Chapter 3-
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Naruto stood in a wavering taijutsu stance panting, his face dripping with sweat looking like the last peach at the grocery stand. Bruises, scuffs, and smudges littered his entire frame with only minor damage to his new shinobi threads. A swollen cut lip bled freely and a large split that ran over his cheekbone had already crusted over. Three copies of Sparrow stood around him, all perfectly still in their own taijutsu stances.
In a flash of red, a Sparrow copy struck—open palm to the side of Naruto's head. Naruto leaned back while reaching out with his hands—miss. Sparrow copy number two forced Naruto to kneel with a low kick to the back of the right knee.
Undeterred, Naruto shifted his weight forward and bounced onto his palms and maneuvered himself forward into the turtle position. Lashing out with his left foot into a grounded sidekick, he caught the front of the knee of the open palm clone and felt it give as the clone itself crumbled into rock.
Unfortunately, Naruto was completely unprepared for the other clones as the second one gave him a low roundhouse to the shoulder while the third clone sent its own low roundhouse at his extended hip. The two kicks forced Naruto into the air and flipped him, sending his face into the dirt.
The resulting dual kick nearly took Naruto apart as he felt his rotator cuff brutally crunch under the impact. Fortunately, his hip was a bit tougher than that but shit that hurt.
Naruto's body jerked into a grapple lock as he read a kick coming straight at his rib cage. He caught the offending ankle with his uninjured arm and kicked up into a knee bar as the Sparrow clone tried to withdraw. Too late. Naruto snapped the ankle first and with a full body jerk, the knee followed. The clone crumbled just as quickly as the last.
Rolling out of the remnants of the clone, Naruto crouched into a pitiful taijutsu stance, his left arm clutched to his body as best as possible. The last Sparrow clone walked menacingly to him, not even bothering with a stance. Red flash—Sparrow clone had just tried to lock his ankle into a frontstep footsweep.
Naruto stumbled back, already reeling from the pain, the shock, barely getting by on his instantaneous bodily reaction to dodge the strike.
'So close. I have one clone left and here I am about to pass out like a little bitch'.
A pit of despair seemed to crumble open within Naruto. Sparrow was just too fast, too strong, and the clones were made of fucking rock. His breath catching into heaves, Naruto swallowed, narrowing his eyes to rid himself of oncoming tears, doing all he could not to just collapse to the floor in defeat right there.
One month. One fucking month. At least the tree cutting was worth it. This was just torture at the meanest level. Ten doton bunshin a day until he could take all ten out within the day. Straight taijutsu. Two weeks of getting nutted on like a prison bitch for as long as there was daylight, just to end all because he didn't have the sack to land one last clean hit.
'No! I can't stop now! I didn't give up the first day and I damn sure ain't giving up this one. One dumb fucking clone with a dumb fucking bird mask is not going to stop me! I. Will. Not. Give. Up.'
He bared his bloodstained teeth in a silent growl, his face contorted into a scowl, and he tightened up his stance.
"You have three hours left." Sparrow spoke in that same weird gravelly textured voice.
"Fuck you, cunt nugget."
Another red flash signaled a sidekick to the sternum that just rocked him like a thunderclap. He was sent tumbling across the clearing, landing on his face in a puff of dust. He quickly rolled to the side as the heel of an axe kick cracked the ground into chunks as it attempted to go through his head.
With the last dregs of energy and an indomitable willpower, Naruto steeled himself and rolled back to the front of Sparrow and launched his last offense. Back kick, turn into sidekick, turn and head duck into dual palm thrust. Fuck that hurts, retract left palm.
Sparrow took the pause in offense to send a final decisive punch at Naruto's chest when the boy leapt up and pistoned both feet through Sparrow's sternum, punching a wide hole through the rock clone.
"Fwump." Naruto landed on the pile of dirt and rock, his face contorted into a visage of silent unimaginable pain from his landing position.
The real Sparrow shunshined into existence and walked up to Naruto, clapping slowly.
"Congratulations. You've passed my last test." Naruto lay limp, completely unresponsive. Sparrow paused, waiting for some sort of acknowledgment.
It never came. Naruto had passed out the moment after he hit the floor, the pain shutting him down.
"… Back in my day, kids used to stay conscious for the cool rewarding moments," Sparrow grumbled, hoisting Naruto up in a one armed fireman's carry. A quick shunshin sent them both to the hospital.
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A day later, and Naruto was already awake and bored and restless in his hospital room. The morning sun had barely touched his window and he was already fidgeting in the funky smelling hospital sheets. He was also semi-certain that the lame pastel walls were talking about him. Either that, or his ears were still ringing from getting kicked in the head one too many times.
