Legacy [ Naruto Reader-Insert ]

Hound makes you sit in front of the memorial stone for at least an hour before he begins his training (little did you know, this would happen every. Single. Night). The feeling of moisture soaking through your sandals and socks isn't alien to you anymore, if anything, it's something that builds character (not your words, you'd like to keep your physical discomfort to a minimum).

Maybe Keirai is the type of sensei that'll say something like that to you, but you don't think Hound is.

(Maybe you're wrong.)

Anyway, you have no say in that decision whatsoever. You also have asked him why exactly you're sitting in keigo (knees and legs on the moist dirt. Not pleasant. Not. Pleasant. Calm down, you know where he lives) in front of the stone but he just pushes down on your head with his open palm, making you stay on the ground with the length of the lower half of your legs flat against the dirt.

"Respect," Hound says in a low and dark voice, keeping his hand on your head at all times to keep you from getting up, "You've read my psych evals. You know why."

(No you don't.)

And all you can do is furrow your eyebrows and sit there with a thousand and one questions on the flat of your tongue. There are some things that you should not ask, ever, and looking at the expression on the visible parts of his face. This is one of those times. And you've told him that you didn't read the entire dossier. Privacy is a luxury that you don't have but that doesn't mean you'll rob him dry of something that even you don't possess.

You can't help but to think that the game is hard, but people are harder.

You're still learning.

Eventually.

____

The very first thing that Hound makes you do, is running through the groves of trees in the surrounding forests with his canine summons as a team. A pack. As one. Bobbing and weaving through the thick and dense roots, running wild and free with the cool autumn wind whipping against your cheeks and cutting through your exposed skin. Under the night sky and the silver of the moon.

No deviations from the agreed route and no falling behind or from position either. He'll know because, surprise, Pakkun can talk and he'll probably tattle on you if you slow down. A funny thought since you're one of the fastest genin in your class (well, you are also the only graduate in your class so you aren't wrong, ehe).

Until Hound adds, "No channeling chakra to your legs. You need to condition your muscles to get accustomed to the constant pressure that it's under when you shunshin. Want to stop being able to walk by the age of thirty? That's how you do it. Without the proper amount of muscle structure you're going to tear your ligaments and joints apart."

He then leans against one of the three wooden logs, pulls his book out and gives you the most sarcastic eye-smile that you've ever seen on that man's face. You lift your arm out to raise a finger. To ask him a question. He doesn't let you speak.

"Oh," Hound says after giving your expression a casual once-over, before you can open your mouth to insist upon your query, "Why am I making you run with the pack, you ask? Are you not a beast who lacks control over the words coming out of your mouth?" He pauses, scanning you over from your head to your toe, "Ah, I sometimes forget that even beasts have self-control."

You can almost see the silver outline of the curve of his lips under the moonlight. You can almost feel the glee rolling off of him in waves. Your tongue pushes against the inside of your cheek in sheer irritation as his words prick the epidermis of your skin like tiny needles. It'd cut a lot deeper but-