Wuji and Fu (Part 2)

Seven days later, in the morning, Ye Wuji was in the training yard, swinging a katana. He had never practiced any martial arts. Although there had been many legends about martial arts back on Earth in his previous life, he had never had the chance to see any of them. Still, after spending so many years online, he knew a little about training. Ukyo hadn't gone out of his way to keep him away when he was teaching Yuta, so Ye Wuji had also learned a few basic training methods.

At the moment, Ye Wuji was swinging his sword five hundred times, then throwing five hundred kunai. It might not look like much, but focusing on every swing and every throw was no easy task.

He was nearly finished with his sword practice when a woman's voice called from the side. "Well, look at you, working so hard." Ye Wuji stopped and looked over. A kunoichi was leaning against the window, watching him.

"It's you, big sister! What are you doing here?" Ye Wuji tossed his sword aside and walked over to her.

"I came to see you. What, am I not welcome, brat?" As she spoke, she had already reached out to tap him on the head.

"Honestly, you tap my head every time." Ye Wuji raised a hand and blocked hers.

"Got a bit of a temper, don't you?" The kunoichi didn't mind having her hand blocked. She smiled at Ye Wuji. She was Fu.

Fu had actually arrived two or three days earlier, and the other ninjas assigned to watch Ye Wuji had already been withdrawn. They wouldn't normally end their surveillance so soon. When the village's ninjas were assigned to watch someone, unless they'd been given specific orders, they generally kept it up for around seven days if it was ordinary surveillance. The longest it would usually last was a month, though sometimes they would pause for a while before assigning someone to watch again.

Because of Takikage's orders, Fu couldn't leave the village. And she had no friends there. Her mother was Takikage and couldn't stay by her side all the time, while her younger sister, Mai, was busy training. After three days, Fu finally thought of Ye Wuji, that cute little guy, and checked his records.

When she found out Anbu were watching Ye Wuji, she asked why. It turned out they were doing so because she had put him inside the Sacred Tree. She went and argued with Takikage again, but in the end, nothing came of it.

Later, Fu came up with an idea: she would watch Ye Wuji herself. After keeping an eye on him for seven days and finding nothing suspicious, she had the other ninjas leave. Since she wanted to see Ye Wuji anyway, she took over the surveillance from then on.

Takikage had no objections. It was good for Fu to have something to do. And after reading Anbu's reports on Ye Wuji's surveillance, Takikage had ruled him out as a concern.

Fu had only shown up today because she was a little bored.

"By the way, big sister, you saved me last time, and I haven't properly thanked you yet. Also, my name is Ye Wuji. What's yours?" Ye Wuji asked. He thought someone had said her name during their last encounter, but he'd been nervous about the Hero Water and hadn't paid much attention.

"Fu. Got it? My name's Fu. From now on, call me Big Sister Fu. Don't forget!"

"Mm, I won't. By the way, Big Sister Fu, you're a ninja, right? And a really strong one, too. I was wondering if you could teach me how to train." Ye Wuji looked at Fu with hopeful eyes. He thought his expression was perfectly normal, but given that he was a six-year-old with a head of white hair, he looked pretty adorable.

Ye Wuji's idea was simple: if a powerful kunoichi like Fu taught him a few things, that would be great. He didn't even need to mention anything else; the fact that she could fight Kakuzu spoke for itself. As for the Fourth Hokage, Minato Namikaze, who had taught him ninjutsu before, he had only taught Ye Wuji a few basics. At that age, the Fourth Hokage didn't have any particularly special techniques. And Ye Wuji couldn't very well study the things Yahiko had given him yet. For one thing, some of them were advanced, and Ye Wuji hadn't even mastered the basics. For another, he didn't have the right conditions to practice them. Yahiko's Fuuma clan had many ways of applying chakra that required special tools.

That was why Ye Wuji wanted Fu to teach him. Besides, it would help him avoid suspicion. Since he was a child, wouldn't it be a shame to waste his potential?

"Of course. Big Sister's very strong. But why do you want to learn from me? That uncle of yours, Ukyo, is pretty strong too. Why not ask him to teach you?" Fu boasted about herself without a hint of embarrassment.

"Uncle Ukyo's busy. He has to teach Yuta, too. He doesn't have time to teach me." Ye Wuji lowered his head.

"Oh." Fu looked at Ye Wuji and thought, Even a little guy like him knows how to compare himself to others. He must be unhappy about being outdone by that kid named Yuta. Fu had looked into Ye Wuji's background, so she knew what had happened. To her, he was simply upset that Ukyo hadn't taken him on as a student or taught him.

"So, what do you say, Big Sister Fu?" Seeing that Fu wasn't responding, Ye Wuji wondered if she was going to refuse, so he asked again.

"Sure." Fu nodded.

"Really? That's great!" Ye Wuji cheered when he heard her agree. Despite having an adult's mind, he still couldn't help celebrating.

"Of course. But first, you have to tell me why you want to train so hard. Then I'll know how to teach you." Fu looked at Ye Wuji, wondering how the child would answer. As she thought about it, she smiled.

Ye Wuji had no idea why Fu had suddenly started smiling, but her question didn't surprise him. People in the Naruto World often asked things like that. Now, though, he was the one being asked. Ye Wuji lowered his head and thought for a moment. He thought of the old director of the orphanage on Earth, then of the parents he had never met in this life, Konan, Yahiko, and Nagato, the Fourth Hokage's sacrifice, the suffering of Jinchuriki like Naruto and Gaara, and people like Haku and Kimimaro.

