Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ A Better Start ❯ A Better Lesson ( Chapter 8 )

I posted a poll on my profile, which will stay up until I think that enough people have voted. When I close the poll will be the day that I post the next chapter so make sure you go and vote or it could be a while until I update.

Also, I was extremely bored one night and made a crude layout of the Kimiko/Mikoto/Naruto home. Don't expect much, since I made it with the paint program. I also added a small teaser there for those that can find it on my deviantart profile. To find it just go to deviantart dot com and search for my pen name (dshadodragon). It should be the only one that comes up.

the vengful one: More pervy beatings it is! We only have sizes of extra large, and the cups strangely have Jiraya's name on them.I'll see if I can find some others in the back room too.

babaga he who laughs at anime: I know that much, what I don't know are the measurements in centimeters or inches. If anyone knows then I can add that to some descriptionsthat I give to the characters.

Kagenin: Yeah, I won't be putting Kiba with Mikoto. I have plans for him anyway. Since you frequently review I'll see what I can do with Sakura bashing without ruining the story as a reward. The more you people review, the more I listen to your opinions. As far as the mind limiter goes, you have to know or have the experience of something to be able to think about it. I am going to be gradually boosting him up so he does have that knowledge and the experience.

Stormraven: Thank you for the compliments, no author can ever get enough of those. I also got your PM, that picture was made by Baal of Yarns, the authorof another great story called Senju Naruto. Check it out for a good read.

Let's get to the story shall we?

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Getting the Sannin beat down proved to be a rather bad choice. Because he was so angry at the blond, Jiraya had begun his training with a vengeance. Not even starting slowly the Sage had tied a boulder to the poor boys back and told him to run five laps around the rather large clearing the rock was situated in. Naruto had to guess the large piece of earth had to have weighed at least ten times his own weight, if not more.

After the warm up the blond began the game that would both bore him to death and hurt like no other. Jiraya liked to call this game `Punch the Rock'. Oddly enough it involved Naruto's new friend Mr. Boulder, playing the part of Rock in this game. After that came another fun game called `Kick he Rock'. Both of these games wouldn't end until Naruto had either punched or kicked the rock enough to satisfy Jiraya. He was not easy to please.

Now being well into the night Naruto stumbled his way home on wobbly legs and arms that wouldn't be able to push him up should he fall down. Currently Naruto was grumbling at the fact that the pervert had chosen the training ground that was on the exact opposite side of the village. So he was in for a nice five mile hike.

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Sitting on her bed with an ice pack on her hands Kimiko grumbled to herself. Hayate was not kidding when he said he would cut the stick she was using as a weapon down to size. Having only taken one step had gotten her weapon reduced by half. When her stick had eventually gotten whittled down to proverbial sawdust she had scrambled for another. She made the mistake of taking her eyes off of her sickly teacher. The only thing she was grateful for was that the man had chosen to use the flat side of his sword, and only attacking her hands.

Feeling her hands throb under the small towel holding the ice she sighed. “How am I supposed to sleep with my hands hurting like this?” Giving up on the idea she glanced at her bedside clock. “Great, one o'clock in the morning. Mikoto and Naruto are probably out having a great frickin' time with their teachers and not getting beaten to the ground.”

As if to challenge that statement a single knock on the front door sounded through the quiet home. Sighing in exasperation she tore herself from her seat on the bed and out through the living room and down the hallway to the front door. Reaching for the door with a sore hand she slowly opened it. Click, Creeeeeeaaak……THUMP! “Ugh!”

Looking down she noticed Naruto laying face first on the floor. Looking up she saw Mikoto walk into the house, not really trying to keep from stepping on the blond. “Where are you going? Where have you been anyway? My hands are killing me so you're going to have to take the blond wonder to the couch yourself.”

Grumbling Mikoto walked back and dragged the blond across the floor and tossing him onto the couch, earning a pained sigh. “Kakashi made us search the village for his home, I ended up scouring half the village until I found it an hour ago and just before the deadline. I'm tired.” Walking into the hall and entering her room on the right she closed her door with a click.

