"So, who do you think will be on what team?" asked Sakura of Ino as they looked around the class. Most of the others were sitting there, too nervous to talk, but the two girls at the back decided to break their own tension with a bit of gossip.
"Well, I already know I'm gonna be stuck with Lard and Lazy," commented the white haired kunoichi, motioning towards the pair, who were sitting off to the side. Choji was, as always, eating, this time from a bag of chips he'd brought in with him. Shikamaru looked like he was napping in his seat, but both girls noticed his eye open ever so slightly at the sound of his name, before it closed again.
"Yeah, that's not fun. Ooh, you think I'll be on the team with Sasuke?" asked Sakura after thinking about it for a moment. Ino just shook her head. She didn't see what Sakura saw in that boy. He was a bit withdrawn, sure, but he wasn't the broody sort that most girls loved. He was also a total hard ass when it came to the matches, heck, he'd used the final tests just to bump himself up to the top rank in the whole class.
"If you do, that means you'd be on dog boy's team too. Is that really worth it?" asked Ino, and Sakura seemed taken aback by the revelation. After all, it was common knowledge that the best, and the worst, tended to be paired up on Genin teams, to balance them out. Looking down over the class, Sakura studied the two boys, Sasuke, sitting there, his face a stone mask, showing nothing, while Kiba seemed to be really asleep, given his snoring.
"Totally worth it," whispered Sakura, before the door at the front of the class opened, and Hizashi, Itachi, Mizuki, and three others walked in. The three, a woman and two men, wore no standard uniform, but all had the head protectors to show off that they were ninja of the leaf, and lacking the vest, well that tended to mean that these would be the Jonin instructors, causing the entire class to fall quite, as Kiba was awoken by Akamaru kicking his ear with his foot, and Shikamaru just sort of popped up.
"Alright students, it's time for the next phase of your training. Today you will be assigned a Jonin instructor, and your team numbers. It took us all night to come up with this list, so you lot better appreciate it," said Itachi with a sly grin on his face, before motioning towards the ones beside him.
"First team, Team Seven, Jonin Instructor, Umino Iruka, the Barrier Ninja," as he said this, a very kind looking man stepped forward, a set of three scars on his face forming a star shape that looked like he'd only barely avoided getting his eyes cut out. The class, respectfully, kept silent as the man gave them a bow.
"Team Seven's members will be, Inuzuka Kiba, Haruno Sakura, Uchiha Sasuke. Please step forward," the three students got up as their names were called, and then walked towards the front of the class, Sakura trying not to grin back and Ino as she stood between her teammates, and bowed deeply to her new sensei.
"Thank you for agreeing to teach us," the three said in unison, accompanied by a bark from Akamaru, before they all turned, and stood at perfect attention, facing their classmates.
"Second Team, Team Ten, Jonin Instructor, Sarutobi Asuma, Master of Blades," as he said this, another man stepped forward. Where Iruka was warm and inviting, this guy seemed a bit more laid back. He looked like he would rather be anywhere else right now, and a cigarette in his mouth formed a small pillar of smoke coming from his head.
"Team Ten's Members will be, Nara Shikamaru, Akimichi Choji, Yamanaka Ino," as this was said, each of the named students rose from their seats and walked to the front of the class, without Itachi's prompting. One could hear a whispered, 'troublesome', but you couldn't be sure if it was coming from Shikamaru or Asuma. Regardless, the three stood in front of the man, and bowed deeply.
"Thank you for agreeing to teach us," they said, just as the others had, in unison, as they had been told to do.
"Third team, Team Fourteen, Joinin Instructor, Yuhi Kurenai, Mistress of the Mind," at this, the only kunoichi stepped forward, grinning at the four remaining students, all of which wondered who would be left behind.
"Team Fourteen's Members will be, Hyuga Hinata, Yuy Heero, Uzumaki Naruto, Aburame Shino," he said this, and several eyes turned a bit wider as they faced him. The four, of course, needed no prompting to rise from their seats, surprise showing on Hinata and Heero's face, while Shino was impassive, and Naruto seemed too excited to really care, as he rushed down to stand in front of her.
"Oneesan, it's great to see you again," said the blond boy to her, and she smiled at him, while rubbing her fingers through his hair.
