Naruto is the property of Masashi Kishimoto; these are his paints. The easel is mine, but that is all. No disrespect is intended with the posting of this story.
"So, how was your first day?" Asuma asked, staring into the glowing tip of the cigarette he held idly between two fingers. The smoke rose in a steady, slowly widening spiral until colliding with some effect -- probably the man's chakra shaping. Then it abruptly streamed away, out through the narrow crack in the window.
Kakashi wouldn't move his hitai-ate to check, but it seemed likely.
He was already angry enough at letting himself do what he had -- succumbing to--
Well, waking up next to Anko, at any rate.
Asuma was seated cross-legged on the floor, across from the coffee table. Anko sat on the other side of the couch, and Kurenai stood to one side, sorting through a short stack of paperwork. He'd had exactly enough time to spring out of the bedding and dress, managing to look casually relaxed as he sat on the couch and flipped to a random page towards the back of the book.
Hopefully they'd believe he just chose to show up early to Anko's little surprise offer to host a morning meeting to discuss the genin group.
"The Aburame boy's stiff with his martial forms. Tactically he's a bit reserved. He doesn't show a lot of creativity," Kakashi answered after a moment. "For Kiba, too headstrong, needs to learn a bit of restraint. Right now the dog's relative frailty is a hindrance to him; in trying to protect Akamaru, he leaves himself with a lot of openings. At the same time, that's somewhat justified -- Akamaru's development is just not quite where it needs to be to field serious combat. It's close, though. Akamaru's senses of smell and hearing are actually quite sharp, even for his family's nin-dogs. Give him another three months or so of growth and he should be fine. Until then he's primarily an asset for tracking, maybe fitting into very small spaces."
"You know quite a lot about nin-dogs, don't you?" Kurenai replied with mild surprise, looking up from the papers.
"I summoned the opinion of an expert," Kakashi replied dismissively. "Also as a suggestion -- if you make Kiba do the leaf concentration exercise at some point, try to have him make Akamaru do it, too. Top of the nose, instead of the forehead."
Kurenai looked even more surprised and somewhat doubtful. "The dog can use chakra?"
"He's a nindog," Kakashi answered, annoyed with himself for putting emphasis on what he thought should have been obvious. "For some of Kiba's later family techniques and to learn to speak human language, he'll have to. Better get started on developing his chakra now, since he's not physically ready for more yet."
The red-eyed woman gave a grudging nod in response, both eyebrows rising.
Clearing his throat slightly, Kakashi continued, "And, as for Choji, he needs to work on his speed and stamina. Tactically, he's a follower -- he doesn't show much initiative. On the taijutsu side of things -- no one else can hit nearly as hard as him, or take a hit so well out of all the genin in his year."
"He hit you?" Asuma asked, his eyes flicking up from the cigarette he hadn't taken a single draw from.
Kakashi turned to Kurenai. "How about your students?" he prompted.
"Shikamaru worries me a bit," the kunoichi confessed, the hand holding her papers dropping to her side. "He seems surprisingly willing to take charge, given his profile.... I'm not sure what motivates him. I especially don't like how suspicious he is of the current arrangement."
Anko shifted slightly, adjusting her position on the couch.
Asuma grunted, his gaze going back to the cigarette. How long had that thing been burning now, anyway?
"His impatience for members of the opposite sex added to Ino and Sakura ... well, you're going to have an easier time of it than me, Asuma," she said dryly. "Speaking of them -- Ino and Sakura have certainly built up quite a bit of animosity. We all know why.... That's their biggest issue right now. Leading directly back to Shikamaru again, well -- he's aware of the fact that needs to be overcome and started moving the other genin towards it."
"Kid's so sharp you could cut yourself on him," Anko supplied.
Asuma grunted again.
"Precisely my concern," Kurenai replied with mild annoyance. "I had hoped to encourage Sakura and Ino without it coming down to their classmates threatening them."
Kakashi glanced at Anko, but the special jounin was biting something back, turning her gaze to Asuma instead.
"Hmm. We have been pushing the idea that if any of them fail, they all fail, so we can't say this is entirely unexpected. Still ... he seemed clever, but a bit quick to judge -- at least on the surface," the former Guardian Ninja mused. "Perhaps slightly overconfident in his abilities to analyze his enemies and surroundings. That's more Kakashi's area to deal with in this setup than mine."
"So, Sasuke, Shikamaru, and Naruto, huh?" Kakashi mused.
Asuma frowned. "Who said anything about Naruto?" he asked. "I think he would benefit more from Kurenai's attention than yours -- though I agree he has serious combat potential, and seems quite motivated."
Kakashi didn't let anything show, just nodding. "Naturally," he agreed. "I had just been thinking of his past pranks--"
"Well, anyway," Anko interrupted with a shake of head. "Speaking of Naruto, what about the three kids you were watching, Asuma?"
Behind his mask, Kakashi bit his tongue. How the hell had he let that slip? Why had Anko jumped to cover for him? He predicted that it was to better twist the proverbial knife later, and wasn't particularly looking forward to finding out.
Asuma grunted. "Let's start with Hinata, because she puzzles me. I don't know how she got through the academy, to put it bluntly. She's technically skilled, reasonably knowledgeable, and thoughtful instead of clever. That's offset by a nearly crippling lack of self-confidence," he explained. Lifting the cigarette up, he made a gesture, causing the entire thing -- ashes and all -- to vanish. Folding his hands in his lap before him, he continued, "Meditation will help her gain focus -- at first, I thought that was a positive. It should still help even her out, but the truth of the matter is she's already focused to a degree I've rarely seen outside of a jounin."
"Really?" Anko asked, raising her eyebrows. Kurenai had turned to look at Asuma as well.
The man nodded. "Unfortunately, she became focused before truly being able to see the world around her -- and as a result, her hyper-focus, combined with the byakugan.... Her training being forced from a young age, if I had to guess at the root cause. In any case, if she can learn to widen her mental focus to match her visual focus, then I think she'll be much better off. I can give her clarity, perhaps, but I'm not sure what to do about her confidence issues."
"How much of this is thrown off by her crush on Naruto?" Anko wondered.
Asuma shrugged. "Quite a lot of it, I think. He seems to think she's friendly, but not really understand what that means."
"So, Naruto and Hinata," Kurenai mused. "As it happens, I'd like Naruto and Hinata to be friends. Naruto's oblivious to Hinata, and I'd like to try and keep it that way -- getting into something.... Well, that's an additional complication we really don't need right now. But as a friend and someone who has a hard time giving up, he does make a reasonable role-model to try and inspire some self-confidence of her own. Not the ideal way to do it, but in this setup it seems like it might work."
"Alright. Moving on ... Sasuke's obedient, but doesn't care for meditation beyond the fact that he was told to do it. He wants to get stronger -- I'm concerned with his interest in Naruto killing Mizuki. I believe between myself and Kakashi we can probably wear that down, but I suspect he's going to be like you see Shikamaru -- reluctant to open up to a woman." He turned to regard Kurenai and ducked his head apologetically. "How I see his views -- not my own."
Kurenai made a dismissive gesture. "They are still learning to be ninja, not children," she allowed.
Anko shifted in her seat again, drawing her legs up onto the sofa and folding them beneath herself. Kakashi said nothing, himself, recalling becoming a genin at the age of five -- and chunin at six. Then again ... that was a major part of why he'd been given the harshest teaching role among the three teachers. As for Anko.... Where was she at that age?
He made a mental note to hit up an ANBU contact later and read her file.
Asuma didn't seem to notice Kakashi's absent musing, continuing, "As for Naruto ... I'm somewhat impressed. His wariness of Sasuke interfered with his ability to meditate, but he didn't seem to take it the same way as Sasuke. For him, it wasn't just going through the motions to satisfy his sensei ... it was something he had to learn to become a better ninja. I think the meditation will do him a lot of good. Outside of his issues with the circumstances behind his promotion, which would be Kurenai's specialty, I'd like to focus on him personally more than any of the other genin."
