I approached Yugi-sensei after dinner in our team's room, Taibakaze resting on my left shoulder with his tail draped lazily over the back of my neck.  Yugi-sensei was sitting on his futon with a rolled scroll laying on the ground to his right, and several cards laid out in front of him.  He seemed to be in deep thought as he gazed at the cards scattered before him.

"Yugi-sensei, I've been meaning to ask.  What was that card you gave me during the battle with Zabuza?  The Mist Valley Watcher?  How did adding chakra to the card with that creature depicted on it cause the creature to escape out of the paper?"

Yugi-sensei spared me before he returned his attention to his cards, chuckling to himself.  "The Mist Valley Watcher is one of my summoning creatures."

I stared at him blankly, not saying anything as he continued.

"Watcher, as I like to call him, is a Card Spirit.  One of many that I can summon at any time if I need a little extra help, just like how you can now summon the Kamaitachi if you need help."

I held up my hand.  "Hold on.  So Watcher is one of your summons, and is a Card Spirit.  Ok, cool.  How come I was able to summon one of your creatures?"

Yugi-sensei finally directed his attention to me, meeting my curiously baffled gaze.

"The same reason why they are called Card Spirits.  These spirits are bound to two places as a general rule; their summon realm, and the card that they are depicted on in the human realm.  Before I signed the summoning contract with them, the Card Spirits were divided between these two bound locations and had no control over what would happen to their card in the human realm.  Often times, they would end up in the hands of a human, whether it be a naive civilian who doesn't know about the spirit within the card or a capable ninja with the chakra control necessary to draw the creature out of their card.  That's what happened with you and the card of Watcher."

"Then what's the difference between holding a card and signing a summoning contract?"

"The privileges that come with the contract.  Now that the Card Spirits have an official summoner, they can have slight control over what occurs to their card here.  For instance, if a person they deem unworthy of their power came into possession of their card, they now have the option to return the card to me.  I know when it happens since the card's name appears on this scroll."  Yugi-sensei tapped the scroll on his right lightly with his pointer finger.  "Likewise, I can summon any creature I want without using the creature's card, as long as I know their full name or title that is written on their card."

I nodded, then turned to grabbed Watcher's card out of my ninja pack on my leg.  I stared at the bird-man in the image before holding out the flimsy reinforced slip of paper towards my sensei.

"I should probably return this to you.  Thank you for letting me borrow him."

Yugi-sensei pushed my hand back towards me, not taking the card.

"No need.  I was meaning to give each of you one of my cards, and it just so happened that you got yours before the twins did.  To be honest, I think that Watcher actually likes you better than he ever liked me!"  The young sensei laughed while scratching his neck, seemingly embarrassed.  "Besides, if he didn't like his interaction with you, he would have returned to my list immediately.  Seeing as he has Watcher in his name, he watches his summoners very closely and sees things about them that nobody else can.  If there was something off about you, he would have noticed immediately, and probably would not have followed any direction that you could have given him."

I considered my sensei's words as I had a staring match with the hybrid creature pictured in my hand.  "Thank you, sensei."

He nodded.  "Of course.  Now, that brings me to my current dilemma.  I can't decide which Card Spirits to give to the twins."  He gestured to about 10 cards splayed before him.

I glanced over all of them and noticed two names that popped out to me almost immediately.  I picked up the two cards and closed my eyes.  I sent a little shock of chakra of both cards, just enough to make contact, not to summon them.  When I received what seemed to be a warm welcome from both spirits, I sent out a questioning pulse with the intent of what I wanted to know underlining the pulse.  They both seemed to approve.  I opened my eyes to see the Card Spirit Summoner regarding me silently, patiently, and curiously.

"What about these two cards?  With them being twins, they match up with our twins fairly well.  Not to mention that they specialize in fire and wind, the same as Yusuke and Ayana."  I held them out to their summoner.  "I think they might be good matches."

The purple-eyed man took the cards and examined them before smiling at me warily.  "I agree.  I don't think that I have ever seen someone communicate with my spirits in such a way before.  What did you do?"

I raised a brunette eyebrow.  "I simply used my chakra.  I remembered that the note from the fight with Zabuza said that if I sent a minuscule pulse of chakra into the card, it would be enough to cause a reaction with the spirit connected to the card, and yet not summon it.  So, using the same concept, along with the method that Taibakaze and I use to communicate with each other, I thought that I could possibly ask those twins a few questions."

As my explanation drew on, Yugi-sensei's mouth opened wider and wider, slowly at first, and then suddenly all the way as I finished up.  When I stopped talking he violently shook his head and looked at me weirdly.

"Once again, you never cease to amaze me, Utagawa Toshihiko.  To think that one of your age could attain such finely attuned control over his own chakra in a way that takes most jonin years to master is an incredible feat in and of itself.  How did you do it?"

