The weeks since Rock Lee became a sensei had been, by any measure, the most productive period of three young lives.
They trained every morning at five. Weighted runs, calisthenics, sparring, the rotation so consistent that Ami stopped restyling her hair for it by the third. Kasumi never complained at all, which worried Lee more than the other two's complaints combined, until he realized she simply processed her suffering internally and emerged from each session slightly more capable and slightly more terrified of the next one.
The D-rank missions stacked up like firewood. They weeded gardens, walked dogs, repainted a fence for an elderly couple who could not stop feeding them, caught Tora the cat three separate times (Ami threatened to skin it on the third retrieval and Lee had to have a conversation about professionalism toward mission objectives that were also living creatures), delivered messages across the village, babysat a merchant's twin toddlers who somehow got onto the roof (Kasumi was the one who figured out how they did it; the toddlers were friends with ninja cats), and helped a restaurant owner with his entire storage basement.
They also finally learned how to climb trees. After that they learned their chakra natures.
Lee brought chakra paper from the shop and handed each of them one, and three girls held the paper and pushed their chakra into it and watched the results.
Fuki's crumbled to dirt. Earth.
She stared at the pile of dust in her palm and her face split into a grin so wide it showed her molars. "I can make the ground do what I want?!"
"Eventually, yes!"
"That's the coolest thing ever! I'm gonna make mountains! In less than a year!"
Kasumi's dampened. Water.
"Nice…" She muttered with a small smile.
Ami's split in half. Wind.
"Not bad, I guess. Could be better." She decided.
Lee also taught them different fighting styles.
Lee first watched them spar and how they fought when fighting against him together, and he built each of them a style that fit the girl wearing it.
For Fuki, the Strong Fist. Lee's own style, Guy's style, the art of breaking what you hit. Fuki fought the way she lived, headfirst and burning with the Power of Youth, and the Strong Fist gave her permission to do exactly that, only now with a proper foundation under the fury. She learned to chamber her kicks. She learned to set her feet before she swung. She learned that the difference between a wild punch and a devastating punch was three inches of hip rotation, and in no time her punches were punching the bark off trees.
For Kasumi, the Soft Fist. Lee had drawn inspiration from the Gentle Fist for the concept but built something entirely different. Where the Gentle Fist attacked an opponent's chakra network, the Soft Fist attacked their momentum. Kasumi's natural instinct was to avoid, to give ground, to not be where the fist was. Soft Fist made that instinct lethal. Lee threw a punch at her during their first session and instead of blocking it or dodging it, she turned with his punch and struck him hard enough to send him sliding backward. Lee managed to block the counter in time but it was still impressive. The look on her face was pure disbelief. Lee's was pure pride. She learned to read attacks the way water reads a stone in a river, flowing around them, redirecting them, and sending it back toward them even stronger. Compared to the other two, she was lacking in the physical department. Now she did not need to worry about that.
For Ami, the chain whip. Ami's body told Lee something her mouth never would: she did not like being hit, and she did not like being close enough to be hit. The chain whip gave her range, reach, and the ability to control space. A length of weighted steel that could wrap, strike, bind, or redirect, that kept opponents at arm's length and punished them for trying to close. Ami took to it naturally. Refusal to be less than excellent, and relatively quickly she could give a one-armed and one-legged Rock Lee a little bit of trouble.
Lee watched the three of them grow and he wrote everything down in his notebook and he trained them the way Guy had trained him: with love, with intensity, and with the absolute conviction that they were capable of more than they believed.
…
"Mission time!" Lee announced as they walked through the Academy's hallways toward the desk.
"Please let it be something besides chores." Fuki muttered. "If I have to catch that cat one more time, I'm going to lose it, sensei."
"I hope it's the fence again if we have to." Ami said. "The old couple gave us those sweet honey dumplings."
Kasumi said nothing. She was already wondering which D-rank option would involve the least physical labor, because her body was still sore from yesterday's training.
They reached the desk. The chunin behind it, a tired-looking man had a weary smile on his face as he looked up at shining Lee.
"Team Lee. What'll it be today?"
"We would like a C-rank mission, please." Lee said it naturally.
As if he hadn't always said D-rank before this.
Fuki's head snapped toward him.
Ami's frown inverted.
The chunin raised an eyebrow, checked the scroll rack, and pulled one out. "C-rank. Investigation of reported bandit activity along the southern trade road in the Land of Fire. Reports from merchants say a group has been harassing innocent merchants and others innocents. Local guards haven't been able to handle it." He handed Lee the scroll.
"Wonderful! Thank you!" Lee took the scroll and turned to his team.
Fuki's face was incandescent. Her fists were clenched at her sides and she was vibrating at a frequency that suggested she might actually explode. A real mission. Not some stupid chores. Not a dumb animal. A real, actual, genuine ninja mission.
Ami's expression had undergone a transformation worthy of a jutsu. The bored resignation of another D-rank had evaporated, replaced by something she was trying very hard to keep dignified but which was plainly, obviously, undeniably excitement. No more stupid babysitting. No more useless freaking chores. No more delivering groceries. She squealed inadvertently.
