Yup, it's another early chapter since the family do went well (congrats S+C!). Normal service (Wed + Sun) will be resumed after this.
Disclaimer – Kishimoto owns Naruto and the characters therein.
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Memories Of Others
Chapter 10
Discoveries Of A New Genin
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"It's been an honor, Sempai." Naruto said with a bow, which Kosuke returned.
"You have been an excellent student." Kosuke replied. "Were I not going on a mission to the north, I would be happy to continue your education."
"You have already taught me more than I learned in the Academy." Naruto shrugged. "I know I still have a long way to go, but I'm finally on the right path thanks to you… Sensei."
Kosuke smiled broadly, his eyes glittering with unshed tears of pride.
"I believe that you will reach your goal, and I will be there to bow to you."
Naruto tried to speak, but he couldn't force the words out past the sudden blockage in his throat.
"I will see you again some time… Kohai." Kosuke smiled, then he vanished in a swirl of leaves. Naruto stared at where he had been, then looked down.
"Huh? What's this?"
Picking up the scroll, Naruto unrolled it slightly, then he grinned.
"Instructions for Shunshin? Thanks, Kosuke-sensei!"
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Hinata threw herself into an airborne roll just shy of being a full somersault in order to avoid being tackled by a trio of Narutos.
Her mind tried to pull up images of what she could do with three Narutos, but she suppressed the distracting thoughts with the ease of long practice even as she spun on one shoulder, delivering Jyuuken strikes with her feet in order to clear some space. Bouncing back up, Hinata lashed out behind her, hearing the normal pop of a dissipating Shadow Clone.
"Gatsuga!"
Kiba and Akamaru barreled through the attacking clones and Hinata pirouetted on the spot, allowing the duo to pass one either side of her so closely that her jacket rippled from the displaced air, then she took advantage of the newly-cleared path to sprint to where Shino was being over-run, taking out half of the clones mobbing him before they knew she was there.
"And done!"
At Kurenai's shout, the remaining clones vanished in clouds of chakra smoke, except for one which simply strolled to Kurenai's side.
"Stand down, students." Kurenai smiled and Hinata flopped into a sitting position, then she mentally winced as she saw Ko watching from the sidelines.
No doubt her lack of grace would be reported to the Hyuuga Council.
"Twelve minutes to destroy one hundred attacking clones." Kurenai said approvingly as Kiba threw himself to the ground, panting for breath. "Now, what went wrong?"
"My taijutsu skills, although I am technically proficient in their katas, seem insufficient to situations such as this." Shino admitted.
"The problem is that your taijutsu skills are too perfect." Kurenai said, earning a confused tilt of the head. "You do each move perfectly, in its entirety, before moving onto the next move. You need to learn to flow from one move to the next so that the end of one move should overlap with the start of the next."
"I see." Shino mused. "I shall endeavor to correct that problem."
"Kiba, that last big attack of yours and Akamaru's almost hit Hinata." Kurenai continued. "However, you managed to bracket her perfectly. Was it intentional?"
"Shit, I almost hit Hinata?" Kiba gasped. "Sorry, I thought you were somewhere else."
"Situational awareness in combat." Kurenai said slowly. "I see that we'll have to work on that."
"We had a few spare clones ready to switch if it looked like anyone was about to get seriously injured." The clone interjected. "One of us was about to swap with Hinata until she did that awesome dance-like move between Kiba and Akamaru."
Hinata blushed in pleasure at Naruto's comment.
A sudden burst of chakra shocked the genin to their feet as Naruto appeared in the middle of the clearing… seven feet above the ground.
"Ye-whooooaaa!"
Naruto managed to turn his uncontrolled fall into a tumbling roll which would have ended with him back on his feet… if Hinata hadn't been in the way.
"Ooof!"
Hinata opened her eyes to find Naruto staring at her in worry from inches away.
"Hinata-chan, are you alright? I'm sorry!"
"Ahem."
Naruto almost levitated off Hinata as Ko coughed dramatically from just behind them. Hinata spared an instant to give a quick glare to a sniggering Kiba and smirking Kurenai before she held out her hand for Naruto. Taking his cue, he pulled her to her feet.
"Sorry, I was practicing the Shunshin and, well… I've almost got it…"
"Not quite, boss." The clone called. "See for yourself!"
The clone dispelled and Naruto managed to both pale and blush at the same time as he received the memory of his failure.
"Sorry, Hinata-chan." He said with a slight wince. "I hope I didn't hurt you…"
"I'm fine, Naruto-kun." Hinata smiled back at him. "What book are we working through today?"
Ko lifted an eyebrow as Naruto brandished a medical text. "Basic primer for battlefield medicine. With my reserves, there's no way I'm ever going to be able to become a medic-nin, but battlefield medicine, herbs, bandaging, setting bones and stuff, that I can learn and it'll really help on missions outside Konoha."
"Several of the Hyuuga clan have chosen the path of the Iryonin." Ko commented. "Our eyes give us a considerable advantage."
"I'm ready." Hinata said and before Ko could protest, she hugged Naruto, then a cloud of chakra smoke announced the formation of two clones, one of whom was Hinata.
"That felt weird." Naruto mused as he looked at Hinata.
"I… I've been using Jyuuken for the last hour." Hinata explained. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to push like that…"
"Shouldn't make any difference." Naruto mused. "Hey, you two still us? Um, I mean, are you, me and are you Hinata?"
"I'm your clone, boss." The male clone announced while the female clone blushed slightly and poked her forefingers together. "Yep, that's Hime-sama."
