I guess only 1 reviewer got my joke about the 'red tunic' and the nameless throwaway character. I don't own the joke or Naruto.

It's all about Control

3 teachers looked at 3 students and said the same thing.
"It's all about control"


Tsunade said it to Sakura as the girl stood over a fish. The girl was focusing her chakra into the fish to keep it alive out of water.

"The body does not normally produce healing chakra. When you generate healing chakra, it is all based on chakra manipulation. Some ninja manipulate it into elemental power but medic ninja use it to supercharge the natural healing in their patients. Done correctly, the process will heal the person. But if you do it wrong, your patient could die."

"I don't want anyone to die, Tsunade-sensei." The girl was fighting for control of her chakra as her attention was being intentionally split by her teacher. Nothing she had learned in the past had been as difficult as this exercise. Bruises and cuts were child's play compared to keeping something else alive solely through her ability to control the flow of healing chakra.

"The body of the person you are trying to heal will resist you. Its own chakra does not want to be pushed aside. You need to constantly keep focus on your goal when healing. You need to keep the healing chakra flowing at a constant rate against an inconsistent resistance. You try to force it and you will flood the system and cause more damage. If you use too little, the patient will deteriorate and in this exercise, die."

Sakura struggled as the fish jerked around under her hands. She had to keep the chakra flowing into the fish for the healing to work and pull in oxygen to the water she was holding on the fish's gills. It still took a lot of concentration to hold a fist sized ball of water. The skills learned from water walking kept the surface tension high enough to make the mass of water solid enough to hold. The skills learned from tree climbing kept the mass attached to her hand. Then she had to push the healing chakra through the water ball into the fish.

Once the healing chakra got into the fish, she had to make sure it did not overwhelm the natural flow inside the fish. Too much and the flow would be stopped; too little and the healing flow would not do its job.

It took precise control. She had always had that. Here was where she needed all that skill. Every lesson so far led to this point. One lesson being important to the next lesson and it all meant using that control.

The timer Tsunade had set up clicked along. She was not even sure how much time was passing. The fish and keeping it alive was all she could focus on right now. She could feel her own chakra reserves draining down. She would need to stop soon but she would not fail either. Chakra took a combination of physical and spiritual energy. It responded to her will. Today, her will was adamant and her chakra responded.

"Time," Tsunade said. "Well done Sakura."

Sakura relaxed slightly and kicked the leg of the collapsible table. The table tilted and allowed the 10 pound fish to slide into the holding tank. She was tired and wanted to stop but the assignment was not over yet. She lifted the table back into position and rolled up the scrolls that aided her. When everything was in position, she turned and faced her teacher.

"You kept the test subject alive for a half hour outside of its natural environment. It seems to have no obvious ill effects but we will follow up on it in a few hours. You pass your first exam, Sakura."

Sakura felt like jumping up and down. Inside, she was but outside she just bowed to her teacher and took the time given to rest before the next exam.


Hinata listened intently to Anko as the jonin spoke on control.

"You must maintain control of a fight. Not just of yourself but of the overall situation when possible. If you are forced to react to your opponent, then they have the initiative and control what will happen. There are several ways to get that control."

"One way is to have intimidation on your side. You can simply be so scary that people will automatically shift to a defensive posture upon seeing you. That is one that I cultivate and so do most Hyuuga."

"A second method is to have a serious reputation working for you. The Sannin, Copycat Kakashi, the Professor Sandaime Hokage, the Yellow Flash Yondaime Hokage. Those people are the most recent in Konoha to have a well known working reputation. By them any of them just showing up, the enemy was already at a mental disadvantage."

"The most effective way is to simply go into battle and overpower your opponent. This will give you either one of the first two later on. Going in and just destroying the opposition through brute force has won more battles than anything else in the world."

Anko looked down at Hinata. "You, little one, have none of those things working for you yet. What we need to do is work on with you is controlling yourself. We work on making your movements as controlled as possible, the best effect for the least effort." Anko paused to throw a kunai knife at Hinata's head. Hinata bent her entire body and twisted to the side to avoid the thrown dagger.