Kakashi tried not to acknowledge how that made him feel. He'd still be training Sasuke, at least -- plus the general combat practices with ... well, all of the genin. And Shikamaru, a clan genin, like he'd originally asked for....
"Other than Naruto, since we've assigned rather a lot to Kurenai already, I believe that Kiba and Sakura would be my next two priorities. I believe that with some luck, I'll bring Kiba's temper to heel, and get Sakura to start looking underneath the underneath."
"Oooh," Anko remarked, blinking. "That would be one noisy team."
"We might try them out on a D rank in a few days," Kurenai allowed, lifting the papers at her side. "I spent a few hours last night combing through the worst and most heavily deferred D rank missions in the list. Minimal supervision required on these details. Ideally by the time we start sending them out, we can ostensibly leave them alone."
"Sounds like fun," Anko agreed, grinning mischievously. Kakashi supposed it would be fairly obvious to the genin that they were being covertly watched on those missions.... Still, if anything slipped, they would know about it. Any outbursts of temper or genuinely dangerous activity, at any rate.
Kakashi was incredibly uncomfortable with the idea of leaving Sasuke and Naruto alone. He hoped he could galvanize the two into some sort of alliance with his assigned teaching role, but he had few illusions about it -- or how it would reflect on him, to the two students.
"So, what insight do you have to offer, in all of this?" Kurenai asked, turning her head to the younger woman when the copy ninja said nothing.
Anko shrugged, unconcerned. "Just that it seems like Choji, Ino, and Shino are getting the least attention."
"I'll take Choji into my purview, as well," Kakashi responded, nodding. Anko was right on that one, but it was fairly obvious in how little he had been mentioned. "I'm not really sure what to do about Shino, but it would be a shame not to hone the Akimichi boy's combat potential."
"Shino's well rounded enough, compared to the others -- and Ino's always going to need to rely on her teammates. That's just an issue with her clan jutsu," Asuma noted. "For both of them, it would be best to avoid any additional area of focus. Let Shino work with his kikaichu, and Ino develop all of the skills that she needs aside from the Yamanaka techniques. We're all jounin, so we can all assist them.
"Beyond that? I say we work on the areas of focus we've established for the moment. We're mostly addressing weaknesses, and as it stands ... those two are probably the best candidates out of the lot to work with any other teammates of the nine."
Rolling her eyes, Anko commented, "Sakura aside, of course."
Kurenai pursed her lips and folded the papers into -- somewhere. Hmm. Neat trick -- he'd have to get that one later. Almost as though in response to that thought, the woman's red eyes swiveled to his, and he saw the merest, amused hints of a smirk round her lips. "Well," she said, turning her gaze back to Asuma, ignoring Anko for the moment, "I suppose those missions can keep waiting a while longer."
"Three rotations, at least," the man on the floor agreed, rising smoothly to his feet, then lacing his fingers together over his head and stretching, reaching just short of the ceiling. "I would think. Then probably see if we can push them to do two D rank missions on the extra day at the end of each rotation."
Kakashi resisted the urge to sigh, nodding. "Best not keep the children waiting," he agreed.
After all, today he would have Sasuke and Naruto under his watch.
He headed out of Anko's apartment first, but didn't manage to lose the woman. "So," she said, once she caught up, jogging at his side with a grin, "having fun?"
Then, because he couldn't help himself, he said, "Thanks for last night."
She looked surprised, and then a tiny bit annoyed. "We didn't do anything," she remarked, raising one eyebrow. "As much fun as it would be to twist that statement around. Or did you really want your book back that bad?" She seemed doubtful of that prospect -- he really didn't think he could sell her that line, at this point.
"I know," he answered, not meeting her eyes.
She shot him an unreadable look at that. "You know," she remarked suddenly, "I really do only have so much patience. I'll let you get away with this shit once or twice, yeah -- just like you told me when you started this. But you keep doing it, and I'm going to start prying."
"Really."
"Oh, yeah -- I'm not that good at it, but I'm persistent, and thanks to the Hokage, you can't kill me without getting at least a demotion!"
Just when things-- Damn that woman! And today, of all days....
Training under Kakashi -- Hinata entirely understood the eager application of the 'Bastard-sensei' nickname to him -- was hard, unforgiving work. Naruto was there, and he never gave up. Sasuke did on occasion, or seemed to, only to regroup after using Naruto's bunshin and Hinata as cover to launch some fairly well-considered attempt at attacking the one-eyed man.
For the legendary copy ninja, his attitude towards his students was almost complete and total disdain. He held a book in one hand with an orange cover, remarking only, "I've been waiting to read this for quite a while -- I've been told it's quite good," before offhandedly beating them almost as badly as her father usually did during her training sessions at home.
So, really, it wasn't that bad.
Sasuke got regular praise for innovation, and then assigned a penalty for using his teammates as cover instead of trying to coordinate. That penalty was typically being used as a bludgeon against Naruto's bunshin -- and once with a kawarimi that resulted in Hinata striking one of the Uchiha heir's tenketsu -- slowing his left arm remarkably for almost an hour.
Frustratingly, even with her byakugan, Kakashi did the exact same thing to Naruto, causing her to disrupt any number of bunshin. She felt terrible about that, and wanted to quit training right away, once she realized the poor boy would remember her ... hurting one of his bunshin. That was so wrong! But he just shrugged it off and said that he could take it, but he was impressed with how hard she could hit. Then he encouraged her to try and hit even harder -- just maybe, if she were fast enough....
That gone quite poorly, and she'd ended up striking Naruto's lower-back, temporarily paralyzing his lower body by striking a point on his spine. Not a bunshin -- the real Naruto! In response -- amazingly, he shrugged the entire thing off in less than a minute, climbing to his feet and laughing that he'd been clumsy, but he was amazed at her skill anyway.
Sasuke, rolling his eyes, insisted that Hinata had gone easier on Naruto, given his recovery. In response, Kakashi had flung explosive tags at all of them.
'Banter while fighting, my cute little students -- like real ninja!'
Really, it wasn't that bad. Naruto was there!
She'd gotten to make him breakfast again -- he had said it would be okay 'any time', after all. After that he confided in her that he was trying to train with Shino and Shikamaru to become better at understanding how people fought, so he could give better advice to his teammates on people's weakness. Something about sacrificing his bunshin to figure out an enemy's weak-points without giving theirs away.
Naturally, she'd agreed without hesitation to train with him for anything he needed -- they were just clan techniques, after all. Anyone could walk into the Hyuuga compound and see them being performed, and it wasn't like he wouldn't get plenty of chances to see her fight if they were teammates. Really, it seemed the most reasonable thing in the world, to her. And, of course, she'd get to spend more time with Naruto!
After the general meeting, Shino, Shikamaru, Naruto, and Hinata left Senzo's in a group once more. "I'm going to say that Asuma's probably my favorite teacher by far," Shikamaru mused, lacing his fingers behind his head and staring up at the clouds.
"Eh," Naruto grunted. He was mildly distracted, since his library bunshin were dispersing -- staggered in five minute intervals, now, and there were only four of them, which helped quite a bit. He'd also seriously toned down the number of bunshin he used against Kakashi -- that was just.... Way too many useless memories. Sure, he had learned things, but generating so many copies of himself.... The same observation seven or eight times, if not an annoying number more before they could report them back to him....
The only good thing was that every mind-bending load of memories he could make with clouds of bunshin made the memories of Mizuki's death -- and Iruka's -- fuzzier and more distant.
"I don't like Bastard-sensei. He's a dick. I tried calling him out on it, but he just said, 'well, then how will you fight against a stronger ninja in real life?' And then," he made a vague gesture, "you know, explosive tags."
All the boys grunted and shared an unhappy nod at that idea.
"That has got to be expensive," Shikamaru mused.
"He may draw his own," Shino noted.
Huh -- something to consider. He supposed it made sense, though ... it wasn't like explosive tags just happened at the weapon supplier -- someone had to make the damn things.... Hinata nodded thoughtfully at that.
