Enlightenment : Act I [finished]

[pandoru]

It was the first day. The first day of setting off on their journey to places she did not yet know. She would have said Her goodbyes and filled out all the necessary documentation before arriving at the gates at noon. Lightning had only left the village borders a few times as a shinobi and had only once before had to feign defection to complete an ANBU grade mission. The feeling of longing to just get back in bed and fall asleep was great, but she had something to do. She had two promises to keep, one to her village and one to Hanabi.

On one hand, she would be responsible for progressing Hanabis doujutsu while on the other hand she would be performing a top secret mission that even Hanabi was unaware of. This mission consisted of infiltration and the utter destruction of an enemy faction. In truth, she did not know if she should or even how to break the news to her partner. They had met a little over a month ago and had sparse interactions since then. She would probably get punched in the face if she told the younger kunoichi that they would be refuting their status in the village for the sake of the mission.

She looked over to where she expected Hanabi to be, probably excited to set off on a grand adventure. The elder thought about what the other was expecting. She would have to be prepared for some pretty intense training as Lightning wasn't one to slow down for the sake of others. Hanabi would have to push the physical boundaries of her being if she ever wanted to activate her first stage of sharingan.

"Well," lightning said as she choked a bit on the word, "it's about time we set off."

[lightning]

Hanabi had long been ready to set off. Her attitude was carefree and bright as she looked into the sky that was oh so peaceful. She had arrived on time, as was expected of her. She had been told by lightning herself that they would be gone for a very extended period of time. It could take months or even years to complete what they were setting off to do. And what was that exactly? Well they had a deal of sorts worked out. The deal had started to form when they first met, fighting over a spot in the training grounds.

However during the course of a few days and a mission, they came together and worked out an official plan. You see, Hanabi had something that Lightning wanted, and that was a plethora of techniques. It seemed as though Lightning had dedicated her whole life to mastering her doujutsu, she had neglected to train pretty much anything useful. In exchange for allowing her to permanently copy her techniques, Lightning was willing to push Her to her limits and hopefully activate her sharingan. Well that was the plan at least.

Oh, and there was another darker part of the deal. Should she ever activate her mangekyou sharingan, then Lightning would allow her a chance to take hers in order to gain eternal usage. It was this part of the deal that had been hardest to work out, but in the end, Lightning said she would engage in fair combat should the time come. If Hanabi should win, lightning would give up her doujutsu. However should she lose, Lightning would take her doujutsu.

Well, Hanabi doubted she would end up surpassing Lightning for a long time anyways. The best part about the deal was that Lightning would never engage her to steal her doujutsu unless Hanabi initiated the challenge.

"You're right. Lets go."

[lightning]

Double post sorry. For some reason it won't let me delete

[pandoru]

Lightning would lead the way out of Konoha. Having journeyed throughout the entirety of its borders multiple times, she was perfectly suited for both concealment and avoiding the various dangers that deterred intruders quite easily. She made sure that Hanabi was within arms reach of all times not because she particularly cared of the individual, but more because it would be a pain in the ass to backtrack and find her in a forest as dense as this. During this time, she thought about the deal they had made. It was a good one and she completely intended to keep her word.

Why would she lie anyways? She truly had nothing to gain from eternal mangekyou anyways and killing a fellow Konoha shinobi for personal gain was more depressing and taboo in her mind than anything. However, should the time come and Hanabi try to steal her eyes, she wouldn't hesitate to defend herself and show her who was boss. It was for this reason that she needed to push herself just as hard as she was going to push Hanabi. True enlightenment didn't come cheap to anybody.

The pair would travel for a week throughout the forest, living quite easily off of the game Lightning caught every night using her ANBU training of tracking and assassination. She hoped Hanabi would pick a few things up, but she wasn't ready to teach anything yet. They still needed to make it out of the forest before she was going to put anyone's life on the line. At last when the exited the final line of trees, they came across a river that the elder had known was there. Before them was an enormous mountain with frosted tips.

"Task one is to cross the mountain," she said as she sat down on a log on the river side.

[lightning]

Hanabi said a few mental goodbyes before she officially stepped outside of the gate. She had done so so few times before that she still felt a sense of foreboding, as if something terrible would happen. Last time she had done so hard been with a woman named Hikaru and they had almost died because of it. Well, she knew the day would come when a higher calling would reach her. It was for this reason that she did not regret leaving everything behind. She had no idea why her village was so cool about her leaving, it was almost as if Lightning had pulled some strings to make it happen.

