Chapter Twenty-Five
Three Way Split
Yomiko frowned as she and her fellows, Kotaro and Naomasa sat in the shade of the park.
The fact that their sensei had pretty much slacked off over the past three days had, she supposed, hurt them in the long run. But it had been a pleasant three days, over which Yomiko had recounted time and time again her epic adventure to her mother, whether or not she asked to hear it.
She might have . . . embellished a bit more each time she told it. But she was still a twelve year old girl, she could get away with things like that.
And over the three days the three of them had mastered the whole no-hands tree climbing thing, maybe today their lazy sensei would teach them to walk on water. He'd mentioned it before but he hadn't actually taught it to them.
But whatever the case Shikamaru sensei had ordered them all to the park today for the continuation of their training.
And he was late.
Of course now Yomiko knew why. Because his girlfriend was in town.
Since Yomiko was a bit of a romantic at heart, she'd forgive her sensei this once. But just this once.
When he finally showed up he greeted them warmly enough, "Good morning you troublesome little miscreants."
"It's practically afternoon. Can we have lunch?" Kotaro asked.
"Don't know, don't care." Shikmaru said, "I'll only take up a bit of your time, Hatake, then you can do as you will."
"Okay . . ." Kotaro said.
"But aren't you going to train us?" Nao asked.
"No. Isn't that great?" Shikamaru sensei smiled.
"Uh . . . do you want the honest answer?" Yomiko asked.
Shikamaru shook his head, "I told you once if you became proficient with clones that I would teach you the Shadow Clone Jutsu. Well on our last mission you all displayed excellent clone proficiency so it's time for me to live up to my end of the bargain."
Shikamaru cracked his knuckles, "This is a Jounin level technique, few Genin can learn it, and to my knowledge only one person ever mastered it overnight, so don't expect to manage that yourselves. Further mastery, being able to make a clone at a certain percentage of your chakra instead of the full on perfect split requires even more time, but if Naruto can do it you can too."
Yomiko squirmed in her proverbial seat, she couldn't believe it. She was going to know a Jounin level Jutsu!? She'd make all the other Genin in her class jealous.
Except Taro and Nao of course, they'd be learning it too.
But she'd master it first. She'd show them all how awesome the Sarutobi clan was.
"But . . . you said that you wouldn't train us." Nao said.
"Allow me to explain that, Ishida. I said I wouldn't train you. And I won't Not today. Tomorrow I'll be going over it with you, but today I wanted to ease you all into the technique. I can't stress enough that this isn't kid's stuff, it's going to be hard. It could take you forever to learn it as a group. So to give you all the best chance of learning it I've decided that one on one sessions would be best. Unfortunately I've got someplace to be tonight, and we can't neglect our missions forever. I cant take the time out to train each of you in a one on one setting. So . . . I've decided to share the troublesome burden with my esteemed associates here."
Shikamaru indicated a nearby tree and a middle-aged man emerged from behind it.
He had one eye covered, his hair was stark white, though that might be due to age. It stuck up in a way that defied gravity. He wore a mask like Taro's, in fact he rather looked like Taro. He was probably in his early to mid forties. "Good afternoon." He said.
Out of the tree fell a flash of orange and gold, standing before them was the Uzumaki Naruto, best ninja in the village aside from Hokage-sama.
Yomiko nearly died of happiness. Serious training from a serious sensei, this was too good.
"Is that okay? I mean having Uzumaki Naruto teach us a technique? Aren't we your Genin? We're your problem." Nao said. Yomiko covered his mouth.
"Quiet! Don't you want to learn from the best?" She demanded.
"Actually it's perfectly all right for Jounin to swap Genin from time to time," Shikamaru said, "It's perfectly all right for other Jounin to give someone else's Genin tips and such. I helped train team Akimichi and team Yamanaka."
Team Akimichi Yomiko had met. They were all older and a little weird, but she hadn't met team Yamanaka. Unfortunately Ino-sensei's team had been wiped out just around the time that Yomiko had first been assigned to team ten, not all that long ago.