"Anyway," Naruto continued, "Hinata and I are going to practice taijutsu." He waved, then produced a bunshin, which ambled between Shino and Shikamaru. His bunshin asked, as though nothing else had happened, "So what teams do you think we'll get next time?"
Naruto diverged towards a training ground, already dismissing his other friends for the moment. His bunshin was with them, and as soon as it wasn't -- he'd know. Hinata watched with mild surprise, looking between him and the bunshin that strolled away, down the street to Shikamaru's house. "T...that's a really neat trick," she remarked, blinking.
"It's ... kind of my best one right now," Naruto confessed. "Um ... but Shikamaru said, 'be good, or be good at it'. Which I guess, is kind of me and kage bunshin, right? I was never much good at bunshin, but kage bunshin...." He shrugged.
"O...oh," Hinata replied, frowning curiously. "Um.... That technique takes rather a lot of chakra, doesn't it? So ... is it maybe that your chakra overwhelms the technique?"
"Huh? That wouldn't make sense," Naruto countered. "You'd just get more bunshin -- just like I get more kage bunshin, right? I mean -- I never got the regular bunshin, and right now I can't see the point to trying. But you're pretty good at it -- what happens when you try and push really hard, and just make regular bunshin?"
"U...um," she returned, stymied by his logic. They had reached an otherwise empty training ground, so she said, "Well, let's find out!" She took a breath to steady herself, formed the hand seals, and then he saw her focus -- and then eight bunshin of her appeared, standing around in the same pose. "O...oh!"
"Yeah, I thought so," he said with a nod. Scratching the back of his head as Hinata dismissed her regular bunshin, he added, "To be honest, I always thought that bunshin was an annoying technique -- making an image of yourself.... Well, I mean, it's got nothing to do with power. I had no idea that it was going to be the final, though, or I would have tried to get a lot better at it." He paused, then admitted, "Though ... I think it's because I'm really just not very good with most image stuff in general. It's taking forever to get better at henge! Since they're always getting caught, I send out a few bunshin every morning to practice henge until they get spotted by ANBU -- or around lunch time, whichever comes first."
"T...that's very brave," she said worriedly. "Aren't you afraid of getting in trouble?"
"By what, ANBU?" he asked, grinning. "I'm pretty sure that they can't track it back to me -- and if they do I'm not actually doing anything wrong!" It was true, too, once he'd had some time to properly think about things. He was just practicing his jutsu on some of his free time. Free time he'd made through his one good technique, but free time anyway. "And, anyway, kage bunshin don't recover chakra like I do, so once they get too tired or worn out they disperse anyway. A book you suggested to me about that told me that it's supposed to be more of an in...fil...tration tool," he paused, nodding, positive he remembered reading it that way earlier. "Yeah, for getting into places, not so much beating people up.
"But that's why we're here, if you're willing to help me -- I wish I could do something for you, but you're really pretty awesome. What were those things we had for breakfast again?"
"Omelets," she answered, her cheeks turning slightly pink as she offered a nervous smile.
Huh, he was willing to bet her family never let her cook, and that was why she was so happy to cook at his place. Not that he could complain. Breakfast was awesome, and he had to put no physical effort into it. He just needed to try and be Hinata's friend somehow. That was probably one of the coolest things after meeting up with Shino and Shikamaru to come out of the entire mess that becoming a genin had been so far!
"Yeah! Those were delicious!" Of course, he still loved ramen, and in fact meant to buy her a bowl of ramen or three at Ichiraku's after their training. He at least intended to work up an appetite, and judging by how strong Hinata was, she should, too. He figured it would be okay to overdo it a little. They had Kurenai as a teacher for the next day, so they could be physically worn out, right?
"Okay -- anyway, you'll help me get better at taijutsu, right?" he said happily.
"A...ah, yes," she agreed, shaking some distracting thought away. "U...um, where should we begin?"
"I dunno," he admitted. "I practiced with Shikamaru and Shino, and I couldn't much figure it out -- but I thought, you're so good at figuring things out, like how you helped me pick stuff to study. That's really been cool, right? This should be even easier for you!"
She worked her mouth for a moment, looking nervous and slightly uncomfortable. "I...I only know ... one way to teach taijutsu," she said anxiously, wringing her hands. "T...the way that I learned...."
"Then that's exactly what I want!" Naruto exclaimed eagerly. "If I can become half as good as you, that'd be totally worth it! Then I'll only need a few bunshin to be even more kick-ass!"
"I.... I don't know if I can--"
"You absolutely can!" he insisted. Why did she want to waste time doubting herself? It was incredibly obvious how smart she was. "I know you can! I have no idea what to do to make it up to you, but some how I will! Some day I'm going to be Hokage -- but I know from what I've been able to figure out so far, I really have got to get better at taijutsu. I don't know anyone else I like who's as good at it as you!"
She swallowed back some complaint. Her eyes shone with the emerging starlight as the sun set, and she gave a slow, hesitant nod. "I.... Yes, okay. Um, I will-- I will! For you, Naruto-kun-- I--" She cut off abruptly and nodded again, this time with conviction, her eyes seeming to light up; she still looked mildly anxious about what she was about to do, but she didn't waver. He felt strangely confident that she really meant what she was saying. "I promise you, Naruto, I will do everything in my power to help you! I will give everything I can to help you become Hokage! Whatever it takes!"
"Yeah!" he cheered. That was more like it! "I'm gonna have to do something back for you, of course," he warned her, grinning. "It's only fair, right?"
"O...okay!" she yelped, her features hardening with resolve as she took up a stance. "Are you ready?"
"Ah-- Er, actually-- Just a minute," he chuckled in embarrassment. "I forgot something." He made his favorite hand seal, and produced a trio of kage bunshin, having them spread out to watch from different angles. "There. Okay! Show me what you've got!"
Three seconds later, almost half of the tenketsu on the right half of his body had been closed, and her upper-cut launched him across the empty, dusty arena of their chosen training ground, slamming into his own bunshin, landing in an awkward tumble of memories, half his body numb. The other two bunshin helped him back upright, while Hinata stood frozen stiff from where she had hit him.
Fuck! He'd taken some incidental hits from Bastard-sensei's insane kawarimi-cheating. And that was a totally bullshit move -- Naruto was going to master kawarimi the second his henge passed Kurenai's approval -- and then shunshin would be his. How sweet that would be!
The next bunshin released, sending memories back to him and lessening the impact of his disorientation. Okay, a little bit better. "Wow," he managed, staring at Hinata. "I'm gonna need more bunshin, but that was awesome!"
The remaining bunshin raised his eyebrows, then shrugged and released, helping stabilize him more -- adding the memories of only seeing himself getting beaten so swiftly, not quite experiencing it so much. He settled on six bunshin, an adequate number to make the pain a distant, background effect -- provided Hinata didn't knock him out.
He forced himself to spend a few moments between her finishing moves to gather himself and think about what had happened. By the time she, exhausted and panting, and him, his tenketsu seeming reluctant to reopen, had both had enough, it was late in the evening, and he had increased his survival time to nearly a full minute per round.
The main trick seemed to be keeping her amazingly debilitating strikes scattered around -- one on an arm was a major hindrance -- three or four rendered the limb a liability. That seemed accurate to real combat, in Naruto's imagination, though. In effect, he'd lucked out and gotten the most amazing training partner ever -- her special attacks only caused a hell of a lot of pain and discomfort, all of it temporary.
For some meanings of 'temporary', anyway -- the dictionary he'd read earlier had a bunch of them.
In short, it was the most effective way he thought existed for someone with his unique chakra attributes to practice.
"A...are you okay?" she gasped.
"Fine," he rasped in response cheerfully, too tired to even summon up another bunshin at the moment. He went to her side and knelt, hauling her upright, putting one arm around her back, and her arm over his shoulders. "That was amazing Hinata-chan! I want to do that again some time! I think you helped teach me a lot -- now let me buy you some ramen at Ichiraku's!"
