Abathor ate, and drank very slowly. He often cast a look at a much younger girl that his old ass as if admiring her in a small way. Throughout this though, she kept silent waiting for this man to talk. It was a common practice for the younger generation to offer a gift of some sort when they wished for a favor, or find out information on another organization. In her case, she offered the man a drink and a meal. It was a small gesture, but it should she was willing to pay for whatever she wanted.

Finally, he wiped his mouth and looked at her again. "It is not often I get children buying me drinks. So I can only assume you are smarter, or more connected then most children your age." He looked at her raising an eye brow. The girl smiled and thought about her answer. "Both." She finally said. "Smarter, because I know what to look for, more connected because I have met and spoken with plenty of criminals. Or, at lease I know enough to know you are a shinobi."

Abathor suddenly got real stiff and real quiet. At what seemed to be an eternity, he put his hands in his lap. "Young one, I must know, how do you know this? I am a genin but I have done only one mission in my life." She let out a friendly giggle. "oh it is nice to meet some one who will humor me. But, I know you because I was the little girl who saw you sell out shinobi out to my father. Don't worry, I won't sell you out so easily. Though, unless you give me what I want, I might just sell you out to him and see if He will give me what I want. "

There was another long momentary pause. "You know how to play our game then? Then I am sure you will go and backstab us regardless of what I do?" he asked as if half interested. The little girl shook her head and pointed at his drink. "I bought this as a symbol of my honesty. Now, if you were listening," she said rather harshly. "I said if you didn't give me what I wanted, I would sell you down the river."

This got the mans interest long enough for him to pour himself another drink. "And, what sort of information may you be looking for. For I, I am nothing more then a lonely genin. What sort of information could a person like yourself not know that I would hmm?" Now many here would have been polite. "You can stick that garbage up your ass. I know you better then that. You know things that even God would be surprised about." this drew a chuckle from the elderly abathor. He nodded none the less.

"Aye, I might know something like that. but I must ask again, what is it you wish to know?" The little girl looked at him for a long time ignoring his God complex that this conversation seemed to have made. "I want you to train me." She said this while he was drinking. Anything this man had in his mouth sputtered out. He looked at her, then across the pub that seemed to have turn to his direction. Thinking quick, he bent lower toward her.

"You seek training? Why from me?" He asked quietly now, trying to suck in anything she said. "Aye, I seek for what must be found and I need a ninja to train me." He sat back in his seat and shook his head. "I’m too old.” A flashy smile came to the little girl’s lips. She took a cup and grabbed the drink she had bought for him and poured herself some. Brining it up to her lips, she said "you forget. I am a crafty one. I will complete any task I set before myself." with that, she would drain the cup and sit it back down on the table.

He looked at her clearly unsatisfied with her answer. "I suppose you are" he said to her his voice going quiet once more. "Though I guess it couldn't hurt to tell you what you would like to know. If at lease to keep my own neck safe. The best way to learn is to show you combat. Let me see if we can find someone for me to fight. It can not be that hard. Abathor knows many people to fight but he does not know many young ones. He thinks he can get Hina to fight him but he is not sure.

"Surly you have some idea of where a sparring partner is?" He nodded and thought about it for a second. He does not know where Hina lives but he knows where they met last. So he goes there and looks. He will look like a old man with a little girl trailing behind him. “Hina” he calls out every so often to people on guard duty. None of them respond and he is left feeling like a fool. He cannot be a teacher to this little girl unless he can find Hina and fight her right here and right this very minute.

881/881

x

“Hina I need you to fight me so I can demonstrate my fighting ability to this little girl. She is not my granddaughter. She is a potential student of mine.”

Abathor thinks about the notion of having a granddaughter. He is old but that did not mean that he had settled down. He had no kids or grandkids. He goes to a nearby training field and hopes Hina will follow. If she does not then he will fight someone else.

Since that fatal day, when he had lost his companions, Abathor was no longer the same man. And it was only to say of the situation in which he was so much, mentally he had lost in consideration for his own being. Beside this fact, a thing had a little more disturbed the one we thought was unshakable like a reed. So to speak, the harm done by his mortal enemy and his band had hit him hard, right in the heart.

But even more, it was the loss of his loved ones that had almost completed the old man. For him, this was a sign of disobedience, of an act of treachery, or worse of an abandonment resulting from a sudden loss of confidence. It was his soul that was flying in shine, she who resounded. He even swore to hear a thousand and one voices telling him that he was no longer worthy of living a happy life. For a ninja to lose his soul was the same as to lose his dignity, his fighting spirit, his life.

And the height in all this is that Abathor does not even have the courage to be a teacher to this little girl. This is his chance to show off what he can do and get back into the swing of things.