"Good, you avoided that one knife, but you lacked control in doing so. You wasted a lot of movement and in doing so allowed me to take all initiative away from you. If I wanted to I could have you dancing around avoiding kunai all day. You already instinctively know a better way and have demonstrated it once."

"The day you protected your family and took down that team of Chunnin you were at a disadvantage. However, you found a way to turn it around and take control of things without thinking about it. You played off their thought that you were weak and took down one by surprise. Then you moved and again took the second by surprise with a move no one thought you could do. The last one, you took down by taking best path to victory. You took a minor hit in order to get inside his defense and kill him. So, why did you take that hit?"

"If I had let him force me back he would have left with my sister. It was the only option I could see to prevent that," Hinata said.

"Exactly, you would have let him take control of things if you had reacted in any other fashion. That is why you defeated him. If you had more experience you would have seen way to avoid taking damage but for a novice you had done quite well."

"Now back to the dagger. If you wanted to avoid it, simply move your head and torso, not your whole body. You need to flow smoothly in your actions. You need to be like water. I know Hyuuga taijutsu is based on standing firm and blocking attacks but you are not built for that sort of taijutsu. You need something else. Something that is unique but also distinctly Hyuuga."

"Water can tear down mountain. It carves great canyons into the earth. It corrodes metals and douses fires. It keeps air from lungs and drowns people. Water flows up to the things that impede it. It presses against them, finds a weak spot and exploits that. That is the point we bring in what you have. Hyuuga gentle fist exploits the weak spots. Your taijutsu disrupt the chakra that flows in your enemies and cuts that off. Your current problem, Hinata, is that you cannot get to those points against large stronger opponents."

This brings us back to control. You control your movements and you control where you can go with them. You can fight at a distance with ninjutsu or bring the fight to arm's length and use taijutsu. The best way right now to control you movements is to learn to not get hit with a minimum of effort. Now dodge my kunai without moving your feet from where they are"

Anko jumped back and threw a new kunai at Hinata. Hinata twisted to one side and avoided it. Before she could turn back, a second one cut into her jacket. "Do not take your eyes from your opponent, Hinata. If you do, you can die." More knives flew at Hinata after that.

By the end of the session, Hinata was bleeding slightly from many small cuts and her jacket was shredded beyond repair. She was not as tired as she had expected she might be but all the physical training she had been through the past 2 months had done wonders for her endurance. Anko said she was pleased with Hinata's workout and Hinata felt much better in spite of her cuts.

The next teaching session with Anko, Hinata found herself going to a tea house. Inside, Anko sat waiting patiently as Hinata got dressed in the formal robes that were waiting for her.

"Today is another lesson about control. This one is actually one of my favorites. It might not seem like it, but tea ceremony is about nothing but control. All the movements you make must be smooth, controlled and precise. To be perfect at it, you must have focus and grace."

Hinata smiled slightly. She had not thought her wild teacher had such love for tea ceremony. Hinata had enjoyed learning of it with her mother many years before but had fallen out of practice. It was one sign of being a lady was one thing her mother had always told her. 'A woman who can do tea ceremony flawlessly, no matter what their rank or birth, will always be seen as a Lady.'

Hinata sat as her teacher went through the entire ceremony once. The girl admired the grace of the woman in front of her. Then she had to do it as well. Hinata seemed clumsier than Anko in her motions but was able to get through it.

"It will take you a lot of practice to be able to learn it flawlessly, Hinata. But it is more than just the motions involved. Just like in combat, you must have the necessary confidence in yourself to be able to perform. Without that confidence, anything you do will seem clumsy. With it, you could perform the ceremony perfectly before a daimyo with the lives of your loved ones on the line and succeed."


Jiraiya stared down at Naruto. "Everything you need to succeed as a ninja you already should know. Everything else I could teach you just makes that easier. All it takes is controlling yourself. A good portion of that is knowing who and what you are, your strengths and your limitations. Your problem right now is you are very unaware of what your limitations are."