Ino-sensei was likely still recovering from the loss. Yomiko hadn't seen too much of her these past three days.
"So," Shikamaru-sensei said, "I'm splitting you up into teams, Hatake Kotaro you're going with your father, he'll run you through the basics."
"All right." Kotaro nodded.
"You know," Kakashi-sensei said to Shikamaru-sensei, "there's a reason I never taught him this Jutsu. We didn't want multiples of him running around. I'm just warning you, his mother is going to be mad at you."
"There's no way she's scarier than Temari, I can handle angry women." Shikamaru-sensei grinned, and Kakashi-sensei laughed.
"Don't bet on that." He said and he led Kotaro away.
So that left Yomiko to train with the awesome Naruto, and Naomasa to train with sensei. "All right! Now let's train!"
"Hold on." Shikamaru-sensei said. "Ishida Naomasa, you're going with Uzumaki Naruto."
Nao stared blankly at Shikamaru-sensei. "What?" He asked.
"Yeah, what?" Yomiko demanded.
"You're with me." Naruto said, "Don't worry kid, I'll have you popping out clones like it's nobody's business by the end of the day, believe it!"
Yomiko was crushed.
Somehow, deep down inside she knew it'd be this way.
Shikamaru-sensei hated her, he wanted her to be trained by the worst teacher out of the three: himself. Nao, the worst student should have gotten the worst teacher, not the best.
It wasn't fair.
As a star struck Nao and Naruto-sensei left Shikamaru's smirk taunted Yomiko. "You're not happy with the arrangement, are you, Sarutobi?"
"No duh!" Yomiko exploded, "It's not fair!"
"Why not?" Shikamaru asked.
"Well I get Taro going with his dad, I mean that makes sense," Yomiko said.
"Uh-huh." Shikamaru nodded.
"But why does Nao get a cool teacher like Naruto-sensei, and I get stuck with you?"
Shikmaru shrugged, "You still think I'm a loser, huh?"
"Look sesnsei, maybe you beat up a couple of Stone Jounin, but they were half dead, and Uzumaki-sensei could have done it too, only better."
"Okay, I'll give you that. But why shouldn't Nao learn the basics from Naruto? In the end I'll be the one teaching all three of you. But just for today we're going to go over it in pairs so that everyone can move at their own speed."
"Yeah but the best student should have the best teacher!" Yomiko said.
"You think you're the best student?" Shikamaru asked her.
Yomiko deflated a bit. Well maybe she wasn't. She had failed every test her sensei had given her up to this point. Still, she was a Sarutobi, she wouldn't just let him look down at her even if she had failed a few of his stupid tests. "I think so." She said. "Anyway, if I'm not the best, Taro is. Nao is definitely dead last!"
"I agree." Shikamaru-sensei said simply.
"Don't try to argue with me, I know I'm right I--wait, you what?" Yomiko gapped.
"I agree. Ishida is dead last." Shikamaru-sensei said, "He doesn't know any Jutsu other than what you all learned at the academy, his shuriken skill is wanting, his Taijutsu is passable but not impressive. He's the lowest rung on the group ladder and even though he's trying he just can't compare to you and Taro."
"That's kind of a mean thing to say, sensei." Yomiko pointed out.
"Maybe." Shikmaru-sensei said, "But it's true. Luckily for Ishida he's got the will and determination to do better, and given the fact that he, unlike you and Hatake, hasn't been at this his whole life, wasn't born into a ninja family, hasn't even been a Genin for very long yet, I think he shows great promise. You're all exceptionally talented actually. But Ishida needs someone to help him step up his game and get him onto the same level as the rest of you, and Naruto can do that."
Yomiko pouted, "So you're going to make Taro and me look bad by making Nao better than us."