This training place is known only from its bears. No need to worry because the bears were not dangerous unless you saw their cubs with them. The bears know to avoid this area or they usually get hit by kunai. He put himself in this forest training ground under this tree and looked to see if Hina came too. Torso bare and scarred he shivers from the wind. The world as he knew it, the history of this world. In the beginning the men were only farmers, and were already divided, between different ethnic and cultural groups. He carries his linage with him at all times.

When Abathor finds a partner to fight he tells his tiny student

“watch and learn. Then tell me if you really want to learn from me. I am not the best and I still do not understand why you want me of all people. Let your eyes see what they are asking for.”

Pieces of Abathor are conflicted. He wants to lose and win at the same time. He wants to also go home and sleep because he is already tired. Why did he of all people have to be selected by this girl as a mentor.

505/1386

d

Abathor gives no warning when he decides to start the big fight. One second he is looking at the girl and smiling. The next second he runs at Hina and aims a blow right at her stomach. He performs handseals but they are for show he does this to hope Hina wastes time dodging.

The use of the chakra was tolerated because it was part of everyday life. Abathor does not care for chakra and has learned to fake it to make it. He thought chakra should consist only of an extension of its body or an improvement of a strike. Then time passed and he saw people be corrupted by the power of chakra and become uncontrollable. This is why the following question frequently came up: Was he still a ninja? Or had he become a hybrid being marrying perfectly the culture of what he thought things should be like and what he knows the village wants him to be like?

Abathor circles around Hina faster than an old man should be allowed to move. He ends with a leg sweep that he intends to drop her to the floor with. This is not a good idea and Abathor pushes his old body too far. He drops to the ground as well and takes a few moments to get back up. He does not expect to win against a young one like Hina but he does not want to win nececesarily he just wants to prove to the little girl that he still has what it takes to teach her. He does not know why he keeps thinking about wanting to impress her.

He wants to prove himself the reality was quite different, the release of the full potential of his nature had affected his body to the point that he nearly loses his will to fight. He knew it well and wish before starting that he is no great fighter. Thus he opted for a deep return to the sources, under the constraint of an error that proved to be fatal, it was necessary to admit that he can only do so much.

He chooses this remote place to hide himself from people that can look at him and make fun of him for trying os hard even though he is so old. The long days he spends in meditation were intense, to see insurmountable, his muscles tended and his skin cracked, during the first of this long training he wanted to die every time.

So much suffering for results that was not intended. Moreover, after a common agreement with those who had welcomed in these lands, he could only feed on the success of his missions. It was a nightmare, like running barefoot on barbed wire. But he did not want to give up the task as difficult as it was.
474/1860

d

abathor gets kicked in the belly and howls in pain. He rolls over several times and stops only to cough up green spit. He had no tricks or fancy moves he just felt defeated. He stands up and looks at hina even though he knows he shouldn’t fight more he still decides to. He runs at hina as if he did not even get injured. It only made him hurt more but he was determined to impress this little girl.

“you will not defeat me so easily”

abathor runs past Hina and throws a rock at her after he passes. He wishes at this very moment to be able to call lightning from the sky to end the fight yet he stll knows no jutsus.

abathor picks up more rocks and throws them faster and faster out of desperation. He cannot risk having Hina hit him that hard again.

Despite the fatigue, he pushed his body, as he had learned in recent months, beyond its mere limits. It took him nearly a minute to run out of things to throw and after that he would be left weaponless and unable to walk properly. No, if he stopped, even for a second, he will get hit. He looks for more rocks frantically. He wishes for a spring brreze to cool him off. He decides to take off and run for a little.

Moving from tree to tree, his eyes revealed nothing more than a simple survival instinct. His pupils were moving at breakneck speed, searching eyes for possible hiding spots in the plentiful brush of the area while he was on the run from hina’s counter attack. His clothes got torn on some thorns. And he did not even care. His ragged clothes, under which his skin was severely tested, marked with a hundred scars, contracted muscles, bristles, all contributed to make him nothing more than a simple animal.
His habits bring him south-east, to a place he knew but he doubts he can get far. He remembers that this area has many bears so it is best to not run off too far. He noticies the little girl runs after him too, wondering why he is fleeng. He wants to tell her that this is part of fighting. Finding a hiding spot is important to counter attack. She will get in danger of bears abathor fears.

He stops running quickly and does a double take. He runs to the girl as a bear starts getting closer. He does not care about the fight he just wants to save her. He turns back and picks up the girl and climbs a tree and jumps from tree to tree to get out of danger.

“are you okay little one”

Abathor would be very sad if something had happened to her when he was not looking.

473/2333

d

Abathor is happy Hina is done fighting. It lets him rest. Abathor looks at the little girl to see if she was satisfied. Her eyes were being wetted by her sadness. What was making her sad? Girls were too confusing for abathor even in his old age. He had given her what she wanted so why didn’t she look happy?

