"It seems," Naruko thought to herself, "that when you are really excited for an upcoming event, that is when time passes the slowest."
Naruko had come to this realization during class on Wednesday. She was even beginning to suspect that life was conspiring against her because of how boring this week was shaping up to be.
"I mean, Ayumi-sensei gets the Flu before our lunch meet up on Tuesday, then because Iruka-sensei doesn't have an assistant, he cancels our survival training lessons this week. Now Ino gets sick and has to go home. Can this week get anymore boring?!" Naruko finished with an internal scream.
The answer to that question was yes, yes it could, because just as she finished that thought, Iruka-sensei had an announcement for the class.
"Class, because several of your classmates have come down with the Flu as well as Ayumi-sensei, I was thinking we could review the Shinobi handbook, with a focus on the Shinobi rules." Iruka-sensei announced.
Naruko's only response was her head hitting her desk. "Oh god, why must you punish me so?" Naruko cried inside. "You couldn't give me the Flu like Ino. I bet this is the Kyubi's fault. I have never been sick a day in my life, and I am getting punished for it"
Naruko had been so excited for the weekend, because then she would get to meet up with Anko again, who would begin to teach her the wakizashi. Now, she was contemplating using her new sword on herself.
After the most boring week in her entire life, the bell finally rang on Friday, signaling the end of class. Just before they were dismissed, Iruka-sensei announced that he needed some help cleaning the classroom, and therefore was going to assign some students to this task. Not able to escape fast enough, Naruko used Soru to vanish out of the academy. Seriously thinking that if she didn't get out fast enough, something would keep her trapped longer in this evil week.
The class sweat dropped as they watched this. In fact the only person who felt more than amusement was Sasuke. He narrowed his eyes and thought, "that wasn't a shunshin, there were no telltale signs. No, that was pure speed. To think she is that far ahead of me. I am going to find out how, even if I have to track her down."
Naruko wasn't aware of any of the thoughts surrounding her that day, all she cared about was getting out of there. Coming out of Soru several blocks away, Naruko was panting hard, and she could feel the strain. "Maybe it wasn't the best idea to use Soru that far before I get used to the new resistance seals. NO, I had to, any longer in that classroom, and I would never been able to leave." Naruko thought, trying to convince herself.
Finally recovering her breath, Naruko started to make her way home. She wanted to change into some training gear, and then hit a training ground hard. Her plan was to try to adapt to her seals as fast as possible, otherwise she wouldn't be able to keep up with Anko's training tomorrow. Naruko had noticed something over the last year. Her recovery rate seemed to be increasing. When she was younger, she healed slightly faster than the average Shinobi. Now she rarely woke up sore, no matter how hard she pushed herself. Naruko wasn't sure if it was just the fact she was older and could handle more, that she was an Uzumaki, or a Jinchuriki. Whatever the case might be, the more she pushed herself, the stronger she got.
Naruko's musings on this phenomenon were actually close to the mark. The only thing she was off on was, that it was all three. Naruko was an unusual case as far as Jinchuriki went, because from the very moment she had been conceived she had been exposed to the Kyubi's chakra. In fact in her entire life, there was only a window of less than an hour where she wasn't. This fact, combined with her Uzumaki heritage, meant that she had tremendous stamina and a phenomenal recovery rate. Factoring in that she was getting older, and her body could handle more punishment with fewer negative side effects. Meant that Naruko's physical potential was practically boundless. As long as she pushed herself, then she would be reward with results.
With this aspect in mind, Naruko made her way to a training ground, so that she could really push the limits. She planned to use Soru and Geppo until she could barely stand, and then after a little rest, go again. When she got to one of her favorite training grounds, Naruko made thirty-one clones. Thirty of the Kage Bunshin would train in the chakra point finger handstand. She was making good progress there, and wanted to keep it up. She had an idea, and that training was key. The last clone was created simply to help her home at the end of training, if she couldn't make it herself. With everything ready, she got to work.
Naruko was smart to keep a backup clone on hand, because she couldn't walk home after training. Getting home, Naruko had the clone draw a bath, while she rested on the couch. After a heavy meal to replace what she lost, Naruko got into the bath for a nice soak. She was so relaxed, that the clone had to wake her up, and then carry her to bed. Too tired to think straight, Naruko passed out as soon as the clone dispersed.
The next morning, Naruko's healing had done its trick, and she was ready to go. After a nice filling breakfast and some stretches to limber up, Naruko grabbed her gear and left to meet Anko.
Arriving at the training ground she was supposed to meet Anko at. Naruko noticed that she had beaten Anko here. While waiting she decided to warm up. Naruko decided after her warm up, to use a burst of Soru, and to her satisfaction, it wasn't nearly as hard. Thankful for her extraordinary recovery rate, Naruko decide to practice some yoga, while she was waiting on Anko.