"O...oh, alright," she agreed, as her knees wobbled unsteadily.
While Naruto managing to convince Hinata to help him train his taijutsu was surprising, Shikamaru was actually somewhat more impressed with Naruto's idea of sending a bunshin to pay attention to the other two -- and, really, since the bunshin was effectively just a copy of him (if somewhat more fragile), it was a brilliant way to keep tabs on things.
Damn, he couldn't wait until he had the chakra to make a copy of himself! Unfortunately, the best way he knew of building chakra was ... well ... using it. Sure, some taijutsu training would help him. So his choices were drilling with Shino, still stiff from fighting the legendary copy bastard, or Naruto, a shadow-clone.
"Hey, Naruto," he said, as they stepped around his house, and to his family's private training ground. He'd already decided that if the boy would remember it, he wouldn't appreciate being called a copy. "I have an idea that will be really handy once your henge picks up a bit."
Naruto raised an eyebrow at that.
Shino looked interested, too.
"I need to build my chakra reserves and practice my family jutsu," he explained.
"You want to freeze me in place?" Naruto-bunshin asked, raising an eyebrow. "If I struggle, I'm spending chakra -- and when that runs out -- poof, back to the boss. Still, if that's what you want, sure."
"Actually, this should still work," Shikamaru disagreed. "The basic form that you've seen me use freezes someone still. It's kind of useful for some situations, like with Ino and Sakura last night. The more advanced form actually lets me move someone else's body the same way mine moves."
"Oh?" Naruto asked with interest. "That sounds pretty useful."
"Well, I need to practice it a lot to get it to that point, and that's where you come in," Shikamaru agreed. "But you'll get something out of it, too. What I want to do is snare you, and then have you learn to perfectly imitate how I move in general. Some point in the future, if you have to henge as me, well ... you'll have that much more of an idea how to do it, hmm?"
"I can likewise participate in this training," Shino noted. "Additionally, I wish to practice my kawarimi -- repeatedly seeing Bastard-sensei's use of it gives me cause to believe that this is a superior technique; well worth the effort and compatible with what you wish to practice. It may likewise be useful to have both of us learn the capability to pose as you."
Shikamaru raised an eyebrow and nodded at that. Wandering around as a team ... with a little practice, if they could learn how to pose as one-another -- wouldn't that be a nice little ploy to get some unsuspecting enemy. And, really ... with better henge and kawarimi use, they could play some sort of monstrous shell game. Which of them would be the real Shikamaru?
"Oh, so much pranking potential," Naruto-bunshin gloated preemptively, seeing what the shadow-user had proposed. "Yeah! Let's do this!"
"No pain, no gain," Shikamaru agreed, taking up a stance and nodding at Naruto. His pain wouldn't be physical ... the worst he'd end up with was less chakra reserves facing Kakashi. Not ideal, but it wasn't like the copy ninja was going to let him win at his best, so he'd tough it out.
"This is a motto that Bastard-sensei would approve of," Shino contributed.
Learning how to imitate Shikamaru's movements was an interesting form of training -- but trying to use kawarimi even on willing allies was significantly more troublesome than he'd thought. Then again, given his upcoming time with Asuma -- something he didn't really care about -- he could spend that session working on recovering the kikaichu he had spent working on that jutsu.
Even with Naruto and Shikamaru unresisting, it was difficult. He'd started out using hand-seals, to better pace his chakra reserves, but kikaichu helped make up the tiny differences and improved his efficiency. Annoyingly enough, when it was done and they were all exhausted, Shino wasn't certain he'd actually improved in his use of the technique very much -- though he was at least becoming much more sensitive to when and how it could be used to greater efficiency.
Throw in the unexpected occasions where Shikamaru snared him in shadow, and he was forced to move the same way Shikamaru did -- very unusual. Only once had he managed to kawarimi out of the shadow-bind, and that was only on the last attempt, when Shikamaru was almost at his limit. "I'm done," the Nara boy finished in disgust, slumping to sit on the lawn.
"Hey -- let's all grab a bowl of ramen!" Naruto-bunshin suggested eagerly, rallying their flagging strength. "I'm planning on taking Hinata-chan there after training, so we can all meet up!"
Shikamaru allowed the bunshin to pull him to his feet. "Thanks," he said, nodding. "I guess if you disperse, we'll know where to meet up."
Naruto-bunshin frowned in consternation, leading the way. "Uh, huh, good point. Next time I should say that earlier ... well, no harm this time, right?"
"This time," Shino agreed. "What do you project to be likely for next week's teams?"
"Hmm.... I'm guessing that Ino and Sakura will still be together -- not sure if they want to give us annoyingly imbalanced teams or what to try and make us learn to adapt to things, or to actually try and see what good combinations of us there are. Otherwise ... they probably want to keep us on our toes -- so generally as few familiar faces as possible." After a moment of pause, he added, "Unless they decided to keep Sasuke and Naruto on the same team."
"Sucky," Naruto remarked as they came around the corner of the house. Shino spotted Shikamaru's father standing on the walkway between the house and the street, head cocked slightly to one side. "Er. Uh ... hi, Nara-san...."
"Uzumaki-kun," the man returned, nodding at the entire trio. "Aburame-kun, Shikamaru -- good to see you three doing well. So, how is your genin training going? You look a bit worn out."
"It's been intense," Shikamaru answered. "We were still hungry after dinner, so we're headed out to get something extra to eat."
"Makes sense," the jounin commander agreed. "Say ... Uzumaki-kun, you wouldn't happen to know of roving bunshin practicing henge in the marketplace, would you?"
"U...uh ... maybe?" Naruto hazarded with a nervous, uncomfortable grin.
"Mmm.... An interesting side-effect of kage bunshin is that typically, most of the equipment they carry is replicated," Shikaku noted, glancing up at the night sky. Shino had to admit he'd seen that -- Naruto's shuriken and kunai seemed just as effective when thrown by bunshin. Of course ... they also puffed away into chakra smoke shortly after impact. Recounting it as though no more than an idle thought, Shikamaru's father continued, "None of it lasts terribly long away from the bunshin, of course. If a bunshin were, for example, to spend money somewhere...."
Naruto -- the Naruto bunshin, Shino reminded himself -- began to look even more nervous, chuckling uncomfortably. "U...uh," he mumbled, shifting his gaze nervously.
"That kind of behavior, you know, it could really mark someone's reputation," the man sighed. "Of course.... Perhaps if it was an accident, certain merchants could be paid with real money and apologized to...."
"Y...yes," Naruto said shakily, nodding his head. "T...that would be very important."
"And, just maybe," Shikaku pondered, as though in an aside as his gaze went to the door to his own home, "put the books away when you're done with them?"
Naruto-bunshin gave an uncomfortable swallow and nodded. "Y...yes, Nara-san, I'll make sure the boss takes care of it first thing tomorrow!"
The man gave a slow blink, and nodded at that. "Very good," he allowed. Shikamaru and Shino finally turned to look at one another -- Shikamaru vaguely surprised, but more resigned than anything else. For his part, Shino wondered what a bunshin would spend money on. Unless it ran it all the way back to Naruto's apartment, perhaps...?
"And on that note," the jounin commander continued, glancing between the others of the team, "you do look worn from training and you seem like good, earnest kids, so, Shikamaru, here's some money to cover your meal -- eat up, eh? I'll keep your mother busy for tonight."
"Your sacrifice will be recorded in song," Shikamaru responded -- seemingly reflexively, giving his father the salute of Konoha. The man gravely returned it, nodding before handing over a short stack of ryo. "Thank you, father."
After he was gone, the bunshin gave an especially morose sigh, pulling the notebook from his pocket. "I really didn't think this through," he commented. "How many pages of notes did I just write down for nothing? Damn...."
"Attaining mastery of your techniques is sometimes a difficult process," the bespectacled boy noted, shaking his head slightly.
