Interlude: Honoka's Important Lessons ​

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GLOMP!"Hi, sensei!"Kagome-sensei ruffled her hair the way he always did. He even put his hand uncertainly on her back and squeezed a little bit! That was a new thing he'd started doing. He wasn't very good at hugging, but he was learning."Hi squirt. Good day at school?""Bleh. Teacher-stinker spent the whole day on the history of the Land of Fire. It was boring."Kagome-sensei shrugged and held out his hand. She unwrapped herself from his leg and took his hand, only slightly regretfully. It was cold out, her coat was thin, and his leg was warm.The minute he took her mittened hand he noticed her slight shiver and glanced down in surprise. "You're cold," he said accusingly.Honoka shrugged apologetically. "It's cold out.""Pah." He let go of her hand, stopped in the middle of the street, and rummaged around in his belt pouch until he found a particular storage seal. "Open this."She ignored the foot traffic that was swirling by them. Many people looked twice, but no one stopped. They just bent their paths to give the ninja a wide berth. She made herself ignore them, calmed her center and her breathing, put her hand on the seal, and pushed chakra into it the way he had taught her. It was still fun feeling the chakra writhe under her fingers and then burp out a bag stuffed full of something soft.Kagome-sensei shot a few distrustful glances at a couple walking by; the civilians hurried their steps and others took note, changing course to give the suspicious ninja more room. Once the bubble of empty around them had expanded to his satisfaction, he opened the bag and rummaged around until he found what he'd been looking for: a heavy coat made out of some sort of fur she didn't recognize."Here," he said. "This is one of the spares I made for Keiko. It'll be big, but it's the smallest I have." He held it out so that she could slip her arms inside. The minute she did, the cold seemed to vanish from her neck down; the coat completely enveloped her, dragging on the ground with sleeves that reached to her knees. She couldn't help but giggle."Hmph," he said. "Hold still." A bit more rummaging and he produced a knife and a bit of cord. A few quick cuts and a bit of folding and the sleeves were rolled back to the base of her thumbs, overlapping with the heavy wool mittens that Mom had knitted for her. A few more and the hem of the jacket was rolled up to her ankles, a hole pierced in each side, and the cords looped around and through to prevent the jacket from unrolling."That'll have to do until I can hem it properly," he said. "We'll get you a decent hat, too. For now, try this." He produced a multi-colored wool scarf that was longer than he was and wound it around her head and neck in a series of quick, swirling loops before tucking the ends in. By the time he was done everything from her shoulders up, except for a narrow strip around her eyes, was invisible behind layers of swaddling. Her breath dampened the coverings unpleasantly, but she was more than willing to trade that for the delicious warmth."Thank you, sensei," she said, embarrassed. She'd never really understood that her family was poor until Kagome-sensei became her teacher. It made her feel small to know that he could so casually and literally conjure up the warm clothes that her parents couldn't supply on their own."S'nothing," he muttered. "I spent fifteen years living in the woods by myself, so I learned to make clothes. Your mom's teaching me to knit but I'm only just getting it, which is why this one is so ugly." He tapped the deliciously warm scarf."It's not ugly!""Sure it is," he said, pulling one of the tucked-in ends out and holding it up for her examination. "The stitches are all different sizes, the rows have different lengths, and the yarn is all weird. Plus, I was using oddments, so the colors are all over the place.""What's an oddment?""It's the bits of yarn left over after someone finishes a project. They give them away." He tucked the scarf back in."But you're rich. Why not just buy the full things?"He rolled his eyes before taking her hand and leading her down the street. "Well, I'm not rich for, now am I? All the money comes from...um...somewhere, and we may not...um...well, because we might.... Never mind." He fell silent for a few steps, then tried again. "My family were civilians, and we were poor. Then I went into the...school, and they didn't care much about us until we...um....proved we were useful. The light punishments involved being denied meals and it went up from there, so we all learned to hold back food from meals and sometimes raid the kitchen. After I...ended up in the woods, I tried to avoid everyone. There were villagers nearby, and I would chase them out of my territory. Sometimes they would leave things for