Whatever the reason, the two set off into the forest. While lightning seemed to think of it as no big deal, Hanabi felt herself in odd and uncomfortable situations every couple of minutes. Never had she ever had to survive in the wilderness and she had never had to sleep outside or use the bathroom in the not so great outdoors. Traveling through the whole thing was living hell every step of the way.

As much of a pain this was, it was definitely a learning experience. Hanabi was always careful to observe what Lightning was doing at pretty much every time of the day. Within the first three days, she was taken care of so heavily by Lightnings actions, she was inclined to start thinking of her as a parent. Well, she would have except she always gave off an impression that Hanabi was simply a burden. She felt no affection from the elder, and there was no reason for her to give off such an emotion. After all, the two were bound by a contract of sorts that neither wished to break.

Near the end of the week, Hanabi had finally started getting the hang of traveling throughout the woods. Well, it was more like her muscles had simply stopped trying to tell her to stop and they simply did what she told them to without question. Jumping ridiculous distances from tree to tree and crossing swamps with deadly animals within them was more than enough to teach her to fear and yet not to fear the forest.

Even just keeping up with Lightnings pace was nearly impossible. She was pretty much tireless throughout the whole journey, no doubt trained to do these sorts of this effortlessly and diligently as an ANBU should. It was almost unappreciated how much work it took Hanabi to raise herself to that level. Her brain constantly told her to quit, but her will power prevailed every time to push herself to completing the goal at hand. Regardless of the physical benefits, she was starting to change mentally by the sheer quantity of hard work.

[pandoru]

After a while of sitting around on the log, Lightning realized that Hanabi was in no condition to start climbing the monstrous mountain. It looked as if she was half dead from making it through the forest. It took her a minute to realize that she had indeed, made it through the forest. And from how little the younger kunoichi seemed to know abut surviving in the wilderness, she had done an incredible job just by completing the task on what was probably her first time. No even Lightning would have been expected to do such a feat during her first days as an ANBU.

What was this feeling she was having? Was she feeling proud of Hanabi? She debated the thought in her mind as she tried to figure out if it was an okay thing to feel. Of course at any time she could start regressing her emotions due to her training, but for now she guessed it was okay to allow emotions to flow. The feeling itself sparked the realization that she was starting to view the other uchiha as a student of sorts. Against her better judgement, she decided to accept this thought as true.

No matter how you looked at it, Lightning would be teaching this girl everything she knew about unlocking their doujutsu since it seemed to be something Hanabi wanted so badly.

"You did a good job getting through the forest," she said as she started making camp, "it was foolish of me to even suggest that we continue on to the mountains without a good deal of rest. Now I know you're exhausted, but determination is only a small part of unlocking your doujutsu. You must also develop your skills in combat. And I don't mean jutsu combat. No, this is something you can only master the old fashion way, hand to hand combat."

While they would rest for the night or several nights depending on the situation, Lightning would make sure they got a good deal of sparring down while Hanabi was tired as fuck. It was unlikely that she would be this tired for a while so it was best to capitalize on the moment.

"Alright, let's get to it," she continued after the camp was set up. She took her place across the camp fire and raised her arms. She held no weapons although her equipment was only a few meters away. She would then leap at the other Uchiha and start using rudimentary taijutsu. In truth, she was not very good at it compared to most other ANBU members, but she could generally get by by using her doujutsu and chidori.

Note: I give you permission to use Lightning in a spar roleplay setting for your next post. I don't want to waste time going back over a minor plot detail

[lightning]

Hanabi couldn't believe her ears as she heard that they were going to traverse a mountain as soon as they had finished getting out of the forest. It almost seemed as a joke, but as the elder sat upon a log and stared determinedly at the enormous mountain a few miles away, Hanabi realized that she was completely serious. Disheartened completely since she could not physically or mentally continue, the younger of the two simply dropped to the ground and panted even harder than she had been previously.

Her exhaustion seemed to go unnoticed until Lightning took a good look at her and said she was proud and that they would indeed be resting up. At those words, Hanabi felt her body rush with relief as her muscles pretty much gave out and she fell asleep on the ground where she lay. When she woke up, it was night time and she noticed that the reason she woke up was because Lightning had started talking to her again. Had she missed something? Hanabi sat up attentively and realized that the days work was not yet finished.

