Next chapter!
You may have noticed that this chapter is at least four days late but I have a good reason. I found a beta reader ( or more exactly a beta reader found me) and she helps me a lot, especially with punctuation. She went through all the earlier chapters so I'm trying to update them.
Now about the next chapter... From this chapter on the kid's training will truly diverge
from the canon. It is in a way an important plotline all throughout the fic, how they learn, what they become strong at. They won't magically become super good at something in just three weeks ( I know they do that in the manga but here I'm trying to make it slightly more realistic).
So here it comes...
5. September V
The next day found all three of Kakashi's students gathered for lunch on a flat stone at the edge of training ground 9. Sakura had spent the morning trying to climb on the uneven surface of the Hokage mountain, her knees, elbows and forearms were covered in bruises and nicks. Several times towards the end, when she had managed to climb more than a few meters, she had felt herself falling only barely gluing herself to the wall with chakra before climbing down and trying again.
During that time Kakashi had worked with Naruto and Sasuke on how to best use their signature techniques. He had suggested a few new ways in which Naruto, the self proclaimed most unpredictable ninja of Konoha, could use his shadow clones. Stick an exploding tag on a clone and set him on the enemy, henge into an enemys teammate, use the clones as human shields against jutsus, and so on.
With Sasuke he trained to perfect 'Katon: Great Fireball'. He challenged Sasuke to send the jutsu at different ranges, to see exactly at which it was most effective and at which it became completely obsolete. Then he forced the boy to change the size of the ball. Sasuke discovered that creating a smaller ball made the jutsu more intense but that lessening the size was limited and creating a small ball was impossible for him for now.
"It's called 'Katon: Great Fireball' for a reason. Of course it can't become tiny."
Kakashi had just smiled sweetly at him. Annoying but he had to admit that he had learnt some tricks about his family jutsu. Which annoyed him too, actually. Why did a Non-Uchiha know so much about that attack.
They were eating the lunch Kakashi had brought. Naruto was complaining loudly. To many vegetables, no ramen. Sasuke was complaining grumpily. Little to no flavor, the ingredients had only been cooked and salted. Sakura didn't complain but her expression of clear distaste may be the most offending of the three reactions, Kakashi mused.
It wasn't his fault exactly. The dishes contained a good balance of all necessary nutrients for optimal functioning of the human body. Kakashi had never been the kind of person who enjoyed food for something other than its nutritional value. Hell, he had only recently upgraded his meals from rations to actual food. He should be complimented for making such an effort.
After the meal came the much awaited prize for the former days efforts. He asked each student what kind of jutsu they wanted to learn. Sasuke wanted a jutsu to throw someone of. Interesting enough, Sasuke's fight against Gai's student must still be on the forefront of his mind. Kakashi could understand that, he knew better than almost everyone else how uncomfortable Gai's techniques could be.
He showed the young Uchiha a katon jutsu he had picked up from an older shinobi long ago, at the end of the third shinobi war. Using his sharingan Sasuke copied the technique. It allowed the user to project burning heat from his palm but required careful chakra control. It was a useful jutsu, in close-combat but also to escape an enemy. It was simple enough with only two hand-signs and had come in handy more than once. To produce the heat the user had to emit some chakra and use some to protect his own hands. Burns were inevitable when learning the technique and Kakashi sent Sasuke off to train with a bottle of salve.
Naruto had wanted 'a super, duper strong jutsu to crush all enemies and protect his teammates'. Which was quite challenging, especially when Kakashi considered that he needed to find a technique that Naruto could learn in less than a week. Finally he settled for a simple trick. He showed the young jinchuriki how to emit raw chakra from his hand a little bit like the Hyuuga did for the gentle fist, well if the Hyuuga hadn't been the masters of precise and destructive chakra but merely pretty pig-headed powerhouses.
For most people it would be a waste of chakra, for Naruto it was the kind of waste he could afford. Still it was a struggle from the beginning to the end. Narutos chakra control was abysmal to a point where Kakashi began to feel honest admiration for the academy teachers who had been able to pound at least the three or four most basic jutsus, sans the basic clone, into a younger and even more volatile Naruto.