"See, no probs." Naruto shrugged. "Now, I can give you some more clones, but then I've got another mission, with team seven this time. Huh, you know, this'll be the first time I've seen the te… ehhh… I mean Sasuke and Sakura since the test. Huh, I wonder who the replacement for me is?"
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"Tobio?!"
"Naruto!" The dark-haired Genin waved. "Hey, listen. I never got to say sorry for accidentally causing you and Sasuke to…"
"THAT NEVER HAPPENED!" Both male genin roared, causing Tobi to cringe, then they glanced at each other in surprise while Sakura started to giggle.
"I thought you were in a different team." Naruto asked, hoping to redirect the conversation and Tobio shrugged.
"I was assigned to team three with Raidomaru and Kinoku. We were given a test and the other two decided to squabble over who would do it better. I managed to do some of the test, but I couldn't do it all since the other two didn't help. Apparently that's why I was given a second chance on team seven, because I was willing to try to work as part of a team."
"Wow, nice one." Naruto grinned, exchanging a high-five with his former classmate.
"Why are you here, Naruto?" Sakura asked. "And why are you still wearing a Hitai-ate? Didn't you go back to the Academy?"
"He's an independent Genin." Sasuke supplied before Naruto could answer and Sakura stared at him in confused shock. "What? After that fiasco of a test, I checked the Uchiha Archives and discovered the difference between an Academy-promoted Genin and a mission-promoted Genin. So, am I correct in assuming that you're the opposition for this afternoon's training?"
"Yep, you're going up against Op-force Uzumaki." Kakashi said from behind them, causing all four Genin to jump in shock. "Now, if you'll excuse us, I need to discuss the situations we'll be setting you up against."
The trio stared in shock as Kakashi (who was early!) vanished with the blond Genin.
"What just happened?" Sakura finally asked.
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"Lord Hokage told me you found out about your parents." Kakashi said as they reappeared amongst the trees.
"The Fourth… your Sensei." Naruto replied quietly. "And his wife who was the second to bear the burden I now have."
"For what it's worth, I'm sorry." Kakashi sighed. "I wasn't in a good place mentally after Sensei died, it took me several years to get myself back together. By that time, the other villages were keeping an eye on me since they thought that if Sensei had an heir, I would be the one to act as guardian…"
"So you stayed away to keep me safe." Naruto finished. "And trying to get me on your team?"
"To try to protect you and repay the debt I owed your parents." Kakashi confirmed. "I knew I'd be assigned Sasuke, so I thought that the other villages would assume you were merely there to bulk out the team, not because of your heritage."
Naruto nodded. "I understand, Hatake-san. I do have two quick questions before we start planning what to do to your team. Do you know the Rasengan? And what about the Hiraishin?"
Kakashi held up his right hand, in which a sparkling sphere of chakra was spinning. "This is the Rasengan, taught to me by your father. As for the Hiraishin, I was going to learn it, but the Kyuubi…"
Kakashi trailed off and Naruto nodded.
"That bastard fox screwed up so many things when it attacked…"
"Yeah…"
For a long moment, the duo remained in silent contemplation of what could have been.
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"We are going to do three scenarios, one after the other." Kakashi told his team as he unrolled a topographical map of Konoha and the surrounding environs. "Scenario one is attacking a bandit camp with thirty bandits, some of whom may have had training equal to a new Genin. You will be rescuing a hostage… me.
"Scenario two is protecting me as you get me to a secure location. I will not be moving faster than a civilian, nor will I defend myself beyond basic dodging, so you'll have to protect me for the journey from the camp here to the waystation here. Expect up to twenty bandits for this.
"Scenario three is repelling an assault by a third group of bandits until reinforcements can arrive. For that one, I will be acting in my capacity as your Jonin-sensei with a dummy taking the role of rescued civilian. The dummy has several bags of red-dyed water inside it representing its brains, heart, lungs and gut. If any of those bags get stabbed, the scenario ends as a fail.
"Now, this is a map of the camp and I'll be in the open, in a wooden cage just here. There'll be guards here, here and here with orders to terminate me if there's a rescue attempt, so you'll need to move fast. Other than that, how you do it is up to you. See you when you rescue me!"
Kakashi vanished and Sakura moved to the place where he had been, looking closely at the lines of the map.
"There's a ridge behind the camp here." She pointed out. "If we take it and use kunai to nail the guards, we can then descend using a rope…"
"We'll have to be careful." Sasuke interjected. "I've heard nasty things about Naruto's trapping skills… He's probably got all of the primary approaches trapped, so we'll have to do what he doesn't expect… like circle round rather than head straight there."
Tobio and Sakura both nodded in agreement.
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Naruto smirked as the trio set out for the first stage, then his eyes narrowed in appreciation as they took a side-path, one of the few that he hadn't trapped.
"Now, how did you know to do that?" he whispered as he started to rise, then he paused as two streams of memories flowed into his mind.
"Huh, I'm going to have to devote a lot of attention to learning those terms. I didn't even know what a gallbladder was… heck, I didn't even know it existed!"
Naruto closed his eyes as he concentrated on settling the memories correctly into his mind, then he re-opened them.
"Time to move out."
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Hinata's eyes stared slightlessly as not one, but two memory streams flowed into her mind.
"Hinata-sama?" Ko asked quietly as Hinata paled, then blushed furiously.
"He thinks I'm really pretty." Hinata whispered, wavering slightly as her mind repeatedly replayed the memory from Naruto's clone of him stealing glances at her. "He admires me…"
Ko managed to catch the Hyuuga Heiress as she collapsed, a huge smile spread across her face.