Changing Stances
Chapter 4
By
Archerelf
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Author's Note- Sorry for the wait on this. It took me a while to get the concept. Forgive the grammar and spelling stuff please.
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Ino woke up naturally, with the sunlight streaming in on her face. Automatically she panicked. Late, she had to be late. Sunlight? And directly at her head? The clock said 9:46. She had to be at the fields at 10. She cursed. Loudly, in fact.
She threw on her clothes, ran a brush through her hair and picked up her back full of kunai and such. She sprinted through her house, cursing like a sailor, and stopped to pull her shoes on and took off. She checked her watch. 9:52. The fields were at least 15 minutes away.
Ino sighed. She thought she had set her alarm, and that would have left time for a shower, stretching, breakfast, which, when she was in a hurried got declassified to 'nonessentials'. She was used to playing through pain and surviving on nothing at all, but she was going to be training for a few hours and she was out of soldier pills. She knew she'd feel it later.
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Kiba woke up in a similar way to Ino, no alarm clock. The difference was, his alarm was a huge puppy. Ok, well, Akamaru wasn't a puppy. Akamaru was gigantic, as compared to a couple of years ago. In fact, when Naruto went away, the puppy actually was a puppy. Now, Akamaru was a full fledged dog, one that Kiba could ride, though camouflage was out indefinitely.
Ah, Naruto. Still an annoying pain in the behind as always. Always talking about how he was going to become the Hokage and how it was his ninja way never to give up. Kiba was there, that day, when they went after Sasuke for the first time. No one talked much during that mission. What was there to say? There was a crying girl back in the village and Naruto…well, then he had been fragile. When he came back all beat up afterwards, after the longest battle of his life against his best friend and brother, Kiba didn't honestly know if Naruto and Sakura would be able to pick themselves up and try again.
There was something else going on with Sakura and at the time, he was pretty sure she loved Sasuke. He was a guy, but he wasn't an idiot. If Sasuke had only been a teammate, she would have been as enraged as Naruto and would have been on that team to bring him back. Still, they managed to find teachers, the legendary Sanin, and became legends themselves. Okay, well, they weren't legends themselves yet, but there were sure on their way. Sakura was famous in their village and had treated most all of them. She even gave Akamaru a MRI when the machine was broken in the clinic that his sisters headed up. Naruto was still the same, only more determined.
Kiba still didn't trust Sasuke. At all. Akamaru still growled every time the pale boy passed. And Akamaru liked everyone. Usually. He hoped Naruto and Ino weren't the exception.
The day started out as it usually did: get up, get dressed, and play with Akamaru. At quarter of 10, he and Akamaru started towards the fields, when he heard a loud noise. It seemed to be screaming obscenities. And it was female. It stopped a few seconds later.
He looked down at his dog, with a wary expression on his face. They both quickened their pace and arrived soon later. Naruto was already there, with his bright orange clothes. There might as well have been a bullseye on his chest that screamed, "Hit me! Hit me!"
The sun shone brightly down on the field. There were intermittent logs on the sides, mostly for target practice. When Naruto looked up, his face broke into a grin. He liked Kiba, despite appearances, and he knew him to be a good man. They tended to get on each other's nerves, but that was probably the similarity of their characters.
Akamaru bounded ahead and tackled Naruto where he stood. Kiba's peals of laughter broke through the sounds of Akamaru licking Naruto's face.
A shudder went through him. "Kiba. Kiba! Get him off!"
Naruto wasn't particularly fond of dog slobber, nor was he enthused about having his back broken from a 150 pound mutt.
They exchanged pleasantries and started talking.
"Not much going on over here eh?"
"Ino should be here soon."
"I wonder what our other teammates are doing." Naruto wondered aloud.
Kiba shrugged. "Well, Hinata's with Lee and Shikamaru. I have no clue how that's going to work out. Shino's with Sakura and Neji. No clue about that one either." He shivered. "There's something about these teams that just seems all off. Hinata's really shy, Lee's outgoing and Shikmaru's a lazy genius. Their personalities just don't seem to match up. And Shino's with Sakura and Neji, and Shino can't stand pompous people."
Naruto signed defeatedly. "I know what you mean. Sakura's used to everyone and she didn't seem too happy about switching. And Sasuke, well, I thought ol' teme was going to kill Chouji in that first meeting."
Kiba's face darkened. "Tell me about it. In a fight, Chouji wouldn't stand a chance against him."