Shikamaru nodded, sticking the ryo into his pocket and motioning the bunshin to lead the way to their destination once more. "Not to sound too cruel, but really, you're actually helping Shino-kun and I out here. We're understanding the basics of this technique better.... You say the B rank version is chunin level, right?"
"Yeah," the bunshin agreed. "Uh ... like I said before -- your dad told me that -- showed it to me, too. Said it would be really inconvenient if I only ever did the taju version."
"Right," Shikamaru agreed with a frown. "Hmm.... We need to figure out some way to measure chakra more efficiently -- I'd like to know how much that technique takes."
"A little," the bunshin hedged, when a restaurant came into sight down the street. "Um, it also divides all your chakra up and splits it between as many bunshin as there are."
Shino blinked at that. This seemed to indicate that Naruto had an unusual amount of chakra. That had already been evident, but the idea that he wasn't just spending a specific amount, instead actually splitting his chakra out.... Kikaichu weren't the best basis for comparison, but he could see a few places where he might have experienced something similar, trying to get his companion-bugs ready to face Kakashi's next attack quickly enough for him to try and kawarimi to safety....
They spotted another Naruto -- and Hinata -- ahead of them, chatting eagerly with the old man behind the counter of the ramen place that Naruto liked so much.
"Ah!" Naruto-bunshin exclaimed, running up to the original version of himself. "Wow-- You look like crap!"
"Thanks," Naruto returned, scowling mildly at his clone. "What's going on?"
"Bad news," the bunshin replied, handing over his notebook. "Better copy down my notebook before I disperse."
"Good thinking!" Naruto approved, setting aside eating to scribble some notes while the bunshin rocked back on his heels, looking somewhat bored.
"So," Naruto-bunshin asked Hinata, "good training session?"
"I.... I think so?" she asked, looking between the scribbling Naruto and the idling one. "I'll definitely do everything I can to help you become better at taijutsu!"
"Sweet!" the bunshin declared.
Naruto finished scribbling down whatever his bunshin had written then noted, "Though, come to think of it ... if the notebook goes away, then in the marketplace...."
"Yeah," the bunshin agreed, nodding. "You're about to feel really dumb." Then it dispersed, and Naruto looked pained.
"Well," Shikamaru drawled, hiding a small smirk, "that was interesting." He took the seat next to Naruto, and Shino took the next seat.
Naruto nodded quickly. "I feel like I learned a lot today -- and only some of it was because of Bastard-sensei!" he said cheerfully.
"Now, that is something to be optimistic about," Shikamaru agreed. Nodding at the proprietor, he jerked a thumb towards Naruto, "Give me his tab -- but I'd like your largest beef ramen."
"Shrimp," Shino added. "And tea, please."
"You got it!" the man behind the counter said cheerfully, before Naruto made introductions. "Well," the old man said, giving the group a grin, "Naruto's tab is pretty big, so since you're obviously good friends of his -- I'll give you each one free bowl of ramen, eh?"
"In that case," Shikamaru said without hesitation, "make my order a double."
"Myself, as well," Shino added.
"P...please," Hinata echoed somewhat timidly with a hopeful smile, while Naruto nodded vigorously. "Um, a bowl of chicken ramen?"
The old man chuckled. "You sure are working up an appetite!" he remarked, serving their first round and preparing the second without hesitation, even as his daughter leaned over him to hand out teacups, winking at the genin cheerfully.
At a sudden thought, Shino frowned. Three of them had family to rely on ... but as things stood, without being assigned D rank missions -- as was the standard practice -- they wouldn't be making money. Really, what sort of income did Naruto have?
"Naruto," he wondered aloud, "is there a provision allowed to you for your living expenses?"
"Huh? Oh, yeah!" Naruto answered, nodding eagerly. "See.... The Hokage explained to me that once I started going to the academy, since I was an orphan from.... Uh, well, anyway, since I didn't have any folks but I still wanted to be a ninja, I get a monthly grant to cover my expenses! It was some really cool idea that the yondaime came up with to help out kids like me!"
Shino had never heard of this, but then, he wasn't an orphan, and the only other orphaned ninja he really knew was Sasuke, who -- at least in theory -- had a clan inheritance to rely on.
"That's part of why I think the yondaime is so cool," Naruto added. "I mean, everything else aside -- he made it so a kid like me with no family could still be a ninja -- and some day, Hokage! Isn't that awesome?"
"Some day!" Hinata agreed with absolute conviction, managing a happy smile between sipping very lady-like bits of her soup.
"Will that continue now that you're a genin?" Shikamaru asked, raising an eyebrow.
Hinata began to look alarmed. Naruto blinked in surprise. "I ... didn't think of that," he admitted uncomfortably. "Ah -- that's okay, though! The monthly payment isn't much. I can just scavenge old weapons from the training grounds that no one else wants and sell them, like when I want to make some cash for pranking supplies. Come to think of it, that'd be a great place to practice my henge, since the smiths don't like to give me a good deal on account of.... Er, yeah, I'll be alright! Though ... shouldn't we be making money now that we're ninja?"
"Once we work our way up to doing D rank missions," Shikamaru sighed. "Hmm, this is a real hindrance, isn't it?"
"They're just giving us this annoying training?" Naruto grumbled. "For how long?"
"Until they think we've trained enough," the shadow-user answered with a shrug.
"So, we should ... train more ... until we're good enough!"
Shino bit back a sigh of his own and started eating his soup. Hmm, actually -- really good. For ramen, at least. The shrimp were even fairly fresh. Something Shino had never been able to puzzle out, given how far Konoha was from the ocean. "I see no better alternative," he noted, after a taste.
"What a pain," Shikamaru groaned. "It's going to get really ugly if we can't afford to eat."
Naruto's stomach growled sympathetically, and he stared mournfully into his empty bowl -- before the man behind the counter gave him a new one. "No worries, kids," he said with surprising authority. "If you've got free time to train and you're really starving, well.... I can point out some part-time work to keep you fed, if nothing else!"
"Really?" the orange-clad boy asked in surprise, starting to grin.
"It's manual labor," he warned, still smiling. "But none of the food vendors here get free delivery from the market, you see ... quite a few of us would be willing to pay a handful of ryo and some free food to make sure we have everything on hand in time! And who more reliable than ninja-in-training? The pride of Konoha!
"This sort of work might normally be a D rank mission, but it's too urgent for the trouble of filling the required paperwork. Still, there's nothing wrong as long as you're well behaved, is there?"
"That doesn't sound too bad," Naruto agreed, grinning. "And, you know -- more henge practice!"
Shino nodded thoughtfully at that. As much as he was focusing on kawarimi ... Naruto was right -- especially if they were going to be able to practice henge as Shikamaru -- or one-another in general. The tactical advantage of Shino using henge as Naruto, Shikamaru looking like Shino, and Naruto looking like Shikamaru.... Yes, henge took less chakra in general. And if he could work his kikaichu into it, well.... That would really be something.
"Well, one-way or another, I think we're pretty much ready for anything, until we at least get to do D ranks." Shikamaru then frowned, noting, "Extenuating circumstances notwithstanding."
Naruto blinked at that, turning a quizzical look to Hinata, who posed, "U...unless something goes wrong."
The would-be-Hokage nodded knowingly at that, and Shino allowed himself a small amount of cheer. Something was still bothering him, though. He needed to ask Shikamaru.... Something about Naruto's strength didn't seem to quite add up.
Instead of meeting their teachers, the genin had all been surprised with notes saying that training was off -- and they had a free day. Naruto had been given his by a disappointed Hinata, who had embarrassedly told him that she still wanted to come over and make him breakfast.
Considering how reckless he'd been with kage bunshin money, he needed to save his resources, and Hinata's cooking was much cheaper than Ichiraku's for every meal. Of course, he insisted on giving her something to help out with the costs of the groceries, but even then her kitchen-magic stretched a ryo about three times as far.
And, man, did variety make the ramen he got that much better!