That moment, he feels out of breath, it was a good fight since he was there with only company, birds and fearful foxes. He could feel his pulse slowing down and his breathing getting heavier. A few strands of his damp hair stuck to his clothes. He resumes his position, like a lotus trying to hatch, but the heavy load that pounded his shoulders was too heavy.

He lost interest in the fight and dropped to his knees. He tried to feel, to perceive the different beings that constituted the fauna of this wonderful place. Minutes passed, a bird, a squirrel then ... Total nothingness, scrambled, flouted? He could not hear them. Sometimes his mind wandered and he suffered hallucinations. The hunger tormented him and his head was spinning unbearable, his thin body was so horrible that the gurgling sound of his stomach was almost frightening.

And the results came to make their effects. He could thus guess which of the two girls was coming to him, what was the sugar content of one of the fruits he ate and then determine a balanced dish based on root and what the forest could offer him. The little girl gave him the food and abathor wonders if she is happy.

“Do you still want me to teach you”

“Yes. You are perfect”

Abathor completely ignores hina now. He is so happy for reasons he cannot explain. His body seemed light. Like new armor.

“What do you want to learn”

“I want to learn summons.”

Abathor is shocked because he does not know how to summon. He can only do punches and kicks and strategy. He went through all this effort only to not be able to help this girl.

“Hina do you know how to summon”

Abathor wants the little girl to be happy. Even if he is not the teacher he thinks the girl has put him through enough trouble that she needs to be trained for his own mental health.


391/2724

d

The ground ruptured around abathor and the little girl as rock shot out into the air. The tired man, no longer kept captive by the little girl also shot out, dodging out of the way. He does not think hina did this on purpose but she could have let him demonstrate instead. He knows no jutsu but he can at least do better than that. He can make a sparkle appear in his hand if he tries hard enough but now does not even think of it so that the little girl does not get even more scared.

“take me home there are bears here and I am scared. Please abthor”

The little girl is so desperate to leave that she is crying now. Abathor cannot believe that he took them here of all places. He should have taken them somewhere less dangerous.

“Be careful Hina!”

Abathor knows he encouraged hina to be more experimental but this was too much especially with this little girl here. After the slab falls on the ground he sighs and makes sure the little girl is ok. Hina has a good point that the girl needs to learn lots if she wants to become a summon girl. Some were able to successfully able to get away, others were not so lucky. He knows that she cannot learn that information from him.

“I am sorry little one but I am not the one to teach this jutsu that you want. You have to find someone else. I do not think Hina can even teach it.”

He wishes he was a strong taijutsu user so that on the ground he could habe hefted up the slabs of earth and heaved them at a tree in anger. He was a chakra user skilled in the element of fire and he wanted to set fire to the forest. He has to calm down so he buries his head in the little girl’s hair who is crying because she wasted her whole day to find out that nobody could help her and she had to go to the academy. No shortcuts for this little girl.


Abathor cannot still believe that he was almost hit by the rocks that came out of the ground when Hina used ninjutsu for the first time that he has ever seen. he would internally wipe a bead of sweat from his brow, this seemed a lot harder than he had thought it was, the rocks were hot like they had gotten mutated when they were pulled ut of the ground. He rememberd a time when his body would flip and twist through the air as the rocks would pass by him but now he can only run away and not do anything fancy.

“I think a hippo will be a good summon for you because it is reckless like you.”

Abathor thinks it is necessary to insult hina for what she had just done. He hopes she will not take it seriously because that would be bad for their relationship.

“Okay little one let me take you home. Thank you for your knowledge Hina I am sure this one will go to the academy. I do not know any summoners who can teach her.”

Abathor leaves the bear training grounds and goes back to the village center so he can take the little one back home. He hopes she does not seek out other masters and just accepts the academy. Abathor went there a long time ago and it was not that bad. He thinks she can handle it.


"Anyway, I am glad you gave me something to do today I'll be leaving for now..."

Abathor interrupted his own train of thought, shaking his head in the process.  He frowned, thinking that he really should have helped her more before he left. His doubt in himself had actualy grown instead of shrunk after this day. He lost a fight and he found out he cannot help this girl. What a shame this day had become.

Abathor can think of nothing else to do to burn up his time than to go back to train some more. He still hurts greatly from getting hurt by Hina and then also having to run so fast from that bear. He thinks he should take up medicine so that he can treat himself. He does not trust these new age doctors. He must do everything himself. This is easier said than done because he does not think he will be able to care for himself for much longer. Abathor cries himself to sleep and considers quitting being a ninja and retiring for good this time.

777 / 3501

Train d-2 -> d-3 endurance
train d-0 -> d-3 dexterity