next... few dozen lifetimes or so." She gave Naoki an amused chuckle as they rounded a wide turn.

"So no sort of special training stuff? I figured they kept all the cool stuff for when people got past the academy." She sounded mildly disappointed, but her eagerness overshadowed most of it. "Come on, lets go a little bit faster." Without a second's wanting Yumi began to dash off, allowing her arm to hang backwards as a counterweight as she leaned into the jog as it transitioned into a full blown run. It was not nearly as fast as Naoki could likely do, but compared to what Yumi could have done less than a year ago it was astonishingly quick. Getting used to wearing weights that were almost as heavy as you were did have their advantages.

 

[Samejima]

Chuckling along, somewhat half-heartedly, Naoki nodded and carried on jogging. As Yumi took off however, she tried to keep the girl from rushing forward too much, trying to think of some ways to keep Yumi interested while not letting her run too quickly. Catching up fairly easily, she said a few more words that would hopefully slow the student down, "I'll stay at this pace, but you can go ahead and run as fast as you want, as long as you're sure you'll be able to handle what's coming up next okay?" She then grinned, and dropped her pace back to what it was when they started out, fervently wishing she knew how to tell people things were for their own good.

Even if I say stuff is coming up next... It's really all just basic training... Wouldn't be anything she couldn't really handle, since she's been doing it all. Should I try doing something else...? Naoki thought many things to herself, and having prepared nothing but the knowledge she herself had about training sessions, she seemed to be woefully unprepared for these situations.

Regardless of whether or not Yumi did drop back to her pace for the remaining 9 laps (she would tell Yumi to stop and rest once she'd completed the same number) the training would continue, once they'd both taken appropriate swigs of water and had some time to wind down a bit.

 

[Kazumi]

Perhaps to Naoki's chagrin Yumi kept up at the pace, apparently encouraged by Naoki's words rather than put off by them. She didn't have any real idea as to what the training was, but she didn't want to slow down. She couldn't afford to slow down after all. The point in which the Academy would decide if she was fit enough to stay further was fast approaching and she simply did not have enough time to take it slow. Truthfully, she didn't have enough time even before the incident, as she was sure they were going to eject her, for her own good they would say.

Gritting her teeth with determination she actually sped up a small bit as she lapped Naoki a few times, controlling her breath as best she could at the accelerated rate. Once she had completed the full set and her senpai had instructed her that she had completed her laps, she stumbled forward a little and collapsed to her knees as her lungs fought for enough air to compensate for all the energy she had burned. Sweat was already running down her forehead and if it was not for the cool air that pervaded the area she might have simply collapsed from exhaustion. She would remain in that pose until Naoki had finished her own set, gratefully taking any water she was offered as her breathing slowly returned to normal.

 

[Samejima]

Well, she knows herself best... Naoki thought, as Yumi sped up. She hung around a little around where they'd started their jog at Yumi's final lap to tell her she'd finished hers, and completed her own remaining laps at the pace she usually took to complete training, which was quite a bit faster than the pace she was going at before, to keep the session moving. Having trained for a long time as well, she wasn't as winded as Yumi by the time the laps were done, but was still panting enough to be able to know that she looked a little more awake than she was before, eyebrows raised and slightly euphoric from the running.

Handing Yumi one of the two bottles she brought, she took a sizable gulp and set the bottle back down before starting on the next basic training. "Shuttle runs are next... usually. But um, we could go with sit-ups next, since you've been running a lot faster," she said, sitting down in front of Yumi to hold her feet down. "Sit up, hold it for one second, then back, each action shouldn't take longer than a second. How many do you usually do?" She'd ask the student to do just about the same amount as she usually did, with an added 10 if Yumi seemed less tired after the short break.

 

[Kazumi]

Yumi gladly collpased backwards onto her butt, her left hand holding the bottle to keep it from spilling. Her breathing was about the same as Naoki's was now, even with the long resting period. "Whatever is good with me..." She replied before giving Naoki her best guess as to what she remembered the number being. She glanced around the area before putting the bottle between her legs to hold it in place as she screwed the top on with her left hand. She was still new to this, but certain things had obviously come up in the past week and she was adjusting quickly enough.

She set the bottle aside and would start on the amount that Naoki had prescribed, doing them as quickly as she was able while still holding the peak for just under a second. She was a little surprised herself when she was able to go past the set amount and was able to complete the extra ten with only a moderate amount of discomfort. Perhaps the rest time in the hospital had done her more good than she had figured. An ache in her chest caused her to pause a moment but after she allowed herself to rest back it soon settled back down. Breathing heavily once again she idly asked, "what did you have to do for your examination?"