"I am going to be Hokage one day, Jiraiya-sensei. I'm only just a genin right now. That is the only limitation I see." Naruto said and grumped slightly when Jiraiya laughed.

"Oh, you are going to be Hokage huh? Well, listen up gaki. If you keep going around like that, all you are going to be is dead. You are arrogant and if you go up against an opponent who used their brains, you would be down in seconds," Jiraiya taunted.

"I am able to keep away from ANBU. They can't touch me when I try to escape from them."

"They can't touch you because they were under orders not to harm you. If they can at you with intent to kill; you would be on a slab in the morgue. Stop over estimating yourself. You are not that good."

Naruto growled and jumped at Jiraiya who simply stepped to the side and slammed a fist into Naruto's solar plexus. "You see? Mere seconds to lay you out."

Naruto tried to catch his breath and muttered out, "No fair, you cheated."

Jiraiya laughed again, "Boy, being a ninja is all about cheating. From the moment you began to move, I had you beaten because I controlled it all. I got you to react to my taunts and as soon as you did, you already had lost."

"When you did your pranks, you had control. When you were fighting the Uchiha, you had control until you let it slip away. You had him beaten. Don't you realize that? You had him stone cold beaten and you LET him win. You lost control."

Naruto shouted "I didn't lose anything, he ch … ." Naruto stopped as he got what Jiraiya was telling him. Sasuke had been barely able to stand after using his fireball technique. He had just stood there and let the teme get in a free shot.

"Ah, so realization dawns. So, gaki, why again did the Uchiha win? I was there watching it, so I know. You were the only person to EVER hit him in an Academy match. He was frustrated and tired. You were in total control of the battle. So, why did you lose?"

Naruto looked down and quietly muttered, "Because I froze up."

Jiraiya nodded "Yes, because you froze up when he shot that fireball at you. You reacted correctly by getting out of the way before it came out. If you had not, you would have gotten roasted when you froze. He took advantage of a limitation that neither one of you knew about and he won."

"Next question, how do we remove that limitation? Word of you being afraid of fire is something that would get around quickly in our line of work. You would never make Hokage with that kind of problem," Jiraiya told Naruto.

Naruto seemed down after hearing that. "So what can I do, Jiraiya-sensei?"

"We just have to train you to get over your fear. We cannot get rid of it entirely, but we can get you not react to it so much. Go get your camping gear; we are sleeping out here tonight."

After dark, Naruto sat on a sleeping bag while Jiraiya built up a large campfire. Naruto sat well back from it while Jiraiya stoked it. "Come a bit closer Naruto, it will not hurt you." Jiraiya told him. "Move as close as you can to it."

Naruto gulped slightly but moved to about 5 feet away and sat down. The flames climbed into the night as Jiraiya poked at the fire. "Fire is an old thing, Naruto. Fire was around before people began using it and will still be around long after people are gone from the world. It is a simple force of nature. It is natural to respect and fear it." He sat in silence for a few more minutes and watched Naruto. The boy was nervously looking at the dancing flames. Jiraiya looked off to the other side of the fire and gestured with a slight motion of his head. The flames suddenly surged and shot upward about 20 feet high.

Naruto screamed and crab crawled back from the fire. "What the heck was that!!" the boy shouted.

Jiraiya pointed at a small orange frog illuminated by the higher flames. "That was just Gamakichi spitting oil into the fire. That is his job tonight. I told him we are working on your fear of fire tonight and he volunteered to help us out."

"Yo" said Gamakichi and waved one webbed foot.

"He was trying to roast me!" Naruto cried out and pointed at the small frog.

"Nonsense, he was just making the fire a bit bigger for a few seconds. See? It's already back to normal. Come back to where you were sitting, Naruto."

Naruto began to edge his way back to his previous seat when Gamakichi spat oil into the fire again. The flames leapt into the night once more. Naruto stopped moving forward.

Jiraiya stood and walked over to Naruto and squatted down to the boy. He spoke in quiet even tones, "Naruto, there will be times in your ninja career that you will need to face fire jutsu. There are times when doing so you will get hurt and likely get burnt. This little exercise will not get you over your fear of fire tonight, or the next time we do it. But you will need to face your fears and work on getting past them. All I can do is give you the chance to do it at your pace."

