To Ichigo's surprise he saw Naruto working diligently in the apartment trying to read a scroll that was in all senses far too advanced for a mind like his. His face was red. It was almost suspicious as to how he was acting, doing his work without Ichigo's help? That didn't happen often, and when it did it was often a sign that Naruto was trying to distract him from what he had done.
"Naruto," at hearing Ichigo's voice Naruto froze and turned around scratching the back of his head sheepishly, "what did you do this time?"
"Nothing! I swear!" Naruto yelled waving his arms in front of his face afraid of what his brother might do to him despite the fact that the worst Ichigo had ever given him was a headlock. Nevertheless Naruto stood and slowly inched his way towards the window behind him.
"Worst liar ever" Was the thought that ran through Ichigo's mind as he watched Naruto continue to back away. "If you didn't do anything why are you trying to run away?" Ichigo questioned watching the growing fear grow on Naruto's face. Ichigo froze in thought for a second and glanced around the room looking around to see if he'd stolen anything perverted from the nearby store again trying to perfect his so called sexy-jutsu by looking at the image material that was obviously way to mature for a kid of his age to look at. There…under the scroll he was 'reading'. Naruto really needed to learn how to hide things better. "What's this?" Ichigo said lifting the magazine up by it's corner and saw the front cover, a woman in an erotic pose dressed in skimpy swimwear.
"It's not what it looks like." Naruto screamed shoving the window open and going to jump out of the apartment. Unfortunately for Naruto though he was caught by his right foot and dragged back in through the window and wasn't seen for the rest of the night by the surrounding neighborhood much to their pleasure and sanity.
"Ahh, Naruto how nice to see you today." Iruka stood before Naruto at the classroom entrance who fidgeted nervously for some unknown reason. One could only assume that Menma brought Naruto back into line yet again if only for a short amount of time. Naruto really did live up to the meaning of stupidity, to try the same thing again and again and expecting different results. "You wouldn't happen to know where your brother is now would you?" Iruka continued now smiling at Naruto in a way that proved to be painful as Naruto began to sweat under his teachers gaze.
"He said he's not coming in today," Naruto answered quickly, "and he said he wouldn't be coming in for most of the rest of academy." Naruto looked at Iruka's face, which appeared to be in deep thought and decided that now was the best time to move around his teacher and find his seat before any further questions were asked.
"Minimal attendance?" Iruka thought, the words played over in his head for a while not realising how much time was actually passing. He was too deep in thought to notice the first few nudges in his back coming from one of the students in his class but when he did the little blonde haired girl just looked a little curiously at her sensei before retreating back to her desk only to go back to whether or not she or her friend should be sitting next to the Uchiha boy, Sasuke.
"Well, whatever Ichigo's doing it won't be messing around like Naruto. At least I can rest easy knowing that he isn't the prankster and the troublemaker is here at school." Iruka thought as he readied himself in front of the class and delved into yet another class of explaining chakra properties.
"Where are we?" Shaolin asked Ichigo as she looked at the forest behind the wire fence clearly having a warning sign in front of it stating that the forest to some extent was dangerous to them, especially in their childlike forms.
"Ahhhhhh, I believe this would be the forest known by many as the forest of death." Ichigo said in a tone that showed that he didn't quite believe in the dangers that lurked inside the forest. He stood on the right side of Shaolin looking into the shadows of the forest trying to spot any dangers that could possibly be there. Finding none he began to walk forward and jumped the fence.
Shaolin's eyes widened when she saw Ichigo jump the fence and raced to the fence although not jumping it herself. "What are you doing?!" Shaolin yelled. "What if we were found? Or we ended up going in there and dying because we weren't ready to go in yet?"
"Don't worry," Ichigo waved a hand and rolled his eyes when he faced Shaolin, her face going slightly red with anger at the way he was behaving and ignoring her, "the worst we'll get is a slightly harder than normal pat to the back, although I can't say the same for you, shoving us along on our way. Besides, most of the townspeople are too afraid to come anywhere near here anyway so security is lax." Ichigo shrugged.
"What do you mean, 'although you can't say the same for me'?" Shaolin asked curiously although not sure she wanted to hear the answer as Ichigo gained a large grin and looked at her mischievously.