Stepping closer to the couch she regarded the boy that was currently occupying it. “And you?”

Grunting Naruto managed to turn his head to the side and look at the red head. “I pissed him off. Had me drag a boulder around and then attack it. He wouldn't let me stop until just a lil' while ago. My legs gave out about half way here and I think that's when she found me and dragged me home. Literally… Bastards, both of them.”

“I guess all three of us got the hard teachers then. Well, I'm going to try and get some sleep before we have to head to the Academy for the morning class.” Walking to her door that was just before the back hallway she stopped when Naruto asked what had happened to her. “I got beat down with a sword. My only weapon was a stick. G'Night.”

“'Night.”

“Good night Mikoto!” she shouted to the girls' room, only hearing a loud grunt in return.

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Today's class was a little different than what it normally is. The two most talkative girls in the class were disturbingly quiet, even in the presence of their professed eternal love Sousuke Sagara. The only thing that was different with him was that he had bandages wrapped around the top of his head, left arm and smaller adherent bandages littering the visible parts of his body. And that was only what could be seen outside of his clothes. One of the two girls, Sakura, was reading a rather large book, not even glancing at the mummified boy. That was odd in and of itself. Ino, the other talkative girl was strangely downcast, with a matching frown and body posturing.

The number of people that were sleeping in this class had seemingly multiplied overnight. Shikamaru was still a constant, as was Chouji, who was doing what they normally do: eat and sleep. The normally energetic Inuzuka had decided to join Shikamaru today, as his head was resting on his folded arms atop his desk, snoring not so quietly. Naruto seemed to be sleeping, but he was also groaning. His chin on the desk and his arms hanging off the desk, he seemed not to be sleeping but there isn't much difference between sleeping and what he was doing. The last of this group was the most amusing. The last Uchiha had her head resting in her left palm and her head twisted away towards the window. The Chunin teacher might not be the highest rank, but he was an experienced shinobi. Mikoto wasn't fooling anyone; it was painfully obviously that she was asleep.

Along with Sousuke, Shikamaru, and Chouji were three others that didn't seem to be acting all that differently than how they normally are. The worst off of the three seemed to be Kimiko who seemed to have injured her hands somehow and was currently rubbing the bandages wrapped around them. Shino, like Shikamaru and Chouji seemed not to have done anything strenuous the other day. And though she was currently reading a large book like Sakura, which he guessed was a medical text from the great female Sannin, Hinata was otherwise the same. Still quiet, still hard to notice. As a ninja that was a good skill to have.

“Alright everyone, eyes up front!” The majority of the class were slow to comply, but finally managed after a moment. “I'm going to tell you the timing schedule for each day, so make sure to listen up…Okay, so you all meet here every day at seven in the morning from now on until lunch, at around 11-“ there were a few groans of complaint “Hey, it's not me that makes the schedule. As I was saying, after you leave here you have an hour for lunch, followed by the group meeting with the teacher assigned for that day. That lasts for about four hours, and after that you are to meet with your more personal teachers. Now, as you know this part of the day is focused on both your physical skills and also more in depth academic material. This class and my station at the tower are the only duties I have at the moment so I can always help you if you just ask me outside of the morning meetings. Now that you all had a taste in varying forms yesterday do any of you have any questions? We can start off the day with that.”

Sharing a look with the dark haired girl next to her Kimiko raised her hand, getting called on as the only one to have done so. “Yeah, so do we still have to wear this uniform? Shouldn't we start getting used to what it feels like to be in the clothes that we will be taking missions in?”

Nodding, Iruka scanned the class with his eyes once again making sure no one had dozed off. “Yes, that was what I was going to talk about next anyway. Now that you aren't really a part of the Academy you can change out of the traditional school uniform. Those were mainly just to keep peace with the civilian students that use the other building. But since you all will be gone before the civilians have their lunch break I see no reason for you all to wear them. I'll be getting the official document on it in the next day or so from the Hokage, but I'll take the fall if any of you get in trouble for it.