Shikamaru sighed, "No, Sarutobi, I'm not. A single day of training under Naruto is not going to make Ishida suddenly a Jounin. Naruto is just better at teaching this Jutsu from scratch since it was the first he ever learned. Kakashi-sensei can train his own son better than I can, we're still a pretty newly acquainted team you know. You're already into practicing chakra control which will make this easier on you than anyone else, even if you're being taught by a lazy loser like myself.
"To put it simply; if you and Hatake both need to learn three difficult steps to this Jutsu, Ishida needs to learn four. The best way for him to learn those four in the time it takes you to learn those three is to have Naruto teach him. You'll all be more or less equal by tomorrow when we being training as a team, I assure you."
Yomiko pouted, but nodded. "Fine sensei. Then let's get cracking, I don't wan t to be worse than Nao at this Jutsu."
"You just don't listen. I told you you're all going to be equal."
"Yeah, sure, whatever. I just don't want to be less equal than Nao." Yomiko said.
Shikamaru shook his head. "Troublesome girl."
"Troublesome sensei! Start training me!" Yomiko demanded.
"Yeah, yeah. All right, let's get started." Shikamaru sensei said.
Yukio glared at Shiroi, she was standing across from him in a field of honor.
Well really it was kind of a barren little patch by a little lake. "This suit you, Sandbox?" Shiroi asked.
"It'll do fine." Yukio scoffed and lowered himself into a fighting position.
Shiroi's freaky eyes just watched him.
He cracked his knuckles and reached into his pouch, he'd gotten a lot of sand for this mission.
He took a bit of it and infused it with his chakra. It hardened into a Shuriken, and he unleashed it on the Hyuuga girl.
Shiroi scoffed and easily sidestepped, the shuriken slamming into the tree behind her.
Yukio threw a dozen more, one rapidly after the other, Shiroi easily dodged each and each slammed into the same tree behind her.
"Is that all you got? I thought you'd be a workout at least. Here kid, go get your little friends to help you."
"I don't need them." Yukio snapped, and held his hands out.
He called the sand back.
The shurikens flew from the tree towards him . . . but Shiroi was in their way.
They'd have to go through her to reach him, and her gaze was focused on him.
Or so he thought. Shiroi suddenly ducked at the last moment, leaning into a crouch.
Yukio dispelled the shuriken swarm, causing them to explode and litter the ground with their sand as Shiroi sprang from her crouch and came towards him so fast that for a split second she literally disappeared from view.
And then she struck him lightly in the stomach. She spun and nailed him again in the shoulder.
She struck him at high speed, her hands were blurs to him, but he felt her gentle taps as she struck him about fifteen, or sixteen times.
"Don't be too hard on him, Shiroi!" Tomoko shouted.
"There will be complications if you kill him!" Saizo laughed and Tomoko hit him.
Yukio glared, how dare that shirtless snake-lover laugh at him! He raised his hands again as Shiroi backed off.
She was standing in the sand that had once been his shuriken.
He had meant to use it to trip her up as she ran at him, as he suspected she would, but he had no idea how quickly she'd manage to reach him. He hadn't had time to command the sand.
He really wished he could use it for attack and defense, like the Kazekage. Or even control as much of it as the Kazekage. But he could just get it to harden into weapons, and return to him at his call.
But he had learned to get the sand to form things even if he wasn't holding it provided it had recently been infused with his chakra. He could make weapons . . . or snares.
So the sand around Shiroi suddenly turned into a pair of hands that reached up and gripped her ankles.
She disappeared, a log fell down and slammed into his sand.
Yukio swore and reached into his two back pouches for more sand, ripping a pair of sand knives forth and holding them in a defensive position, he felt Shiroi tap him on the shoulder and spun around to face her.
And then she kicked him in the back.
She was just too fast . . .
He brought his sand swords around to try to swipe at her, but she was already gone.
For some reason he had an urge to look up, expecting her to attack him from above next.
He looked up and saw nothing.
Suddenly his legs were swept out from under him, Shiroi lunged for him.
Her hands glowing with an odd white glow, Yukio groaned, knowing he was going to be made sorry he'd done this.
To Be Continued . . .