Kasumi went pale.
"Sensei." Her voice was small. "Are we... are we ready for that? Maybe we should do a few more D-ranks first. Just to be safe. I don't want us to, um, to fail our first real mission because we weren't prepared enough. Maybe two or three more weeks of..."
Ami and Fuki turned to glare at her.
The look they gave her could have curdled milk. Fuki's expression said if you take this away from me I will never forgive you. Ami's said I will remember this betrayal for the rest of my life.
"Kasumi-chan." Lee crouched in front of her and ruffled her afro. The orange curls bounced under his hand and sprang back. "You are ready. All three of you are. Even if you do not believe it yet, I know you are. Trust me."
Kasumi looked at his smile.
"Okay, sensei." she said quietly.
Fuki pumped her fist. Ami exhaled through her nose.
"Go home and pack." Lee told them. "A mission like this should be at most five to seven days, but I recommend packing supplies for at least two weeks in case of complications. We leave from the main gate at sunrise."
They scattered.
Fuki packed for one week, because she figured if it took longer than that she could just punch whatever was in their way harder.
Ami packed for two weeks, with three different outfits, a grooming kit, and a separate sealed scroll for emergency supplies that she had organized by category.
Kasumi packed for three weeks. She included a first aid kit, backup rations, spare sandals, four canteens, and a handwritten list of everything in her pack cross-referenced with a second list of everything she'd considered packing but decided against, which she then packed as well in case she changed her mind.
…
The main gate of Konoha was a wide arch of timber and stone, and the morning was cool, and the two men sitting behind the gate desk were the same two men who had been sitting behind that desk for as long as anyone could remember.
Izumo saw Lee coming first. His one visible eye lifted from the logbook and his whole face changed. "Lee!"
"Izumo-san! Kotetsu-san!" Lee waved with both hands and then some as he approached with three girls trailing behind him. "Good morning!"
Kotetsu leaned back in his chair and grinned. "Well look at this. The devil's got baby devils." He jerked his chin at the three girls. "These are your new students, eh?"
"My students!" Lee beamed. "Team Lee, this is Izumo Kamizuki and Kotetsu Hagane. They are two of Konoha's most reliable shinobi, they fought beside me on plenty of missions."
"Beside you is a generous way of putting it." Kotetsu snorted. "More like behind you. Way behind you. In a different league, usually."
"Don't be so humble," Lee laughed. "You both managed to open the First Gate! That is incredible!"
"He nearly killed us to do it," Kotetsu told the girls with a conspiratorial lean. "Your sensei's idea of teaching is trying to murder you until your body figures out how not to die. Has he done that to you yet?"
"He opened those gate thingies on us during our genin test." Fuki said.
Kotetsu and Izumo exchanged a glance.
"Eight Inner Gates." Izumo repeated. "On academy students."
"It was a very controlled demonstration!" Lee assured them.
"He threw me into a tree." Ami added.
"I blacked out." Kasumi mentioned.
Kotetsu looked at Lee. "You're definitely your sensei's student."
"I do my best to live up to that every day!"
Kotetsu waved a hand. "So, how is it? Having this guy as your sensei? He treating you right?"
Fuki's answer came out before anyone else could breathe. "He's the best sensei ever. He trains us every day. He teaches us real taijutsu and he massages our muscles after and he never stops pushing us to be stronger. And he's the strongest ninja I've ever seen. He ran five laps around the village on his hands before our first training and he wasn't even tired!"
Kotetsu blinked.
"She's enthusiastic. You gonna put her in a green jumpsuit too?" Izumo observed.
"Only if she wants to." Lee glanced at her with expectation.
"No way, sensei! Like I totally respect you and admire you and all, but your do is totally wack!" Fuki declared.
Lee clutched his chest with pain on the verge of fainting. "You don't have to be so cruel…"
"I like your outfit, sensei…" Kasumi muttered.
"You'd wear my outfit?!" Lee sprung back to life.
Kasumi blushed as she turned away and didn't answer.
"I think it'd suit you." Ami smirked maliciously.
"Really? I think it looks ridiculous." Fuki shook her head. "Like, sensei can make that outfit work because no one can make fun of him for it. Like who's going to tell the Green Savage Brutal Awesome Devil what he can and can't wear?"
"It's not that bad!" Lee defended his and his sensei's manner of wear.
"If you say so, sensei." Ami shrugged before turning her eyes to the chunin.
The most reliable shinobi he said… They were adults. Full grown men with years of experience and flak jackets. And they were chunin. Gate guards. Sitting behind a desk stamping logbooks. Her sensei was a year older than her and he was already a Special Jonin with an S-rank bingo book entry and students of his own.
How does that work? she thought. How are they so much older and so much lower ranked? Is it a talent thing? A motivation thing? Did they just... stop climbing?
She kept the thought in her head, because Ami actually had some sense, compared to others.
