Chapter 11: Training With a Demon Sucks

Chapter 11: Training With a Demon Sucks

Disclaimer - Naruto (The Manga and Anime) are copy righted to Masashi Kishimoto, not me. However, the following story is copy righted to me

Notes: Err nevermind, this one wasn't revised or edited... yet. If anyone feels that its lacking in editing and needs revision just tell me.

Izur woke, with sleep filled eyes. The sun had only just started to rise as the genin pushed himself help. This would be their first time actually training as a team, not a test or that disgusting mission but training.

And Izur was too excited for words as he started making himself breakfast and getting ready for the day… err morning. After all Izur had woken at three again and he still had four hours until training would actually start.

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Two hours and thirteen minuets later Izur had finally screwed up the courage to enter his teammate's neighborhood and as he wandered around looking for their houses he remained a bit on the jumpy side.

Rounding a corner he jumped rolling across the ground and camouflaging himself against a wall glaring out at the movement he had seen. It was approaching and the soft thump of feet on the ground could be heard.

When the dog rounded the corner and continued on, Izur removed his camouflage and continued onwards, trying to calm his jumping nerves. It wasn't until he was standing in front of Hachiro's house that he took a deep breath and committed himself.

By banging on the door and ringing the doorbell a few times. He'd chosen Hachiro first because he figured he could live through the consequences and then Hachiro could help him get Leiko.

A team effort right? It was several minutes later before a very disgruntled and angry man opened the door. He looked tired but the outfit he wore was immaculate to look at. "A summons from the Raikage?"

Izur was trying to place this new person in Hachiro's life but wasn't seeing any family resemblance at all. The guy was only three inches taller then Hachiro as well, and shrugging he decided to treat him like just someone else.

"No… I'm here for Hachiro. We have tra…" Before Izur could finish the door was slammed in his face and while he was contemplating what to do he heard a loud crash and suddenly a lot of yelling.

Going white in the face he started to move away from the house, about the time he got through the front lawn a familiar shape went flying out the window from the third story. Izur seeing who it was started towards his red headed friend only to find a hand held up to stop him.

"Uhm… I'm sorry I didn't…" His eyes went back to the house and regarding it with a sense of foreboding. He was never going to knock on that door again if he could help it. Instead he pinpointed the window that Hachiro had come out of. Next time he would just sneak in.

While Izur was contemplating a better way to retrieve his teammate for tomorrow, Hachiro had already gotten the rest of his outfit back on and started towards Leiko's house. "Coming?"

Izur turned starting after him, and hoping that Leiko's house was much less interesting then that one had been. He wasn't sure how much more he could handle of people throwing other people out of windows and starting such a ruckus so early in the morning.

By the time the two boys had gotten to Leiko's front door it was opening to reveal Leiko stepping out and hesitating when she saw Izur. "Well that explains everything?" Izur blinked owlishly at her wondering what she meant.

"Huh?" Hachiro's baritone cut the silence a moment later. "Oh I mean it explains the time, your not supposed to be waking for another hour or so. Its only five thirteen." As soon as that was out Hachiro rounded on Izur thumping him one on the head knocking the younger boy down.

He stalked off, down the street not towards his house. Laughing Leiko offered a hand up and started speaking. "You should have gotten me first he might have been calmer." Izur growled, he'd figured it all wrong, but how. Everything had told him that the females were the ones that were grumpy in the morning. Not the guys.

"So why did you wake us so early anyways?" Izur looked back at her and shrugged, but when he saw her eyes narrow in a glare he decided to explain. "Ahh well you know we have to be there early and I figured it would give us time to warm up and get to know each other better?"

He ended it with a question as though he was hoping that she found it satisfactorily enough of an explanation not to start a fight here. Grumbling she started off after Hachiro, but she heard a 'fine, whatever' in there somewhere.

Following at a safe distance, where she couldn't turn and hit him without his reacting first he watched the ground for a bit. "So where are we going?" She looked over her shoulder before waving off towards the main part of Kumogakure. "To grab Hachiro, get breakfast, then we'll go and get to the training grounds."

Sighing the younger genin followed sullenly, they should have eaten breakfast before leaving their houses, would have made everything so much simpler for them. Then they could have gone off to the training grounds and had an hour and a half to not only warm up but prepare for Masaru-sempai. Now they wouldn't.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Breakfast had gone badly. Warming up had gone badly. Trying to learn more about each other had gone badly. Training would go badly. Or so Izur was assuming, and since all three were in a raw mood with each other it wasn't a bad assumption to make.

At the moment it was six fifty and Masaru stood in front of the three looking rather surprised to have found them all there. And not only that but all warmed up as well and at least marginally ready for whatever was coming at them.

Key word though, marginally.