Kiba was still guarded on the issue of Sasuke. His personal feeling was that, yes, he did Konoha a big favor by getting rid of his brother, but that didn't mean he shouldn't have been pardoned just because of his bloodline. While he knew Sasuke would be on probation for basically his entire life, he still thought the spiky haired 'avenger' got off easy. Even the full year of community service didn't appease him.
"It wasn't easy for him," Naruto remarked, as if reading Kiba's thoughts. "Sasuke takes a while to get used to people, so I wouldn't be surprised if he still isn't acclimated with them for a few weeks. Or a month or two."
"Gotta feel bad, but I think it might do both of them some good. I mean, I don't know how good they are now, but they're bound to pick up some tricks, ya know?"
Naruto nodded, but he didn't agree. Each ninja has a style all their own. Tenten was weapons, and Chouji was more bodily and physical. He doubted if Sasuke would be able to teach them something useful by demonstration.
As if on cue, Ino came running into view, panting as if she had run the length of Konoha.
"Am…I…late?" she gasped. A quick watch check insured that she was 5 minutes late.
"Only a couple minutes. Kakashi isn't here yet either." Naruto stopped for a minute and groaned.
"What's wrong?" Kiba asked, alarmed.
"Kakashi-sensei's always late, to everything," Naruto stressed. "The first day we got our genin teams he kept us waiting. He's usually an hour late to practice. Hell, he even sits back on missions and lets us do all the work."
Ino who was mostly recovered from her exercise, deadpanned. "Seriously? I don't want a late, perverted sensei!"
Akamaru whimpered and lay down in the dust. He tended to dislike excess yelling.
"There's nothing we can do about it," Naruto said wearily. "We even tried to have him switched early on, but the Third wouldn't do it."
Ino carefully sat down, looking tired. "It's weird, you know? Right now if I was still with Shikmaru and Chouji, I'd be eating, then training and then eating again."
Kiba nodded. "We all had habits on our old teams."
Ino silently agreed. "Trust me, a few of the adults weren't happy about Tsunade-sama's edict. Especially my dad." She shuddered at the thought.
"Why?"
"Because I was part of Team InoShikaChou, generation two. All of our fathers had been put together in their genin teams, so I had a feeling where I'd be going. With the teams switching he thought it was a betrayal of their service, or something like that."
Naruto looked towards the sky guardedly. He missed Sasuke and Sakura. Ino and Kiba were okay but they hadn't seen what his other two teammates had seen. Besides, they're basically some of the only people in Konoha that knew about the Kyuubi. Besides Tsunade, and Kakashi, Yamato and Iruka of course.
Sai...well, he was up in the air. Now that he didn't have a definitive team, Tsunade was sending him on quite a few solo missions. Because he was Black Ops, he got plenty of vacation time. He normally declined it, of course, but it was still there. Sometimes Naruto would look him up to get ramen with. Since Sai came into the picture Sakura kept a list, and kept adding to the number of times she got called ugly or Naruto got called on his masculinity.
A half hour later, Kakashi strolled lazily onto the field, with his famous book in hand.
"Yo," was his traditional greeting.
Naruto rolled his eyes. "Sensei, I'm sure you're tired of hearing it, but you're late."
"I had to…uh…?"
"Sensei, you can't even come up with a good excuse!" Ino barked. Kakashi winced. Ino's temper was famous in the Rookies. She could rant and rave for an hour and forgive in half the time. But her pigheadedness and tenacity could be compared to a light switch, on one second, off another.
Her constant feuding with Sakura had fueled another well known fact. Ino just wouldn't let some things go. She never forgave Sakura for being on the same team on Sasuke. She wouldn't get it out of her head that Sakura had stolen Sasuke from her (despite the other well known fact that Sasuke detested her).
She never forgave Sai either, once she found out that all the 'Miss Beautiful's actually meant that he thought she was ugly on the inside.
She never forgave Chouji for almost dieing on the Sasuke retrieval mission. The list goes on.
Kakashi shook his head.
"Hey, Naruto."
"Yeah?"
"What was the first thing we did when our team first formed?"
Naruto's face broke into a huge grin.
"I remember that! You told us to say what our likes and dislikes were, and what our goals were!"
Kakashi chuckled. "I bet yours haven't changed much at all."
Naruto shook his head proudly. "Nope! I still love ramen and hope to be Hokage one day!"