“Since you won't be wearing civilian clothes anymore you have a few choices. First, is the general ninja uniform that a large percentage of the ninja wear, in each villages own style of course.”Pausing, he noticed that this didn't get any reaction from the class. “Then there is of course the option to pick your entire wardrobe from scratch. Be advised that this is also the more expensive of the choices, so be careful of any budget you have. Along with the choice of original clothing is the idea that it can fit your own personal strengths and weaknesses. Armor, looser clothing for flexibility, built in pouches, and the list goes on and on. Do any of you know what battle type you would like to focus on?”

The lazy cloud watcher looked confused. “I thought we were placed with the teacher of the type we would become.”

Getting into the discussion the others mumbled similar statements out loud. “Quiet down. It is true that you were placed with a teacher that would be able to work with you more on your skills that are similar to their own, but the choice of a specialty is up to you in the end.”

Naruto attempted to raise his hand, but failed, so he just spoke out anyway. “Could ya' tell us what all the specialties are? `Case we forgot some, wouldn't want to make an uninformed decision.”

Sighing, the teacher nodded and listed them off in his head, making sure he hadn't forgotten any. “As you all probably know there are three loose categories. The close range fighters are generally Taijutsu specialists, mid-range fighters are normally Ninjutsu specialists and bringing up the rear are the Genjutsu and ranged weapon specialists. Those aren't set in stone though; there are ninjas that are close range Ninjutsu users and even close range Genjutsu-ists. Then there are also categories that have to deal with the number that a ninja is good at fighting against. These are the solo fighters, the team fighters, and then there is the war time shinobi/kunoichi.”

Before Iruka could expand on them any further Shino of all people asked a question. “What is the general number for the war time fighters?”

Amazed that the usually mute boy had spoken out, Iruka took a few seconds to answer the question. “Uh, normally a wartime shinobi are close and long ranged fighters, specializing in both Taijutsu and area destructive Ninjutsu. A ninja with such skills are generally uncommon, but not all that rare. All of the Hokage to date have been wartime shinobi.” Unknown to him, Iruka had just gotten Naruto's full attention. With his father being talked about its not all that surprising, really. “They Yondaime for example, using his coveted Hiraishin technique had decimated close to a third of Iwa's forces alone, getting him the position of the only ninja to have the SS ranking and a flee on site order. Our current Hokage was known as the `God of Shinobi' for his mastery of all three ninja categories, which he used to aid in our villages victory in the second Great Ninja War. To answer your question Shino, there isn't an exact number to be called a war time shinobi. Though it does require the number that a ninja is able to fight confidently be over the number of the team fighter.” Getting a nod from the boy, signaling that he was satisfied with the answer Iruka looked back to the rest of the class.

“Now that that is out of the way, does anyone know that class they are aspiring to become?” there was one answer that was immediate. Naruto had ignored the fact that his arms and legs were proverbial jelly and jumped out of his seat.

“If all the Hokage's have been a war time shinobi, then that's what I'm gonna be too!” He shouted enthusiastically, despite his pain.

“Okay, Naruto. But that is possibly the hardest one. If you put in the hard work then I don't see why you can't achieve that goal. That goes for each of you. All of the teachers are no longer going to hold your hand, we will stand behind you and pushing you forward. You still have the choice to back out, but that is your choice alone.” Seeing his students take this information in, he mentally patted himself on the back. 'Another great speech Iruka! You're on fire now!'

The bandaged form of one Sousuke Sagara stood up to address his teacher. “What would be your suggestions for the battle clothing? We had briefly gone over this before in class, but it was not in great detail, and therefore not enough to help me decide on what I wish to wear on the field.”