"All right you three, I'm thinking that since you're all raring to go we'll have a little fight again. You three against me, only this time survival is the key. You will have to attack me and either avoid being hit more then fifty times, avoid being hit in a vital area, avoid being hit more then twenty five times with a kunai, shuriken, or my Zanbatou, or avoid being hit in a vital area with one of the said weapons."

He grinned boastingly at the three genin before continuing on, "You'll also have to try and get me out with one of the said rules as well. So I'll give you until seven o'clock to plan then we will start. We'll end at noon to break for lunch."

The genin nodded, all three having gone at least slightly paler at the training objectives. For this, they knew quite well, would be impossible. Kind of like an academy student trying to complete an A Ranked mission.

Or a civilian attempting it.

The three sighed moving back out of ear shot of their sometimes questionable teacher, leaning in Hachiro looked at Leiko for a moment before speaking.

"If he hadn't added in that portion about having to knock him out of the fight as I well I would have suggested that we use stealth and hide for the majority of the time. But that's null and void now."

Izur wondered mildly what the point of saying that was, other then to waste time. Shrugging back at the other two he started to think. He'd already given them his best in the testing. His thoughts were interrupted by Hachiro continuing on however.

"Now I'm thinking that we should find a way to trap him, so that he can't move. It seems that if we can do that then he won't be able to hit us and we can get all of ours in. The question is how?"

Izur tapped his side in thought, eyebrows furrowing as he tried to fight his way through the unknown to come up with a solution.

"We don't know each others abilities or not all of them so we should share them now. That would help better then trying to guess." Leiko's common sense surprised Izur, but not Hachiro who knew her already.

"I've focused on water and earth techniques. Uhm… my Ayatsuito no Jutsu (String Reeling Technique) would be good, maybe even my Suiton: Daibakuryuu no Jutsu (Water Element: Great Exploding Current). Maybe even one of my Genjutsus might work."

Izur nodded thinking momentarily, before speaking himself. "I've focused on lightning and water though I do have a wind technique. My Kirigakure no Jutsu (Hidden Mist Technique), Fuubaku Houjin (Exploding Seal Formation), or Kekkai Houjin (Barrier Method Battle Array) could help."

Hachiro blinked in surprise at the list of techniques the younger boy had listed, "Can you make an Oboro Bunshin (mist clone)?" Izur didn't waste time thinking about it, "No, why?"

The frown on his teammates face didn't surprise him, why would he have been disappointed if he had said yes, after all it wouldn't have made sense. "Darn… I have a Genjutsu that works a lot better with more then one person using it. I'll have to teach you Oboro (mist) and the Genjutsu soon so that we can use it together."

Izur nodded as if this was something one should talk about all the time, but that both received sharp knocks from their female teammate. "Hullo? Forget about me here?" Hachiro gave his female friend a sheepish grin before motioning for her to talk.

"Well I'm a fire and lightning mix. My Mizuame Nabara (Starch Syrup Capture Field), and Shikumi no Jutsu (Death Viewing Technique) will help." Izur blinked and grinned suddenly at Leiko, she looked uneasily at him for a moment.

"What?" her question was sharp and annoyed but he just continued to grin for a moment. "How many fire techniques do you have in your arsenal?" She thought for a moment before responding, "Four, why?"

Izur seemed to think for a moment before responding, "Great. I know Kokuun no Jutsu (Black Clouds Technique) and Fuusajin no Jutsu (Dust Wind Technique). I can make your fire attacks more then five times as powerful with those."

The look on Leiko's face could only be described as something similar looking to a gaping fish. Then as the realization hit her that he wasn't kidding her grins made her look like some street urchin. "Oooh but sensei is in for it now."

The three chuckled amongst each other and got down to the real planning, time was precious but they still had a bit left before they would be interrupted.

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"So how is your team?" a deep voiced baritone washed over the man sitting across from him.

"Improving, Arai is more of a snob then expected and since the other two also come from well placed families they do not get along well. Overall team dynamics is horrible, individually they are each powerful."

The man paused for a moment, as though thinking through his thoughts before continuing on. "Arai has his father to learn many new things from and it puts him farther above the other two. Add in his sudden rivalry with the Himiloh boy and he's also working much harder too."

When he did not continue with his explanation the older man rose an eyebrow, "And? I take it this is not all." He made the question a statement, making it obvious that this had better not be all he had to say.

"No sir. Well I'm just worried sir; I think Kobayashi-Sama has told encouraged his son too much. I think the boy may try something against the Himiloh scion or his team if he is not carefully watched."

The room's temperature dropped suddenly at the younger man's admission, though nothing was said for several minuets the man did not fear his master. "You are more then likely correct. This could be good for us though, I want Arai watched but if a fight does happen let it go on. Just do not allow any permanent or serious injury."

