A Better Sensei ch 7
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Chapter 7: Awakening, Reading, and Arcane
Sasuke paled visibly when his new master said the word 'Spar'. Luckily for him, Raistlin wasn't planning on fighting the shinobi himself. They went down to the training arena leaving Sakura in a world of pages. At the arena, there was short grass in the area and there was a small pond. The ground was littered with shrubs and small trees. The arena was a good balance of terrain with material for substitution as well as a source of water.
With the snap of his fingers the Archmage materialized a dark brown raptor like creature. A flash of recognition came across Sasuke's face as he looked at the creature. There were two large jagged spikes of bone jutting from its shoulders and smaller spikes all along its back. This creature was created based on the design of Kimimaro, but with some interesting added features. This included two tusks on the side of its mouth attached to separate muscles that made them move more like a stag beetle's pincers. Another bonus was that unlike the Sound Nin that had pulled his spine out of the base of his neck, this creature's spine extended past the tail and curled and uncurled like a whip behind it. The plus side Sasuke saw was that this creature had a predator's cunning but not a ninja's intelligence.
"I call it the Osteodon. Its name means bone lizard, quite fitting no?"
"Am I allowed to kill it shisho? I'd hate to destroy your creation if you only had one," Sasuke asks, not wanting to get on the bad side of the master of the tower.
Raistlin gives him a cynical smirk. "If you don't awaken the third part of your Sharingan quick enough I will bring out another and you will be fighting two at once," the mage states. With his question answered and his anxiety in no way quelled, the Uchiha takes a taijutsu stance of the strong fist style, the fighting pattern he copied from Rock Lee. The creature fired off several finger bullets which Sasuke mostly dodged though he blocked one with a kunai. When he looked at the knife he was holding he saw that the digits of the creature had talons that fired with the bullets making them more deadly, if the claw impaling itself on the metal was anything to judge by.
The Osteodon lunged at him attempting to seize him in its jaws and tusks. Sasuke jumped on top of the tusks and spring-boarded over the creature. Suddenly the spinal tail wrapped around his ankle and threw him to the ground. A very sharp spike of bone extended out of the lizard's heel and it tried to stomp on Sasuke, but he rolled out of the way, spitting out a fireball as he stopped rolling. The creature brought up a bone covered arm which acted as a shield taking the brunt of the blaze; the bones were charred slightly but the damage was mostly superficial. He knew he needed to catch it off guard with a fireball but he had a feeling that he should save his Chidori for the kill shot, or at least until he had the third part of the Sharingan so he'd be less likely to miss.
While Sasuke formulated a plan, the creature was making plans of its own. The bones on its left arm twisted and hardened into the drill like shape Sasuke had seen Kimimaro have, what Kimimaro never did was also do it to the other arm as the Osteodon was doing. The whip on its tail was coiled like a spring, its tail bent down positioned on the ground that would allow it to catapult it towards the Uchiha. As the creature lunged forward at a frightening speed, Sasuke saw that the only escape route that would be quick enough was up, that is until he looked again. Time seemed to slow down as Sasuke saw that the creature wasn't just doing a straight forward lunge, its tail and coiled up and it was preparing to jump. Had Sasuke followed through with his own jump he would have been impaled. As it was he saw it with the help of what he had a feeling was the third tomoe that he had been fighting for. Instead of jumping Sasuke dived to the left and aimed a grand fireball at the place where his eyes told him the creature would land.
The Osteodon landed in a cloud of fire and gave a screeching roar as it jumped out of the blaze and attempted to shake off the flames still clinging to it. The creature cast a furious glare at Sasuke as the drills on its arms receded. The Uchiha smirked at it and wondered if the genjutsu properties of his eyes would work on the beast. The raptor charged at him again aiming to catch him in its jaws. It saw the boy stumble back and was about to rip into him with its tusks when it heard a chittering noise and a large bloody gash appeared running along its right side. The creature turned to see a blue-white glow fade from the boy's hand. Sasuke settled into the taijutsu stance and made a motion with his hand telling the monster to bring it on. The creature charged him again and he leapt over its head and did a handstand holding on to the two large spikes of bone jutting from the lizard's shoulder blades. A spike of bone shot from its back aimed at impaling the boy's head but he saw it coming and simply spun shifting his weight and now holding on to only one of its blades. The creature reared its head back and tried to take Sasuke's arm off with its tusks but he simply switched to the other blade again. The whip tail shot forward in an attempt to catch him off guard but again he saw it coming. Sasuke grabbed the whip tail and sliced in between the vertebrates with a kunai, severing it. He wrapped the severed tail around the creature's throat trying to strangle it but bones jutted from its collar and shattered the whip. Sasuke jumped from the beast and decided it was time to end this. The Osteodon cocked its head back then shot it forward releasing the tusks which came out towards the Uchiha like a pair of harpoons. Sasuke rapidly ran forward dodging the projectiles, his fist collecting blue cackling lighting. In an instant he was right in front of the creature and rammed the Chidori into its neck. With a gurgling cry the monster fell and Sasuke quickly retreated to avoid its death throes, which turned out to be a very wise choice as massive spikes of bone grew from the creature, ready to impale anything standing within twenty feet of it.
Sasuke heard a slow, almost sarcastic clap and turned to see the Archmage with a cynical smirk. "Very good, very good. Would you like to fight another?" Sasuke shook his head, the fatigue of the battle catching up to him. "Well maybe later. Now, let's see what your pink haired friend has been up to."
Sakura was in her element. Her teammates were built for the battlefield, Naruto with his unyielding stamina and willpower, Sasuke with his genius talent and ambition, yet she always felt out of place. This was where she belonged, the library. Her orange loving friend's definition of purgatory was her paradise. She had been an ace with the textbooks in the academy and had been disappointed to find that her forte was not needed as a genin.
After reading the first book on magic, she also realized that she was far more cut out for being a mage than she had been for being a shinobi. She had always been average physically and wasn't as strong or fast as most of the other ninja, but being a mage had no physical requirement at all. She also figured out how to generate magical energy, and she found it very easy. Magical energy was similar to chakra in the way it is used and created. Chakra is formed by a balance of physical, mental, and spiritual energies; arcane energy is formed in a similar fashion but with a different ratio of energy with more stress on the mental energy than the physical. Sakura was willing to bet that many an academy student had accidentally formed arcane power when attempting to mold chakra. She realized that with her high amount of mental energy she would be able to produce far more arcane power than she could chakra. After reading the books her new master assigned, Sakura began converting the chakra in her body into arcane. She turned more than three quarters of the chakra in her body into magic then attempted a simple flash spell she found in a book. The spark of light appeared in her palm and momentarily blinded her. She tried it again angling her hand so that it would flash outward.
Sakura heard a slow, almost sarcastic clap and turned to see the Archmage with a cynical smirk. "Very good, very good. Now share with your friend what you've learned." Under the hourglass eyes of their master, Sakura spent the next few minutes explaining to Sasuke how to form arcane energy. Sasuke found that while he couldn't produce as much magical energy as quickly as Sakura could, he could produce both chakra and arcane at the same time, which would be an invaluable skill for the new class of ninja mage. Raistlin gave a smile that was both proud and smug. This apprenticeship was looking promising.