Taking a swig of water from the glass he had on his desk, he looked back at Sousuke before going to his black board. Drawing a rough figure of a human he then drew lines leading to each limb, the head, and the torso. “I'm going to assume that none of you are going to choose the stylish and practical set of clothing that I am sporting?” Laughing at his own joke he continued on. “Okay, I'll start from the top down. These are really straight forward and are pretty much common sense. For the head there are helmets, goggles, and masks, all giving their own levels of protection and uses. Torsos are generally covered by some kind of armor under the clothes or above. Most ninja ware shops carry the general chain male, half guard, sectioned plating and full coverage pieces. The arms and the legs are pretty much the same, with little differences. There are shoulder/elbow/ and bracers corresponding to the legs' thigh/knee/shin and ankle guards commonly called greaves.” Throughout this quick lecture he listed each piece under the line that it corresponded to. “As far as armor goes, that is pretty much the just of it. You can also buy cloaks, both plated and un-plated gloves, and a plethora of different styles of foot ware. But I would hope that you all at least had an idea about all of those, and the different types of pouches and weapons.” Seeing that he was starting to bore the class he hurriedly tried to change the subject.

“Okay, I think that's enough on clothes for now. We still have almost three and a half hours of class left, so let's make it count.” He tried to sound excited, but he could see that he had lost some of them already. “To make this more exciting for the first day of your new classes how about we make this an outdoor learning exercise?”

Giving himself another pat on the back when he saw the immediate response from the class he led them outside, wondering how he was going to make the history of The Mist's Seven Swordsmen into an outdoor exercise. `Damn!'

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After leaving the Academy grounds a group of eleven made their way through the village. They had been walking in circles for forty minutes now and some members of their group were getting impatient.

“Where are we going anyway? My legs are sore as it is! Kiba, he's your teacher right? Where did he….” It was then that Naruto remembered what Mikoto had said last night after dumping him on the couch. “Are we going to his house?”

“That's what I was thinking. When we met up the other day we had to go around figuring out where he lived. As soon as I found him he kicked me out saying `See ya tomorrow!' Bastard forgot to tell us where to meet.' If Kiba was grumbling at the last statement then he was doing it in a loudspeaker. It was the loudest silent grumbling to have ever grumbled.

“Again he is wasting my time. I should be training right now, but no....... He did tell me that I passed his test last night. Other than that it was the same as the Mutt.” Kiba was so lost in his grumbling that he didn't even hear Mikoto insult him.

Sousuke rubbed one of the adhesive bandages on his face lightly. “Would it be safe to assume that this too is a test? To find the training grounds? I suggest we each go over where we know our respective teachers have designated for their training grounds. The forty fourth training ground is Anko's territory.” Naruto wondered at the strange choice of words from his rival, but shrugged it off. He was still in too much pain to care about much today.

As if to disprove the theory that lightning doesn't strike the same place twice, Shino spoke up from the rear for the second time that day. “Kurenai meets at training ground fourteen.”

“Tsunade-shishou said that she would be at the northern hospital on the third floor of the west wing, she has an office there.” Sakura said quickly, taking the chance to impress Sousuke-kun when Ino couldn't since Shino had spoken for her.

`Naruto-kun looks like he's a lot of pain. Maybe I should rub some ointment on him? Then he would take his jacketoff, asking for me to put some on his back, then his chest, then-` Hinata had to abruptly stop her thought process due to how light headed she was feeling. She had stumbled but Shino, who was standing beside her, had caught her arm and made sure she was stable before looking ahead. Back to his stoic ways.

Not to be left out, Naruto informed the group of the location of his new friend… and his teacher. “The pervy-sage took me to this clearing just north of area twenty seven, the one next to the waterfall.” Of course he wasn't going to tell anyone about his encounter with The Rock, it was bad enough that two people knew about his night of torture. `But I'll tell Sakura-chan if the Pervy-Sage even looks at The Rock when she's around, just in case he plans on making everyone do it. She might like me more if I can help her avoid The Rock.'His endearment of the pink haired girl proven to himself he followed the rest of the group, thinking of ways to get her to like him enough to marry him. A harder thing to do than he originally thought.

Since Chouji had to pause in his eating to open another bag anyway he took it upon himself to pitch in his two cents. “Asuma-sensei had us…train.. over at area eighteen.” NOM NOM NOM Chouji had finally dragged out another bag from…somewhere.