I shifted uncomfortably under the young jonin's awestruck expression.  I thought I could hear some commotion outside of the room, but dismissed as team seven making their way to their room next door.

"It's not as incredible as you are thinking, and a longer story than you probably would care to listen to."  He shook his head.

"I don't mind.  I'm just curious about it."

I nodded my head slowly and let out a deep sigh, stealing my nerves against any memories that are bound to arise as a consequence of my story.

"Well, it started when I was really young, just before entering the academy.  Since my earliest memory, there were several things that have been constant in my life.  My ability to become a ninja is a privilege that I should not take for granted.  Don't debate with what the villagers may say about my ancestors.  And lastly..."  I paused for a moment to take a deep breath.  I debated with myself on whether to continue with my train of thought, before changing my mind.  "Arguments were a normal occurrence in my house, and before I entered the academy, my mom did the best she could to shield me from the arguments between her and my father."  I went silent for a moment to examine the adult sitting before me.

His face was pale, and contorted with slight worry.  "How would she shield you?"

I flinched slightly at the remembrance of the small dark space, the sound of angry voices, and the sound of a door slamming so hard it would shake the whole house.  "She would have me sit in a closet in one of the upstairs rooms until the argument was over and done with."

A tense silence momentarily lapsed between us before I continued my tale of my supposedly abnormally advanced chakra control.

"This brings me to the next part of my story; one of my earliest memories was actually of my great-grandfather, Nobunari.  It was right before he passed away, and my mom took me to the hospital to see him.  I think it was more so that she can show him his first descendant that was going to be allowed to become a ninja.  I don't think that she ever expected me to actually remember Nobunari.  Anyway, I remember him picking me up shakily to set me on the hospital bed in front of him.  And he talked to me, almost as if my mom wasn't even there.  He only had eyes for me, he had stories that he wanted me to know above anyone else.  That was the day that I came into possession of that old Mist headband that Zabuza was so mad about.

"One of the stories that he told me was about his training when he was a genin.  It was about learning about your chakra."

Yugi-sensei interrupted me.  "You mean controlling your chakra?"

I shook my head.  "No. I mean literally learning about your chakra.  And everything about it.  Its coils, its nature, its color, its temperament.  Everything.  I remembered that particular story more vividly than most of the other stories he told me that day.  So, when I was sitting in that closet during one of the more intense arguments between my parents, trying to block out the sounds of loud, angry voices, I decided to try to do what my great-grandfather had told me about.  I started learning about my chakra."

I took a deep breath.  This was probably the most that I have talked at once in a very long time, so I needed to gather my thoughts again.

"It started with finding my coils.  That took a few arguments to figure out.  I could always sense that consistent warmth radiating from my gut, but I didn't understand what it was until I started trying to learn about it myself.  Within a month's worth of arguments, I learned almost everything there was to know about my coils. 

"I moved on to the movement of my chakra, like in Nobunari's story.  I tried to feel out its movement, and learn how it wanted to naturally move and flow.  After coming to terms with my coils, this wasn't as hard and didn't take nearly as long, since the coils are designed to hold such an erratic force like chakra.  By the time the week was up, I was entering the academy with a thorough understanding of how my chakra liked to travel around with the confines of my body.

"From there, I learned in the academy all the technical details and terms in regards to my chakra, as well as ways to attempt to harness it.  However, I ran into an issue, one that is actually similar to one that Uzumaki Naruto had; my chakra was too temperamental to try to control and harness.  Instead, I figured out that I needed to reason with it, and coax it to do what I want, like an upset child, with just as unstable of a temper."  I chuckled at my description of my stubborn chakra.  "That's really all I did.  Honestly."

Yugi-sensei was silently scrutinizing me.  "That is the most ridiculous method of training for chakra control that I have ever heard."  He paused.  "But at the same time, it makes complete and utter sense.  It's hard to try to utilize something that you don't fully understand, even if that thing is a part of what makes you who you are."  He offered me a gentle smile.  

"Thank you for telling me, Utagawa.  I'm glad you were finally able to open up to me a little bit."  His smile morphed into a smirk.  "Now you just need to open up to your teammates in a similar way."  I gave a strained smile and shook my head at his statement.

"I'm not ready for that yet.  I may seem like your typical naive genin, but even I have a few memories that I wish not visit very often, or be reminded of."

The smirk receded to its previous gentle smile.  "I completely understand.  Now, I think that you should get to sleep.  I'm going to go find the twins to give them their card spirits."  He stood up and made his way to the door, and I crawled over to my futon, too tired from my story to actually get up and walk to it.  The Spirit Summoner paused at the door and chuckled as my actions led me finally pull the blankets up to my chin and settle down to rest.

He relapsed to silence as he took in the mostly like adorable sight of the familiar weight that was the weirdly silent Taibakaze curling up on my stomach just above my belly button.

"Good night, Utagawa Toshihiko."