 

[Samejima]

"Nice work! ...For my exam? It was a written- well, sorta written, test and fighting a practice dummy... It wasn't too bad really, I mean, I did kinda get hurt a little... Hmm," she paused. Oddly to her, she still remembered every detail of that exam quite well. "Either way, it wasn't anything too complicated."

"Next thing is step practice, which is really just coordinating footwork and balance... She's still breathing pretty hard... I'm sure that means she's really tired, but... "Um, did you wanna take a bit of a break first? I can tell you about stuff that happened in the exam, or that time I tried helping with people getting back into Suna, that was a pretty... well, not exactly pretty but it was cool!"

Naoki laid down on the sand at that, horizontally relative to Yumi's position, not worrying much about anything at that point. The threats have passed, though she still had to remind herself of that sometimes. "It was pretty dangerous back then, even for regular Sunan citizens..."

 

[Kazumi]

She was hurt from fighting a practice dummy? Maybe that was back before she was really good at getting around without being able to see? She pushed herself up from her prone position and sprang to her feet as Naoki continued to talk. "You can go ahead and rest if you need to," she replied fervently between breaths, "I need to keep going." She then lowered herself to the ground to get into a push up position as Naoki continued to relate the story.

The girl hesitated a few seconds before awkwardly trying to perform them on one arm. Needless to say she wasn't capable enough to maintain her balance and push all of her body weight up on that single arm and she collpased to the ground after rising up about half way as her hand slipped out from under her. She let out a small grunt of surprised and pain, but within seconds she was trying to push herself up in the same manner.

 

[Samejima]

At a loss as to what she could do, not being used to telling people how to do things, Naoki stood by for a bit to give Yumi some time to try whatever it was she did as basic training. Was she doing one-handed push-ups already? Naoki then heard a thump, and what sounded like surprise coming from the girl, deducing this was not the case.

"Yumi!" she exclaimed, getting up to be sure she was alright. Mmm... so she wants to learn how to do these... "It's okay if you don't want to take a break, but you just got out of the hospital so it'd be good if you didn't push yourself so hard..."

She stopped and thought a little, thinking Yumi wouldn't exactly stop just because the genin thought she was pushing herself. Naoki ran through a few possibilities, trying to negotiate with Yumi's determination instead of rushing at it head on. "Let's do a trade then - you take a three minute break, and I'll tell you a trick to doing one-armed push ups to the fullest... How does that sound?" I have been doing them for awhile now, as part of training... Though I guess it's pretty much just common sense, once you think about it. All about form and stuff.

 

[Kazumi]

She looked determined to be able to do it herself, but it was clear she had not even attempted doing such an awkward pushup stance before and her hand slipped out from under her a few seconds after Naoki offered her the deal. Still breathing heavily she maneuvered herself around to a sitting position with only moderate difficulty and reluctantly replied, "fine... but I want to get to the meaningful stuff soon too. I am not going to be able to impress the instructors with push ups."

Yumi sounded mildly annoyed, but moments after she spoke she looked away from Naoki with most of her annoyance directed towards herself. It seemed that the chipper enthusiasm took a good deal of effort to maintain, and tiring herself out left precious little energy to maintain that with. "Can't you show me how shinobi fight or something? Something useful?" Again she sounded annoyed with her instructor, and again she shrank back into self-deprecation after realizing it.

 

[Samejima]

Well, I can't say I didn't expect her to be annoyed... She's been pretty energetic after all, I'm probably just being a big buzzkill... "Now now... All in good time!" she replied, a little apologetic but mostly trying to keep the mood up. "They'd be pretty impressed with how you can learn to do some just a day after you get out of the hospital, I'd bet, but they wouldn't really be very happy if you ended up hurting yourself because of this..." Argh, way to keep the mood up! "Ah, um, I do have some things about maneuvers, if you wanted to know about them! Effective counters and things like that, though those're really more reflexes than anything else... If you haven't gotten to those yet, I can tell you how they work in a little bit?"

She hadn't been able to read much so far, but the scenarios she's run through supplied her with some material, albeit purely theoretical material, that was beyond the basics she's learned at the Academy. Knowledge of how the human body works helped as well, though it wasn't as refined as she'd have liked as she doesn't attend mednin classes. Mostly just from observing how she herself reacts to certain situations.

