The next morning, they packed the wasen with the last of their dry rations and headed to one of the islands Sute described.

"The nearest land is on Engimono Island, which is a day west from here. We will sleep on the boat, but you will resume your breathing exercises throughout the journey."

Nariko's face blanched, and she yelled out in frustration.

"What?! Ye call that breathin' exercises? We coulda drowned!"

"If you put a little more effort in the actual lesson, then that wouldn't be a problem. If you ask me, this should be taught in all ninja academies. In my opinion, it is first priority in survival as a ninja. Shinobi can't avoid sea travel or airborne toxins, but they can prevent being effected by them. Breathing is the first thing you learn as an infant, therefore you should have been able to master this exercise already, but unfortunately, it isn't a priority in most educational systems. The reason for that is beyond me."

"Maybe it be 'cos they don' actually want to drown the kids. Y'know, like normal people."

"Normal?"

Sute chuckled, her hands gripping the edge of her hood. Onigiri, who had crawled on top of the packages, looked up in alarm.

"I would have thought you had already figured it out, but I suppose that I was mistaken. Tell me, my new apprentices, does this-"

Sute flipped her hood over her head, exposing her white-scaled face as well as coal-black hair, her yellow, slitted eyes flashing as the light touched the purple marks around them.

"-look normal to you?"

Nariko squinted at her, as Kiiro backed away in alarm. Koe didn't see much of a difference. The large, wire-rimmed glasses ruined the whole snake-monster-mutant theme for him.

"Nope, ye look pretty freaky. Ta be honest, yer a lot better lookin' wi' yer hood on."

Sute slipped off her glasses and whacked herself in the face with her palm before putting them back on.

"Gee, thanks. Haven't heard that one before in my life."

"Not me fault if yer a mutant."

"Why did you do it, Sute-sensei? Why did you do that to yourself?"

Sute glanced at Kiiro for a moment before turning away and pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose.

"That is none of your concern. Hold your breath."

Iron hands clamped onto Koe from behind, and he was plunged into the ocean. This time, they moved alongside the boat as it traveled to Engimono Island.

Koe didn't struggle against the fists like he did the first time. Instead, he concentrated on not letting go of the air in his lungs as he was swept through the currents. After yesterday, he had been able to hold his breath for a little less than a minute. Nariko couldn't hold it for five seconds, and she still struggled against the iron hands, occasionally kicking Koe in the side and knocking the breath out of him, causing him to have to rap on the knuckles twelve times. Kiiro didn't seem to have had any trouble with the exercise at all, now holding the record at seven and a half minutes.

Koe's hands became raw and stung with the salt water as he kept hitting the fists over and over again. They were bleeding by the end of the day, when they had nearly reached the island. He had seen Sute heal herself, and decided to ask her to do the same with his knuckles. Kiiro and Nariko agreed, Nariko sucking on the blood that came out and Kiiro holding them against his shirt.

"S-S-Sute-sensei?"

Sute looked up. She was still writing in her white book.

"Is there something you need?"

Koe opened his mouth like a fish, but no sound came out. He doubted that he would ever get used to those snakelike eyes. Kiiro spoke up in his stead.

"Sute-sensei, can you please heal our hands?"

"No."

Sute went back to writing in her book.

"But Snakey-sensei, we gotta have our hands healed so that we could keep doin' the exercise. Don' ye want us ta keep doing the exercise?"

"You still don't understand. Think! There is a reason why I use the Iron Fist Jutsu rather than have Onigiri pull you out. There is a reason for the directions that I gave you. There is a reason why you are doing it underwater instead of holding your breath above the surface. Think!"

"But what is the reason, Sute-sensei?"

"That is why you must think, Kiiro! I know that you three are capable, otherwise I wouldn't waste my time training you at all! I can only make one Viper Clone at a time, so I am making a big sacrifice just by merely agreeing to take you as my students. It is your job to figure out the purpose of my lessons. I am not here to tell you how to become a shinobi, I am here to train you to become shinobi. I will not hold your hand, and I will not give you the answers to everything you need to know, and I will not dish out Jutsu that you have no business knowing! I am not your friend, I am your teacher. And the greatest teacher of all is the enemy."

"Eh? What're ye talkin' 'bout?"

"But sensei, that doesn't make any sense!"

Sute motioned for them to sit down on the wooden floor of the wasen.

"Listen to me. I was taught by three great masters, and I was taught to fear them, to anticipate their next move and prepare myself for it. You three must do the same. My job is to push you until you break, no matter what. Your job is to keep me from breaking you at all costs. That makes us enemies, and this opposition is between myself and the three of you. That is how I was taught, and that is how I will teach my students until I decide that their training is complete."