Ino considered it for a moment. "I like competition, flowers, boys, and being a ninja. I dislike losing, arrogant people, and perfectionists. My goal is to one day…hmm…I don't think I have a goal." The last part was a blatant lie and Kakashi could easily tell. Naruto and Kiba were thinking about their answers and so, it was lost on them.
Ino was always in competition with Sakura. She had never forgiven her for having better chakra control, being Tsunade's student and being better at medicine than she was. Sure, Ino was Tsunade's student as well, but her work was no where near Sakura's. And she knew it. Ino's goal was to beat Sakura one day.
Kiba decided to break the silence. "I'm Kiba. I like dogs..." Naruto tuned him out while he thought more. Kakashi was right in a way. He hadn't changed much. He still liked the same stuff, he was just more powerful than before. He had perfected the Rasengan, and while he hadn't brought Sasuke back, Sasuke had taken care of that himself.
Kakashi's voice broke through his reverie.
"What was the first activity we did as a team?" he asked.
Naruto smiled fondly again. "The bell exercise. The one you said had a 66 percent failure rate or more. You sure freaked us out."
"Yeah, well, you had to learn."
Kiba and Ino exchanged glances. It was like they were being left out of a secret club with a complex language.
Naruto noticed the looks and decided to clarify.
"Okay, on our first day as a team, Kakashi-sensei had us do an exercise. We had to take 2 bells from him, by force or luck. Considering that there was three of us, we all split up and tried to get them alone. The two who got it got to eat lunch."
"Oh, I see," Kiba spoke, "The point was for you to team up against him." Kiba pointed to Kakashi.
"Exactly."
"So, what happened?" Ino asked.
"Well…I tried to steal the lunch and got caught. Sasuke considered me a liability if I was hungry, so he shared."
Kakashi looked pensive. He was remembering back. They had each grown so much. And he wasn't just saying that. Sakura wasn't a whiny fangirl anymore. Naruto was more mature, and more clever to boot. Sasuke, well, he had grown and done well in everyway that a ninja should. Emotionally, he was still a league behind his teammates. That was a whole other story though.
"Sensei? Stop day dreaming….sensei? Hello?"
"Sorry." Kakashi put on a sheepish face. Or as close as you could come to sheepish behind a mask.
"Besides teamwork, what else was the exercise about?" Kakashi recovered.
"Uh…" Naruto scratched his head. "I don't know…?"
"Naruto! It's your team, you should know!" Ino screeched. "If you can't tell us…!" she let the sentence hang. Her patience was wearing thin.
"Seriously, Naruto, you have no clue what it was?" Kiba joined in the fray. Akamaru started whining and put his paws over his ears.
"Can it, all of you!" Kakashi was getting a headache and he hadn't even read a page yet.
"That exercise was also about communication. You had to talk about strategy with your teammates. So, this exercise is going to be similar. To ward off the headache I'm getting, this exercise will be held in silence. You can't talk. At all."
Oh boy, this was going to be a strech for all of our ninja.
"Nor can you use anything but taijutsu."
Naruto dead panned. "Are you serious?"
"And you cannot attack me more than two people at a time."
Kakashi produced the bells from his pocket.
"And, Akamaru is out."
Kiba looked up in alarm and anger. "He's been part of my team since we were genin. You can't pull him away!"
"Yes, I can. He is not, technically, part of your team. You have to learn to function without him, as a competent ninja." Kakashi's answer was nonplussed. He didn't want to have to train the dog as well.
Kakashi performed a few hand seals that Naruto instantly recognized. He was summoning his dogs. All of them.
"Akamaru, on the side, will train with them." Pakkun looked a bit perturbed to be interrupted.
"What you need boss?"
"Put Akamaru through the ropes, obstacle courses and such." Pakkun looked up to see a giant dog hovering over him. Kakashi wanted him to train this?
"Are you joking?"
"No. I'm not."
Pakkun sighed. He wasn't getting fed enough for this.
With another poof of smoke, the dogs disappeared, but not without giving Kakashi a glare. Akamaru included.
Kakashi closed his book and stuck it in his back pocket. "To recap. NO talking. And nothing except taijustu. And no more than two at a time."
Ino looked guiltily to her teammates faces. She knew she had the least endurance of any of them. Naruto wouldn't give up ever. Kiba was equally as tenacious. Ino was smart but she knew if she was taken in a fight.
"Can we have a minute before we start Sensei?" Ino's girly, wheedling voice was back.