me, but I usually figured they were poisoned or diseased or cursed or something and so I wouldn't take them. Later on, Hazō told me that they left the things because they were grateful that I had hunted out most of the dangerous stuff and so made them safer, but I didn't realize that at the time. Oh, speaking of Hazō, his family were poor but not very poor. I gave him some rope when we first met, just to see how he would react. I think he realized that it had to be hard to come by in the woods, which meant he wasn't super rich, but he didn't treat it as something particularly valuable, which meant he wasn't super poor either. It told me that he probably wasn't clan, which was good. It meant that if I had to squish him there probably wouldn't be anyone coming after me for it." He snorted in amusement at his past self. "Glad I didn't squish him. It's been complicated, but better."He shook his head in disbelief, absent-mindedly lifting Honoka up and over a snowbank ("Wheeee!") that some lazy worker hadn't properly shoveled away."People here in Leaf just amaze me. They know how to make clothes, or lumber, or rope, but they mostly only know one thing. Enough people don't want to cook, or don't know how, that there are dozens of restaurants. The restaurants and the rich people throw out food. Most people here buy stuff instead of making it—because they don't knowto make it. Jiraiya's a good example; he'll buy a bottle of sake and then throw out the bottle when he's drunk the sake. Mari does some of that too; she was civilian-born, but I think her family were pretty well off because she never really got in the habit of appreciating things. Or maybe she just spent too much time being a jōnin and a beautiful woman. Life is easier for beautiful people, and jōnin are never poor. Anyway, her slippers wore out, so she threw them out and bought a new pair. I saved the old ones; a little resoling, add some more fleece inside, they'll be good as new. Be a nice present later."So, yes. I use the oddments when I'm learning how to knit, because why spend money on good yarn when I'm just going to bog it up? Besides, if I'm ever back in the woods it'll be easy to make short bits of yarn but a pain to make long ones. Best learn what I'll need to know now, when life is easy."Honoka said nothing, thinking about that. Food never got wasted in their house and Mom and Dad worked hard, all the time. They didn't make their clothes, or their furniture, but nothing got thrown out if a use could be found for it. They didn't tend to fix their own things—one of the uncles would come over to do that, or occasionally someone would be hired—but Dad probably knew how to fix them because Dad knew all kinds of things. They didn't fix them because there was noto fix them. Dad was at the store from before dawn to well after dark, every day. Mom took washing for a lot of the clan families and the rich civilians, and helped Dad in the shop, and did all the shopping and cooking, and took care of the house, and was always there to pick up Honoka after school (until Kagome-sensei had shyly asked if he could do it instead). Both parents, but mostly Mom, would sit with her and make sure she learned her numbers and reading, and they would tell her stories after she was in bed. Mom would knit whenever her hands weren't busy with something else, but while doing all of that, where was there time to make the yarn?It was a lot to think about."Whhhhhheeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!"They'd reached the end of the shoveled roads and kept going. Two-foot snowbanks, three-foot drifts, and three-and-a-half-foot girls were not a recipe for fast travel. She had paused in dismay, then shrieked in surprise when Kagome-sensei pounced on her, swung her up onto his back , and took off running across the surface of the snow."Faster! Faster! Eeeee!"He obliged, accelerating until he was moving so fast that the wind of their passage stung tears from her eyes and she had to bury her nose in the back of his neck. (He'd gotten in the habit of washing his hair more regularly, so it wasn't greasy anymore. Wispy, thin, and with what Dad jokingly called a 'fivehead' when talking about Uncle Sora, but clean and neat.) He had one hand over her arms where they were looped around his neck and the other hand reaching back to hold her against him; certain that she was securely attached, he began changing direction quickly, leaping back and forth and even running up the side of a tree before leaping off in a long arc with a mid-air flip that made the world go all spinny around her and provoked yet more 'eeeeee's of delight.When they finally came to a halt they were on what must have been a training ground; there were wooden walls, training dummies, plum blossom piles, and climbing ladders scattered around, as well as lots of wide-open space. All