Spoiler:

It was strange being back at the Academy. It had been so many years since she had sat in these classrooms and listened to the dull droning of lectures. The fields were still as wide as training grounds, and the grass was just as green as ever. Even the outer surfaces of the buildings still retained their nostalgically unclean look, despite the fact that she knew that it was scrubbed down at least once a year. It really just looked the same as ever.

Though this time, Ciera wasn’t here as a student. She was the teacher. On the green grass, she stood, towering over the young—and small—children that she was assigned to teach. In their eyes, she could see fear and recognition. Her skin color and height were a dead giveaway after all. Though in others, she could see cautious curiosity and mild amusement.

From across the field, leaning against the tree was the bearded teacher, smoking a cigarette with his eyes closed. Well, he did have to deal with children all day. She remembered back when she was in school, she was a bit of a troublemaker. She had caused quite a bit of hassles, more than she should have.

“Teacher, teacher!” She turned back to see a black-haired young boy with a big smile in the front was waving his hand back and forth in the air. Instead of the usual, she could only see unrestrained enthusiasm and curiosity. How strange.

“Yes, um…” Ciera trailed off. What was his name again? Well, whatever. “Is there a problem?”

“Problem?”  The boy looked confused for a moment before he shook his head. “No, I have a question.”

“Okay,” she said and waited. When the boy remained silent, she prompted him. “So what’s your question?”

“Is your skin really blue?”

“Yes,” Ciera said simply, bewilderedly. There were not many that didn’t know of the Hoshigaki clan in Kirigakure, but these were children after all so it shouldn’t have been unexpected. Yet, for some reason, it had still surprised her. Still, she needed to get them away from this topic. It was time to each. “Listen up, class. Today, we are going to learn about Bunshin no Jutsu, the Doppelganger technique.”

“But we already learned how to do that,” a random girl spoke out from the crowd.

“Well, for those of you who already know it, we’re going to practice until we can do it better. Use the right amount of chakra—not too much and not too little—and make each hand seal faster. You will have to do it in the middle of combat, so you need to make sure you can do it fast while keeping an eye out for the enemy. You never know when they might pop up while you’re doing the hand seals and stick a kunai into your back.” Ciera emphasized this by making a stabbing motion with her hand. “So you have to be faster than them. That means memorizing the jutsu until you can do it faster than your enemy can attack you.”

Some of the children were still looking disgruntled.

“Now, now, this jutsu only takes three hand seals. Later on, you are going to be using more hand seals for more complex jutsus. Practice doing it fast now so you can work the seals on harder, more awesome jutsu later.” While the children still looked dissatisfied, they were more complacent. “Okay, watch how I do the seals. You have to do it fast and correctly. We will do it all together, and we’ll slowly increase the speed each time. Don’t bother using chakra. This is just hand seal practice for now.”

Maybe she was overestimating these children, because for the rest of the afternoon, she concentrated on only this single task. Some kids were fast while others stayed slow, even with a more personalized teaching touch on it. Still, she worked them over and over until time was over for classes and they had to leave for home. By that time, however, some of them had finger cramps from overusage of unfamiliar hand motions.

While it wasn’t a jutsu, but at least they practiced their hand seal making skills.

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WC 711/600

“What? Again?” A young boy complained from the front of the gaggles of students that had gathered before her. It had seemed like only yesterday that Ciera had taught this particular class the art of fast seal-making. Oh wait, it was yesterday. They did not seem altogether happy to see her again so soon. Though, that was not surprising. Not at all.

Standing in the sunlight given off by the morning, on the training grounds of the school, the class was once again gathered for another wonderful lesson from everybody’s favorite blue-skinned, shark-human hybrid. Or at least, everyone’s favorite except for this particular group of shinobi children.

“Okay, class. It’s time for the next lesson. I assume that you all are tired of hand seals practice, right?”

There was a chorus of nods among the children.

“Well, you don’t have to worry about that. We’re doing something different today.”  As Ciera spoke, she channeled chakra from her chakra coils. Her hands went through the familiar motions that came from doing the seals of the Doppelganger technique, a jutsu that she had endlessly practiced back during the academy years. Each seal appeared in a flash of hand motions. Ram, snake, tiger. With a pop of smoke, an illusionary clone of herself appeared next to her. “Today, we are going to practice being efficient with our chakra. As you all know, chakra is not infinite. You have a limited amount so it is important that you can control it well enough. Why?”

She waited for a moment to see if anyone would raise their hand or respond. When none did, she continued speaking, though with a little bit of disappointment.

“It’s because if you use too much, it’s wasteful. You will soon run out of chakra and become prey to the enemy. However, if you use too less, then the jutsu might not come out right—or worse, it wouldn’t work at all. You have to be extra careful not to be caught in either situation, because if I saw an enemy do that, he wouldn’t live past the minute,” she said. “That’s where the Doppelganger technique is useful for this exercise. If you put too much chakra into the jutsu, then it will look like this.”

Ciera went through the seal motions, but this time, she flooded the jutsu with much more chakra than necessary. What came out of the smoke once the jutsu was activated was a sickly looking clone, her skin somehow even paler than it was before and her legs were shivering as if she was freezing.

“If you put too less, then this might happen.” She used the jutsu again, except this time, what came out of the smoke was a tiny version of Ciera, as if she had been shrunk to only half her height. “As you can see, not very useful against a real enemy.”

She clapped her hands together, dispelling all the clones.

“Okay, class. Forget about doing the seals fast. All I want to see is you putting in the right amount of chakra. I will be going around and helping out those having trouble.”

For the rest of the time, Ciera walked around as the group practiced the jutsu. Those that were having trouble were helped by her, a slow process at best and a tedious one at worse. Yet, as the afternoon dragged on, she could see improvement in her students. By the late afternoon, the class was finally released and the children were allowed to go home. It had certainly been a long day.

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WC 1319/600