After getting fifteen minutes of solid practice, Naruko could feel Anko approaching the training ground. Finishing her pose, she stood up to wait for Anko to appear, and with a burst of shunshin, Anko had arrived.
"Hey, sorry I am late." Anko apologized. "There was a last minute task I needed to do for work. I can't get into any details, but I am sure you can use your imagination."
"That's okay, I understand. I am just happy you have time to teach me at all." Naruko replied
"Well, let's get right into it. Here catch." Anko said, while throwing a wakizashi-sized bokken towards her.
Catching it with a 'umph', Naruko realized that the bokken was weighted. Holding it in her hand, Naruko guessed the bokken was probably around fifty pounds. Which, while heavy, wasn't a weight that would kill her. Lightly swinging the bokken around to get a feel for the weight, Naruko realized that even though it was heavy, it was balanced the same as her real wakizashi. Ready for instruction, Naruko looked over to Anko.
"Good, you can handle the weight. I thought so, but you can never know. Anyway, what you have there is a fifty-pound training wakizashi. The point of which, is to develop strength and control. You see with a weighted bokken, you will practice the stances and swings in a slow and controlled manner. The point isn't to swing fast, but to swing slow and build up control muscles. So let's begin." Anko explained.
What followed was a grueling exercise in control. Anko wanted every swing to be perfect. It wasn't just about making the swing, but doing so with absolute control. Whenever Naruko started to get too fatigued to make a proper swing, Anko would have her rest and massage her arms to breakup the lactic acid build up. By the end of the day, her arms were fried. Naruko had made the mistake of explaining her recovery ability, so Anko felt comfortable pushing her.
"Let's meet tomorrow at the same time. If you can recover that fast, then we should pack in the training early on to develop muscle memory." Anko proposed to Naruko's horror.
Still, Naruko wanted to learn, so she agreed to meet Anko the next day.
Sunday was more of the same, though this time Naruko was able to go a little further than the day before.
"Man, you really do recover fast. At this pace you will be ready for some more complicated kata soon. How about in the beginning we meet Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday. At your pace it shouldn't take long, maybe a month or two, before I feel comfortable letting you practice on your own. By then, you shouldn't have any bad habits." Anko offered.
"By the way, where is your girlfriend?" Anko asked with curiosity.
"She has the Flu, with what seems like half the village." Naruko replied with exasperation.
"You aren't kidding! I have been worked overtime to make up for lack of healthy Shinobi." Anko cried. "Well when Blondie is feeling better, bring her too. That way I can help her get started on senbon training, and if you wouldn't mind, give her these books on poison composition." Anko said handing over a storage scroll.
The next month passed pretty quickly. With the addition of Anko's lessons, Naruko and Ino had practically zero free time. They were even too tired to really fool around with each other. On the weekends when Ino would stay over at Naruko's apartment, the girls were too tired for anything more than cuddling. In fact the only thing of note was that Naruko kept feeling Sasuke trailing her. The first few times she just brushed off, but soon Naruko began to suspect that Sasuke was stalking her. This really creeped her out, and if it kept up she was going to confront him. Naruko had no desire for a stalker.
Finally towards the middle of November, Naruko got so fed up with having to dodge her new stalker that she decided to confront him once and for all about his creepy behavior.
After letting Sasuke follow her to a training ground, she used Soru to disappear. When Sasuke walked in the middle of the training ground to see where she went, Naruko appeared behind him.
"Hem, Hem." Naruko fake coughed.
Spinning around, Sasuke had a surprised look in his eyes.
"What are you doing? Why do you keep following me?" Naruko demanded
With wide eyes, Sasuke looked around as if to escape. Finally sighing, he decided to just come out with it.
"Look, I am sorry to have freaked you out, but I saw the speed you used to escape class several weeks ago. You have never used that level of speed at the academy before, and I was curious." Sasuke admitted.
"So because you were curious, you decided to stalk me! Why didn't you just ask?" Naruko said incredulously.
Now blushing, Sasuke looked down before he answered, "Ok, maybe I didn't think it out properly, but I wasn't sure how to approach a girl. Most of the times I am either ignoring them or running away from them. Still, I am sorry."
Shaking her head, Naruko looked at Sasuke for a few moments before saying, "Well now that you have my attention, what do you want?"
"I want to know how you got so fast." Sasuke seemed to demand.
Nonplussed, Naruko just said, "I train, hard."
"I train hard too, but I don't have that level of speed." Sasuke replied.
"Well, that's good for you, but what are you really asking me?" Naruko wondered, though she had an idea. However after being stalked for several weeks, she was going to make him work for it.
Blushing, Sasuke finally got to the heart of the matter, "I want to train with you."
"Do you mean you want to train with me, or that I train you?" Naruko asked for clarification.
After several long moments, where Naruko could see Sasuke battling his pride finally said, "the second one."