"You too, Naruto, but isn't there something you should say to me first?" she asked, and then Naruto seemed to remember where he was, bouncing back to stand with his three teammates.
"Thank you for agreeing to teach us," said the four, Naruto and Heero a bit faster than the other two, before they leapt forward, and hugged the woman. The teams were then taken by their Jonin out of the Academy. Iruka lead his team towards a training ground, urging the kids to keep up with him as he leapt through the town. Asuma, meanwhile, seemed to just be strolling lightly as he took his group towards a restaurant he liked in town. Kurenai was in agreement with Asuma, though she took her group to a cafe on the side of the village, instead of a full restaurant. Here, she took a seat, and had everyone order drinks, before they got down to the business at hand.
"So, I'm sure you're wondering why there's four of you in this team," she said at last, as she sipped at a cup of tea. The students, trying not to react, just nodded at her.
"The truth of the matter is, it's a case of politics getting involved in the Academy. Normally, when a class has too many graduates, the extras are either sent to an older team that has a vacancy due to promotion or injury. If no teams are available, then you simply hold back the last student in class for a year, and let them get a bit better, before making them Genin," she explained this, as the students began to understand.
"Politically, we were a class of mostly clan heirs, failing one of us would have been a sign of favoritism, as there were certain members that simply couldn't be cut," said Shino, finishing the thought they were all having.
"Indeed. To cut any of the heirs would have been problematic, yet each of the other options had their own problems. Since I already have a connection to two of you, it was my decision that I could handle a four man formation," she told them this as she drained the last part of her cup, and gently set it back down int the saucer.
"As such, I expect each and every one of you to give me your best. I'm putting my reputation on the line with this team, and if any of you fail to live up to the expectations of the village, or myself, I will make you regret it," as she said this, her red eyes flashed, even in the bright afternoon light, causing her Genin to swallow a little, before nodding solemnly.
"Good, we have an understanding. Tomorrow morning, report to Field Twenty-Two at eight a.m. sharp. There, I will see what I have to work with, and we shall begin to plan out both our daily schedule, and how to go about making you the best damn team in Konoha," saying this, she made a single hand seal, and vanished. Not even the kawarimi could make one do that, as it would leave an object of equal mass in its place. She, however, was just gone, causing her students to stare at the spot where she had been.
"So, that was your Oneesan?" asked Hinata, setting her own cup down in front of her.
"Yep, and she's just as good as I remember. She'll be able to teach us loads of tricks. She's the master of genjutsu, and I bet she could kick the butt of anybody in the village if she set her mind to it," said Naruto with a note of pride in his voice for his 'big sister'.
"Interesting," was all Shino said as he pushed his glasses back up his noes. The four stayed at the cafe for a while longer, discussing things of about the school, and their thoughts on the coming trails from Kurenai, before everyone went their separate ways. Heero and Naruto decided to go to bed early that night, rather than train. Shino had dinner with his parents, his father encouraging him to keep up with his schoolmates, while his mother heaped praise upon him for passing his class, while encouraging him to bring his squad over some time. Hinata meanwhile spent a large portion of the night in her clans training hall, her father running her through the basic stances, and then testing her himself. As was predictable, she lost the fight, with the older ninja wiping the floor with her. He still complimented her technique though, noting that she did better than last time, before allowing her to go to bed.
The next day found the rising sun at six a.m. greeting a set of four new Genin on training field Twenty-Two. They had arrived almost to a minute, and spent several hours working with each other, planning things that ranged from group strategies involving all their particular skills. From Hinata's eyes, Heero's claws, Naruto's clones, and Shino's bugs, every resource they had was put on the table. They began to run through various scenarios, making crud pictures in the dirt in front of them, and moving rocks and sticks around to represent forests, mountains, and a dozen other things besides as they went from retrieving a single document hidden in a base camp, to assaulting a mountain fortress. Heero even threw in fighting giant monsters with giant robots, one of his and Naruto's favorite shows having that be a major feature of it.
