Acquisition 2.2
"Just so we're all clear on the rules - you get three steps after doing your replacement, and not one inch more. Winner is whoever gets tagged the least. Ready?" Hisana asked, looking at the two other occupants of the disused training ground. She genuinely had no idea how their little group had coalesced into doing "training"; but it was a big help to her future plans. Both Naruto and Sasuke, as much as he'd deny it, responded better to training that was presented as a game, or otherwise competitive. It occasionally disturbed her that she had so easily come to share the mindset of people paid to mould children into killers, if only out of necessity.
The two boys nodded, and then with a drop of Hisana's hand they were off. She started off 'it' and made her first replacement. She appeared between Naruto and Sasuke; hoping to pin Naruto down to the chainlink fence that surrounded the training ground they'd appropriated. He went left, and Hisana followed. He took one enormous step, struggling to stay upright - only for Hisana to use the replacement jutsu once more and tag him. Avoiding his attempt at a counter tag was hard, but she managed it and tried to lead him over to Sasuke.
Half an hour later, she and Sasuke were out of breath and out of chakra; whilst Naruto hadn't even worked up a sweat. That kid was a like a fucking terminator, it was uncanny. Sasuke had emerged victorious this round, and it was getting close to noon, so Hisana made an executive decision as the allegedly mature one that it was time to break for lunch. The trio of academy students made their way through the streets of Konoha, looking for somewhere to eat. Hisana had been expecting to drag Naruto away from that one ramen stand every day, but she seemed to have picked up some fanon from one too many fanfics about it. He did love it, and ramen in general, but the thought of eating other food did cross his mind.
So that's how she ended up eating at an "Water-Style" curry restaurant with a pair of fictional characters. It tasted a little like Thai food, if Hisana had to make a comparison. It was pretty good too, but that was a given since she'd gotten the recommendation from Chouji. Dude knew his food.
"Show Sasuke the seal, sis!" Naruto said, excitedly. He'd wanted to talk to her when she was doing her R&D for a skin-wearable storage seal for weapons, and then wanted to know what she was doing. Sasuke knew she was working on seals, but didn't seem that interested. She decided to go with her right palm for a temporary seal, just to see if it worked over a long period of time. Right now, she had a practice kunai sealed in her palm.
"What have you been working on for the past week?" Sasuke asked, suddenly intrigued. Hisana held her palm out, activated the seal and grabbed the kunai before it fell.
"Woah, cool. Have you got anything else in there?" Asked Naruto.
"Nope. Just this." Hisana said, giving the kunai a twirl then resealing it. The seals could go anywhere on the body, though obviously you wanted to be able to quickly access it directly.
"It does look useful, Hisana. Can you teach us how to do it?" Sasuke asked, genuinely curious.
"Nope. Almost all seals are personalised to their creator,
and this is one that's meant to go on my skin. If you want one, you're gonna have to get it the hard way." Hisana said, and both boys looked devastated.
+++++
Quite frankly, Hisana thought it a crime that these first-aid seminars were not mandatory for Academy students, or simply part of the curriculum. They had certainly studied the topic, but this was actually useful information. They were not learning medical jutsu, as such, but would learn a very basic version of the Mystic Palm jutsu towards the end of the course.
At the moment, they were learning about mundane ways of handling injuries such as minor cuts, bruises and burns. The class was almost entirely female, though there were a few male students here and there. As she practiced her stitching technique, Hisana's mind drifted. She had learnt a number of jutsu, chief amongst them the shushin, this year. She had grown stronger, yes, but not enough.
"I'm having a little trouble with this question, Hisana?" Asked a pink haired girl - otherwise known as Sakura Haruno. Hisana felt a bit bad for taking over her role, but she wasn't filling it yet and first come first served and all that.
"Hmm - oh, that. There's actually a mistake in the formula sheet, change that formula to this and see how it goes, k?" Hisana said, and really the girl didn't need the help. She had something like six years on her classmates, at least in some respects, and she was willing to bet both Sakura and Shikimaru were better at theory than she was. At least, if Shikimaru put the least amount of effort into it.
+++++
Hisana turned ten that year. She still remembered her original tenth birthday, and this one was far smaller. Yet, for all the foreknowledge that had led to her seeking Sasuke and Naruto out; she felt that their friendship had actually grown into something genuine. She still occupied something of an older-sister esque role, but perhaps that was for the best. They'd just had dinner, which wasn't really all that odd for them. It wasn't like there was anyone else to feed them, and Hisana was the only one really willing to cook.
She was still frustrated at the pace of her advancement. By any metric, she was a veritable child prodigy of the ninja arts. Yet she was one of those child prodigies who skipped a few grades, not went to Uni at age ten or whatever. Those kinds of prodigies were out there, and they were still learning. She knew, theoretically, that all the forces opposing her were beatable, but it sure didn't seem like it to her.
Over the next year, select four of the following projects for Hisana to work on whilst training. Only two more years remain until graduation and the start of canon.
[x] - Fuinjutsu:
[x] - Reverse-engineering the controllable, detonable shuriken.
[x] - Try to create a basic chakra storage seal.
[x] - Ninjutsu
[x] - Work on finding and training Hisana's elemental affinity.
[x] - Genjutsu
[x] - Get the basics of Genjutsu down.
[x] - Kenjutsu
[x] - Learn techniques intended to counter ninja from a former Samurai.
[x] - Learn to integrate basic ninjutsu into your kenjutsu.
[x] - Iryojutsu
[x] - Investigate dojutsu specific techniques.
[x] - Begin to learn the Mystical Palm Jutsu.