"Two minutes."
"We can't talk, so we are going to have to use hand signals. Naruto, if what you said before is any indication, he's trying to teach us something. Most likely something about rules. We'll have to stay close to each other."
She demonstrated 4 hand signals. "This is attack. This is retreat. This is change position. This is bells."
They nodded. "Remember, two at a time. Get the bells. No talking."
Kiba was surprised. He never took Ino for a leader, but it was obvious she picked up some strategy from Shikamaru. It was a good idea.
"Oh, and if you can't complete the exercise in an hour's time, you're pulling double practice tomorrow."
"Hey sensei! You were never this strict when we were younger!" called Naruto.
"You don't need coddling now."
Naruto smiled in spite of himself.
"Go."
Three ninja launched skyward. Kiba stuck with Ino. Naruto was nearby. Kiba motioned to Ino to attack. Both jumped and set sights on their target. Ino went for the head and Kiba went for Kakashi's legs. Duck, punch, spin, block….on it went.
Kakashi blocked low and high and to his bother, he couldn't read when he was fighting off two of them. Spinning kick, right hook...Kakashi knew that they weren't going to get it anytime soon.
Ino mentioned to Naruto and quickly she hid herself. She had to look at it from a tactical standpoint, like Asuma had taught her.
What were his strengths?
Weaknesses?
Obviously, he was very good. ANBU class in fact. Hm…She motioned for Kiba to switch out. She'd spotted something.
Kakashi had a split second delay when using his left side. No ace in the hole eye means you'd have to adjust to fighting without it and that side would be delayed.
He had 20/20 vision but he was compensating for two sides at once.
All she had to do was dizzy him around a bit enough for the boys to take over. But that didn't know that. They needed to know. She motioned for all of them to pull up. Kakashi jumped to the opposite side of the field.
Ino pointed to Kakashi and then her left eye. They didn't understand. They kept shrugging. She tried to mouth it. Attack left side.
Naruto caught on. Why, he mouthed back. This would be so much easier if he could talk. Ino rolled her eyes. It's not the time for it. Later, she mouthed. Attack left side!
Kakashi genuinely didn't know what they were doing.
He was just waiting for them to attack. In that time, he pulled out his book and flipped to a page.
They didn't disappoint. 15 minutes had already elapsed.
Two more shift changes had occurred and nearly half their time was up and nothing was happening. Kakashi caught on early. They were trying to spin him like a proverbial disc back and forth. He made sure to pull up early, so far as to smash Naruto's face into the dust and heave Ino in a kick against a tree that crunched a few splinters onto the ground next to her. She groaned. Asuma had NEVER been this physical. Maybe that's why Nartuo and Sasuke were so hands on with their attacks.
They all pulled up again and groaned in frustration. Ino was in pain and hungry to boot. Naruto had a headache that kept growing.
Kiba had thought of a thousand ways that he and Akamaru would have taken on Kaskashi. Stupid bell exercise…
Oh come on. They were all missing something and finally it sparked to the dog boy. They were missing the point of the exercise.
Bells! He signaled. Bells! He held up two fingers. Two of us. Attack sign. Attack Kakashi. He held up 1 finger. 1 of us, get bells!
They were trying to take down Kakashi, they weren't trying to get the bells. They gleamed mockingly in the belt loop of their Sensei's pants. They looked down again. He was reading! Oh, he had nerve.
They took more turns in shifts, trying to get the bells. 45 minutes had elapsed.
15 more minutes and they were not close at all to getting them. Naruto was getting frustrated. The original exercise hadn't taken that long.
It was Kiba who stumbled upon the real reason for the exercise. He was pretty sure this was what Kakashi was trying to teach them. He pulled them all up.
Ino started to sign something but he held up a hand to stop her.
"There are no rules in War." He spoke low and fast. Naruto's shoulders slumped in recognition.
"All three of us have to attack." He voiced this hesitantly. "Let's go."
All three launched towards the ground. Kakashi knew they had it. Or, something like it.
He held up a hand to stop them.
"What was the point of this exercise? The bells were meant to distract you. What was I trying to teach you?" He asked tentatively.
"There are no rules in war?" Ino voiced Kiba's opinion.
"No. But close. It was about listening. Being a ninja means finding a thousand ways to cheat the rules. For example, I said you couldn't use ninjutsu, but what about weapons? "You took your cue from me, because I didn't draw a kunai.