Nariko cocked her head at Sute, her brow furrowed, and the question she asked her made Onigiri look up at Sute. Onigiri seemed unsure as to how Sute would react.

"Oi, Snakey-sensei. . . did ye have other students before us?"

Sute's hand froze, and the blot of ink on the page she was writing on grew as she pressed her pen against the paper. She took the pen off the page, ripped the paper out, and rewrote her previous statements.

". . . Yes. While I was in the Hidden Leaf Village as a Chunin, before I became a traveling ninja, I was assigned a Genin squad. Several, in fact."

"What happened to them, Sute-sensei?"

Sute bit her lip, a thin vein of blood moving down her jaw and dripping onto the page. She ripped it out again.

". . . I was told to test them in order to truly promote them to the lower of the shinobi status. I failed all of them."

"A-a-a-all of them?

". . . Yes. None of them truly had what it took to become a warrior, let alone a ninja."

"What was that, Sensei? What didn't they have?"

Sute paused, her pen hovering over the blank page. She shut the book with a snap and clicked the top of the pen, making the tip retract. 

"None of them truly wanted to defend their village or their nation. They had no urge to protect. They lacked conviction. I used Genjustu to see how they would fare in a real attack on the village, and almost all of them fled. The ones that remained to defend were failed as well, because squads must always graduate together. Deserters dragged the team down with them, and dishonored the village with their cowardice. I was the only one in my squad that never taught Genin as a Chunin. Even Senri-"

Sute paused. Koe decided to take a risk.

Urge to protect? But we're fighting against Tamaka, the Land itself!

The students she taught ran away, just like Nariko and I did.

I'm not brave either.

I'm a coward just like them.

So how am I the compass?

"B-b-but then wh-wh-why did you agree t-t-to teach us? W-we're fighting against our land!"

"I agreed to teach you because as I said, you had potential. But I didn't mean potential as in power or Kekkei Genkai. When Twelve used Genjutsu on the three of you, at least one of you held the others up when they were weakened. When I didn't come up to the surface, Koe jumped in after me, and-"

"And they used me as a rope to pull him up!" Complained Onigiri.

Sute smirked, then bit down on her lip to stifle it.

"Not to mention that you, at such a young age, are fighting to liberate not the land or village itself, but your people. That is what is important. When the Leaf Village was under attack from the Akatsuki, it was not destroyed."

"What? But tha's what all the news tol' ever'one! Pain destroyed the Leaf Village, dinnae?"

"No, he did not."

"Yea he did! Ever'one knows it! It was under construction fer the longest time!"

"Yes, the buildings were destroyed, but the Village itself was not even cracked. That is because the Village isn't the buildings, or the monuments. The village is the whole of the people. As long as there is one single villager, the Village lives on."

The village is the whole of the people?

So even if one lives, the village isn't destroyed?

Does that mean. . . 

Does it mean that Imin wasn't really destroyed either, since I'm alive?

Imin is still alive?

I. . . 

I'm still Koe of Imin?

"Eh? Tha' doesn't make any sense!"

"Yes, it does!" Yelled Kiiro. He seemed exited that he figured something else out.

"It's because a Village is the people, not the buildings they live in. The spirit of the Village lives on in the people, and so long as there is one to carry it on, then the Village lives."

Sute nodded at Kiiro.

"Yes, that is correct, Kiiro. And Nariko, even if you do not understand it yet, you are still motivated to protect the people, not the territory itself. Your priorities are completely straight. As for Koe. . . at least he feels the urge to protect something, which is more than I can say for any of the other Genin that were assigned to me."

The three apprentices jumped when the nose of the wasen hit the shore with a thump, and Sute stood up and stepped out of the boat.

"You are in charge of your own luggage. If you need to relieve yourself, then there is a bush."

Sute motioned to a nearby thornbush. Koe and Kiiro shuddered, and Nariko paled.

"I will use my Earth Style Jutsu to make a cave for us to spend the night. Tomorrow, you three must to to the Great Owl Elder to tell him that you will be staying here for a while. Take care not to mention my name or prescence. Request permission to forage for food here. I will not forbid you to socialize with the island's inhabitants, just don't bring any of them here. I have spent today gathering Sage Chakra in the boat and sealing them in my arms, and will do so for the rest of the night, therefore I will be out of commission in the morning. When you return from your meeting with the Owl Elder, wake me so that you can keep training."

With that, Sute moved her hands and fingers, causing two sides of a cave to rise out of the ground and meet several feet above her head. She walked in, sat down in lotus position, and stayed there, unmoving.