Realizing that she was the last one Kimiko decided to share her first hand-OW- knowledge of where she and her instructor had been the other day. “We were in one of the smaller fields, area fifty two.”

Ino piped up from her place in the group. “That was a really good idea Sousuke-kun, only we still have to search the other one-hundred forty four grounds, another whole hospital, and a total of thirty six miles of village to scour.” She was trying to sound smart, yet not put down her crushes idea.

Sousuke nodded at her reasoning. “I doubt that our teacher would be somewhere in the urban areas. It would be highly more likely that he is simply waiting for us to show up at one of the training fields, possibly even timing us.”

Naruto groaned. “Okay, okay, we get it. We should just scour the training fields right?” Slowly bringing his hands up to chest level he made four seals: ram, snake, tiger, then the cross seal. `Your awake right?'

`But of course. You want some help with the Shadow Clones right? Just remember that even if you are trying to form multiple clones you still have to make them individually, even if they are made in rapid succession. We should work on the Mass Shadow Clones soon though, one-hundred forty four clones is going to be a bit taxing on you to make individually.'

`Individually, got it. But I still wanna make them fast. Lets see how quick I can do this.'

Jumping up and onto a nearby roof Naruto gave out a loud yell as a haze of chakra formed around him.

POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF POOF………..POOF!(1)

The general consensus of the group of not-quite ninjas was “%$#@!”

“Haaa…..haaaa…you guys know what to do…..haaaaaa….haaa. Just gimme a sec to catch my breath.” Naruto has slightly crouched with his hands on his knees, panting like there was no tomorrow.

The exceedingly large group or blonds raced off from the roof top while the rest of ten children jumped up to help the exhausted original get his footing back.

Blunt as ever Kiba decides to speak for the entire group. “What the hell was THAT?!”

While the group waited for the male blonde to stop panting Mikoto suddenly had a flashback to the other day, just before the final test. `Naruto had said that he had `something up his sleeve' and that the Kyuubi was the one that had helped him with it. So it would stand to reason that it would be obscenely overpowered, coming from the most overpowered being on the planet and all.If Naruto has this technique and can continue to gain skills from the demon…-spirit-… he could prove to be a fair measuring stick to gauge my own progress. And once I manage to awaken my Sharingan nothing will be able to impede my growth. I'll kill you yet Itachi!'

Kimiko also had a similar epiphany, only missing the evil plot to destroy her own brother.

The rest of the class, not having heard Naruto's statement before he had taken the final test, still had to wait for the blonde boy to let them all in on one of his newest techniques. After only another minute of panting Naruto was back to standing straight up and only looked slightly winded. “Hehe, pretty cool right?”

There was a wave of nods.

“It's called the Shadow Clone technique, pretty much just a powered up version of the clone they teach in the Academy, making the clones solid and all. Apparently the reason I sucked so bad at the normal clone is my abysmal chakra control, and my bad chakra control comes from my huge chakra supply. I'm talking Jonin level or even higher.”

Many of the group let their understanding show on their faces. But Sousuke had something on his mind. “Yes, but where did you learn it? Surely such a technique that makes tangible clones isn't going to just be handed out like flyers.” Though the rest of the group missed it, this was Sousuke's attempt at humor.

Naruto realized his position, how could he tell them that he learned it from a force of nature given form that was supposed to be dead but was currently sipping tea inside his mind? `You got anything in mind to get me out of this?'

Letting her tail hold her cup and place it back onto the table Kyuubi stood from her seat and walked over to one of the bookshelves, running her hand across the many spines lined up in neat rows. `This is assuming that you refuse to tell them about me?' silence `Of course you do. What about your Hokage? I would imagine that he knows the technique if not at least of it.'

`Yeah! That would work, wouldn't it? Thanks Kyuubi, you're a life saver!'

`Any time.' Neither of them knew how true this would be in the future.

“Uh…Yeah, I asked the Hokage about my problem a little while ago. He taught it to me, though I don't have it completely down yet.”

As the entire group knew of the relations between their classmate and their village leader they left the matter of where he learned it alone. That isn't to say that they were out of questions.