of it covered in snow, of course."Ready for today's lesson, squirt?"Honoka looked around in dismay. This was not one of the Academy training grounds. This was sized and set for grownups. The walls were at least twelve feet high, the climbing ladders was suspended at two spots instead of four, and the easiest section of the plum blossom poles had rounded tops. Add to that the two feet of snow across all of it and you had something that was far beyond her capacity."What's the lesson, sensei?" she asked nervously."It'slesson. The most important one.""The Will of Fire is the guide to success?""Pfft. No. Much more important.""Leaf ninja are better than everyone else, but be careful of ambushes?""More important.""Preparation is the key to everything?""Mmm...sort of. More important than just that.""We should eat all our vegetables and be polite to Teacher-stinker or we'll make the Hokage sad?"Kagome-sensei burst out laughing at that one. "No. Waaay more important.""I give up. What is it?""Explosives. Solve. Everything."She blinked.This idea was definitely news to her. She couldn't think how explosives would keep Teacher-stinker from scolding her when she got questions wrong in class. Or how explosives would make onions less yucky. Or how explosives would stop Oshikawa Meisa from picking on—well, okay, she actuallythink how explosives would solve that problem, but it would be pretty gross."Not every problem, sensei.""Every problem, squirt. At least, if you're willing to use enough of them."She eyed him distrustfully. "Nuh-uh.""Uh-huh!""Nuh-uh!""Uh-huh! Watch! You've got a problem right now: the snow is too deep to walk in and you don't know how to water walk. Right?""Yeah?""Okay." His hand dipped into his pouch and hurled something across the field. A moment later there was a truly disturbing 'zorp' noise, a rush of wind from behind her, and then a blast of wind from in front of her. There was also a spot twenty feet across on which there was barely any snow."There, see?" Kagome-sensei asked. He paused and then continued quickly, "Okay,that was an implosion bomb and not an explosive. Still counts."Honoka eyed the cleared-off patch in awe. "That was amazing!"Kagome-sensei smugged with epic power. "I know, right? Here." He trotted forward until they were in the cleared area, they lowered her to the ground. "Try this one." He handed her a piece of wood with a tag glued to it. "It's a puffer—like an explosive, but not enough force to do more than make a bit of noise. Wouldn't hurt you unless someone put it in your mouth." He hesitated. "Uh, except don't do that. Scorched tongue, and it hurts to blow your nose backwards. Mean thing to do to someone. Still, it's safe to practice with as long as you just hold it in your hand. Just push your chakra into it and feel around until you find the trigger. Try to activate it, then throw it before it actually goes off."Honoka took the seal uncertainly. The cold was stinging her eyes and she was still fizzy-happy from the run here, so it was hard to concentrate enough to make her chakra—twisty, slippery, obstreperous thing that it was—do what she told it to. (She was very proud of the word 'obstreperous'. Teacher-stinker had called her that after she corrected his multiplication. She wasn't entirely sure what it meant, but what itmean was 'very smart and helpful'.)She pushed the distracting thoughts away and breathed, focusing down. Her chakra fizzed and buzzed helpfully, darting around under her skin in a reflection of the excitement that she was trying to suppress. Explosives! Yay! Kagome-sensei was teaching her real grownup-ninja things already! Teacher-stinker wouldn't let them learn explosives forthree years. And apparently explosives were even more useful than she'd thought they were, if they could solve everything including making onions not yucky.Shaking her head, she once again focused on her breathing. Once it had calmed slightly she moved her attention to her hara, allowing her weight to settle and paying attention to how her body moved as it instinctively kept her balanced. She pushed all distractions out of her mind and forced—no,her chakra up her arm and out through the finger that was touching the seal.Her chakra hit the wool of her mitten and stopped dead.Grumbling, she pulled the mitten off and took the seal in her bare hands, forcing herself to ignore the biting cold on her fingers. She went through the whole cycle again: close eyes, breathe, hara, settle, attend, lead the chakra instead of forcing it. The cold kept distracting her, but after a few seconds she managed to merge her chakra into the twisting channels of the seal. A bit of poking around, and—Bang!She jumped, startled as the seal went off in her hand. Despite what Kagome-sensei had said, it had stung a little."You're okay," he said. "No harm done, just a little startling. Here, try