Love Hina: Blood trials
Chapter 2
The girls were worried about Keitaro, but they understood why he had left when a large man with a smirk on his face left Naru's room, followed by a Naru who appeared as if she had seen a ghost. For the first time in the inn's history, the girls, even shinobu, assaulted Naru, sending her into the atmosphere.
With that, the girls, including Haruka, temporarily closed the Hinata down, and went searching for keitaro.
-In Konoha-
keitaro, dressed in the cothes provided him by Kakashi, sat at a desk in the front. He was wearing black baggy pants that were extremely comfortable, black boots that, despite their incredible grip, made almost no noise, and a black sleeveless shirt that clung to his unmuscled chest. (I point this out for a reason, be patient.)
his semi-long hair had been cropped short for training purposes, and his glasses had been replaced with contacts. All-in-all, he looked like a totally different person.
The noisy class all took their seats as the teacher walked in. He was tall, with brown hair, dressed like Kakashi, but had his whole face evident, revealing a scar across his nose.
"Good morning class, my name is Iruka. You will refer to me as iruka sensei, or just sensei. Is that clear?" a chorus of yes's rang out, and iruka nodded as if satisfied. "now, I already took roll as you walked in, so we'll just start with the lessons. Now, the main force of all jutsus is chakra, the inner force of all of us. Now, maintaining mental and physical discipline will allow your chakra reserves to grow, so your first lessons will be in martial arts. After that, basic balance and speed techniques, and then we'll move on to jutsus."
"lesson one, defense…"
all through the class, keitaro took notes, storing them both in his head and on paper, as he watched the teacher demonstrate positions. It was essentially the same thing that Seta had taught him, but seemed slightly more advanced. Oddly enough, as he watched Iruka, keitaro began to get a giddy feeling. He finally had the opportunity to have something he could be good at.
Class ended at 6, and Keitaro was too full of energy to be tired, so he took to working out on the weight machine. Around 9, he eventually spent off his energy and went to bed on a futon that was lying on the floor.
The next day, iruka had them demonstrate the moves he had taught them yesterday, and keitaro was surprised to discover that even though the moves were more advanced, his body seemed to take to them easily. Iruka was impressed, and placed keitaro in the advanced portion of the class, which was already on offensive techniques.
This was much more difficult than the last portion, but still, keitaro gave all he got, the practice he had received from studying for Toudai kicking in. For a week, whenever he wasn't sleeping, eating, or in class, he was practicing, in hopes to learn more advanced techniques.
At the end of his first week in class, the boy Naruto arrived back in his apartment. He was younger than Keitaro by a few years, but nonetheless, even with his meager training, keitaro saw that the other boy could kill him before he even batted an eyebrow.
Naruto was shocked at the sight of a stranger in his apartment, even though he had been briefed on it by Kakashi. He smiled warmly, the other kid, though older, seemed to be nervous to be in his presence. "I'm sorry for having to stay in your apartment, Naruto, but I didn't touch anything, or leave it out of place, save for your weight machine. I did clean up a little, but it was out of habit.i'm sorry if I managed to offend you in some way."
Naruto laughed, "nah, it's okay, besides, this place was getting lonely, and extremely dirty. As for the weight machine, it's fine with me if you use it, just don't break it." He grinned, and shook Keitaro's hand. "Nice to be roommates."
Naruto proved to be an agreeable roommate, and the two of them got along famously. Naruto was thrilled to have an actual friend, not just someone who saw him as a demon. Keitaro was thrilled to be sharing an apartment with someone who wouldn't hit him every chance he got.
Over a month, Keitaro changed drastically. With the combination of the rigors of school, and his own personal training, his thin, scrawny frame filled out, and, from the basics taught him, he could feel his chakra growing.
-Japan-
The girls, searching for a month now, finally heard about the boat crash, and the report that there were no survivors. Naru sniffed and said that it was exactly what a weakling deserved, that comment earning her a free trip on Hinata air, destination; the ground.
It was all agreed that their manager would have been able to survive, but they would need a ship to go there. Su volunteered, and began construction immediately. Even working all day and night, the ship would take months, and would have the most advanced keitaro-tracking technology.
-konoha village-
after a month, keitaro nearly died from excitement. This was to be his first class learning a jutsu, and he could hardly contain himself. Grinning like a fool, he sat at his usual place at the front of the class, and listened carefully as Iruka gave the lecture.
"Now, the first jutsu we will be learning will be the fire jutsu, a basic jutsu for any ninja, and one that you will undoubtedly be needing when you finally get your missions. Now, watch my hands carefully, we don't want anyone blowing up accidentally."
The teacher worked his fingers slowly, and cried out, "Flame no jutsu!" A small blast of fire blew out from his fingers into a waiting pile of timber. "now, I want each of you to go to a waiting pile timber and practice the jutsu. Keep going until you have memorized it."