The two uchiha would be facing off in hand to hand combat, which was very a uncomfortable thought for the younger of the two. She was good at physical combat, but that was when shed was armed with her katana which she removed since Lightning had removed hers. What was even more interesting was that Hanabi didn't take her elder as much of a taijutsu user. She had always just gotten by with chidori and from time to time, the jutsu that Hanabi had shown her during their first encounter. Even when catching food, Lightning had always used her intuition instead of brute strength.

Well, it was time to do this. Lightning took her place across the fire at the center of the camp and raised her fists. She gave little to no warning, then leaped over the fire and tried to do a spinning kick to Hanabis face. The younger of the two held up her forearms to block the attack, but skid a few inches across the ground as she did so. To counter, Hanabi did a backflip and tried to catch lightning on her chin with her extended heels, but the attack was blocked by some well placed palms and the youngling was thrust onto the ground.

With a moan, Hanabi spun on the ground and hopped to her feet. The two then collided and started hitting each other mercilessly as they simultaneously wrestled on the warm ground. Other than their grunts and the occasional yelp of pain the only other sound that could be heard was the rush of the water in the nearby river. The spar continued for over an hour, after which both bodies were absolutely covered in blood that originated from both uchiha. The two then stood up and took a good look at each other, gauging how much more the other could go before they each threw a final punch at each other.

(I left the ending up to you, have fun lol)

[pandoru]

The two had fought hard for well over an hour when it was time for a winner to be decided. Lightning had a flashback to when she had first come close to activating the first tomoe of her sharingan so many years ago. It had been a very similar event as far as the physical combat was concerned. She had stood up to face her opponent after the fight just as she was doing in the present, and she had knocked her opponent out with the punch. However after doing so, she felt a sense of accomplishment which was good and bad at the same time.

On one hand, she had won the fight, but on the other hand, she had not been pushed to her limits. It was for this reason, that she needed to show Hanabi that it was time to truly push herself to her limits. As a hypothetical teacher, it was her duty to facilitate this, so she activated her sharingan just as the two began to throw their final punches. The elder was able to predict the trajectory of the punch and ducked just in time to dodge the punch.

As she did so, Lightning attempted to uppercut her opponent and sent her flying backward. If she succeeded, she wouldn't be cutting the woman any slack, the elder jumped forwards and landed riot next to the body then placed her foot on Hanabis head which was already turned to the side. She then pressed the head into the ground with her foot and spoke, "you'll never get anywhere if you don't do what it takes to win. I expect more of you next time." After speaking, lightning jumped backwards and bathed in the river before going to sleep. As she lay in bed, a tear came to her eyes when she thought back to how cruel she had been. Why was she getting so attached to this girl?

She hoped her student had seen that she had used her sharingan to cheat. It was something she would have to get used to. If she ever wanted to win in hand to hand combat, she would have to learn that honest fighting was not an option. Honesty, while an important factor in a shinobis life, was nothing close to the rage and anger that was necessary to bring forth the sharingan. She hoped that her student would activate the sharingan soon, she didn't want to put her through much more of this.

[lightning]

Hanabi was punched in the chin and ended up flying backwards. The last thing she saw before she passed out due to pain and exhaustion was Lightning's foot coming down on her head. After that, she remembered nothing. She simply woke up the next morning in the exact same spot, covered in the blood that had been there from before. There was no sign of Lightning, so she was probably inside shelter. Looking down at the river, Hanabi grunted and hopped into it, feeling the cool water wash over her body.

She thought about the fight that they had had before, or spar rather. It had gotten pretty intense at the end and for the most part, it seemed that they were around the same skill level. That, or Lightning had been holding back which was believable. She did in fact notice that at the very end, her elder had used her doujutsu to gain the upper hand, almost as if to signify that she was superior. Even so, Hanabi couldn't help feeling even more attached to the woman than she had previously.

The younger Uchiha would spend the day resting up and tending to her many wounds. She was no medic, but she didn't need advanced knowledge to know that she needed to rest. Her most prominent wounds were located on her face from where lightning had slammed her foot on her head and rubbed her face into the rocks on the ground. Half of her previously beautiful face was now covered in an assortment of bruises and scabs that made her look quite hideous indeed.

Three days. That was how long it took to recover. Not that she did not still have marks from the last week, but that she was able to go about moving and such without much pain. She looked up at the mountain that she was supposed to cross and set off after telling Lightning that she was ready. She had no idea how she was supposed to cross the mountain and didn't know why they were doing so. She could only assume that by doing so she would be pushing herself to a point that would hopefully activate her doujutsu at least to the first tier.