again." He passed her another seal.She was still centered enough, and the memory of the seal was fresh, so it took her only a moment to trigger this one. Again it went off in her hand. She growled in frustration and stuck out her mitten in demand. Kagome-sensei willingly slid a stack of seals into it.The anger interfered with her concentration, making it hard to trigger the seals, but she kept at it. The first dozen went off in her hand, but eventually she managed to find the trigger and set it to go off in a few seconds instead of now. She drew her arm back to throw...and the seal went off."AARGH! Stupid turtle-pooping stinking dog-bothering stinking stupid—""Hush now," Kagome-sensei scolded. "Language!""Sorry, sensei," she grumbled, not even remotely meaning it."You can do this. Try again.""Hmph." Still, she forced herself to be calm and then tried again. She had to switch hands first, as the exposed right hand was too numb to hold the tags. She pulled her arm out of the sleeve and into the body of her new coat (!), dancing in place when her shirt failed to sufficiently insulate the toasty warm skin of her torso from the icy touch of her fingers. She chose to ignore it and pass the seals back to Kagome-sensei for a moment so she could use her teeth to pull off her left mitten. (Getting a mouthful of wool scarf in the process, threads of which stuck to her tongue in irritating ways.)Kagome-sensei patiently held the stacks of tags for her as she took the first one and felt her way into it. She found the trigger and studied it as carefully as she could...until she accidentally set it off without meaning to and made herself eep."Stupid poop-smearing piece of stink tag," she grumbled, going silent immediately at her teacher's arched eyebrow and cleared throat. Instead, she took the next tag and tried again.The sun was drooping near the horizon by the time she managed to become semi-reliable at activating the puffers. Every fourth or fifth one still went off in her hands, but she had time to throw the rest before they went off. Granted, she had almost no control about exactly when they detonated—sometimes they would go off in the air a couple yards in front of her, sometimes they would hit the ground and sit there for a few seconds before goingThen came the one that didn't go bang."Stop," Kagome-sensei said, moving the stack of tags away from her outstretched hand. (Her right; she had switched four times as the cold set in.) "That's an undetonated tag. It's probably been ruined by the snow, but we can't be sure.""But sensei, it's just a puffer, right? You said they were safe. Here, I'll get it and we can check." She took half a step forward, only to be halted by his no-nonsense grip on the back of her coat."Youtreat a seal as safe outside a known operational environment," he said. "Ever. The seals you're practicing with are safe if they are dry, undamaged, and generally intact. That seal over there is wet and the ink may have smudged. It may or may not still be running its timer. If the ink is smudged then when it goes off it could detonate as a full-force tag." He hesitated. "It could, in theory, even be a seal failure, which would be bad. That's extremely unlikely, but we can't be sure. It gets more dangerous as time goes by, so we need to make a decision. How do we handle this?"Honoka had no idea. He was the teacher, and the sealmaster! How should she know?"We could...um....""Tick tock, girl. Timer's running.""I don't know, sensei.""What's the most important lesson?"She frowned, then smiled as the light dawned. "Explosives solve everything! Throw an explosive at it and blow it up!""Right!" His hand dipped into a pouch and blurred forward. A moment later there was a significant crater where the possibly-faulty tag had been and he was scooping her into the air and swinging her upside down."Eeeeeee!" The world was spinny and the sky was under her feet!He whirled her over and set her carefully back down, laughing. "Good for you, squirt. You remembered the most important lesson. Okay, you're starting to get it with the timers. As a reward, let's go do the obstacle course."How was that a reward, exactly?Despite her misgivings, he led her over to the plum blossom piles. Only a few of the piles reached above the snow, the rest being just bumps below the surface."This is a chūnin field," he noted. "There's knives between the piles, pointing up, and we can't see them under the snow. We need to get across the piles without getting stabbed. How do we do it?"Honoka was appalled. She couldn't even manage the Academy piles yet! Her balance was okay, but the piles were only a little bigger than her feet. She made it across sometimes, but usually she fell at least once, and she wobbled on every pile. These piles had rounded tops and there was absolutely no way she was going to be able to balance on