Six turned into seven, and finally eight, as the students stood back up, each staring towards the village with expectant eyes. Less than a minute later, Hinata tapped out a signal on her thigh with one arm, causing Naruto to crouch down as he gathered up chakra into his body, focusing it inside himself, gathering the stuff into a tiny ball in his chest. Without saying a word, he released that pent up ball of power, allowing a wash of chakra to spread over the area, which soon blew away the image of the trees in front of them, the genjutsu projection shattering beneath the onslaught. When it was cleared away, a woman was standing there, possibly having been there for a few minutes, but not much more, and her eyes seemed dazed, the normally wickedly sharp reds, dulled to an almost pink hue for several seconds, before she was able to shake herself from her doldrums and stand up straight, staring at them.
"Hmm, a chakra pulse, just like I taught you," she said as she came to her senses. The Genin in front of her didn't react as she chuckled at their form. Obviously, they had learned a few basic signals in class, and had come up with a few non-verbal ones of their own.
"A chakra pulse is the best method of dealing with genjutsu that's being used to conceal an opponent. It will not only disrupt the illusion, but since a concealment genjutsu is anchored to an opponent's own chakra points, it will forcefully rip the illusion away, disorienting the foe for several seconds," said Naruto in a text book manner. Of course, for anyone but him, that answer was wrong, as pulses like that tended to be draining affairs. Even the one he'd just made, of only about twenty meters, could have seriously crippled a Chuunin's chakra reserves, and even some Jonin couldn't have hacked it. For Naruto though, there wasn't the slightest sign that he even felt the drain on his chakra as he stood there.
"An excellent point, and an excellent maneuver," she complimented, as she motioned her trainees into the center of the training ground. There, she stood for several seconds, looking them over with her once again crimson gaze. Whatever she was looking for, she seemed to have found, as she nodded to herself, and then reached into a hidden pocket in her robes, pulling out a small figure.
"Alright then, you've passed the first test, in near record time I might add. So I'm going to give you the second now, and you had better pass it, otherwise I'm going to have to send all four of you back to the Academy to train for another year," she declared this, and expected it to affect them somehow. Instead, they just stood there, awaiting her commands like good little ninja. She wasn't sure what to make of that, considering she hadn't seen her boys in almost a year, but she silently complimented Itachi and his fellow teachers for ingraining in those two the same stoicism that had already been a part of Shino and Hinata.
"In my hand, is a token. It's just a simple little thing, carved of common jade. I want you to take it from me," she said, holding the thing closer to them so they could clearly see it. The green thing was in the shape of a mahjong tile, with the Leaf emblem carved into the nearly translucent surface.
"Are there any restrictions on what tactics we might use?" asked Shino.
"I would have to say none, though I do intend on living to a ripe old age, so you might want to go easy on me and avoid a killing blow," she said this, and got a series of nods. Then Shino started snapping his fingers. It had to be a code of some sort, though it wasn't one she recognized as everyone on the field nodded. Then Hinata started to snap as well, Shino going faster as she did, as if they were having some kind of argument, at least until Heero snapped once, cutting them both off.
"When do we begin, Kurenai-sensei?" asked the silver haired boy, bowing towards her in respect.
"Any time you want," she told him with a smile, leaping away, slipping the tile into one of her hidden pockets, and landing a good twenty meters from her previous position, expecting them to leap at her the instant she said that. Instead all of her new genin leapt away themselves, putting almost thirty meters between her and them, as the snapping resumed. Oddly, Heero did not join in with it, before he made an odd looking hand seal, covered by Naruto's body so she couldn't see it.
"P-2-R!" shouted Heero finally, and then dropped into a crouched battle stance. Watching him, she kept a wary eye on his compatriots, trying to make sure he wasn't a distraction of some sort. Then red chakra surged out of his body, the Genin uniform he wore taking on an odd, bloody coloring from the stuff.
"Speed of the Phoenix!" he screamed, and then vanished. Kurenai was aware, somewhere in the back of her mind that a breeze passed by her face, and then she turned around to find Heero there, smirking at her. Before she could really process that, a huge explosion went off in her ears, while a force like a train seemed to slam into her, disorienting her and tossing her backwards. If she had kept looking she would have seen Heero's eyes roll back into his head, only for his green uniform to vanish in a puff of smoke, replaced by Naruto's orange one. A single ram seal, and she was faced with twenty of the blonde boy's forms charging from that position, her own body flying right into the group of them. All of this took a single heartbeat, and made the kunoichi proud to have helped start these boys on this path.