“It has the name `Shadow Clone', do you know if it has any relations to Shikamaru's family jutsu?” Ino asked. With her family being as close as they were to the Nara's she found it odd to have similar names.

Naruto thought about it for a while…maybe a second at most, before shrugging. “How should I know? I just know how to do it, not who made it.” Right then, as if to save Naruto from the continuing line of questioning he felt the tightening sensation course through his head. A feeling he will later recognize as his clones dispersing with useful information.

“Ah! He's over at field 7. Just staring at a rock..odd.. but who cares! We found him! Lets go!”

As if he hadn't just been panting like his life depended on it Naruto leapt from the rooftop and onto a sign, then a lamp post then onto the electricity wires and using those to run across the city. Luckily the soles of the generic ninja sandals are rubber soled.

“Munch, so these clones send back information too? Nom Nom Nom.(2)” the group as a whole shrugged, not knowing any other specifics other than what Naruto had told them. And that wasn't a whole lot.

Before Hinata took off with the others she had a sudden idea… “Multiple Naruto's…………mmmmmm…. Oh! W-Wait!”

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Here is another fact about the Shadow Clone technique: since the clones are constantly in synch with the caster they can get their orders instantaneously and with only a thought.

Wanna guess what the only thing going through Naruto's head is?

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Today had been a relatively peaceful day for Kakashi Hatake. With his new schedule he technically didn't have to do anything until around noon, when his students would come for his valuable and extensive knowledge in the art of ninja-ing. That fit in just fine with him. He wouldn't have showed up until noon anyway, so it really saves him the trouble of getting in trouble with the Third and Tsunade. That doesn't mean he would always be on time though. It was oh so fun to see the looks on people faces when he shows up to be fashionably late. `Another good lesson you taught me, Obito.'

Kakashi was standing in front of the Memorial stone, found near the entrance to area 7. This field had so much history to it. This was the field that the Shodaime and Nidaime had used in training the Sandaime's team. The Sandaime used this field to train the Sannin. Jiraya of the Sannin used this field to train the Fourth. The Fourth used this field to train Kakashi's team. And now Kakashi was using this field to train a group that is to be the strongest yet, according to the Sandaime and what he imagined all this training would do for them.

Yup, a pretty peaceful day. Taking out his newest book, Icha Icha Paradise 9: Nemar in the Not so Virgin Islands! Ah, this is the life….

Suddenly the ground started shaking, and all the leaves and bushes rustled. Looking around him he fingered his kunai holster on his right thigh….nothing happened. Deciding that it must have been an earthquake or a particularly rowdy training session in one of the neighboring clearings, Kakashi relaxed back into his usual slouched posture and continued reading.

He was about to turn the page when the sunlight he was using to read had been blocked, probably by clouds. Looking up to confirm his own theory he nearly crapped himself in surprise.

An entire army of orange and blonde blobs were flying through the air and screaming at him, roughly in his direction and from every direction!

Years of ANBU training and experience kicked in. Danger! Multiple targets. Escape: slim. Enemy: clones and possible original. Known to be student from roster…Action to take:Non lethal evasion.

Looking straight at the clone that was the farthest away from the center he managed to pull off a flawless Substitution with said clone. And then jumped back a bit to add to the distance between the mass of falling orange and himself.

The Naruto that was sent to the middle of the group was not so fortunate. “AAAAAAAAHHHHHHH-“

There was a torrent of smoke as all of the clones had expelled themselves from the fall. Behind Kakashi his ten students all jumped into view to see the clearing that was filled with smoke. “Ah, so you are all here now? What took you so long?”

The class in its entirety glared at the tall man with the gravity defying silver hair and a plated headband acting as an eye patch. Sakura leapt down from the low branch that had landed on and stepped forward, pointing at the Jonin accusingly. “That's only because you never said anything about where to meet up! How could we get here when we didn't even know where here is?”