them."Sensei, I can't," she whined. "I never make it across the piles at school."He laughed. "Don't worry, squirt. I'm not one of your stinking stupid teachers who insists on doing things some silly way. You're a ninja, and you know the two most important rules."Wait, what?"Themost important rules? You only told me one, sensei.""I did?""Uh-huh.""Oh. Huh. Well, the second most important rule is 'ninja cheat'. Never do something the hard way if you don't have to, and rules are for suckers. Except the rules about sealing safety, which you never everbreak. But aside from that, rules are for suckers. Now, how do we get across this?"She glowered at him. It was getting dark, she was cold and tired from using so much chakra, and she was hungry. Why did he have to be all difficult about things? "I don't know," she grumbled."Come on, kiddo. What's the most important rule?""Explosives solve everything," she muttered."Right!" His hands flicked out, once, twice, thrice. A trio of explosions walked across the plum blossom piles, utterly obliterating them and blasting all the snow away. "See? Now you can get across the piles!"She laughed and trotted forward, past the aggravating obstacle that had been the bane of her existence at school for so long. She came to the edge of the cleared area and found herself face to face with the climbing wall. It was four or five times her height, built of heavy lumber pegged tightly together. It was covered in nicks and scratches where the feet of passing ninja had gouged chunks out of the surface over the years, a battered old veteran that looked down on her with sneering doubt."Can explosives solve this problem, sensei?""Hmmmm." He hopped up on the snow and walked up to the wall, eyeing it carefully. He paced around it, hands clasped behind his back like Administrator Mr. Yamanaka Sir did when he was inspecting the trainees. Kagome-sensei knocked on the wood thoughtfully, pressing his ear to the surface to listen for something, then nodded thoughtfully. He paced all the way around the structure, then came back to stand beside her, looking at the wall and not saying a word."Well?" she finally demanded."Hm? What?" he asked, over-exaggeratedly startled out of his thoughts."How do we get past it, sensei?""Up to you, kid. Just for fun, you need to find two different ways. Explosives solve everything, but it's always good to have other ideas.""Two ways?! I can't climb that!""Didn't say you had to climb it barehanded, just that you had to get past it. Up to you how you do that.""But, but...." She stared at the wall. If she had her grappling hook, maybe, but she didn't. She felt tears start to well."It's okay, sweetie," Kagome-sensei said, squatting down so he could rub her back. "You can do this. You're a ninja!""But I can't!""Tell you what," Kagome-sensei said. "Eat this to get some of your energy back." He pulled out a big blob of honeycomb wrapped in wax paper. She snatched the treat and pulled her scarf down so she could greedily slurp up the honey, not caring how the cold bit at her cheeks."Let's do the wall and the climbing ladder," Kagome-sensei said. "You need two ways to get past the wall. You need to get from one end of the ladder to the other while touching the ladder and not falling off. You can do it any way you want. If you succeed, I'll take you roof-running on the way home and when we get there we'll have hot chocolate while I tell you the story of Mugiwara-stinker and the Seven Stupid Seals. You can do this." He stood up, glancing at the wall. "Oh, and you can ask me for whatever gear you want."She perked up, turning a face full of teary eyes and honey-smeared cheeks towards him. "Do you have a grappling hook, sensei?"He rolled his eyes. "Do I have a grappling hook? Do I have a grappling hook?! OfI have a grappling hook, you silly child! You can have it if you want it, but that's an awfully tiring way to get past the wall. You're a ninja, and ninja shouldn't do anything the hard way."Wait...did he mean...?She wrapped the last of the honeycomb up in the paper and tucked it into a pocket, then forced her way through the snow towards the right-hand edge of the wall. It was heavy going, but she got there and then kept on going, curving around to the left to put the wall between herself and him."I'm past it, sensei!"He laughed. "Good for you, squirt! Okay, come on back and find a second way."Gallumphing back through the snow was way more fun after the acknowledgement of victory. It might have been the success or it might have been the honey, but suddenly things were looking up!She got back to the cleared area and turned to look at the wall again. "Okay, I walked past it. I could grappling-hook over it, but you said that was tiring. Can we just blow it up?"Kagome-sensei's hand blurred and an instant later nothing remained of the wall except the stump of one