"I believe that you are able to do this. So does Hinata, Sakura and the Hokage. But in the end, the choice needs to be yours. You have to need to want to get past your fear. Simply get as close as you can until you feel uncomfortable then just relax until you can move closer."

Jiraiya went back to his seat at the edge of the fire. He had to let Naruto make his way close to the flames by his own choice. If he could get closer on his own, the battle over his fear was halfway won. After about a half hour, Naruto was back to about 5 feet away; even with Gamakichi spitting oil into the flames at odd intervals.

Jiraiya decided that was a good enough start for tonight and he should get on to his next step. Getting Naruto to stop worrying about the flames and react somewhat normally around them.

"Since you are close enough to the fire to read, you can read to me. I brought a fascinating book."

"Does it have great jutsu in it, Jiraiya-sensei." Naruto got all excited thinking about learning a new jutsu.

"No, something even better than jutsu," Jiraiya said.

"There is nothing better than jutsu," Naruto argued.

"There is a lot more to life than jutsu, Naruto. I am not just a great ninja. I will have you know I am a renowned author as well as a popular man with the ladies on top of being a Sannin and Toad Sage."

Jiraiya moved back up close to the fire and pulled out an orange book.

"You can write?" Naruto looked skeptical but moved closer to be able to see the book and took it from his teacher.

"'Kagome reached down to take hold of …' THIS IS A PERVERTED BOOK!!" Naruto screamed at Jiraiya before throwing the book into the fire. Jiraiya reached for the book but Gamakichi took that moment to spit some oil into the flames and the book flared to ashes in seconds.

Jiraiya looked at the flames in tears. "That was a limited run beta edition of original Icha Icha Paradise, signed by me! It was priceless!"

"Priceless my butt. You're nothing but a pervert trying to get a kid to read stuff like that, just a pervy sensei. Or a pervy sage."

'I did not think he would react that poorly to my book' Jiraiya thought as Naruto kept muttering all about how perverts should be shunned. 'I saw the way he was looking at Hinata in those training clothes and figured he was ready for something like that. Now I need to shut him up about it before he tells Tsunade or she is going to pound me into the ground'

"You know, Naruto. If you keep this little episode quiet, I might be able to teach you a really cool jutsu that few people in the village are capable of doing." Jiraiya could see Naruto start drooling at the offer. 'Hook, line and sinker, mwahahaha'

"Really, Pervy Sage? What is it?"

"First, never call me that and second, it is called the Kage Bunshin, the Shadow Clone."


Next Chapter: The Missions Begin (plus, a look into the other teams)


Review Responses:
One reviewer mentioned that the genin at the Chunnin Exams were all older and my math regarding numbers of graduates would be off. That is true from what I have seen that many are older. The Rookie 9 are special and referred to as that because they all were nominated for the exam on their first chance out of the Academy and they all made it past the 2nd part of the test.

I had not intended to argue this point until I actually hit the Chunnin Exams but I will get into it now. The exam is not the only method in which a genin can make chunnin. People who have been in the military know how promotions up to a certain point are guaranteed. The Chunnin Exams are meant to be a showcase for the best and the brightest genin a hidden village has to offer. I feel the 72 participants were nominated from hundreds of genin. Leaf had the home field so to speak so they sent some teams that might not have participated if they had to travel to another village; the Rookie 9 being in that group. The daimyos and other nobility make judgments and hiring decisions based on what they see in the exams. No village is going to be sending less than their best if possible. I feel that some genin are quietly promoted to chunnin when their skills merit it and some are never allowed past being genin; all without some of them ever seeing the inside of an exam. Naruto still being a genin in Part 2 of the manga is based more on political reasons than actual ability. Naruto shows jonin level ability and consistently defeats jonin level opponents. He remains a genin not because of a failure to pass a Chunnin Exam but rather it allows them to keep him closer to the village as shown by the conversation between Tsunade and the advisors.