Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Of Kunai, Shuriken and Shinobi Love ❯ Training Passed On ( Chapter 1 )

We were training. Naruto and Sakura were going at each other, blonde and pink hair flying. Sakura was much faster than Naruto and had better Chakra control, but he was far stronger and cheated by using the Kyuubi's Chakra. I watched their battle with detached boredom, though inside I was calculating their every move. This way, I knew what would happen before either of them did.

“RAAGH!” Naruto yelled in frustration as she dodged yet another of her moves. “STOP THAT!” “You'll hit me though,” Sakura called innocently from the top of a tree. “Exactly!” Naruto roared, sending a ball of Chakra at her.

I shook my head. “Childish,” I muttered. “Completely childish.” “Disapproving of their antics, Sasuke?” Kakashi-sensei said, grinning at me through his mask. I scowled. “Of course,” I growled. “They're even more childish than you, Kakashi-sensei.”

Our sensei laughed, and socked me lightly in the back of the head. “There are many levels of childishness, Sasuke,” he admonished. “And I'm not in any of them.” “As if,” I muttered, rubbing that back of my head. He laughed again. “Sometimes you're really funny, Sasuke,” he said. He slung an arm around my shoulders, bending close to speak to me. “Now, I have a favour to ask you.” I looked at him. “Go on,” I said warily.

“I want you to take over Sakura's training.”

”What!?”

“Easy, boyo, it's only temporary.” Kakashi-sensei raised a lone eyebrow at me. “Would you rather have my position and train Naruto?”

“I'll stick with Sakura, thanks.”

“Good boy. We'll announce this when—if?—one of them wins. Remember, Sasuke, I'm only doing this because you are weaker than me and your lessons are still fresh enough in your mind for you to re-teach them to Sakura and make her stronger. You can do it successfully. Besides, if I paired you and Naruto together, you'd get nowhere.” Somehow I had to agree with this.

Still, it was ages before Sakura finally defeated Naruto by pinning him to the ground and holding a kunai at his throat. Even then, that blond idiot jumped around yelling that it wasn't fair, he had won, until I smacked him upside the head and told him to quit it because Kakashi-sensei and I had an announcement.

“Listen up, you two,” Kakashi-sensei said. “I'm turning over your training to someone else. Well, not really,” he said over their cries of dismay. “Naruto, I'm keeping you. Sakura, however, your training will be taken over by Sasuke.”

Inner Sakura: YES! YESYESYES!! FINALLY! SOME QUALITY ALONE TIME WITH SASUKE!! WITHOUT NARUTO!

Outer Sakura: “Yes, Kakashi-sensei.”

I groaned inwardly.

Naruto looked dismayed, and no wonder why. I had always known he liked Sakura. I smirked at him. He glared back. I would have stuck out my tongue if it hadn't been so childish. Instead I smirked some more, then turned my ears to what Kakashi was saying.

“So, basically Sakura's whole training will be determined entirely by Sasuke,” he was saying. “That'll be a lot of responsibility for you, Sasuke, and a lesson in humility for Sakura. It'll be harder than you think to take orders from someone your age.” “'Course,” Naruto shouted. “And there's no better time than the present,” Kakashi-sensei continued, ignoring him. “Sakura and Sasuke can go find a different clearing than us; otherwise we'll all get distracted.” “Right,” I said, turning and walking away. I expected her to follow. Of course she did

We walked in silence for the most part. Once or twice she asked me questions, like what we were doing, but I didn't answer them. Mostly because the answer was “I don't know.”

How the hell am I supposed to do this? I wondered. I'd never taught before, only been taught. It was a strange feeling.

I stopped her in a clearing. “Here'll do,” I said, then added cleverly, “Um.” “You have no idea how to do this, do you?” Sakura asked. “No, not really,” I admitted reluctantly. “Well, what you're supposed to do is run through my paces,” she explained. “How do you know?” I asked, impressed. “I watch Kakashi-sensei teach,” she replied, blushing faintly. I shrugged, and complied.

First, I had her throw kunai at a target, then shuriken. She got nine out of ten in the bulls-eye, and ten out of ten in the target. Have to work on that until its ten outta ten in the eye, I noted. Theo ne that misses could be the one aimed at the enemy.

Next I made her do Genjutsu. She was pretty good on her illusions, as good as I was on transformations, but she was horrible on replacement. Illusion and replacement, then.

Then I had her do some Taijutsu. She was beautiful in most of the moves, so good I was admiring her, but she needed to work on many points.

As for her Ninjutsu, she was a failure at offensive jutsu, passable in defensive ones and perfect at healing—no wonder. She was a medic-nin.

I stopped her at midafternoon. “Enough,” I said. “You don't need to be collapsing from exhaustion.” As we walked back, I began telling her the points we would work on, like her replacement jutsu, the points we would keep limber, like most of her Taijutsu, and the points we didn't need to work on at all but probably would anyway, like her Chakra control.

We met up with Kakashi-sensei and Naruto. Naruto looked reasonably tired, but not as much as Sakura. I hoped I hadn't pushed her too far.

Kakashi-sensei ran an experienced eye over Sakura's condition then nodded slightly and approvingly to me. I relaxed slightly. “All right,” our sensei said. “You guys can go home now. Come early tomorrow, Sasuke.” “What's the point?” I asked. “Won't you be lost on the road to life?” He rolled his eye. “Just be here early.” Then he vanished.

“Geez,” I muttered as we began walking. “What'm I supposed to do now?” “I agree,” Sakura grumbled. “HA!” Naruto yelled gleefully. I rolled my eyes.

Sakura walked between us—to “avoid fights,” as she put it—though she and Naruto argued constantly until my head was about to explode. They bickered about everything, from shoes to training and everything in between. I was ready to sock them both in the back of the head and walk between them—I mean, what do kunai have to do with me asleep in my bed?—when Naruto branched off toward his house, screaming goodbyes to us and to Kiba, Akamaru, Ino and Konohamaru, who were passing by all in different directions. Sakura, seeing Ino, grabbed my arm, sticking her tongue out at her rival. The platinum-haired girl glared furiously.

“Um, would you not?” I asked uncomfortably, yanking my arm out of her grip. That is soo annoying. “Sorry,” she said, flushing and skipping along. She shouted a greeting of her own to Kiba, Akamaru and Konohamaru, then turned off toward her house. “See you tomorrow, Sasuke-kun!” she called, grinning at me as she ran off. As I watched her, I felt an odd sadness that she was leaving, but shook it off. Ugh. What's my problem? I'm so melancholy today, I thought, turning away in the direction of my apartment on the other side of Konoha-Gakure. Oh, well. It'll pass tomorrow.