 

[Kazumi]

As she listened to Naoki talk her attention drifted away from her own self-annoyance and back over to her instructor. She watched the girl talk for a moment and when she spoke of reflexes a idea flashed in Yumi's mind. The girl's face lit up and enthusiasm crept back into her eyes, "I've got it!" she suddenly exclaimed, almost cutting off the last thing that Naoki had said.

"Can you show me how to do that? With the blindfold? You do it like... completely naturally, and so you can show me how to do it while we do other stuff. If I could do that it might be something I could use to show off and convince the academy that I still can be a great shinobi. I can even do it single handedly!" A smile streaked across her face as she made the little joke and she looked over towards Naoki with almost unbridled enthusiasm, the fatigue apparently gone from her along with any traces of agitation.

 

[Samejima]

"Hmm... About that though... I'm not sure how it's happening, aside from just the fact that it's in my blood. That affinity with sound that I have is what helps me with moving around without, y'know, crashing into things. So when there's no sound anywhere, it's all just... black."

That smile on Yumi's face after her last few words was quite something, especially after that bit about doing it single-handedly. Naoki wondered if she could manage that kind of smile after having lost her arm. "I could try to help with the sounds you hear though, if you wanted to try it! It'll take some time, but I'm sure you can develop your hearing too!" She walked around a little in the sand, shuffled rather, so that the sound was more pronounced. "Close your eyes and listen to the sound of the sand moving..." If Yumi complied, she should hear the sand grains shifting, telling her where Naoki was at that point in time. The genin was now shuffling sideways, still making as much noise as she could with the sand.

"Tell me when you stop hearing things okay? Then walk over to where you think I am, keeping your eyes closed the whole time." Naoki then began to move further out, shuffling backwards with her sideways movements now. She'd stop whenever Yumi told her she was out of earshot, or once she was far enough away that Yumi would be able to demonstrate her blindfolded navigation abilities to walk over, eyes still shut, to where Naoki was standing.

 

[Kazumi]

Even though Naoki was not entirely sure she could actually help the girl to a significant degree, Yumi remained optimistic throughout her teacher's speech. She crossed her legs and assumed a pseudo-meditative position as she closed her eyes. "Would be easier with a blindfold," she softly mused as Naoki began to shuffle her feet, "less tempted to cheat."

Yumi snickered softly at another bout of her own humor as she kept her eyes closed, and as the sound of the shuffling grew quieter as Naoki moved further and further away Yumi herself became silent. She listened intently at the almost barely noticable sound of the sand being pushed aside at irregular intervals. The girl kept her silence and focused harder to hear and, and ever so slowly she began to hear it once more.

The shuffling had gotten slightly quicker, more deliberate and was almost perfectly timed with one slide after the other. It was almost as if Naoki was actually moving closer, rather than further away... Perhaps she was and it was just the teacher's way of toying with her? Eventually an entire minute passed as Naoki continued to slide herself away from the seated girl, and yet Yumi kept herself silent as she waited for the sound to dissipate out of earshot.

By the time Naoki had already made it ten meters behind and to the right of Yumi the girl finally turned her head back towards where Naoki stood, her eyes still closed. "You going to... move back a little bit?" she asked with confusion and a tinge of annoyance at how long it was taking for the girl to put any distance between them.

 

[Samejima]

Naoki let out a small whoa after she heard the girl ask her to move further away. At 10 meters, it was already getting hard for her to hear Yumi's heartbeat, which was now akin to seeing the light of a regular candle covered by a glazed glass bowl at 10 meters away. She did move further though, about 12 meters away now. At this point, the candlelight would be dim in addition to the bowl. She wouldn't be able to make her way back there if she'd gone any further, at least without taking a step or two in a skewed direction.

She sat down, making it known that she wouldn't move further away than that, and waited for Yumi to come closer. It's pretty cool that she can still hear me all the way out here! But she didn't lose her sight, so... another bloodline maybe? She hadn't searched terribly hard for any readable text on other bloodlines, but she knew that there were others, and that they were varied in effects. If she does though, we could back each other up on missions and stuff!

Naoki would have been lying to herself if she thought that she was all smiles for her friend though. Up until that point, she'd been thinking of herself as a genius, one who achieved much at a young age, capable of taking on those of higher experience and ranks. Albeit with help, considering the circumstances. To now have a friend who seemed to be just as good, if not better, at making her way around by sound... I'm going to have to step up my training... It didn't exactly register in her mind as a threat to her standings just yet, if only for her unwillingness to acknowledge Yumi's abilities as anything but a source of happiness.