He went over all kinds of characters from Naruto in his mind, good and bad alike. Then he raised his head and declared, "To protect the people I love and the people who love me!"

Fu froze. She hadn't expected Ye Wuji to give that answer at all. It had truly surprised her. Looking at the smile on his determined face, Fu felt her heart stir. "All right. I'll train you for now. But don't you dare complain. I'm very strict."

"No problem. The stricter, the better." Ye Wuji nodded.

"Then show me everything you know."

"Mm." Ye Wuji nodded and returned to the middle of the yard. He demonstrated everything he had learned so far, of course leaving out anything he shouldn't reveal, like the Three Basic Techniques and the Water Clone Technique.

When Ye Wuji finished, he looked at Fu expectantly, hoping she would give him a good review.

Fu came over to him, her face full of menace. Ye Wuji felt a little nervous under her stare and wondered, Am I really that bad? No way. The Fourth Hokage said I was doing pretty well.

Just as Ye Wuji was wondering what Fu was going to do, she suddenly kicked him. He didn't see it coming and was sent flying to the side, where he crashed to the ground.

Ye Wuji clutched his stomach, aching all over, and stared at Fu in confusion. Fu came over again. He thought she was going to help him up, but instead she launched into a series of kicks. By the time she stopped, Ye Wuji was sprawled on the ground, unable to move.

His whole body hurt, but Ye Wuji understood that this was probably Fu's way of training him. After all, he only felt sore all over. If she had really wanted to hurt him, one kick would have been enough to kill him.

"Do you know why I beat you?" Fu stood over Ye Wuji and looked down at him.

"No. But I think it's for my own good. Otherwise, you could've just killed me," Ye Wuji replied.

"You're clever. There are plenty of clever kids, but not many as young as you who are this smart. Still, I am curious about the kind of life you had before. Maybe your parents protected you too well.

"Do you know? Everything you practiced was pretty good, and your form was correct. Too correct, like a showpiece. Your parents both died in the war, yet from the way you react, you don't seem to have any sense of what war is like. What do you think you're practicing those things for? You make it feel like training is a game. I can see it in your eyes, too. If it's just a game, why bother training?"

With a thump, Fu kicked Ye Wuji in the stomach. "Forget all that for now. You may be clever, but you're still a child. You don't understand what any of it means. As you grow up, you'll slowly come to understand. But there's something strange: from the way I've been kicking you, you must have been training your chakra. Do you know why that's so strange? You're afraid of getting hurt. You might be able to endure accidental injuries, but you deliberately avoid anything that could hurt you."

"Is it wrong to avoid getting hurt?" Ye Wuji asked with difficulty, trying to bear the pain.

"Looks like I was wrong. Avoiding injury is absolutely right. Ninjas have to avoid getting hurt. Ugh, how do I put this? I don't even know how to explain what I mean. All right, let me try another way. You've never been hurt before. I can tell from the way you hold a weapon. You aren't alert enough. That's it. A ninja has to stay alert, but you have none of the awareness someone needs on a battlefield. And the way you acted after I hit you was strange, as if you'd never been hurt before. Right, you didn't even seem worried about getting hurt. I don't understand how you ended up thinking that way or got into the habit, but you're going to get rid of it.

"That's enough for today. Think about what I said. I'll come back tomorrow." With that, Fu disappeared.

Ye Wuji understood why Fu had suddenly attacked him. Her explanation had been all over the place, and she hadn't expressed herself very clearly, but he knew what she meant. It was because he had come from Earth. His life there hadn't been very good, but on Earth, he hadn't needed to worry about someone suddenly attacking him, or about being killed at any moment.

After coming to the Naruto World, Ye Wuji had kept the same habits. Even when he practiced with the Fourth Hokage, no one had noticed. Back then, he had only been alert when the situation called for it, rather than constantly keeping his guard up. That was a common failing among people who had grown up in peaceful times. But someone raised in the Naruto World wouldn't develop that kind of temperament. This was a world where war could break out at any moment, so just about everyone stayed alert.

In short, it was a bad habit from living in peace for too long. That was why Fu had beaten him up: to teach him a lesson.

As Ye Wuji tried to get used to the pain, he smiled wryly to himself. I really took that beating for nothing. I spent twenty years living on Earth. How can you expect me to break a habit like that all at once? And as for the way I practiced, well, I've watched Naruto for so long that it's only natural for it to influence me. When I watched the techniques and abilities, I never cared about how powerful they were. I only cared whether their effects looked cool.

Fortunately, Fu had held back and known her limits. It hurt, but she hadn't broken any bones or damaged his muscles.

The next day, Fu brought a diagram of the human body, like the ones used in biology lessons at school. That day, she taught Ye Wuji about the different parts of the body and how they affected it, how to strike for maximum damage, how to kill someone without making them cry out, and other things. Of course, after Fu left, she beat Ye Wuji up again.

Fu had probably seen that Ye Wuji could train his chakra on his own, so she didn't teach him that. She only taught him different ways to strike people. Another week passed like that. By then, Ye Wuji had memorized most of the human body, and he was able to dodge a few of Fu's blows while she beat him. Though perhaps Fu was just going easy on him.