He'd actually been cheered by the idea of a whole day off-- Yeah, he wanted to be a genin, but the training was just a pain in the ass. He felt like he'd struggled for a few weeks of training in the last few days. In his real ninja life -- and at this thought, he paused instinctively, checking for another of Bastard-sensei's exploding tags -- he'd end up with awesome teammates. Hinata was really cool, and he owed her a lot ... but he kind of still hoped he'd be on a team with Shikamaru and Shino.
But being on a team with Hinata, well -- that really wouldn't be so bad.
Funny how that had changed ... going from thinking he was settling for being on a team with the two quiet boys, and now thinking that there were more people he liked than he could really fit on a team with.
Then again, what if one of them made chunin? Then they could be a team!
That thought in mind, he told Hinata to cheer up; even if their sensei were mysteriously busy with something, they could still train, right?
They'd met up with Shikamaru and Shino, then ... and they'd had similar ideas, Shikamaru detouring to collect the amiable Choji, and the somewhat more reluctant Kiba.
"Got me away from my annoying sister," he groused, when Naruto pressed him. "So, anyway ... what are we going to do today? Some random prank, since they're not giving us money?"
"Part-time work for pocket-change, followed by practicing our taijutsu," Shikamaru suggested.
"That sounds really lame," Kiba barked. Akamaru yipped once -- possibly in agreement.
Naruto felt up to the task, so posed, "Okay, what's your better idea?"
Kiba sulked, whining, "I want to do a real mission!"
The blond boy thought about it for a minute. "Okay ... you know what? I have an idea.... We can do a practice mission once we do our part-time work," he suggested.
Kiba perked up at this, before he narrowed his eyes and gave Naruto a doubtful, sidelong glance. "What kind of practice mission?"
"How about ... we'll split into two teams, right? And one team wants to escort a princess to a base, and the other team has to defend the base."
"Stupid, who's supposed to be the bad guys?" Kiba snorted.
"Oh, that's easy -- I'll be all of them," Naruto said, grinning. There was a way to practice his henge without upsetting shop-keepers. And, hell, if he wasn't doing anything other than sending out his library bunshin....
"But, hey, some of us don't have a nice warm kennel to get in out of the rain," Shikamaru warned. "So, since our respective teachers can't be bothered to help us earn money, let's get to it."
"Alright," Kiba said with a smirk. "I'll look forward to beating the crap out of you a lot, if you have to be every bad guy!"
Naruto snorted. Little did he know. "I'll get you, Kiba," he warned, grinning. "And your little dog, too!"
Akamaru yapped in amusement -- they'd played together almost as much as Naruto had spent time with Kiba, in the academy, so he could tell Naruto was just being friendly.
"Yeah, just you try it," Kiba warned, snorting, before he jogged ahead with Choji, already planning with his other friend.
Shikamaru chuckled. "Try and go a bit easy on Choji," he said in amusement. "He's a friend, you know."
"Oh?" Naruto mused. He was one of the four low-scorers in the academy.... But then, Kiba was, too. Hey, why not? Adding one or two more to his circle of friends wouldn't hurt at all!
And, come to think of it, that would be more than half of all the people he'd ever team up with. He already liked Sakura, and he could tolerate Sasuke ... so really, if he could get along with Ino at least a little, that'd be great, too!
But more than that, he was really looking forward to playing the training game he was planning later. Oh man -- that was going to be awesome.
Kiba grit his teeth, scanning around the forest warily. The princess snuffled behind him, still totally useless in the process of defending herself.... Not even alert -- what a nuisance!
At least, he consoled himself, as the princess's most trusted knight, he was allowed to pick two companions to try and escort her through the dangerous wooded area. He'd chosen the stalwart Choji and the reliable Shikamaru, who had amusedly agreed to let Kiba lead the teams.
They just had to fight through the bandits, protect the princess, and then escort her to the wardens of the castle -- Hinata and Shino.
This is where things had started to go wrong for Kiba.
He'd expected a bandit -- a bandit.
Not a small team of them. They mostly seemed unskilled, but there were five of them, and their leader fought significantly better than the first four. Kiba was surprised -- too scared to fight back, at first, until Shikamaru grabbed control of the first charging enemy, and Choji landed a power-blow to the aggressor's sternum.
Then ... a surprising puff of chakra residue, and no trace of the enemy.
Given that understanding, he'd rallied, managing to dispatch two of the charging enemies, while Shikamaru herded the 'boss' into Choji's reach, and the Akimichi boy dispatched him with calm ease. The last bandit screamed and fled, tagged by a senbon from the shadow-user and vanishing into chakra.
Alright.
That had set the tone for steadily building, very worrisome attacks. First, greater numbers of bandits, and more of the skilled 'bosses'. It was actually kind of like a game ... except, the princess seemed to have no concern for her own safety, and was frequently pausing. She did it again!
The princess's head cocked to to one side as she studied a nearby tree, judged it adequate, then lifted one leg and--
"Oh for the love of-- Akamaru!" Kiba complained, "You don't have to mark every dog-damned tree! We're gonna get ambushed again!"
The 'princess' sniffed haughtily in response, then trotted sedately between the trio once more. There -- in the distance, a rustling in the bushes!
Hinata had practiced fighting against Naruto directly, and fought around his bunshin ... but practicing against the chakra-copies directly was a bit scary. And exciting, too! There were so many of them!
In starting the game, they'd established a 'fort' by drawing lines connecting posts in a training ground, and Naruto promised that none of his bunshin would cross the barriers, unless they had enough time to climb the training posts and pull down the kunai embedded there.
The first few attempts were laughable, causing even the stoic Shino to show doubts as to how effective they were as a training tool....
...that was a short-lived doubt.
More and more 'bandits' began to charge from the perimeters of the clearing, causing first Shino, and then Hinata, to temporarily retreat across the walls of their fort for defense. It was actually kind of fun -- getting tagged by the bunshin wasn't too bad. They were only swinging sticks, and it was very obvious that Naruto was holding back, given the numbers of bunshin, rather than skill.
And, she had to admit, the adult-sized silly looking 'bandit' henge was slowly improving between waves of attackers. It did seem a bit odd that he'd reflexively made the 'bandits' the same size and age as themselves, but they began to come in a greater variety of heights and shapes as the waves went on.
Even so, by the time 'princess' Akamaru and her escort managed to reach the edge of the clearing leading into the training ground, the bandit hordes had swelled to a constant onslaught, large numbers of bandits jumping up and down at the walls of the 'castle', urging their bandit-teammates to climb the training posts. While Shino and Hinata wanted to rush out to assist their allies -- getting Akamaru into the fort would win the game -- the pair of them had to frantically fend off the bandits attempting to climb the walls of the fortress and pull out the key-stone kunai!
Finally, the bandit warlord himself -- this henge with a suspicious hitai-ate-like stripe across one eye, marked with the character for 'bastard' -- showed up, summoning minions left and right.
Well, they tried -- Choji was a seemingly immobile wall, standing over Akamaru protectively, but finally even Kiba and Shikamaru were borne down -- oh, no!
And then.... Just when Hinata was certain they were going to lose, Shino tried a desperation move and--
Success!
He used kawarimi to switch places with the dog-- with the princess at the last possible moment!
The bandit warlord looked on in surprise as all of the bandits let out a collective, "Aawww...."
Hinata gratefully fell to sit flat on the ground after the grueling 'game'. Oh, that was tiring ... so very tiring.... But so much more fun than any other training she could recall!
"Alright, Kiba," Shikamaru said after catching his breath, climbing atop one of the training posts and claiming the kunai so he could have a place to sit. "So, that was your shot at leading. You chose who did what, and gave us orders on the way to meet with the defenders, right?"
Kiba scowled. "I'd like to say we won," he groused. "But ... I didn't even know Shino had picked up that trick, and that's the only thing that saved Akamaru."
The nin-dog yapped happily from within the confines of the 'fort'.
"Winning at the cost of everyone except for Hinata and Akamaru," Shikamaru agreed. "And technically Choji, but that's a lot of bandits for one genin to handle."