"When you all attacked at once, I knew you were close. But what was really stopping you from using genjutsu or ninjutsu? Nothing at all. I wouldn't have done anything except to try to protect myself.
"But you said…!" Naruto trailed off. He felt like a genin again, bamboozled by older ninja.
"I said you couldn't do three things. In the real world, if your enemy tells you that you can't use genjutsu, what would you do? You'd think he was crazy and do it anyway. The reason why you followed along with it is because an elder told you to. You assumed it was an exercise.
"There are two types of ninja. Those who think within a box and those who think outside of it. Those who think within the box are the dead littered on the road after the fight is over. There is always a way around the rules. There is always a way to defeat your enemy."
"What I will teach you is that there are very few real rules to War. Especially ninja war. Kill or be killed. Simple as that."
"With Naruto's exercise, what I said was that those who break the rules are trash. But those who neglect their teammates are worse than trash. You're older and don't need as many rules now. So now, the focus is going to be less on the rulebook because you already know that and more on team preparation, like the Hokage wanted."
"By the way, you're pulling double practice tomorrow." He added.
A chorus of "What?" and "Why''s rose up in unison. Ino was annoyed. Kakashi made her feel stupid and if there was one emotion she hated, it was condescension.
"Because you figured out the rules, but you didn't follow through with the mission. I used up the rest of your time. The bells were your mission. You just needed to figure out the game. Tomorrow at 8." The older ninja turned around and walked away.
Kiba had a new level of respect for Kakashi. All his life, adult and older ninja had tried to instill a set of rules inside of him. But Kakashi blew that all to smithereens. He had been in wars and battles, and knew that there really were no rules, just compromises on what you would and wouldn't do. Kurenai had tried to baby her teams slightly. She made them battle ready and efficient but she was hesitant to expose them to real devastation. Kakashi would have none of that. It was a hard lesson, but they weren't kids anymore. They weren't Genin anymore. They needed to know.
The more experience you had, the easier the transition would be.
Ino lopped home. On the way, she passed the Korean barbecue that Chouji normally ate at. She passed the spot where Shikamaru would frequent for his shougi games.
But she was troubled. It was only 11:45 but she felt deeply uneasy. She didn't necessarily agree with her new Sensei's teaching style. Upon Asuma's death, she thought she had learned all that she could from sensei's and older ninja. She felt as helpless as a child upon the completion of the exercise. Stupidity, anger…Kakashi was bringing up things she thought she wouldn't have to remember.
In the middle of the day, at noon, she set her alarm clock and went to bed.
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Kiba, on the other hand, liked the new hands on approach. He knew he wouldn't spend as much time with Akamaru, but Kakashi was like a giant puzzle. It'd be a thrill to solve it and grow from it. He missed his pet but Kakashi presented him with something he hadn't seen for a while: a good challenge. Once Akamaru came back, they'd practice together.
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Naruto paddled to Sasuke's field after Kakashi had left the field. Tenten and Chouji were leaving and Sasuke was drinking from a bottle of water. With a casual nod, Sasuke acknowledged his presence.
There was something different about the blonde. He was quieter, more resigned than he had seen him before.
With another head flick, Sasuke motioned him to speak.
"Remember the bell exercise? He tried that with us today…but we couldn't attack more than two at a time and no ninjutsu or genjutsu and we couldn't talk…At the end, Kakashi told us that we should have disregarded those rules and attacked how we wanted. No rules in a war…"
Sasuke nodded. It was a valid point.
"I don't think they got it. I'm not sure I got it."
"Kill or be killed. That's it." The dark haired boy spoke. "He's right."
"I just have a bad feeling he's preparing us for a war that's either right around the corner or never going to happen. Maybe Sakura's right."
"I don't think so. It's been quiet on all fronts and I don't think it was for your benefit. You've been through more than they have." Sasuke pronounced the 'they' with a tone of superiority, but Naruto let it slide. Sasuke was right though. Akatsuki? Itachi? They were far beyond Ino and Kiba.
That cheered him slightly.
"Ramen?" he asked, smiling.
"I'm not paying for you."
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Kakashi sighed. He hadn't really meant to overwhelm them on the first day. Originally he just didn't want them to talk, the loudest of all the rookies. Ino...she seem disgruntled. Worried. Kiba was happy, he could tell that much. Naruto, he had a heavy burden. Kakashi sighed. He'd hope for the best and see what they took of it. Now, it was time to read.
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