Kasumi bowed slightly to both chunin. "Thank you for looking after the gate. It makes me feel safe knowing people like you are watching the entrance."
Izumo smiled at that. "Your sensei is a good guy. You're in good hands."
"The best hands in Konoha." Kotetsu agreed. "Just, you know. A bit eccentric." He stamped the logbook. "Team Lee, C-rank departure, cleared. Stay safe out there."
Lee nodded and led his team through the gate.
They stepped past the arch and the road opened ahead of them, wide and dusty, cutting south through the forest outside Konoha's walls. The trees were tall and the light came through them in long bars and the air smelled like earth and leaves and the beginning of something.
Fuki started to run.
"Fuki-chan."
Lee's voice stopped her three steps past the gate. She turned back, confused. Lee was standing at the threshold with his arms at his sides and his head tilted slightly, and he was smiling.
The girls looked at him. Lee was always smiling, but there was something different about this one.
"Take off your weights." he ordered.
They were speechless.
Fuki heard it. Her brain received the words. Her ears confirmed them. And for a full three seconds she stood on the road outside Konoha's gate and simply could not assemble them into meaning.
"...What?" she managed.
"Take off your weights." Lee repeated.
"REALLY?!" Fuki's voice hit a pitch that startled birds out of two separate trees.
"Why?" Ami's eyes narrowed. "Is this a trap? Do you have heavier ones prepared for us or something?"
Kasumi said nothing. She was already on the ground, fingers working at the straps on her ankles with the quiet gratitude of someone being released from prison.
Lee waited until he had all three of their attention.
"Anything can happen on a mission outside the village." he said. His voice was warm but the words were serious, and the combination made all three of them listen harder. "I want you at your best and ready for anything. Inside Konoha, we train with weights because we are safe, because the village protects us, and because the discomfort makes us stronger. But out here, the situation can change in a heartbeat. A C-rank can become a B-rank. A B-rank can become something worse. And if the moment comes when you need every bit of speed and strength your body has, I do not want you fumbling with the weights."
He looked at each of them in turn.
"The moment you need to take off your weights could be the moment you lose your lives. I won't let you take that risk. So from now on, any mission outside the village, the weights come off before we leave the gate. Understood?"
"Yes sir!" Fuki saluted so hard she almost hit herself in the face. She was already tearing at her weight straps enthusiastically.
He thinks about these things, Ami thought as she knelt and began unfastening her own weights. Her fingers worked the leather straps and each one that came loose sent a wave of lightness up through her body that bordered on intoxicating. He thinks about our safety. He actually sits down and considers what could go wrong and how to keep us safe. Her heart beat rapidly. Those stupid eyebrows. That goofy smile. But those muscles and that kindness... "Thank you, sensei." she said, and it came out softer than she intended.
"Yes, sensei." Kasumi bowed, already weightless, already feeling the strangeness of it. She had worn the weights every waking hour for weeks. Bathing and sleeping were the only exceptions. Having them off now, standing on a road in the sunlight, felt like someone had replaced her legs with someone else's. She felt so light she worried she might float. And underneath the lightness, a new anxiety: if sensei thought a C-rank mission could escalate to something that required their full unweighted speed to survive, then what exactly were they walking into?
She became very observant of her surroundings.
The three girls stood on the road outside Konoha's gate, stripped of the weights they had been cursing forever, and the world felt different. Their legs felt different. The ground pushed back differently. The air moved differently around bodies that were suddenly, shockingly, free.
Lee set their weights in a neat row against the inside of the gate wall, where Izumo and Kotetsu would watch them until they returned.
Then he turned to his team and grinned.
"How about a race?"
"You're on, Devil-sensei!" Fuki shouted, already dropping into a runner's stance.
"I have literally never felt better than I do right now." Ami exhaled, rolling her shoulders, feeling the absence of the weights like the lifting of a curse.
"A race couldn't hurt..." Kasumi said, and beneath the nervousness there was something else: excitement. She wanted to know how fast she was now. She wanted to feel what the weeks of weighted training had built underneath the burden.
Lee dropped into his own stance beside them. Three girls and a green legend, lined up on the road, the morning light behind them and the mission ahead.
"Ready?" Lee asked.
"READY!" Fuki screamed.
"Ready." Ami confirmed.
"...Ready." Kasumi whispered.
"GO!"
[Teaching Proficiency +5,870 points!]
[Leadership Proficiency +1,230 points!]
[Inspire Proficiency +580 points!]
Four blurs shot down the road and the dust they kicked up behind them hung in the air for a long time, and Kotetsu leaned his chair back against the wall and watched the cloud settle and shook his head.
"He's going to turn those girls into monsters just like his sensei did for his team." he said.
Izumo stamped the logbook shut and smiled.
"How scary. Can you imagine three female Lees?"
"I don't think it would be so bad actually. Lee's pretty polite and kind and caring. I'd kill for a woman like that. Even if she could punch my head off if I ever pissed her off."
"I'm not a masochist. Sweet and cute is more my style."