Chapter 2: Weakest Ninja?

As they reached Ninja Ops, the duo saw the Hokage looking out of the glass window. She nodded to them and they shunshined straight into her office. She turned towards them and said, "As you may know, I have given the two of you a week off for some intense training along with Kakashi." Both of them nodded, wondering what the Sannin had in mind.

"I wanted to talk about your skills a little bit." Sakura notices that the statement seemed to be directed more towards Naruto than towards her. Naruto, of course, remained blissfully obvious of the situation. The Hokage continued, "Naruto, you have a keen sense of combat and tactics while in the field. You have also displayed intelligence and creativity which many in the village would not have deemed possible from a knucklehead like you." Naruto turned to smirk at Sakura, who groaned. Then the smirk was wiped off his face as the Hokage said, "However, on paper, you are the weakest ninja in the Konohagakure."

He looked at her in incredulous amazement, as did Sakura. Tsunade took her turn to smirk at him while he struggled to find words. Sakura fell into thought, thinking that if he was the weakest ninja in the village, then what it meant for the rest of them.

"But… But…" he continued struggling until Tsunade put her hand up to silence him. She continued, "Of course, these records have not been updated for the past three years since you went for the training trip outside the village. Which is another reason why I wanted you training this week. I saw the skills that you showed during the bell test against Kakashi a month ago, but I want to judge all your skills properly. That is why, after the end of the week, I am going to personally spar with you, to record your skills as they are now."

Sakura gasped involuntarily. For the Hokage to personally spar with a Genin of the village was practically unheard of, even if the Genin just happened to be the biggest knucklehead of the village. She asked nervously, "Milady, are you sure about this?"

"Yes, I am quite sure, Sakura. Now, I will not only fight Naruto alone in an all-out battle, but I am also going to take a TaiJutsu test against the two of you after the training week is over. In this two-on-one match, only hand-to-hand combat will be allowed. That will give me an estimate of how good your teamwork is. The solo match with Naruto will take place after this one, so that the knucklehead can consider it as a warm up." She grinned mischievously, "Which brings me back to your on paper skills, Naruto."

Naruto paled, and began to speak, but she again stopped him and said, "You need to know if you want to improve your chances of being Hokage in the future. As it stands, most of your unarmed combat skills are ranked between C and E, while your weapons and GenJutsu skills are practically non-existent. You only have two A-ranked techniques, the Rasengan and the Shadow Clone Jutsu. Your Summoning technique, while impressive, is not uncommon and holds a C-rank along with your… ahem, Sexy Jutsu. Now, we do not have much of an idea regarding the kind of training you received from Jiraiya, but I'm pretty sure he avoided GenJutsu and weapons."

Naruto nodded slightly, saying, "Pervy Sage only taught me the basics of GenJutsu, mainly how to tell if you are trapped in one, and how to break out of one. And like you said, he totally avoided weapons. But it actually compensated for my unarmed training skills, by improving my TaiJutsu considerably. I reckon I could take Rock Lee on easily now." He said and then realized how that sounded, adding hastily, "I said that because the old pervert thinks that I could probably take on Gai sensei in an even TaiJutsu match and beat him 45% of the time."

Sakura looked at him numbly. Had Naruto really advanced that much in this time? Tsunade looks at his honest face and decided that he wasn't exaggerating. However, she decided that she would confirm it with Jiraiya soon. "Very well," she said, "Let's proceed towards Sakura's report." Sakura nodded, knowing most of the records already.

"As you know, even I have not focused on weapons skills a lot, a simple reason being, that in our time, weapons were considered a soft choice, because we were constantly at war with other villages and NinJutsu and TaiJutsu was the main focus during that time. This is the reason why neither of us taught you almost any weapons. And although I have learned a weapon and passed its skills on to you, I would be pleased if you took the help of a master in that weapon and asked him or her to train you."

Sakura nodded, knowing that this would be the reaction of her teacher, and Naruto asked her, "Which weapon have you learned, Sakura?" She replied, "The battle axe." He nodded, realizing that with her immense strength inherited from the Hokage, she would be able to wield a battle axe quite easily. He considered the amount of damage she could do in a single swipe of the battle axe and understood how dangerous that weapon would be with the wielder as strong as Sakura.