"You do know how to say please don't you?" Naruko wondered
"…Please, would you train me?" A blushing Sasuke finally asked.
"I will, but no more stalking" Naruko said with a smile, to lessen the comment.
After hearing Sasuke promise not to stalk her again, she decided to get down to business.
"Well, since I am free now for the first time in a while, I can start now. That is, if you are ready? Naruko wondered.
Surprised, but secretly delighted Sasuke agreed.
"Well, I need to see your level of fitness, so let's have a taijutsu spar. After that, we can run some drills." Naruko announced. "Oh, and Sasuke, don't hold back."
With that began one of the more humiliating moments in his life. He thought he was strong, but Naruko out classed him in all areas. No matter what he tried, he just couldn't land a hit on her, even at his full speed. He tried to tell himself that his embarrassment had nothing to do with Naruko being the prettiest girl he knew, but he would be lying to himself. When eventually Naruko called for a break, Sasuke was both relieved and upset.
"Not bad actually." Naruko commented. "I actually didn't think you would be that strong."
This appeased Sasuke's ego slightly, but only slightly. Soon, Naruko had Sasuke running drills to test his strength, speed, and stamina. After getting a good grasp of all three, Naruko had a game plan.
She wasn't sure whether or not she would teach Sasuke Soru. Naruko decided that she would have to get to know him better first. Just because someone asked for training didn't mean they were the type of person she wanted as a friend, only time would tell that part. Until then, Naruko figured she could run him through several exercises that would increase his speed and strength without going through the Soru training. Naruko also wanted to increase his chakra control. While good for an academy student, his level of control was nowhere near even Ino's level. So first thing she would have him learn was to tree climb. The final thing she would do for Sasuke would be to give him the resistance seals. His body seemed strong enough to not be hurt by such training. The next several weeks would determine if she wanted to continue to train Sasuke.
So, Naruko explained the training he would go through, including the principals of tree climbing into the explanation.
"So you see, using the proper amount of chakra, a person can cling to anything from trees to walls, and anything in between. Though I don't consider this exercise mastered until you can surface cling to any surface for an hour, while holding ten leaves to your body with chakra." Naruko explained.
"Hn. That sounds interesting." Sasuke replied.
"Yeah, it is, plus once this is done, the next several levels of chakra control become awesome. Now, the final thing I want to do today before I let you get to training, is apply what I call resistance seals. These seals will create a pressure or resistance against every motion you make. Even making a fist will require more work with these seals activated. This training, I believe, is far superior to the standard weights many ninja wear. The beauty is the resistance can constantly increase, while there is a limit to how much weight one can carry." Naruko said.
After applying the seals, she let Sasuke get use to the beginning level, before sending him off to start his training. However before he left decided to mention something.
"With the resistance seals on, your body will burn through calories much faster than before, so remember to increase your food intake." Naruko cautioned.
Now that she had taken care of having Sasuke stalk her, she decided to go meet with Anko for dango. While they had hit it off right from the start, Naruko was finding that she really liked spending time with Anko. Getting to know the older woman during training had been a pleasure, and she really wanted to learn more about her new friend. Because while Naruko was friendly to many people, she really only spent time with Ino and Hinata. While they were great, Naruko realized that making new friends was important too.
Meeting up with Anko, the two sat down for a snack. After they ordered, Naruko explained her day, including the Sasuke incident, much to Anko's amusement.
"You are a much nicer person than I am, my friend, if it had been me, I probably would have turned him down." Anko commented.
"I thought about doing that at first, but then I thought, 'what the hell'. Maybe he will turn out to be an interesting person to hang out with." Naruko reasoned.
After that, the dango came, and Anko was too focused on that to have a detailed discussion on anything. So, Naruko decided to wait until they finished to bring up anything more serious.
After their snack, the girls relaxed with tea and chatted. Over tea Naruko learned a lot about her new friend. For one, even though Anko didn't seem that serious, she could be over things she both loved like tea ceremony hated like Orochimaru. Due to the relationship that was developing between them, Anko even started talking more about her time with Orochimaru.
"I don't tell this to just anyone, but the truth is, that I was so proud to be chosen to be his apprentice. I mean, who wouldn't, he is a Sannin. For a time everything was great. He taught me several of his signature jutsu, but then he started to experiment on me. I don't remember much during that time, but he then abandoned me. However, before he did, he gave me this cursed seal." Anko stated as she told her story, and then she revealed her cursed seal.
Interested by the seal, Naruko asked, "Do you mind if I examine your seal? The only reason I ask is that I am a master level Fuinjutsu user."
Knowing not to get her hopes up, Anko nevertheless allowed it, but also said, "The Hokage himself examined my seal, and he couldn't figure out a way to release me from this burden."