[pandoru]

Lightning, for the most part, let Hanabi do her own thing for the following three days. She had worked hard and definitely deserved the rest. They had been so attached to each other physically and mentally over the past week that the older Uchiha felt empty inside, not having anyone to talk to or look after. It was as if a piece of her own being had been separated and was left to do its own thing.

There wasn't much for Lightning to do, which was probably why these feelings came up. She simply wasn't busy enough to push them to the back of her mind. The only other thing she had in mind to think about was the mission that she was supposed to be completing. The enemy faction was just across the mountain, or at least that was what they had told her. It was possible that it was somewhere in a valley in the mountains as well. The details had been kind of sketchy, but it was a normal thing when dealing with top secret happenings.

She still had not even mentioned what they were actually doing to Hanabi yet. And in truth, she still did not know how she should explain the situation to her. She needed to show that she was truly devoted to helping her activate her Sharingan before reaching the faction so that Hanabi would be inclined to stick around in hopes of activating higher stages. However there was still one more thing Hanabi would have to do before reaching the first tomoe.

The younger Uchiha had definitely shown that she had the willpower to gain the Sharingan, and hell she had even gone through some old fashioned, untrained hand to hand combat. Hanabi's final task would be to complete an extremely difficult task by herself. Hopefully, the sense of accomplishment would spark the final emotions required to stimulate the activation of the powerful doujutsu.

Even so, Lightning could only think of two relevant things Hanabi could shoot for: Defeating her elder in combat and crossing the mountain alone. Neither of which would be easy, but at least there were options. She made sure her student knew what her options were before they finally set off into the mountains.

[lightning]

Hanabi listened to her elders advice and decided that it was indeed time that she truly felt the sense of accomplishment that she was talking about. it was true that she had never in her life done anything that would be considered noteworthy, but that was going to change as she decided to climb the mountain on her own.

"I will brave this task on my own," she told Lightning as she stepped forwards, "I will meet you on the other side."

Those were her last words before she set off towards the base of the mountain where she would begin to climb. It had not been the most dramatic or devastating way to prove her worth, but she was pleased to know she had progressed. Satisfied with her progress so far, Hanabi arrived at the base of the mountain and simply started to scale it step by step. The Shinobi’s dreams had been full of spiraling wind and turning huge trees into mere splinters. While her skill with mountain hiking and climbing was nowhere near that powerful, nor was she sure she could even get that powerful, Hanabi woke up day after day all too excited to keep moving

Breakfast was always consumed quickly, mostly because she was still no good at catching food. And on top of that, there was a whole lot less of it as she got higher and higher up the slopes, but she was sure to get enough to have the proper chakra supply. A few emergency bags of food were packed just incase she needed a boost before she even started the task. “Time to get some work done!” The girl was out of her makeshift shelter before she even had even finished her exclamation.

It was a bit chilly that morning, but warm ones were uncommon around this terrain. The altitude was high enough for the mornings to be at least comfortable, but early mornings and nights could be brutal. For a moment, the kunoichi considered turning back to fetch the warm fur of her previous nights kill. Though, she was sure if she did that, she’d somehow find her way back into bed and sleep for another five hours. She gave a sigh, the breath condensing into a soft, visible cloud. The dew on the few patches of grass she walked through both tickled and chilled her toes, and she kicked each leg once to remove the few drops that had decided to stick.

She had reached her desired destination, and Hanabi set down her bag. Black hues studied the path she’d chosen; the same relatively easy one she’d picked the other day. If the girl’s determination wasn’t enough to keep her going, the thin grooves left in the rock of the mountain certainly were sure to fill with snow form an avalanche or something. She had made progress each day, and she would continue to do so until her body followed her commands and make it through this mountain.

Petite hands slowly lifted and came together, her fingers bending to form the proper hand seal. There was a light twitch from her eyebrow as she focused. Chakra seemed to be a bit harder to gather this morning, perhaps because she wasn’t completely awake yet. That was a nasty trait she was going to have to get rid of. After all, what would happen to her if she was ambushed seconds after she awoke? She’d be ripped apart. Not a pleasant thing to think about in her opinion. It wasn’t something she should be thinking about right now anyway. Her eyes narrowed slightly, and the girl regained her focus.