"The old man has a way with little girls." Ichigo grinned evilly. He cracked up laughing as soon as he saw the shock on Shaolin's face, her mouth agape, face white, and her eyes threatening to role to the back of her head as her vision became spotted black for a second as she almost fainted.
Upon realising that Ichigo was laughing his ass off and probably gaining unwanted attention from within the forest Shaolin jumped over the fence and punched him in the face knocking him back onto his back.
"What was that for?!" Ichigo cried in shock his right hand cupping his now swelling red right cheek while his eyes slightly teared up, he supported himself on his left elbow while lying down on his back. Ichigo began to crawl back instantly as he saw the furious look on Shaolin's face afraid of what she might do to him while she began her approach.
"You were making fun of me." Shaolin growled as she lifted Ichigo up by the collar of his shirt. "And we are not going in there!" Shaolin motioned in towards the forests depths. "Now come on." Shaolin dragged Ichigo by his collar towards the fence and she let go to jump over. Ichigo just followed her afraid of what might ensue if he didn't.
"I was telling a half truth." Ichigo said from behind Shaolin who was walking further away from the forest to gain distance between them as well as Ichigo. She stopped however when she heard this and turned around to face Ichigo. "The old man has a scrying orb that he supposedly uses to 'look over the citizens of Konoha', but Naruto and I know he uses it to watch the girls in the public baths. You can see the guilt on his face when you say it to him. He tries to deny it."
"Filthy." Shaolin seethed quietly crossing her arms in thought of the disgusting yet somehow kind man she'd spoken to not just two days ago.
"I'm sure that you're going to think that about a few people." Ichigo muttered under his breath having heard what Shaolin said about Hiruzen. "Perhaps somewhere else for training then?" Ichigo asked.
"No. Not today. We'll find a different place tomorrow. For now we'll just train here." Shaolin said, her mood recovering. "We'll start with a simple spar at first to see whether or not you've forgotten anything about fighting properly while against those little children. After that, we'll just do fitness training for some time until we want to see how far we've progressed."
"Alright then. Let's begin." Ichigo said and charged forward instantly and stopping just before Shaolin his right fist out behind him already swinging forwards with the momentum of his run to strengthen it.
Shaolin just anticipated this and moved to her right a little in a slight skip kicking off of the ground with her left foot and connected with Ichigo's gut. Ichigo however had already realised the carelessness of his move and had already tensed for impact to lighten the load. When the hit connected Ichigo let out a slight grunt and was pushed back a metre or so.
Shaolin finished her spin landing with her back facing Ichigo and jumped forwards at feeling Ichigo move in to strike again. Turning around Shaolin found herself having dodged another punch, this time from Ichigo's left fist. Ichigo didn't stop there however as he jumped forwards with his right leg raised to the side to come around and strike Shaolin on her unguarded left side. Shaolin's side didn't remain unguarded for long enough though for Ichigo to get through as she raised both of her arms to prevent the kick from hitting her in a cross like block with both of her arms.
When Ichigo landed he shot out with his left fist again to hopefully hit Shaolin this time. Shaolin however was already moving her arms back while he landed and his punch was slightly redirected having instead of hitting Shaolin's arm dead on, grazed by and managed to strike shaolin in the left side if only barely. It was enough however as it seemed his hit had caused some pain to be inflicted on Shaolin who grunted a little in response.
Shaolin took advantage of Ichigo's closeness and grabbed his arm and pulled him in kneeing him in the chest and then elbowed him in the back when he hunched over effectively knocking him towards the ground. Ichigo stretched out his right arm to stop himself from falling all of the way and pushed off of the ground in such a way that it caused him to move away and place himself back onto his feet a few metres away from Shaolin.
"Hmm, not bad." Shaolin mused quietly crouching in a low stance preparing for Ichigo to come forwards again but was mildly surprised when he flashed from view and appeared behind her coming around with a kick at her left side. Shaolin went even lower in her stance and managed to avoid the kick by mere millimetres while spinning on the ball of her foot and launching upwards with her own kick to Ichigo's head.