Koe and the others went looking for something other than a thornbush to relieve themselves, and came back, refreshed, as they set up their rolled-up sleeping bags in the cave.

"Oi, Koe. Ye awake?"

"Yes."

"I'm awake too," Said Kiiro.

"This be a Summonin' Island. Tha' means tha' one of us can find a Summoning here. Maybe even become a Sage!"

Nariko sounded ecstatic, and Koe looked over at her as her smile and golden eyes lit up the darkness.

"There ain't ne'er been an Owl Sage before. Maybe I'd become the first!"

Koe thought about Nariko's face adorning an Owl pattern like Sute's face markings. He gave Nariko a small smile.

"Y-y-yeah. Maybe."

"Unless I become an Owl Sage before you."

"I'd like ta see ye try, Kiiro Mangusu!"

"Then you'll love this! You just wait, Nariko!"

"Fine, an' I'll watch the look on yer face when I become the greatest Sage on the planet!"

Koe let out a small laugh. It was so small that Nariko and Kiiro kept arguing, mistaking it for a cough.

--

"Uh, wh-where d-d-do we f-find the Owl Elder?"

"It be obvious, ainit? It be that huge tree right smack in the middle if the island. Hones'ly, ye've got the mind of a goldfish, Koe."

"Well, it's not like you see things like that in a place like Imin. Giant owls aren't really common there, you see."

"Ye'd best watch where ye place tha' sarcasm, Kiiro. I gonna be the greatest Sage ever!"

"I thought you were going to be Feudal Lord?" 

"Do ye have any idea how powerful Sages are? Naruto Uzumaki the Toad Sage single-handedly saved the Leaf Village! One day, imma be just as powerful as he is, an' I'll challenge him to a ninja battle, and who cares what anyone else thinks? Attakai can rule the Land of Owls if she wants, but my dream is ta become a ninja, and a Sage! Just like Master Naruto! I'll save whole countries one day, you'll see! Everyone's gonna see! Just ye wait, an' ye can bet yer flyin' fish!"

As they neared the tree, Koe gulped at the sheer size of it. The branches seemed to cut through the clouds as they went past, scraping against the sky while large owls swooped in and out of the circular windows.

Some owls settled in the branches of trees around them, scrutinizing them suspiciously. Koe shrank closer to Nariko and Koe when one turned its head in a complete circle. The owls were silent as they stared at the children, who also fell into silence.

"N-N-Nariko!" Koe whispered.

"I see 'em, Koe. Don' worry."

"That's what you told me when we almost died!"

Nariko snickered, and slapped Kiiro on the back of the head lightly when he smirked.

They entered through the large red gates that stood in front of the entrance. The red ropes adorning them swung lightly in the breeze as the large owl statues standing guard at each side glared at the three as they walked in.

There was a giant brown screech owl perched on a metal bar that ran along the diameter of the hollow tree-trunk. Its voice was feminine and soft as it echoed through the tree, the ruffling  feathers of smaller-yet-still-huge owls quieting as she spoke.

"Whoooooo dares enter Engimono Hollow?"

Koe stepped back when the giant old talked, but Nariko stepped forward.

"I am Nariko of the Land of Owls, and these are my companions, Koe of Imin and Kiiro Mangusu of Moarando Village."

The screech cocked her head and blinked her large eyes down at them, clicking her beak.

"You come from the Land hosting a crooked regime, child, and I was of the knowledge that Imin and Moarando were destroyed by that regime. I sense noble yet tainted Chakra in you, and you travel with survivors of villages destroyed by your kind. How intriguing. Tell me, what brings you here, to Engimono Hollow?"

"I be fightin' against Tamaka, nae with her. I wanta stop 'er from destroying the lives of my people. I ain't a noble, an' I ne'er will be. Don't wanta become Feudal Lord. I wanna become a shinobi so tha' I can figh' wi my people and wi' me comrades by me side. Wanna become the firs' an' greatest Owl Sage, I do!"

The Elder threw back her feathery head and laughed in hoots, her chest swelling and taking in an impossible amount of air.

I bet SHE'D be able to finally complete Sute's 'breathing exercises'!

"Well, child, you have certainly come to the right place. If that is what you truly wish, then you must first pass our. . . test."

"Eh, test? Snak-"

Kiiro muffled her next words with his hands just in time.

"Sorry, we just never knew that we'd have to pass a test to be accepted here."

"Oh, this test isn't so you would be accepted on this island. I have already scanned your Chakra have decided that you are not threats, and you are welcome to forage for food here until you prove yourselves otherwise. No, this is to test which one of you is truly worthy of Summoning Owls, and training to become the Sage of Engimono Hollow."

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