After an entire day Naruto wasn't even close to succeeding, he wasn't even close to beginning to get it, he was a lot closer to failing completely. The jutsu, that wasn't really a jutsu, demanded that the user build up some chakra in his hands and punch it outwards with some precision. But the amount of chakra, the direction, the distance didn't have to be controlled. It led Kakashi to believe that Naruto might get it.
"Just imagine pressing on a balloon filled with water until it suddenly explodes. That's more or less what this jutsu does" he had explained hoping a more concrete image would help the boy. Used and timed correctly the explosion of chakra could be used to deflect weapons and a lot of jutsus. Kakashi still had hope, that Naruto might get it, but not a lot of it.
Finally Sakura wanted a jutsu to distract an enemy and buy herself time. Reasonable Kakashi found. She could use it to protect herself and not be a burden for her team, which was still a possibility at her skill level, but it could also be used to support her team members. He showed her a genjutsu he knew could easily be used in a combat situation.
It first worked on the auditory system and gave the illusion of a great rumbling sound before the visual part of the illusion kicked in and showed the ninja trapped in the genjutsu that a gigantic worm was bursting through the ground just beneath the victim. If the person couldn't escape by dodging or recognizing and dissipating the genjutsu he would be sent into unconsciousness.
With her chakra control becoming a genjutsu master was a very real possibility for Sakura. With how many masters Konoha had lost with the Uchiha massacre she could easily become tokubetsu jonin in five years or so from now. Kakashi wanted to slowly warm her up to that idea, see if it could interest her.
Sakura went off, to learn 'Demonic Illusion: Attack of the Death Worm'. Kakashi spent the rest of the afternoon and the better part of the next day going from one of his students to the other correcting a hand-sign, checking for correct chakra-use and trying, maybe in vain to help the last of his students work his jutsu out.
Progress was quick for his first two student. Sasuke could use the technique quite efficiently and while the heat it produced wasn't quite as high as it could be it was sufficient for most situations. The young Uchiha still burnt himself more times than not and Kakashi had him work on it.
"If you can't hold a kunai afterward it's not a very practical technique, isn't it?"
Sakura had mastered most of the technical aspect of the genjutsu. It was a moderately complex jutsu but demanded good chakra control and the ability to project the illusion flawlessly onto ones surroundings. Kakashi still pointed out a few discrepancies. A fake looking patch of dirt, a rock that looked slightly transparent but the girl's mistakes became fewer and fewer.
Even Naruto progressed at a somewhat slow pace, he could finally gather some chakra in his hands but most of a time he let it out to quickly so that he couldn't yet produce the intended effect of an invisible outwards going explosion.
The mornings were still used for chakra control and, in Sakura's case, rock climbing.
On the fifth day she joined them a little before midday and proudly announced that she had left a note for Kakashi-sensei on top of the rock wall. Kakashi eye-smiled at her, already knowing that she managed it. Naruto wasn't the only one who could use the shadow clone.
That evening he corrected their taijutsu. Sadly there was less progress. Taijutsu was a skill you refined slowly, through constant training. Unlike ninjutsu or genjutsu there were no leaps and bounds only a slow ascent. Still he was somewhat satisfied with their abilities. Sasuke had an excellent form and technique but lacked some imagination. Naruto had strength and a strange kind of intuition for finding an opponents weakness, even though his technique resembled that of a drunken bar-brawl more than shinobi taijutsu. It would make Gai weep, but it was somewhat efficient. Finally, Sakura was still by far the weakest taijutsu user of the three and compared to the rest of the genin of her generation she was mediocre but she improved step by step, hit by hit.
On the sixth day he told them not to meet the next day and forbid them from training. Letting their muscle repair and their chakra replenish was the best kind of preparation they could have. He just hoped that these five days were enough.
If you ask yourself why I did not use the shadow clone training for Naruto it is, basically, because I don't like it. I know, like a lot of people, I thought it was pretty cool at first, but it also makes training time extremely short and when you think about it it's incredibely powerfull.
Naruto could read tones of books while using the clones and become insanely knowledgable, he could replace the whole working force of Konoha's economy. Konoha could become an industrious city and outbuy it's opponents just by using the insane potential of Naruto's shadow clones.
I know I'm taking a lot of liberties with the plot and I apologize for it but to still make this story realitic I layed some "shadow-clone ground rules":
Naruto can make a lot appear when they are close to him but the farther away they go, the more chakra they need, the fewer Naruto can make.
That's all for now.