The man stopped for a moment, as though in though. "It would do good to test these two, both are hiding things from their instructors and I want to know what it is. Encourage this rivalry."

A look of uncertainty passed over the younger man's face but he rid it as quickly as possible. "Yes Sir."

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Izur's arm swept forwards his weapon slashing down with the speed of shinobi enhanced muscles. As the kunai ran through his opponent catching on a particularly thick piece of muscle the clone 'poofed' splashing water onto the already drenched genin.

No rest was given to the already worn genin however, as Masaru blasted an Ikadzuchi Senbon (Lightning Needle) his. Though the genin failed to fully dodge it, he did manage to avoid any serious damage.

The needle passed through his hip barely and inch away from the surface, but it added a bit of an extra shock to the wound managing to cauterize it. Or at least partially, which had the blessing of preventing him from bleeding out too much more blood.

"Having trouble there Izur- Chan." The insult was quite clear and the young genin grit his teeth as he sent his own hands through the same set of seals, if just slower. Drawing back his hand he threw two of the Ikadzuchi Senbon's taking his teachers sudden surprise and maximizing on it he drew back his head completing a new set of seals and suddenly a black, sticky, and shiny liquid shot from his mouth dousing his teacher.

"How the hell?" his teacher didn't get too much more time to contemplate how his student had learned the rarely taught technique because he found himself soon dodging fireballs shot by one Fukazawa Leiko.

And he'd thought those two had really abandoned their teammate when he'd started his foolish head on attack. Now he knew that he had been wrong twice, once when he had assumed that Izur was being an idiot and the second time when he'd thought Hachiro and Leiko had left Izur to his own devices.

He should have known better. Jumping he froze when he saw what Izur was doing and was distracted enough to be nicked. However the sudden gust of wind that Izur had shot at him and that he had dodged had done its job well enough.

Soon enough he'd been lit on fire but a moment later the copy of him poofed and all the genin were left with was a log. The two genin turned on their sensei as one starting to attack him as a two man team and drive him back even more into the swamp. They figured that if they could get him far enough back then they could finally trap him.

It was obvious that he at least found it harder to fight the two genin together, and when they were finally using all of their technique then he had during the test when they had been tired out from exercise and one other test.

Izur attacked the Jounin with his shuriken trying to lay them down in a thick enough cover so that Leiko could sneak up closer to him. Dropping down he dodge another shuriken that had been aimed for his head and tried to drop his own sensei.

Failing that he moved closer trying to fight his way to the real Masaru. Having very little luck with that and finding only normal Bunshin clones Izur started to wonder what was going on. For now though it seemed impossible to figure out with all these ridiculous normal clones around.

Swinging his kunai he started to take out as many of the clones as possible, attempting to make the fight less of a cluster fuck as possible. It wasn't until his kunai made contact with a clone and it exploded on him, electrocuting him, that he jumped back away from the mob and sent in his own Rai Bunshins.

It was faster this way anyways, now when it accidentally hit one of the opponents Rai Bunshins not only did that electrical field kill those in the immediate vicinity but the secondary one from his clone killed the next row of clones as well.

It was kind of like a fifty for one deal, just a bit less then that in reality.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Hachiro grinned as he laid down another bunch of exploding tags, hoping that this one would be the bunch that his sensei would see. Trying to force a Jounin into a trap without him finding out was turning out to be much harder then they had previously though. It was now time to see if any of Izur's special techniques would help.

And all of his were meant to make big explosions, but they were also meant more for a foe pursuing you then one that you were currently fighting. Which was what was making this entire thing so hard, but they had made a tentative plan. It was just to hoping that Leiko and Izur could drive him over here without failing out themselves.

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Leiko grinned, her hands flashing through her own series of seals until she drew back her head firing twenty balls of fire out in succession. Only two managed to score a hit, but when you needed fifty you didn't complain.

By her count Izur had already scored eleven hits on the Jounin and she had added three now. Fourteen hits in four hours wasn't that bad considering that they had also been concerned about being injured themselves.

She jumped forwards trying to get more into the fray and as she drew back her fists and launched into the fight both her and Izur set up a taijutsu match against the Jounin. While they were seriously outmatched, with double the limbs and two different styles they were bound to find some kind of way through.

Her arms moved, first going to try and break through the guard on his face, he hands flashed through as many angles of attack she could get in while standing face to face with him. But he was simply too tall for her to try and do on a head to head match like this.

With that in mind, she made use of her smaller size moving about him, scampering like a mouse from one bit of area to the next and swinging a Kunai for various non vital parts. He strategy was to target areas that he wouldn't watch as closely because their importance was less.