Not that she made it that easy for them, twisting in the air in the way only a true ninja could do, and bringing her foot down on one of the copies faces. Luckily, as the report had told her, he could only make a few of those super clones, and so her foot popped the first it came into contact with, and the rest she dealt with using only two thrusts of her arms, tossing needles in a rain over the position. Unfortunately, none of the Narutos were real, the twenty popping as soon as they were touched by the simple weapons, leaving her alone on the grass as she turned towards the position of the other students. Her eyes were able to lock onto Hinata and Shino, as well as behind them, a Naruto escorting an unconscious Heero from the battle.
Quickly she thought up a dozen strategies that would have disabled all of them at once, but decided to give them a fighting chance, and instead bolted forward, moving so fast that she might have seemed to vanish. The team was ready for her though, as the instant she got into range, Hinata leapt towards her, her fingertips shining in that way only the Gentle Fist style allowed. If even one of those blows was allowed to connect, the chakra in the fingers would flow into her, sealing up her own chakra network, and possibly even paralyzing her, so Kurenai didn't allow that touch to happen, instead grabbing Hinata's wrist and then spinning on her heel, causing the girl, who had been overbalanced forward, to go tumbling, even as her foot swung upwards, becoming a brace on which she could hold the Hyuga heir, leveraging her momentum into a powerful kick that sent the white eyed girl flying into the nearby trees.
Kurenai, before she had even finished the backflip she'd used to toss Hinata, spun in the air again so she was facing forward as Shino, a group of three Narutos came at her. They struck as one, Shino's feet going for her knees, while the Narutos tried for a one-two-three combination attack, designed so that if she dodged any of the other two strikes, the third would definitely hit her. Of course, that sort of strike required that she was in the same position when they reached her, but instead of striking her down, the kunoicih pulled out the needles again, flinging two at each of the Narutos' knees, the joints locking up around the hits, and causing all of them to tumble forward. The heap of limbs tangled themselves around each other, while Shino charged onward, his fists held in the mantis position as he got within range, and tried to power through her defenses.
Of course, the mantis style of taijutsu was not without its flaws. Every blow from that stance had to be prefect, cutting down the foe with sharp strikes like the insect for which it had been named. If even one strike failed to hit home, you would leave yourself open to a counterattack, and as Shino struck, he found himself striking at only empty air as Kurenai simply hopped over his attack, and then made a single hand seal in the air. As she landed, she sent chakra from her hand, into the ground, while her voice rung out with the attack name. The doton jutsu was a simple one, her will grinding the earth and dirty into a slippery bit of oil, a puddle of which formed from the point she'd touched the ground at, and the slick spreading quickly. The three Narutos, just starting to pull themselves apart, found the stuff lapping at their position, and suddenly the ground held no traction for them, causing them to get swamped back together, and then pushed away until they slammed into a tree.
Shino, meanwhile, found his stances could not hold up, as he first tried to back away from the growing puddle, only to find that it seemed to follow him as he got farther away, finally hitting his feet, and causing him to slip right out from under him, landing on his backside with a splat sound. Kurenai was on him in an instant, and manacles of earth sprouted out of the dirt, holding him firmly against the ground at his wrists and ankles. He, of course, tugged against them the instant they were on him, but he found the bindings as solid as stone, and began to snap his fingers again, telling Kurenai that this fight wasn't over. She was proved correct when two dozen Narutos charged from the trees, some of them using the substitution jutsu to somehow teleport towards her, a feat she would not have believed if she had not seen it, as she had to block dozens of incoming blows.
Each strikes was almost flawless, like the clones could see through each others mind. She idly wondered if he might have picked up a technique that would allow that, as she seemingly effortlessly dodged through the series of attacks, turning a punch here, blocking a kick there, like she was a dancer working through a routine. Said routine soon allowed her a moment to strike back, her left foot colliding with a Naruto's jaw, sending him flying backwards, where he bounced on the ground, then rose up. He didn't even seem to feel the welt growing on his fact, and instead jumped right back into the fray, making her wonder just how powerful these clones were, so she tossed them aside with a single wind technique, and struck again, this time deliberately aiming for the clone she had struck at first. To her surprise, this time the clone just popped, at the barest touch of her fist, turning into a cloud of smoke around her.