"No offense to the Hokage, but I have several advantages over him. One, I am almost at the same level of skill that he is at, but I am twelve. This means, I am just starting my Fuinjutsu career. Two, I feel like I have a more creative mind than the Hokage. No offense to him, but the Hokage looks at problems in a somewhat linear manner. He is brilliant and powerful, but what is the Hokage famous for? His claim to fame is that he is a master of all ninja arts, not that he is a great inventor of ninja arts. This aspect is definitely apparent in his Fuinjutsu. The final advantage I have is that I can use Kage Bunshin like no other. With my ability to use that jutsu, I simply have the ability to exponentially increase my research power. Anyway, back to your seal, give me a chance to examine it." Naruko explained.
After several minutes probing the seal with her chakra, she finally said, "This is both an interesting seal, and a crude one. Whatever its function, it doesn't do it with any elegance. I will need to examine it in more depth than I can do at a dango shop, but I don't think it is impossible to free you of this."
Incredulous, but now feeling some hope, Anko asked, "You really think you might be able to do something about this seal? I would do anything to be free of it. So, what do you want?"
"Anko, we are friends, and even if we weren't, I would still do this for free." Naruko said, but after thinking for a moment, an embarrassed blush came over her face, and she said, "But if you want to offer me something as payment, well I wouldn't say no to learning that tongue manipulation jutsu that Orochimaru taught you."
At this, Anko just about fell over in laughter, much to Naruko's continued embarrassment. Finally after what to Naruko felt like forever, Anko started to calm down.
Still chuckling Anko said, "I have no problem teaching you that jutsu in payment. Plus, I can't think of any better way to get back at that bastard, then for one of his prized jutsu to be used for 'that'."
To which, Naruko could only blush harder.
"Still, I didn't you and Ino were that far in your relationship?" Anko asked.
"We aren't, but it never hurts to be prepared when the time comes." Was Naruko's very embarrassed reply.
"Well, enough teasing, what are your plans for the rest of today?" Anko asked.
"Honestly, my plan is to relax. I haven't had a day off in a while. So, I plan to take full advantage of it. Grabbing dango was the extent of my plans for today. Though if you are still up for hanging out, we could walk around the village some, maybe window shop or something." Naruko said.
"That sounds fine to me. Thankfully I am free the rest of the day." Anko agreed.
With that Naruko and Anko finished up their tea, and left to go walk around the village's shopping district. While the two kunoichi didn't see anything that they had to buy, the two had a blast. Much to Naruko's embarrassment, Anko was able to get her to try on some very risqué clothes.
Naruko tried to get out of this, but Anko just said, "What would Ino think of you wearing that?" And with those magic words, Anko was able to get Naruko to try on a variety of clothes, which she wouldn't normally even look at. Naruko tried on everything from extremely skimpy, lacy undergarments to some very revealing kunoichi gear. Gear that even Anko wouldn't be caught dead in, that is how risqué they were. Or as Anko put it after seeing Naruko come out of a dressing room, "Holy shit! I mean you might as well be naked, it would be less revealing that way."
"Anko is right, I don't know how it is possible, but these clothes are worse than if I just walked around naked. I am almost 100% sure that this is some sort of imitation kunoichi gear, that some pervert designed. How could this protect anything?" Naruko thought to herself in shock.
The same time Naruko was having that thought, a large white haired man suddenly sneezed the loudest sneeze he had ever produced. "Someone is thinking about me." He thought with a giggle. "I hope it is a pretty young woman." The man, while correct, shouldn't have spent time thinking that thought, because it turns out he was hiding behind a boulder inside the Kunoichi's section of a Shinobi only hot spring, and the jutsu he was using to conceal himself, failed with his sneeze. With the cries of "PERVERT!" the man decided it was time to run, unfortunately he didn't make it in time, much to his immediate pain.
Back with Naruko and Anko, the two kunoichi while having fun trying on clothes, decided to move on, so Naruko made her way back into the dressing room to change back into her normal clothes. As she looked at herself in the mirror, she thought, "Oh what the hell. Maybe I can surprise Ino one day." With that thought she created a Kage Bunshin silently in the dressing room. Handing the clone some real money, Naruko signaled to the clone to wait until they left the store before coming out. Because while she might have asked Anko to teach her the tongue manipulation jutsu, she was sure as hell not letting her know about buying this monstrosity of a Kunoichi's uniform.
With that the two of them left the clothing store, and continued their way around the village, having a blast the entire time.
Soon it was getting quite late in the day, and it was time to go their separate ways.
"Anko, I have had a lot fun hanging out with you." Naruko said. "We should definitely do this more often, and don't worry, I will begin researching ways to get rid of cursed seals."
"Thanks, I really enjoyed spending time with you too, and I promise to teach you that jutsu, just maybe not with Ino around." Anko said with a smirk.
With a blush returning to her face, Naruko gave Anko a hug, and said "Bye". After getting a "bye" from Anko, Naruko made her way home.