"I thought this was a good exercise," Choji contributed. "Very interesting."
The orange-clad boy grinned, though he looked slightly dazed. "Ran a bit long," he said, shrugging. "Thought you were going to be faster."
"Yeah, mobility is a key point," Shikamaru agreed. "Myself, I would have switched me out with either Shino or Hinata -- my jutsu is great for getting attackers off the wall, and Shino or Hinata's extra scouting ability could have helped out a lot on the run. Plus, Hinata's more of a front-line fighter."
Kiba scowled, and Choji nodded slowly, getting the point. Just picking the people you liked most wasn't going to build the best team.
"Huh," Kiba mused, his scowl fading as Akamaru scurried to his side. "That was kind of fun, though. Actually -- really good multiple-attacker training, too."
Hinata nodded at that, and Choji nodded his agreement. There were over two hundred 'bandits' in the entire scenario. And with her kekkai genkai, between waves, she'd seen him personally crush at least thirty.
"I kept the skill level kind of low," Naruto said, sounding pleased with himself. "But then, I figured there were enough of them that it should be fine."
"I think t...that Naruto-kun did an amazing job," she said softly, offering a hopeful smile.
"Yeah, okay, I probably couldn't do anything that cool," Kiba acquiesced, while Shikamaru and Shino nodded their agreement.
"Well," Shikamaru said, shrugging, "Kiba -- you, Choji, and Naruto got the free passes to that all-you-can-eat barbecue place, right?"
"Yeah!" Naruto cheered. Choji nodded, also pleased at the thought of all-you-can-eat. Akamaru and Kiba began to salivate in tandem.
"Okay, we got the passes for the okonomiyaki place, so ... how about we meet up after lunch?"
Hinata wanted more than anything to go with Naruto.... She wanted to always be with him, after all. She just couldn't see quite how to convince any of the boys to go have okonomiyaki instead of as much as they could eat....
Which, she acknowledged, was quite a bit, and Naruto seemed to be on a bit of a budget.
That was okay. She was a ninja! He was so busy with training, and all of his bunshin doing so much amazing stuff that it was a fun challenge to keep his house stocked with relatively fresh groceries! He obviously meant to do it himself, but, well, what with her frequently arriving early, why not make herself useful for imposing on him?
And make sure his laundry was clean -- he wanted to be a respectable ninja, and trained so hard he might sometimes overlook that detail. It was understandable, really.
With the aid of her byakugan and some sewing supplies, she even found time to mend his clothes -- though Kakashi sure did put the poor boy's clothes through a workout. Naturally, if she hadn't thought to sew up the holes in his trousers, and sometimes ... other things ... he might be ... well ... exposed!
Where just anyone could see him!
Well, no matter.
His knees would be safely covered once more.
"Hello?" Shikamaru asked, rousing her from her distraction -- oh, the training had left her more tired than she had thought! That and staying up late every night practicing with Naruto.
And ... something else. She couldn't quite remember. Hmm.
Probably not that important.
"Um, yes?" she asked.
"We're here," Shikamaru said.
Hinata felt her face flush, and took a seat next to Shikamaru. The shop was incredibly tiny, and they barely had room to fit inside. The seats were actually crates with thin cushions on them, arrayed around the grill.
The cook was a friendly, slightly rounded woman with the happy glow of expectancy as she tended various containers of batter and assorted ingredients. "Back with us now?" she asked, winking. Then teasing, she added, "And what's the lucky boy's name?"
"Ah!" Hinata started, feeling her face color red. "Ah ... um ... that is...."
The staircase behind the chef creaked, and a man the same evident age with his hair in a short, dark queue behind him stepped into view, before turning towards the back door. "Assignment came up," he tossed out, pulling on an armored flak vest as he went. "Don't tease the kids, Uc-chan."
Hinata blinked and reflexively activated her kekkai genkai -- jolting when she spotted the tell-tale tattoo of a former ANBU member on the man's shoulder. She stopped looked immediately at that, feeling even more embarrassed.
The chef's smile turned into a pout, and she heaved a sigh. "Damn," she grumbled after the man, turning to look at Hinata. "Well.... Never mind that! What'll you have, sugar?"
They each asked for an order, but she gave them double servings with a wink, and they retreated, bearing their lunches away on clean cloth napkins with promises to return them later. "That's the only okonomiyaki place I've ever seen where they cook for you," Shikamaru noted, licking his fingers as they trotted -- somewhat aimlessly -- to the bank where Asuma had them meditate.
"Yes," Shino remarked. "Perhaps some special ingredient or technique goes into the dish."
Hinata smiled politely, not really caring ... she'd rather be with Naruto. But then, they had gotten their orders to go, and the boys, they would just be settling into their first round at the buffet.
After settling down and trying a few bites, Hinata admitted that it actually was quite decent. She didn't know if she could make better.... Maybe she could convince Naruto to try it at some point?
"Mmm, grilled pork," Shikamaru mused after he finished eating his okonomiyaki, licking his fingertips again. "Not bad."
"I...it was good," she agreed. "Um ... how long, do you suppose...?"
"Some time," Shino answered her unfinished question. "It is, after all, all-you-can-eat."
"Kiba's not going to stop Choji and Naruto from getting into an eating contest," Shikamaru said thoughtfully. "In fact, he'll probably encourage them. I give it an hour before they get sent packing -- maybe more if the owner is still grateful for the work this morning."
Hinata allowed a reluctant nod at that observation. Naruto's appetite wasn't that problematic.... He trained hard! He needed that food for energy!
"Some insight," Shino remarked, prompting Hinata and Shikamaru to turn to him curiously. "Naruto-kun's chakra development seems unusually pronounced for our age-group."
Shikamaru raised his eyebrows, then turned to regard Hinata thoughtfully. She blinked under the combined attention of both boys, wondering what was going on. "Alright," the shadow-user allowed. "So -- Hinata.... You've gotten a chance to look at our sensei, haven't you?"
She nodded in response. Even with her kekkai genkai ... but then, she made a habit of doing that regularly -- as she was told she should since an even younger age.
"How does Naruto's chakra compare to theirs?" Shikamaru posed.
Now, that was a strange question! Still.... "I would guess he had...." She hesitated, doing the math. "Fifty ... seven and seven eighths times as much chakra as Asuma-sensei -- or about maybe, fifty two and a half times as much as Kakashi-sensei."
Shino stared at her from behind his dark lenses, otherwise unmoving. Shikamaru blinked once, opened his mouth to say something in response, and then closed it again.
"T...that's just a guess," she said nervously. "I-- I've seen Naruto-kun spend a lot of his chakra during training, so I have a fair idea of how much he has...." More than her father, that was for certain. "But I've never really seen Kakashi-sensei or Asuma-sensei use nearly all of their chakra in a fight, s...so...."
"Well, how would he compare to, say, me?" Shikamaru pressed, frowning.
"Um, I'm not really sure ... probably about three orders of magnitude higher?" she hedged. "It's.... There's quite a vast gap." She shrugged apologetically, knowing she herself was quite low in that ranking. At least she made up for a lack of raw power with finesse. Then again, this was only talking about reserves -- Naruto seemed to also have some inherent recovery that was able to counter even her ability to close his tenketsu -- so that wasn't the best gauge for comparison.
"Okay," Shikamaru said after a minute, finding his voice. "That's a bit ... daunting."
"I do not begrudge my ally," Shino said slowly, turning away from Hinata, his voice slow and pensive. "At the same time ... I feel that such potential does not merely occur."
"Well, we do know--" Shikamaru cut himself off and shrugged.
Shino gave a tiny nod in response.
Oh, no.... Shino and Shikamaru -- they weren't ... keeping secrets from Naruto, were they?
She tried not to stare at them suspiciously, suddenly worried. Why the concern over Naruto's strength? Despite what Shino said about trusting him.... "W...what are you saying?" Hinata asked worriedly.
"I can't help but wonder if Naruto is the heir to some kekkai genkai, to have so much chakra," Shikamaru said thoughtfully. "I mean ... there are plenty of orphans from...." He shrugged.