Then the Hokage continued, "However, because of our heavy focus on TaiJutsu as well, I have left out GenJutsu as well, although Sakura is not oblivious to GenJutsu unlike some others standing in this room." She paused to smirk at Naruto and then said, "However, I would like you and Naruto both to work with a GenJutsu expert to increase your skills in that regard. Sakura, your unarmed combat skills are mostly ranked between B and S, which is very impressive for a Chunin. So I expect you to work on weapons, GenJutsu and NinJutsu more, because you are sorely lacking in the latter as well."

Sakura nodded, and Naruto asked Lady Tsunade, "Is there anyone in particular who can teach me any weapons? Other than Tenten?" The Hokage frowned, knowing Tenten's mastery in weapons and wondering why Naruto didn't want to learn from her. But she didn't let it show and said, "You can ask Iruka to teach you a few weapons. He recently made Jonin after you left the village and I'm sure he can teach you well, considering he was the only one who made an effort to teach you anyway." Naruto nodded, and Tsunade said, "Now go, and do some intense training to get back in shape as Team 7!"

"Hai!" Both of them saluted her and shunshined back out of the office. On their way out of Ninja Ops, they ran into Shizune. Sakura immediately took the opportunity to ask her to teach them GenJutsu. Shizune was happy to oblige and told them that she could take GenJutsu lessons for them every weekend. They went towards the academy happily. Naruto met Iruka sensei at the academy and Iruka was only happy to pass on his weapons skills to his favorite students. He took Naruto and Sakura to Ichiraku's for some ramen, and then asked them why they suddenly had an itching to learn weapons. Naruto told them of their situation on paper, and Iruka nodded, saying, "Well, unlike the Chunin exams, which you can pass by fluke or by using your team-mates, the Jonin exams are a trial of the five pillars of the Ninja Arts. So unless you pass in all of them, you cannot become a full Jonin. So I will be happy to teach you all that I know."

"Which weapons do you know, Iruka sensei?" Sakura asked.

"I have learned the xiphos, short sword, the manriki-gusari (weighted chain), the pole staff, longsword, light throwing blades, tonfas and the staff blade, which is my primary weapon."

Sakura frowned, and asked, "The staff blade, Sensei? But that is just a training weapon and not usually used in real fights." Iruka nodded, taking a bite of noodles, and then said, "Do you know the way the staff blade works, Sakura?"

She nodded, saying, "The staff blade incorporates attacks from any other weapon and makes it easier to practice different weapon styles at the same time with one weapon itself." Iruka nodded again, saying, "Not only that, but the staff blade can be used in any way that all of the rest of my weapons can be used. Except the light throwing blades and manriki-gusari, of course. So do you see the pattern here?"

Naruto spoke, "Since you have mastered all those weapons and the staff blade, you need only carry the staff blade with you and incorporate all the attacks from your other weapons into it." Both Iruka and Sakura looked as shocked as they felt. They hadn't expected Naruto to come up with an explanation with words that he couldn't even spell. They wondered if there was more to Naruto than he was letting them on.

Naruto continued, "Iruka sensei, can you teach me the staff blade? I have had a longing to learn it for a while now, but I never found a teacher before." Iruka said, "Of course, I will. And what about you, Sakura?" She thought about it and then said, "I think I should go for the manriki-gusari and the pole staff. Both are slightly long range weapons, and the manriki-gusari will allow me to use my strength, while the pole staff will help keep enemies at bay." Iruka smiled at her thoughtfulness and said, "Ok then, barring any missions you guys might have, we shall begin training every afternoon at 4."

Naruto said, "Sensei, we won't begin training until next week. Grandma Tsunade has given us the week of to get in some teamwork training done with Kakashi sensei, so we won't be available to train with you till next week." Iruka looked at the two of them and thought, "Of course. Naruto has not been here in three years, and Sakura has turned out to be an excellent Kunoichi as well. They will have to work on new strategies before they can head out for co-op missions." He smiled and said, "Not a problem, Naruto. It's not like I'm going anywhere."

"Okay then, see you later, Sensei!" they both said as they exited Ichiraku's. He smiled and continued eating silently.

"Ok Sakura, looks like we have some teachers to learn GenJutsu and weapons from now on. Well, I'll see you tomorrow for the training with Kakashi sensei." Naruto said. Then he added, "Make sure you reach by 10am." Sakura frowned and said, "But I thought Kakashi sensei said 8…" she trailed off realizing who she was talking about, and what Naruto had said and smiled mischievously. "You got it, Naruto."

They headed home and split up when they had to take separate paths. The two of them thought only one thing as they reached home, 'Why did Kakashi sensei and Tsunade keep saying 'intense' training?''