Ichigo bent forwards to avoid the foot coming for his head and went to grab her leg with his left arm as it was still extended upwards. Ichigo caught the foot and spun Shaolin out behind him with enough force to send her tumbling a few metres through the long grass. Ichigo waited for Shaolin to get back up and strike again but was rather surprised when Shaolin didn't get back up and continued to lie down on the grass. Did he kick her too hard? Unlikely considering it was Shaolin he was fighting.
"That'll be enough for now." Shaolin said still lying down. "Even though it was a short fight, barley classifying as a spar, it enabled me to see how skilled you are at the moment. You certainly haven't lost your touch. That movement you used was shunpo wasn't it, I hadn't realised we could still use it." Shaolin continued.
"Yeah I can see how that was all we needed for now." Ichigo realised when he thought about all the movements he had used to combat wit shaolin. He was also slightly tired from the power he had used behind the attacks and the concentration he had needed to do everything he had. His shunpo was also draining since it was performed in a human body and it required just that bit more energy to move his physical body. "I don't think it really is shunpo but I discovered it by accident and the thought had actually been plaguing my mind for a bit, so when I tried it again after chasing my brother down I found it actually takes a bit more effort to use than before. I don't use it all that often because of this."
"I see…well then when we meet up again for proper training I expect that we try get back up to our old speed, not that it'll be even remotely possible but we can still try." Shaolin said standing up finally and turning to face Ichigo.
"What? Are we not continuing anymore today?" Ichigo asked slightly confused. Wasn't that what they were supposed to be doing? Training.
"No we're not." Shaolin answered with what seemed to be a straight face that was slowly gaining a slight blush to it when she began to speak again. "I thought that because I've only been in the village for a day you could show me around. Let me familiarize myself with the things here." Shaolin said now looking down at her feet, something Ichigo thought was uncharacteristic with her since he remembered her being a brutal captain of the second division, but time changes things and people so it was possible.
"Ok then, let's get going." Ichigo said and flashed out of view to shorten the amount of time to get back to the village. He was closely followed behind Shaolin as she stumbled a bit after initiating her first shunpo in the tiny human body, having been used to that level of movement in her fully grown form.
(Hours later)
"…and that's the hokage tower. The old man works there and doesn't get to see others much since he's either using his peeping device, doing paperwork, or spending time with his family. When he does come out he's generally going to visit the academy or out on business. He probably does go out more often but I'm either not around or I don't notice which is highly probable." Ichigo stated the last building he and Shaolin had yet to talk about in the large village of Konoha.
"Tsk, how are you supposed to become a ninja, who use stealth mind you, if you can't even sense the enemy approaching?" Shaolin asked raising an eyebrow while still looking at the building in front of her slightly reminded of what Ichigo had told her.
"Most ninja can't sense chakra." Ichigo stated answering Shaolin's question somewhat. "Those that can tend not to be very good fighters so I think I'm pretty safe when it comes to leaking chakra all over the place even though I still need to get a grip on it. But then again if a someone is close enough and you're releasing just enough chakra, even those that aren't sensors will be able to feel the chakra in the air."
"So that makes me some sort of super soldier then?" Shaolin smirked to herself crossing her arms since she was not only able to fight competently but also sense chakra signatures. Shaolin huffed slightly at the ninja's inability to sense chakra, seriously what were they then? Ninja's according to her should be able to detect the enemies position at all times.
"Not quite." Ichigo responded turning around and heading back in the direction they came from, Shaolin doing the same when she noticed him leaving. "There are a few others that are capable of the same thing. The Hyuga's have an ability to increase their ocular capacity to see chakra and almost all of them are capable of sensing it to an extent since their fighting style requires extremely high control and sensing the emission points on your body, namely the chakra points."
"Well. Thank you for your tour around Konoha." Shaolin said stopping to face Ichigo who did the same wondering why she stopped. "But I think that's enough for today since it's beginning to get dark, I'll see you tomorrow." Shaolin said and began walking away in the direction of her apartment but was surprised to find Ichigo walking along side her. She looked at him with a confused expression, which Ichigo noticed.
"What? You expect me to let a little girl walk home by herself while it's getting dark." Ichigo said with a slightly teasing voice to which Shaolin huffed and sped up her walking pace to get away from him. She became slightly annoyed when Ichigo caught up but relented and allowed him to follow.