That was incredible. Naruto had apparently learned how to create clones capable of taking a single hit. That must have required a control of his chakra usage that, while not that incredible as it was probably still more than a Jonin used, it meant he was getting better. Before she could really consider the implications of that, the other clones attacked again, recovering from her gale force wind blow away, and resuming their attack. What's more, even more Narutos came from the woods around her, adding more fists and feet to the melee around her. Sighing, she decided to end this, and pulled out a single kunai from her pouch. Rather than throw the thing she leapt upwards, the Narutos staring after her, not sure of whether to follow, or to let her land.
She didn't let them have the chance to decide. The whole point had been, of course, to get their eyes on her. The gaze of the clones was caught easily, and with a single hand seal, the Mistress of the Mind cast a genjutsu. A trained ninja might have closed their eyes, or thought to turn away, but Naruto was despite his power, still just a trainee, so his gaze never wavered, his stare connecting with her red eyes. Chakra rushed out of those orbs, a wave of the stuff colliding against the clones, who all seemed to waver on their feet, and then collapse onto the ground. Some popped as they fell, their chakra already depleted by the fight, others created a racket as they snored.
Kurenai, satisfied with the result, landed amid the pile of bodies, and turned towards Shino. As she had expected, one of the clones had used kawarimi to switch with him. She didn't let that bother her though, as she focused inward, and then outward, letting her senses expand to fill the clearing, and then move into the forest. The Byakugan and the Sharingan might be able to see around solid objects, but far too many ninja seemed to forget that you had other senses, other ways to track down your target. Listening to the forest, she heard the sounds of the animals around her, and then, after a few seconds, she could hear it. The subtle bamf noise of more clones being created greeted her ears, and the kunocihi smirked to herself as she opened her eyes again, before rushing forward.
The trees exploded with a hundred more Narutos, and some Shinos, Heeros, and Hinatas as well, all with their eyes closed. Not that they seemed very impeded by the lack of vision as they charged forward. They did only seem to move in small groups, rather than attacking all at once, maybe five at a time, and their movements a little stilted. Still, every one she popped was instantly replaced by another, the flow of combat coming easily to them. She didn't give them any sort of chance this time though, plowing through the middle of their formation, and doing several rapid spinning kicks into them. None of these clones were more than the basic type, so they exploded satisfyingly with every strong blow, and she entered the woods around the training area as the last of them fell to her.
She leapt into the trees, and then used the limbs to vault herself faster than her legs normally could, landing amid the four Genin with her kunai drawn, even as they prepared to leave their hiding spot. Shino was still a bit slow, thanks to his earlier fight with her, Heero was unconscious, and Hinata seemed to have hurt her back, probably having slammed hard into one of the trees when she was tossed into the woods. Naruto was the only one still up at one hundred percent. As such, he drew his own kunai and charged her while the other two grabbed Heero and tried to make a break for it.
Kurenai gave them only a second before she began to go through hand signs. First a raiton, her fingers crackling with lightning as she touched the tip of Naruto's blade, sending a pulse of electricity into him that made him slump to the ground. She then did a simple doton technique she released through her feet, quickly liquefying and then hardening the ground beneath the feet of Hinata and Shino, trapping them. She was on guard for any or all of them to disappear in a puff of chakra smoke, but surprisingly, none of them did, instead, the two trapped in the earth tugged at their ankles for a second, trying to free themselves, before gently setting Heero on the ground, and turning their necks to face her.
"We acknowledge you caught us. We well not try to flee anymore," said Shino, and Kurenai smiled again. She knew far too many genin that might try to keep fighting in this hopeless situation. That was, in fact, the point of the test. Some fights were unwinnable, and you had to be able to recognize them. The mission always came first, in every hidden village, but in the Leaf there was no honor in throwing your life away. After all, bad assignments happened. A single piece of flawed intelligence might...her thought train derailed as she allowed her students release from the ground, and Naruto rose to his feet. Her thoughts weren't derailed by that though, instead, they were derailed by her hand going to first one pocket of her suit, and then another, looking for the leaf tile.
"Looking for ~cough~, these?" asked Naruto, coughing out a bit of steam as he held out his hand, revealing the five jade tiles she'd had hidden on her body. Obviously, that was going to require some explanations.