`Crap, I knew I forgot something when I shooed those two away last night.'“But of course! It was a test! Yes, a test! I had to see how well you all would do in finding me, I am mainly going to be teaching you all about tracking after all….Now that I think about it all I know is that three of you can track. Naruto found me just now with all of you following him, and Mikoto and Kiba managed to find me the other night. I suppose it wouldn't be fare to only test those three, so…” Effortlessly creating eight copies of himself he finished his sentence. “the rest of you can all go find these fine gentlemen. You have until...whenever it is that you go to meet your other teachers. Ready?..Se-GO!” All eight clones disappeared in a shimmer of motion, prompting the eight Genin to give chase.

“Hmm, faster than the last group I was almost stuck with…I mean, let's move on to what I'll be having you three do for the next four hours!”

Kiba laughed to himself.

“And what, pray tell, is so funny?” The Jonin was going to start worrying about the boy if he was the sort that starts laughing at random intervals.

“Dude, there's only two of us here.” Kiba then pointed to where the smoke was still thinning out.

`Don't tell me he was…. Damn it, he was…' Laying on the ground at the center of the cloud of lifting smoke was none other than Naruto Uzumaki. “Hmm, well I guess we'll have to wake him up then won't we? Do either of you have any E-class flash tags? I hear Naruto here is quite the prankster, might want to get him before he gets us.”

Mikoto smiled sadistically, she had always had a liking for wonton destruction and all things that go boom. And if she scared Naruto half to death? Not really her problem, she considered it as payment for getting to see her in a towel, twice even! Handing the Jonin a small stack of five flash tags she nodded to him and waited for the eventual boom.

Kiba jumped at the chance to mess with Naruto, Having been running buddies with the blonde didn't mean that he was never a target. Grabbing a strong smelling gas pellet, commonly called a skunk bomb, he placed it at the blondes feet and primed it. Once Kakashi had placed all five of the tags on and around the boy he backed up all the way to the tree line, quickly followed by his two partners in crime.

All three nodded to each other and made a half ram sign, setting the fuses to the tags and bomb to go off at different intervals.

It only took a number of seconds for the fuses to run out and…Bam! Bam! BOOM PSSSSSSSSSSSSSS BAM! BAM! If it wasn't so funny to watch Naruto run around screaming his head off they might have felt bad. But they didn't.

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Four o'clock came rolling around and Naruto found himself in the reluctant presence of the oh so mighty Jiraya and all of his perverseness. Instead of meeting at the bath house like they had on the first day, Jiraya had the two of them meet up at the clearing they had used later the day before, with The Rock towering ominously off to the side.

Feeling the odd tension that had befallen the teacher student combo Jiraya sighed. “Okay kid, we need to come to an understanding. A man such as myself needs his moments of uninterrupted information gathering time. Unfortunately right about now is the best time of day to do it in, as the general populace start leaving for home, then to go out for recreation; i.e. the hot springs in some cases.”

Naruto rubbed his chin slightly using his left hand, with his right being used to hold up his left. “You really have put some thought into this, huh?...Wait, if it's information gathering…” Naruto closed his eyes and thought for a moment. “What about a clone? It would be like you were there wouldn't it? And clones just go poof when they get hit, too.”

He had no idea as to the torment he had just unleashed upon the female populace of Konoha.

“GENIOUS!!! I don't know why I didn't think of it myself, that would have saved me so much over the years…. Right, so now that we got that out of the way we should start thinking about what I'm going to be teaching you for the next three years. That's a long time to just randomly teach you things without any structure, and I'm a bit of a perfectionist. So, lemme hear it, genius boy, tell me all about your strengths and weaknesses.”

Feeling odd, but in a good way, at being called a genius Naruto confronted his inner spirit. `What other strengths do I have other than my sneaking ability and my high chakra capacity? I know my Genjutsu is really weak, but not much else as far as weaknesses go.'

Kyuubi actually laughed at him. “Not much else he says...hahahahhahahaha, whew! That was a good one! Are you forgetting about your horrible hand to hand form? Don't forget that along with your chakra capacity comes your lacking chakra control. Really, the only other thing your good at is improvisation, but that might also be from new thinking power that the seal freed up.”

