Chapter Text
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You Don't Even Have A Team: Part One
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The chakra swelled within his abdomen, swelling ever higher till heat was undeniable as it forced its way up his throat and into his mouth. His hands held the tiger sign in front of his body as he let his mouth open and forced his lips and mouth to push it out in a stream instead of an avalanche.
Like every other time he used the great fireball jutsu the past few days. It still took too much of his chakra and barely gained any power to warrant it. He needed to make it more manageable if he wanted to be able to get it down to one handed signs and maybe even a single hand sign one day.
Obito knew that he wasn't a prodigy like Kakashi and didn't have impeccable chakra control like Rin. But he knew that if he just spent long enough training he could do this. He just had to keep trying.
After hours of repeated attempts and near depressingly low chakra levels, Obito fell onto his butt in the middle of the secluded training ground that butted up against the village wall. It didn't have any water source or many trees so it tended to go overlooked by most teams that wanted to reserve a training ground. This was where Kakashi ended up creating the chidori. This was where Rin had practiced medical ninjutsu. This training ground was lucky to his team and he would be damned if he wouldn't put his faith in this place to help him with his own training.
Not like he had much of a choice. The training grounds within his clan compound were always in high demand and they would not look kindly on Obito doing the same jutsu over and over again. Especially the jutsu that every single member of his clan was required to know before they became a genin.
He sighed as he slumped forward staring at his hands, “There must be a way to make it faster and use less chakra.”
“Did you try the equation?”
Obito jumped up with a kunai already in hand as his activated sharingan located the source of the high pitched voice. When he found it, he cut the chakra to his eyes and lowered his weapon.
Standing at the edge of the field was a tiny pink fairy with eyes that shined a bright green. She didn't look scared of him at all even when she had stared directly into his dojutsu. That was either extremely brave or extremely stupid on her part. Though she was just a kid and may not know.
“What do you want, kid?”
Her one hand rested on her hip as she tried to jut it out with an unimpressed look on her face, “Why don't you modify the chakra equation for your jutsu?”
She said it like it was obvious, like it was the easiest thing in the world. What she must not have realized was that barely anyone was smart enough with near perfect chakra control that could do it. The Sandaime had been able to but only was said to have done it for a handful of his most used jutsus. Obito was not delusional enough to think he was comparable to the man once known as the professor.
He took a breath in, “Look, I appreciate the suggestion but you don't know what you're talking about. Only a handful of shinobi are able to modify the chakra equations.”
Her face went through a myriad of emotions from happy to angry to a look that gave Obito the impression that this little girl thought he was a moron. It was a look Kakashi used to give him when they were first placed on the same team.
“You can’t modify them? I thought you were supposed to be like a Jonin or something?”
Obito sputtered, “I AM a Jonin.”
The pink fairy scoffed, “Not a very good one.”
Was he really being made fun of by a child? It was like hanging out with Sasuke all over again.
“How old are you, kid?”
She puffed up in obvious pride, “I’m twelve. I’m going to be a Genin at the end of the year.”
“You aren’t even a Genin and you think you can modify equations?”
She sneered at him, “I don’t think, I know.”
An idea struck him then and he thought what the hell. It couldn’t get worse than his already abysmal failure, “Alright, kid, how do you modify the great fireball jutsu to fit me better?”
She took the question as the obvious invitation it was and practically skipped over to sit beside him on the dirt without a care for her outfit. It was then he noticed the teal backpack she took off her shoulder and started rummaging through. She pulled out a sticker covered notebook and a pink pen with a pig on the top of it before looking at him with nothing short of unfiltered excitement like he just said he would teach her an all powerful jutsu instead of asking her to help him modify an equation most people couldn’t pull apart to save their lives.
He wrote out the hand signs and watched as she picked them apart to form a long numerical math equation that she continued to reconfigure as she asked him personal questions.
“What’s your primary chakra nature?”
“Fire.”
“Do you have any secondaries?”
“Earth.”
“Are those all your natures?”
“Yes.”
“Which hand is your dominant?”
“Right,” What did that have to do with the equation?
“What time of day is your favorite?”
“Noon.”
“Do you like puzzle games or more active games like tag?”
“Active games. What does this have to do wit-”
“Shush. What’s your favorite season?”
He just got shushed by a twelve year old who wasn’t even an actual shinobi yet…
“...Autumn.”
She nodded as she continued to scribble down notes on the page like it all was making perfect sense. Obito wasn’t sure if he regretted inviting this random girl to help him. Maybe he should’ve gotten her name first?
“Spicy or sweet food?”
“Spicy.”
She nodded as she mumbled underneath her breath, scribbling ever faster as she frantically wrote lines and lines of numbers and symbols that were starting to just look like gibberish to Obtio’s brain. He was pretty sure she was crazy at this point. Or maybe this was some kind of joke. Did Kakashi find a random kid and coach them to be as insane as he was? If she says the word “Ma.” before a sentence he was using shunshin and calling it a day.
She started at the beginning and hovered her pen over her previous work until she reached the bottom again.
Her head popped up and she smiled, “Okay, so this is the new formula you’ll need to use. So converted to their respective handsigns, it is now Ram - Dragon - Tiger. The Ram is needed to stabilize the jutsu still and the Dragon sign will do what the original Monkey - Horse combo did in the original equation. You don’t need the Boar sign due to your Yin and Yang nature favoring the Yang over the Yin. And Snake was just honestly a waste of a sign altogether.”
Obito stared at this tiny pink rambling girl as she modified his clan’s jutsu down to just three signs. There was no damn way this was going to work.
Fuck it.
Obito stood up and gathered the chakra low in his abdomen just like he did earlier. He started the hand signs slowly making sure to form them correctly. It was smarter to go slow for a first try. Speed would come later. He felt the heat curl as it built in the all too familiar pressure with the formation of the Dragon hand sign. With the Tiger sign it spewed out of his mouth in an all too familiar way that felt more powerful than all the other times he had ever performed this jutsu before.The fireball was massive in comparison and he let it hang in front of him instead of pushing it forward like he usually would have done. It burned hot before fizzling out without any movement.
“Holy shit.”
“It worked!”
Obito looked over at the fairy hopping up and down with a beaming smile that seemed to overtake her entire face in glee. He couldn’t help but return a smile.
He ruffled her hair, “I’m Uchiha Obito. What’s your name?”
“Haruno Sakura.”
“Want to help me with some more?”
She arched an eyebrow, “What’s in it for me?”
Obito arched a brow right back, “I’ll train you to kick ass.”
Her smile was back but instead it was laced with something darker that Obito wasn’t going to look at too closely.
“I agree,” She stuck out a hand waiting to shake.
Obito took her much smaller hand, “It’s a deal, kid.”
She huffed, “I told you my name is Sakura.”
He shrugged, “Kid just sounds less pink.”
When she hit his chest he let himself rock back a bit on his heels even though he could’ve easily stayed perfectly still from the small amount of strength she was able to muster. Though the smug look on her face was worth it as he laughed.
Then a thought struck him, “Why did you need to know what kind of food I like?”
Sakura shrugged, “I like dango and wanted someone to go with.”
He smiled, “I like dango too.”
The beaming smile was going to be worth the sickly sugary sweets he usually stayed away from.
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Story was inspired by a picture I saw on Pinterest.
Here is the artist's tumbler as well that a reader was kind enough to share!
https://kumeramen.tumblr.com/tagged/obishisaku
This picture just makes me laugh :)