Nervous, keitaro sttod in front of his pile. He worked his hands like Iruka had and cried out, "Flame no jutsu!" just like his teacher, a burst of flame issued forth, catching the timber. He cheered, and continued on until the jutsu wsa firmly implanted in his mind.
At the end of the class, iruka smiled. "Very good. Some of you are ready for the next level already. I will see the following at 4 in the morning tomorrow, Kira Mizu, Hachi Yamato, and Keitaro Urashima. That is all, class dismissed."
Keitaro silently despaired at the thought of waking up at 4 in the morning, but was glad to know that he was accelerating quickly. In fact, the only person who had gone through the basics like this faster than him was Naruto. And even then, the other boy hadn't had formal training quite like this at first.
Keitaro looked in the mirror at three in the morning. Sighing, he took a quick shower, made some instant ramen, and ate it as he ran towards the classroom.
Iruka was standing in front of a table, which was weighed down by numerous types of kunai daggers and shurikens. "These are what we will be training in for the first half of class. The last half will be spent learning newjutsus and speed growing techniques. Now, first lesson." He held up a kunai dagger. "you all know this is a kunai dagger, but what you don't know is that it can be thrown, used for hand-to-hand, or even be infused with Chakra for devastating attacks. Let's get started. I want you to each take a roll of bandages, and wrap them around your leg, whichever leg you're comfortable with. Now, take a kunai holster and strap it to your leg, and fill it. When you're done, follow me outside."
They spent the morning working on throwing the daggers, which required deft wrist and arm movements, not the broad style so often portrayed in action movies. Keitaro was thrilled to see a lot of his enter the target, but less than thrilled to see that all of them missed actually entering the target zone. (ex, any of the circles, like those on an archery target.)
Finally, at noon, they ate lunch and rested. Afterwards, Iruka showed them some more jutsus. That day, Keitaro and his group learned three more: basic wind, water and earth techniques.
-japan-
the girls were excited; the ship was halfway done, and it looked excellent. They would find their landlord, and bring him back safely.
-Konoha village-
three months, and keitaro had passed his exams. He was now a chuunin. His team was the very people he had trained with, Kira and Hachi. Kakashi was to be their Jounin teacher.
Kakashi was impressed with the rate at which Keitaro had learned, it was incredible. But now he found himself teaching two groups, team 7 with Shikamaru replacing sasuke, and the newly formed team 11, Keitaro's group.
As usual, he started with his bell test.
Team 7 went first, and managed to get the bells after five minutes of jutsus, hand-to-hand, and bribes of dirty novels.
When Kakashi called for team 11 to go, Keitaro held his fellow teammates back. "We'll go together," he said, "I'll use a cloning jutsu, the kind Naruto has, while you two distract him with kunais and shurikens. Also, about every third throw, use a jutsu to disrupt the ground he's standing on. Got it?" kira and hachi nodded. Keitaro grinned, and used his cloning technique.
While it was the same as naruto's keitaro was not able to make nearly as many copies of himself as the younger boy, due to the fact that he had not been able to read the forbidden scroll. Still, 5 was a respectable number.
It took them nearly half an hour to get the bells, but in the end, keitaro grabbed them. Thinking of his own teammated first, he handed one each to Kira and Hachi, so that they could eat.
The next day, they received their first mission, a level c. limbs shaking, Keitaro dressed, loaded his equipment, and followed his team outside to where Kakashi was waiting, for once on time. Keitaro smiled when he saw sakura and Naruto sneaking looks at each other, one glancing at the other when the other conveniently looked away.
"Our mission is to check out our southern border. The hokage detected a chakra reading there, and wants us to examine it. It was a small signature though, about half the size of keitaro's." keitaro didn't know whether to take that as a compliment or an insult. He decided to stay neutral.
He learned early in his training that tree-hopping was a much quicker and quiter ay to travel in the forest, and it also provided a very good vantage point.
Using the crown of an evergreen as a spring, he leaped into the air, landing in the branches of a weeping willow, the shade from the branches perfectly camouflaging he looked as the rest of his team took their places, and kakashi and team 7 stood back.
This was, after all, team 11's mission.
"Quiet! I sense something." Keitaro froze at the familiar sounding voice. He quickly changed positions on the branch he was on to attempt to get a better vantage point. His suspicions were confirmed when he saw Motoko, sword in hand, herding the rest of the girls, including Naru behind her.
That pissed Keitaro off. Motioning to his team, he pulled his mask up and leaped out by himself.
Motoko caught the movement, and turned to block the expected attack. But the attack wasn't for her. Yelling out, she barely, cut down the thrown kunai before it struck Naru between the eyes.
The ninja, still in mid-air cried out in frustration, and this time added a jutsu to his next kunai, throwing this one even faster. Again, Motoko blocked it, but doing so caused a small electric jolt to run up her arms, numbing them.
Landing, the ninja, charged Naru, with lightning speed. She screamed, before a hand held him back. "it's alright, they're no longer a threat." Growling, he turned to face Kakashi. "I'm not after them, I'm after her!" he pointed with a Kunai at Naru.