Slightly miffed about being reminded of his own lacking qualities as a ninja Naruto relayed to Jiraya everything he knew. Jiraya was a bit put out at how short his list of techniques and strengths were.

“Sigh...Right! So the first thing we need to do is to get your chakra control up to speed. Without that there really is only so much that I can teach you.”

Naruto perked up at the thought of learning some ninja techniques. “Awesome! Let's just get this out of the way and get to the real training! What are you gonna teach me to help with my chakra control problem?”

Jiraya made a pushing gesture with his two hands, the generally accepted slow down/stop sign. “Whoa there kid, you have to crawl before you can sprint. I need to know what level of chakra control training the Academy has been dishing out on you before I can actually teach you something about it. I would rather not waste my time explaining something to you that you already know.”

Naruto pondered on this for a small moment. “The only thing about chakra control I remember from the Academy is the stupid magnetic leaf thing. But me, Shikamaru, Chouji, Kimiko and Kiba all ditched and went to prank the orphanage lady that day.”

Jiraya palmed himself in the face. “First of all it is `Shikamaru, Chouji, Kimiko, Kiba and I' and second, why the hell did you ditch? Chakra control is the fundamental aspect to learning all forms of ninja techniques. I would have figured that that would be the one class that you wouldn't want to skip out on. If you have good chakra control then you could theoretically master any technique, well, except for Taijutsu. But that's just a technicality. Old Breasts for Brains has shitty Taijutsu too, but her chakra control lets her augment her physical force one hundred fold. Don't tell her I called her that either, she would kill me.”

“Who?”

“Who else has boobs big enough to have a nickname based on them?” Jiraya replied sarcastically, not really expecting an answer.

Naruto rubbed his chin in thought, “Well…. there's that Anko lady, the red eyed one…Ah, Kurenai, hmm a bunch of women that work at the shops on the south side of town….the Old Man's previous assistant was pretty big in the chest from what I remember…”

By now Jiraya had his little notebook out and was writing furiously.

Almost two minutes and a full notebook later Naruto had finally run out of names.

“Though, now that I think about it, only a few of them could really be called old.”

Jiraya rubbed his sore writing hand. “I'm pretty amazed that you forgot to mention Tsunade in there. Her chest has won prizes in 5 different countries.”

Naruto looked like he just had a light switch flip on inside his head. “Oh yeah! The one that hit you through the ceiling!? Now I know what you mean about her strength. Man, I know how that feels, Sakura-chan is just as strong when she gets mad. I remember this one time when I…”

Jiraya put up a hand to stop Naruto from telling his story. “Let's get back on track here kid. So you are telling me that you basically have no training in chakra control?”

Naruto nodded. “Pretty much, yeah.”

Jiraya looked at him in confusion. “Then what was that technique that you used to blast a hole in the ceiling of that apartment building? That looked like it was a very control oriented technique.”

Naruto gulped audibly and switched his weight from foot to foot nervously. “Um…well, you see…how can I put this?...hmm…I'm going to guess from the talk with the old man the other day that you already know about her right?”

Jiraya gave a serious nod. “Yes, I wasn't there when my student actually performed the sealing but I looked at it when I arrived at the village the following day. And before you ask, yes I know who your father is. That is one of the only reasons I agreed to even teach you in the first place. Since you brought her up, I'm guessing it was the Kyuubi's technique then? It bears an odd resemblance to your fathers famed technique, the Rasengan.”

“Awesome, are you going to teach me that too? And yeah it was pretty much all Kyuubi there, all I had to do was make a ball out of it and release it.”

“Ah well, that just means that we have to start from the beginning. Let's start with having you climb some trees.”

Naruto tilted his head in bafflement. “Trees?”

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And I think that is far enough for this chapter. I must have erased and rewritten this entire chapter at least 5 times because I kept getting stuck on how to continue and make the chapter end where I wanted it to. I don't really have an excuse on how long this took me to update, it just did.

Don't forget to review and to vote on the poll so I can update sooner.

Dshadodragon signing off!