The flow of raw energy through her veins caused her skin to tingle as it moved throughout her system. That had to be her favorite thing about ninjutsu; the feeling it gave. Of course, using too many would leave one drained and sluggish, and those feelings weren’t nearly as nice. Hanabi gave a light grunt as she willed the chakra to spin, and the gentle tickle of black bangs on her face told that it complied. The slightest bit of dust kicked up at her feet, moving with the gentle swirl of chakra. It was slightly frustrating that the earth hadn’t molded yet, but for once, the girl would be patient. It would gather together eventually to make a spear she would use as a hiking staff. She just had to make it happen.

And happen it did. A small smile pulled at her lips, but the kunoichi quickly removed it. The second she got too confident would be when this thing failed. Letting out a breath, her attention shifted to the spears that were now around her. She grabbed one and continued onwards. She would not reach the peak, but would rather travel through the mountain since that's where her target was. Lightning had merely instructed her to get to the river on the other side, so she assumed going over the peak was entirely absurd.

Everything was going quite well for the young Uchiha, until a storm started to brew. The thick layers of snow that covered the ground started to rise and swirl around violently as the temperature dropped to sub freezing levels. Hanabi knew little about what to do now other than going back was way too dangerous now. Her only option was to keep going... Or face death.

Tighter focus was required to get her chakra to stay on top of the snow now, but right now the girl felt that if she focused any harder, her head would combust. It was likely that she was trying too hard, but she had yet to find the proper amount of focus for this plan to work. That’s why they called it ‘learning she guessed.

For now, she’d deal with the building headache. She kind of had to, unless she wanted to die. For a brief moment, her focus broke long enough to catch a glimpse of the sun which was barely visible through the snowstorm. At some point the snowflakes developed a slight glimmer- something that would become much brighter and much more dangerous if the girl kept staring upwards This time, she couldn’t stop herself from grinning, and the expression remained as she pushed more chakra into her legs and kept trucking forwards.

The glimmer that could have been dismissed as a trick of the light became an obvious glow, outlining the wind as they continued to spin around her body. Thick, perhaps, but not impossible to trudge through. Yet more vigor was forced in, and the speed at which the snow flew increased. Now or never! She thought as she felt her pace quicken by the smallest measurable amount.

She lifted her head, and black hues locked onto an area where the ground began to drop. “Almost there!" Her hands pressed together a bit tighter as the wind shot from its current circular motion and flew off the cliff so to speak. it seemed as though when the wind lost snow to pick up, it simply carried itself off the cliff and dispersed. even if it was getting near to an end, the storm that surrounded Hanabi only got stronger.

There were noises signifying hits, not that she could feel anything hitting her with her whole body numbing with pain, unbelievable pain. That was until a resounding thud of a tree branch slammed into her forehead horizontally and thrust her onto the ground. She would have loved to stay there and wait for the storm to subside, but the thought was erased from her mind when the snow started to bury her face, decreasing her ability to breath in oxygen.

, and Hanabi became incredibly hopeful. As soon as she dropped her hands, the few wind that were still flying came to a stop, and fluttered to the earth below. Quickly, the girl ran over to the tree to inspect the bark, and what she saw caused her eyes to widen slightly. The cuts that had been left in the tree weren’t much deeper than her last attempt, but there were more this time. It wasn’t her improvement in accuracy that left the girl so shocked though. And although she tried as hard as she could, she could not move her body.

If ever there was a time to activate her sharingan, it would be now while she lay on her would be death bed. Her eyes filled with tears that were quickly chilled to freezing level as rage at her own failure filled her mind. The Uchiha let out a roar and felt a surge of adrenaline surge through her body as she rolled over and did a half assed push up to get to her knees. From there she let out another roar, feeling ice chip away at the little undamaged portions of her face that remained. Standing up, Hanabi pushed her way out of the storm, and made it out of the danger zone then passed out.

The next day, when she woke up, the sun had come out, so it was no longer as cold as it had been. The heat felt quite nice actually, and for a moment the girl just laid on the ground, arms stretched out over her head. A rice ball was stuffed rather comically in her mouth, with half of the item still sticking out. She may have had a big mouth, but that was metaphorically speaking. As she sat back up, Hanabi bit off the piece in her mouth, and took the rest in hand. The rice seemed a bit unseasoned today... she must have forgotten pepper. However, the girl was hungry, and so she wouldn’t be picky about the taste. She wondered who had put it there since she had run out of these days ago. Probably Lightning.

Whoever had done it was not important. Hanabi was more concerned about whether she had passed a trial worthy of granting her the first stage of sharingan.