post and a spray of shattered lumber. "Yup, looks like we can."Honoka laughed and started forward through the snow, then paused. "Sensei, can you use more of your plozy bombs to clear the snow?""That's 'implosion bomb'," he corrected. "Come back here."He waited until she was beside him with her right hand held firmly in his left, then he tossed out a series of wooden disks. More of those weird 'zorp' noises, more bursts of wind, and there was now a reasonably clear path from where they stood all the way to the far end of the climbing ladder. They walked to the near side of the ladder and paused."I have to climb that?" she asked uncertainly. The climbing ladder was one of the more challenging obstacles on the Academy course: a rope ladder with wooden dowels for rungs, both ends fastened to a tree, with enough slack in the rope that it flopped around when you put any weight on it. It was easy to have it flip over and dump you if you weren't careful, and this one was even worse that the Academy one. The Academy one was only about ten feet long and was attached at four spots, each end of the rope being tied around the tree. This one was fifty feet long and the ropes were spliced together after the last rung on either end so that the ladder was attached at only two spots, thereby making it much tippier. It was ten feet off the ground, so falling wouldn't be fun. The only access to it was another rope, knotted for easy climbing, that hung next to it."You have to get from one end to the other, while touching the ladder, without falling off," he said. "You can walk across the top, climb it, swing underneath it, or whatever you like. And you're not allowed to blow it up this time.""Awwww." She gave him her best puppy-dog eyes.He laughed. "Nope. Too easy. Explosives solve all problems, but you need to learn the second lesson too." He grined and rumpled her hair. The static of the wool scarf against her head felt prickly.She glowered in ruffled dignity, but finally gave up on convincing him. Instead, she decided to, as he always said, 'work the problem'. Sensei tended to be very specific about his instructions, and he was happy when she found loopholes. (Unlike Teacher-stinker and his stupid stinking regulations!) This was probably another test like that.He hadn't minded blowing up the wall, or just walking around it, but he had said she couldn't blow up the ladder. (Stupid stinking rules! Explosions solved everything!)"Can I just walk under it?""You need to be touching it all the way across."Well, that didn't work. The ladder was too high up forto reach, let alone her."You're sure I can't blow it up?""I'm sure.""Not even a little bit? Explosives solve everything, right?""Yes, they do and no, you can't.""Hrmph." She could scratch climbing the ladder the expected way; it was way too wobbly for her. She didn't think she could swing under it like monkey bars either; the ropes were covered in snow and her hands were covered in wool mittens. They would be slippery. Could she stabilize it somehow? He had said she could borrow gear, so maybe get some ropes and—oh, wait."Can I have a knife, sensei?"He grinned and rummaged in his belt pouches until he found the right seal. A moment later she was holding a ten-inch combat knife that she had repeatedly seen him use for cutting carrots.She took the knife carefully between her teeth (aaeeeii! cold air and metal on her teeth!) and clambered up the knotted rope that led to the ladder. When she got to the right height she wrapped her legs around the trunk to hold herself in place, kept one hand on the rope for support, and used the other hand to carefully saw away at the rope anchoring the climbing ladder. The rope was thick and heavy, but Kagome-sensei's knife, like all his tools, was sharp and well-cared for. In under a minute the rope parted and the ladder collapsed to the ground. Honoka carefully dropped the knife, checking to make sure where it landed, and then climbed back down.Once back on the ground, she rescued the knife and then trotted over to where the climbing ladder lay. Sensei's plozy bombs had left the ground mostly clear, but there were still a few inches of snow here and there, enough to bury parts of the ladder. Still, she found one end and stepped on the first rung."Look, sensei! I'm touching the ladder!" she caroled as she sauntered across, taking care to step on each rung as she went.He laughed and swooped her up the moment she got to the far end. The knife vanished from her hand and disappeared into his seal, and then she was plopped onto his back. "That's my ninja girl! Come on, I want some hot chocolate."She preemptively tucked her nose into his neck so as to be out of the wind as he took off. The sun was just on the horizon, the shadows were long, and she was filled with glee at being a ninja who knew the two most important lessons!