Thinking back to the past month and beyond, he began to question himself. Why did he try so hard? What were his goals now? His mind drifted towards his early juvenile declarations of wanting to become Hokage. Acknowledgement. Respect. The most respected. The most acknowledged.
He remembered walking down the street with the Hokage and packs of kids stopping dead in their tracks, and turning tail as quickly as they came—their parents bowing their heads in reverence, even the ANBU reporting in arriving in smoke clouds already kneeling.
It wasn't subservience that he wanted—there was no point to that, aside from a whole lot of resentment and pent-up anger from forced subjugation. No, it was the acceptance, the gratitude, the acknowledgement of the village that for once, he was recognized for being in the right—for being at the head of the pack, for coming up from nothing and making something of himself.
He snapped out of his reverie when the cheap particleboard door opened as Sparrow walked in with the same lack of emotive give-away.
"You're cleared to leave. You've also passed my final test. I have one question though."
Naruto stared expectantly.
"Are you sure you're ready? The history of this ANBU division—you earn the red on your cloak from the blood you take. Are you confident that you can shoulder this?"
The boy glanced down at his hands. Normal scars never lasted on his skin, always repairing almost seamlessly. The wind chakra had left glazed burn patches from shredding and cauterized nicks and streaks further up along his wrists.
'I've started and I can't stop now'.
Blue eyes met the sparrow mask with a small silent nod.
Sparrow stood next to Naruto's bed and withdrew a clear plastic wrapped parcel of red fabric, which he placed on the bed, and a mask from beneath the heavy red cloak.
"This is your ANBU mask. Once you put this on, you can never turn back."
Naruto studied the mask in Sparrow's hand. A snout and ears were sculpted out of it much like Sparrow's beak. The painted bottom jaw and highlights of the mask were the same dark red of the cloak and the eyes were hauntingly empty circles, untouched by the paint.
"Back in the day, they used to be wood. Now they're a fiberglass, urethane, and wood composite."
A jackal. Not a wolf—smaller, with a narrower snout. They were field scavengers, known to trail bigger carnivores and take from their kills. It made sense though, given how he was being inducted into the ANBU. Not yet a legal ninja, and somehow skipping over an entire rank system to play with the big dogs, the predators of Konoha.
Taking the mask by the bottom edge, Naruto felt the odd material that it was made of. It didn't quite amount to porcelain, but it wasn't quite a plastic either.
"Bring it on."
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Sparrow let Naruto stop by back at his apartment to change into a fresh set of his shinobi threads and also to get his ANBU mask and cloak fitted appropriately.
As Naruto attended to his basic hygiene [ninja dental plans suck since their teeth get knocked out so much] and donned his outfit, he noticed in the mirror that his face had barely scarred. The split over his cheekbone that had almost flapped open from a clean contact kick was now barely a thin silver line on his cheek—unnoticeable unless you looked for it carefully.
He tugged on the thick red cloak material and took the time to feel its weight and maneuverability, taking a few test flaps and twists with his arms and body. He couldn't tell from sight directly, but the fabric was somewhat coarse—like it was made of sparse wool, light and airy as if to allow breathability.
The mask though, that was an odd creation. There was a ring of heat sensitive foam that molded to the rim of the face, which was nice. The straps actually hid miniature breathing apparatus tubes that filtered out the air from the sides of the head beneath the straps and piped into the mask from the edges. The unfortunate thing about that was the filtration units were small and looked like they needed to be replaced often.
Finally assembled in his new ANBU garb, Sparrow quickly led Naruto in a dash through the rooftops back to the Hokage tower where they flitted through the window to report to Sarutobi in his office.
Unfortunately, having never done anything like that at that speed, Naruto clipped the edge of the window and had to pull himself in. Both Sparrow and the old Hokage just paused and stared as Naruto heaved himself into the office window, grumbling about having to keep up with stupid bird ANBU.
Sparrow turned his attention back to the matter at hand.
"Sarutobi-sama, despite his… inability to report efficiently, he is well-prepared and has passed my training tests. Based on his basic initiation training performance, I can comfortably say that he is field ready.
"In addition to my current evaluation of his performance level, I believe the disclosure date should be pushed forward in the interest of a less… severe outcome."
Sarutobi looked up from his desk, his face a placid calm that gave away nothing. Naruto stared blankly, his mask turning slowly between the old man and the birdman.
"Good. Your concern has been noted but as I have said before, it has been Jiraiya's place to make good on his end of the disclosure agreement. Give him his first assignment and report back to me upon completion."
Sparrow nodded and led Naruto away to the mission assignment office.
It was a rather quick process at the assignment desk where Sparrow signaled a chuunin with four fingers and a raking gesture on the desk followed by a tap before pointing at Naruto.