Hinata vaguely recalled stories of the kyuubi that had attacked Konoha, the same year that she and most of her class were born. She supposed it seemed fairly obvious that his parents probably died, then -- in retrospect. It might have been possible that he was an orphan of some unidentified parents, and they simply hadn't noticed his potential until now?
No ... that didn't seem likely. Even if Naruto were abandoned as an infant, either someone knew him to place that seal on him -- or it would have been there in the first place, making his identity fairly obvious.
"I ... suppose," she allowed, though she wasn't really convinced. "C...couldn't we just ask him?"
Shino and Shikamaru exchanged an uncertain glance.
"I do not believe that he is aware of any kekkai genkai," Shino said thoughtfully. "It seems likely that if he had such power, he would eagerly advertise it."
"He has a last name," Shikamaru noted, shrugging. "Couldn't we check the library or something and see if we can find out the history of it?"
"Y...you can," Hinata agreed.
Shikamaru sighed and lay back against the lawn, lacing his fingers together behind his head and staring up at the sky. Shino remained unmoving, looking at the river contemplatively.
"W...why is it so important?" she wondered.
For a heartbeat, Shikamaru looked hesitant, before closing his eyes and saying, "Well ... really, except for Naruto and Sakura, every single one of us in the rookie nine is from a clan. Clans have specialties and strengths -- and sometimes kekkai genkai, like yours." He shifted his shoulders in the approximation of a shrug. "I was thinking -- for Naruto's sake -- if his strength actually comes from some rare or obscure clan ... well, maybe we could research what their specialty is. It could turn out to be a secret strength he doesn't even know -- wouldn't that be a nice find?"
"Oh!" she exclaimed. Well, that made perfect sense. "Um.... D...do you suppose it has something to do with the patch on his shoulder? H...he has the same symbol on the walls of his house!"
And on his pajamas!
Shikamaru looked at her quizzically, and Shino said, "A spiral formation -- similar to that in Konoha's leaf crest."
"Or the one on a jounin vest?" Shikamaru asked.
"N...no, no, the one on a jounin vest is red and has more spirals ... but I suppose it is very like Konoha's crest.... M...maybe that's all it is...." Hinata sighed.
"This could easily be further researched," Shino posed.
Shikamaru seemed unconvinced, and Hinata finally decided to sit down as well. They were still waiting for Naruto, after all.
The three were silently contemplative until Shino murmured, "We are approached."
Shikamaru grunted and closed his eyes, posing as though he had dozed off. Hinata activated her kekkai genkai and glanced around -- surprised to see Sakura slowly walking along the river-bank. The pink-haired girl didn't take long to round the bend of the river, to where she could see the other three. She shot them a wary look, then sighed, trudging along the bank of the river and giving Shino a mistrustful stare the entire while.
For his part, the insect user stood statue-stiff, facing away from her for the moment.
"What brings you by?" Shikamaru asked lazily, when Sakura was between him and the river. "Sasuke turned you down?"
"I-- Oh, shut up," Sakura snapped back, shooting him a hurt scowl. "How'd you know?"
Shikamaru looked about ready to throw back some retort, but swallowed it, unlacing his fingers and propping himself up on his elbows. "We have eyes and ears everywhere," he answered, causing her to look even more suspicious. "But never mind that -- you placed best in class on the written test, right?"
"Yeah," Sakura allowed, flicking another glance at Shino warily. "Why?"
"Considering team balances and so on," Shikamaru said, shrugging.
"What prompted you to tone down the attitude?" Sakura pressed, narrowing her eyes at Shikamaru and placing both hands on her hips.
"Ino's not here," he answered.
Hinata blinked in surprise, hearing what he said -- and then, seeing how Sakura interpreted it. Interestingly enough, Shikamaru told only the truth ... but Sakura seemed to hear something misleading.
"I know, right?" Sakura sighed, some of her tension instantly vanishing. "I can't relax around her either!"
"Mmm," Shikamaru grunted. "Tell me about it."
"Oh, she makes me so mad!" Sakura fumed.
"I know, right?" Shikamaru agreed, returning Sakura's words of only moments ago. Then he abruptly switched track, saying, "I just asked her earlier what the history was of the spiral pattern in Konoha's leaf -- and she goes off on this tirade...." He sighed, sinking back to the lawn and raising one hand, making speaking gestures and muttering, "You know the rest. I bet she didn't even really know."
"Hah! She's a total idiot!" Sakura crowed. "I know that!"
"Really," Shino said, not quite a question, just a remark.
Hinata was impressed. Sakura's comfort dried up instantly, and she eyed Shino again. "Yeah, really," she said, placing her hands back on her hips and glaring at him. "So -- our village was founded by Hashirama Senju. Some of his distant relations founded the hidden village of the whirlpool -- Uzushiogakure.
"They were very famous for being masters of fuinjutsu -- sealing arts. Because of the closeness of their clans, Konoha adopted their symbol -- the spiral -- into their leaf crest."
"I've never heard of an Uzushio," Hinata protested, thinking this sounded like something she should have known. The hidden city of the whirlpool? Why wouldn't that have been covered?
"Yeah, well ... for whatever reason the book that explained this was the last copy in the library when I found it," Sakura said with a shrug. "It was actually behind something else -- probably been stuck there for years. Anyway, they were destroyed in the era of shinobi world wars, but Konoha still uses the spiral in their memory to this day."
"Interesting," Shino remarked.
"D...do you know where the survivors of their village went?" Hinata asked, eyes wide with wonder. Could it be that this was Naruto's legacy?
Sakura looked thoughtful. "Not really," she admitted. "I think it would probably have been physically close to the land of Waves, so ... I guess Kiri would be closest, but if they were allies of us -- well, they should have come here, right?"
"Stands to reason," Shikamaru allowed.
Sakura stared for a moment, then shook her head. "So, what are you doing here, anyway?"
"Waiting for Naruto to get back."
The pink-haired kunoichi looked annoyed. "Yeah -- I'm leaving, then. Hope you enjoyed your history lesson." Shaking her head, she quickly walked away.
"T...that," Hinata began hesitantly, looking at Shikamaru before pressing her lips tightly together and giving him a very doubtful look. That was incredibly sneaky.... He'd better not be like that towards Naruto!
"What?" he asked, his eyes still closed.
Forcing her voice not to tremble, Hinata warned, "N...Naruto-kun is my friend, Shikamaru.... I don't know ... what you're trying to do, but if you hurt him...." She trailed off there. What could she really do? She was positive she'd find something -- she knew if Shikamaru betrayed Naruto, she'd just have to.
"He's my friend, too," Shikamaru replied, sounding very faintly annoyed. "You know ... some day he wants to be Hokage?"
"Some day he will be Hokage," Hinata corrected him.
The shadow user's eyes opened and he turned to look at her, his frown deepening slightly. He seemed to consider something, then said, "Well ... that may be. If so, wouldn't knowing about his true strengths be a greater asset?"
"That thought in mind, we know little except for the currently unproven suspicion that he is descended from a lost hidden village," Shino remarked.
Hinata bit her tongue. She didn't think that was a mere suspicion ... somehow, she was confident the seal on Naruto was the product of such a village.
"And that they were renowned with seals," Shikamaru added as if to underscore the point, closing his eyes. "I don't know any fuinjutsu experts -- or much about what it does. I mean ... explosive tags, storage scrolls ... and what else?"
Shifting in her seat, Hinata decided that she would help -- if she didn't, she'd never know what happened. Never have the chance to tell Naruto. "If ... you're looking for Naruto-kun's family history to help him, I w...will help," she agree.
"There's that," Shikamaru murmured. "Huh. Fuinjutsu."
Shortly after that -- surprisingly soon, all things considered -- Naruto and Kiba's voices became audible through the bushes, Choji chuckling at something one of the boys said before they came into view. "Hey!" Naruto said with a grin. "I have a great idea for another training game!"