Izur seemed more focused on trying to end the fight in one quick swoop and it was earning him more attention. She however swung with her right handed kunai bringing it towards his arm but he caught her wrist turning it and throwing her off to the left, however she managed to twist in the air and let loose three shuriken that she had left.

Hitting the ground and sliding she charged back forwards, diving forwards she hit Masaru's legs knocking them with enough force that he would have completely lost his balance had he not relaxed into the hit.

Now as he fell she placed two kunai into his left arm pushing all the way through, but before she could pull out she found herself flying having been hit with his Zanbatou. But it hadn't even ripped through her clothing, just sent her off with a loud crash through a tree.

She blinked blearily to see Izur heading out towards her taking the momentary lull in the fight to get on with the plan. Which reminded her of what she was supposed to do, too bad she was just too tired to remember all of the details.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Noon found four badly beaten and exhausted shinobi scarfing down their lunches, the genin had not managed to 'kill' their sensei but then neither had he managed to kill them. When only a half an hour had been left they had finally gotten him over to where Hachiro was and he had gotten to join in on the fight.

Upon finally seeing him, Masaru had gone twice as hard on the older male genin then on the other two to try and wear him out faster. It had worked, marginally. It would have worked completely if it hadn't been for the innumerable amount of traps that the genin had laid.

Even then Masaru had managed to avoid many of them taking few hits and dishing out even worse ones after wards. It had all in all been an excellent training session to test his Genins abilities and he felt confident that he could put them against any lesser genin and they would kill him without losing one of their own.

They would become seriously injured but it wouldn't matter, because they would have still lived through the experience. After ten minuets of a comfortable silence in which all four had been thinking of the battle and what they may have done wrong. And eaten, Masaru leaned back and spoke.

"So what do you guys think could have gone better?" Izur was the first to respond, and as always arrogant. "You could have held back less, by my count we only needed a few more hits and you would have been killed." Masaru grit his teeth in anger getting ready to smash the kid back into place when Leiko spoke up.

"He's right Masaru-Sensei. It was hard but you still should have ended up killing us before time was up." Over the last few days of watching and spending almost twelve hours a day with these genin he'd gotten to know them well and Leiko was not someone to say such a thing to a superior.

Despite the fact that her name meant 'Arrogant' she was not, and she took her training seriously. So instead the Jounin nodded, "Fine, next time we'll have a battle in which I will not hold back at all. Fair?"

The genin nodded, and with their conversation over Masaru went to thinking about what to do next. "All right for the rest of the day we're gonna work on Stealth, Tracking, and Ambushing techniques." The sudden interest in Hachiro's eyes told him that this was obviously something that the three found interesting.

He had already labeled the three for what they were, Hachiro was Stealth, Leiko was Ambushing, and Izur was Tracking. Though admittedly all three were proficient in the three categories those were the ones that they were the best at over all.

"So to start…"

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"So how is your team?" The same older man sat with a different young man this time, only this one was far more confident.

"Outstanding sir. I think you'll like all three of them." The man's confident tone was no surprise but his words were, the elder man had not expected this.

"Really? Why do you say this?" His tone was curious, and he managed to keep any challenge out of his voice. "Eh? Well first of all, the Oonishi boy is stealthier then most Jounins, in fact I rarely ever sense him and he's a genius strategist. Only a mild tactician and his Genjutsu is amazing. Some work and he could take your job sir."

He paused thinking for a moment before continuing, "The Fukazawa girl is a good tactician and strategist not really outstanding in either. She's the most rounded of the three, good Genjutsu and taijutsu and slightly better ninjutsu. A bit of work and she would make a great Hunter Nin."

The younger shinobi grinned, with what was obvious malice. "And the Himiloh boy, plain and simple understanding here. He's a genius tactician, better then the Niidaime Raikage sir. Though his strategy skills need a lot of work, his stealth, tracking, and ambushing skills are over chuunin level but that was to be expected. His clan is the premier assassination clan after all. He prefers Taijutsu with an emphasis on Ninjutsu, though his Genjutsu is still above average for a Genin."

The man paused again, not to think but to take a breath, "I believe his father has been teaching him a lot of techniques and ensuring that he can hold up his clan name. He'll make ANBU one day no doubt."

The elder shinobi nodded, feeling mildly surprised by his old students convictions. "You are positive?" His old student didn't hesitate, just nodded sharply. "Yes, I am. I'm sure these three will hold high positions in their life."

The man nodded and waved a dismissal at his student, turning back to his work he considered what he should do about the newest crop of genin. "Oh by the way, congrats and becoming the head of our ANBU sensei."

With that the man disappeared and Kumogakure ANBU Leader shook his head with a chuckle.

Next Chapter: Monkey See, Monkey Do