The chuunin stared blankly for a moment before grinning widely and shuffling through a set of scrolls and handing one to Naruto.
"Ha, welcome to the force Jackal-san," the chuunin smirked as Naruto took the scroll, meeting Naruto's masked face that hid his confused look. Behind Naruto and out of his range of vision, Sparrow shook slightly as if shivering for a moment.
Not bothering to examine his scroll, Naruto moved to exit the building, leading a jerkily moving Sparrow who was doing everything possible to not burst out laughing.
"Are you serious?" Naruto's brow twitched in disbelief as he stared down at his mission scroll. Naruto had opened his first mission scroll outside of the tower and was currently frozen in shock, his jaw almost unhinged.
"Seriously? I go through a month of getting shat on for this?"
Sparrow kept a motionless stare trained on Naruto.
"Hey! Come on, don't give me that stupid stare—it's getting old!" A longer pause. The stare still held. Naruto stared right back, his mask nodding as he stuck his chin out in mockery of Sparrow's gaze.
Sparrow snorted. Naruto jumped. Since when did ANBU snort? Sparrow appeared to take a deep shuddering breath before replying in a shaky voice.
"Well what are you waiting for? Get to work—this mission's supposed to be finished before the end of the day."
Naruto gave Sparrow one last glare before stomping away to his mission site, grunting and muttering about dumbass birds and their stupid tasks. As soon he was out of sight, Sparrow burst out laughing, doubling over and clutching his chest in a disturbing belly laugh that didn't exactly match the voice modifier.
The other ninja in the vicinity all jumped at the sight of an ANBU breaking composure. While it wasn't protocol for ANBU to stay composed at all times, it was an unspoken rule to provide a uniform image of stoic vigilance and intimidation. Fortunately, this unspoken rule could afford to be broken occasionally.
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Towards the late afternoon, Naruto could be found trudging back from a densely treed park dragging a bundled yowling cocoon of a cat with its head poking out of its bandage ties. The yowling was accentuated by the rockiness of the road as a shrill M-R-O-O-O-W-W-W-W-R-RRR could be heard throughout the village.
Naruto jerked the rope attached to the cocooned cat, causing a break in its yowl. As he inhaled a sigh of relief, the cat cut him off and continued its yowling.
His mask though extremely durable and resilient, looked like someone had tried to wipe it down with extremely low grit sandpaper, while his cloak looked like something had tried to bore a couple holes through it with an eggbeater and a fork. The hood of his cloak was also still smoking from charring around the edges.
Retracing his stomps from earlier in the day, he made his way back to the Hokage tower and stomped up the staircase, getting the attention of every ninja in the vicinity.
"Stomp. Fwump. MROW! Stomp. Fwump. MEOWWRR! Stomp. Fwump. MROW! Stomp. Fwump. MREWR!" could be heard with every stair step Naruto took. The cat would yowl at each step it bumped into.
Finally making his way into the mission assignment office, he dragged his captive up past a line of gennin teams that made space for the diminutive red clad ANBU and dumped the writhing cocoon of a cat on the desk.
"Mission complete. Give me my money." The entire mission office erupted in laughter upon Naruto's initial words. A chuunin at the desk handed Naruto his paycheck all while laughing with the rest of the office. Naruto stomped back out of the office amidst the roar of laughter from every ninja in the building.
Making his way up to the Hokage's office, he rudely kicked the door open to see both Sparrow and the Hokage look up from a document that was being examined. Before he could hand over his written mission report, Sparrow and the Hokage also burst out laughing, Sparrow having to clutch the table to stay upright.
"You guys suck." Naruto slapped his mission report onto the desk and walked to the open window.
As he leapt out onto the rooftops, Sarutobi wiped a tear from his eye while trying to calm himself as Sparrow struggled to catch his own breath.
"Whewww—alright, have him introduced to the others tomorrow and get him acquainted with the lay of the land—do a six month outpost tour to the borders."
"And his team leader education?"
"After the tour, set him up with an ANBU squad to get him acquainted with team missions and once you think he's ready, get him set up to with a gennin team or two later for some mission leads."
"Yes sir. However, on a side note, with your permission could I teach him a particular jutsu that I feel would benefit his team experience and education immensely?"
"And what jutsu would that be?"
"I feel that the Kage Bunshin would facilitate a greater mental awareness by conscious tactical coordination as well as doubling or tripling his experience per mission based on his base amount of chakra."
Sarutobi paused pensively, slowly clasping his hands beneath his chin.
"Make it so. Have him use it enough times that it becomes habit. The strain on his chakra reserve should adjust accordingly."
"Yes sir."
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So there's Naruto's official ANBU acceptance and the end of his intro training. I have nothing against cats, except the ones that fight each other outside my window every other night. Those ones need to go home.
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