The next two months go by in a flash. True to my word, I've been letting my team do a D rank mission each day.
At the end of each day I have to listen to complaints from my squad. Not necessarily about the missions themselves, though that is a factor, but about the fact that they see them as a waste of time.
They have progressed phenomenally. The thing is though, they know that. It doesn't seem to be enough for them however.
I'm surprised myself, at their drive. There's not a day that goes by, that they aren't bleeding and exhausted. Between Guy sensei and me, we drive them into the ground.
According to Unkai, Yakumo has progressed so fast, she's better now than all of her clansmen at genjutsu. Barring himself of course.
Her Ido seems to grant her even latent powers. Her incredible grasp of genjutsu almost seems unnatural at times.
My idea of using premade drawings as mediums, has been a resounding success. She's able to do fantastical things.
Without her Ido unlocked however, her genjutsu has no physical effects. I stand by my earlier decision though. I'll wait until she becomes Chunin to unlock it.
In ninjutsu she has proven to be talented as well, even if not to the same degree. She can use both jutsu I taught her, well now.
Her physical ability has also grown by leaps and bounds. She admittedly had a handicap, in that before I started training her, she wasn't used to any strenuous exercise.
That's changed now. That being said, she'll never be as fast or as strong as her teammates, but that's fine. They each have their own strengths.
Her grasp of sealing has also improved. I've come to realise though, that at best, she'll one day only reach the competence level of our current Hokage.
That's about as far as someone can go who doesn't have true passion or talent for the art. Again, here she differs from her teammates.
I don't know why I'm even surprised, but Neji has taken to sealing like a duck to water. Sealing is as much a technical art as it is abstract. The technical part is where he excells.
He, in the three months that he's been my student, has actually progressed by two levels in the art. He can make both explosive and storage seals.
He's currently working on tweaking the seals he can make. The Byakugan aids him in this greatly. He can see the flow of chakra in his seals and deduce what's wrong with just a glance.
His strength and speed is coming by alarmingly fast. He reminds me of Lee and Guy sensei ironically. His work ethic that is. No doubt he'd be horrified with the comparison.
The second surprise is his talent with medical jutsu. Now from what I understand, there actually are a couple of Hyuuga that are medics here.
They however are by the book type shinobi. They will never be able to progress beyond what they are now, because they lack both the drive and the imagination.
Those are things that Neji, fortunately doesn't lack. The books I gave him were devoured fast. He finished them in two weeks actually.
The only reason it took so long, is because he had to be circumspect. He could only read the books and scrolls at the training ground. He wouldn't have the privacy at home.
It was when he finished reading, that I had him work on harder chakra control exercises. Like kunai and senbon balancing.
That was fairly tame however, compared to what I had in mind for after. I decided, on a whim, to teach both him and Naruto, the Rasengan.
It's something I learnt from going through my father's notes, which the Hokage gave to me. Just like canon Naruto, it took me a week to learn.
Unlike him though, I used shadow clones right from the start. As a result of that foresight, I can do the Rasengan one handed.
I didn't intend on spoon feeding either of them though. I explained the steps and demonstrated the end result. I used the balloon and rubber ball trick.
Fortunately, that was the exercise my dad used to teach Kakashi. It would have been a pain to come up with a completely new way, afterall, how would I explain my knowledge on how it's done.
That being said however, Neji learnt it first. As I reiterate, the Byakugan is an amazing tool. He was able to see the way my chakra moved inside the balloon.
Naruto, caught on after a day. Two days after that, he moved on to using his clones. But back to Neji, the basic Rasengan, and yes, I know.
Calling an A rank jutsu basic, the point is, Neji has better chakra control than either my brother or I. That means he could theoretically use it in ways Naruto and I can't.
Once Neji was able to use it reliably, which took about two weeks, I had him work on a new chakra control exercise. Creating a Rasengan, using just a single finger.
By that, I mean a smaller, more condensed version, to form on top of a finger. As you can imagine, it's far harder in practice than you might think.
It took about a month. From there, he was able to form the Rasengan on each of his fingers and then eventually, on all of them simultaneously.
Once he completed that, I finally judged him ready to begin practical lessons in medical jutsu. Because of the ridiculous training I put him through for control, what he did next came as no surprise.
On his very first try, he was able to revive a fish using medical chakra. It was made even more amazing, when you consider the fact that he had no real teacher.
He learnt medical jutsu, purely from reading books and scrolls. We are lucky, in that, the medical books in our village are the best in the world.
The handsigns, as well as the effects and how exactly chakra must be molded, is all included in the texts. So if you have the talent, it's possible to learn on your own.
Incredible as that sounds. He's currently working on the mystic palm jutsu. So far he can fix minor things like, lacerations and swelling and he can stop bleeding.
As you can imagine, he's enormously pleased with himself. He's one step closer to finally restarting his training with the use of the Lightning Armour technique.
Just out of curiosity, to see if he'll be able to, I've been throwing ' hypothetical ' applications of medical jutsu at him.
By that, I mean I'm trying to get him to reverse engineer Kabuto Yakushi's rapid healing technique. Once he's mastered that, the Lighting Armour will be within his grasp.
I've actually had to mentally revise their abilities in my head. The three of them are progressing even faster than I could have imagined.
By my estimation, all three of them will be at Jounin level by next year. Which is ludicrous if you think about it. Then again, they do have talent in spades.
Naruto, initially wanted to continue on learning wind jutsu. When I told him it's our father's technique though, he was beside himself.
I'm glad he took the reveal so good. He's more determined than ever, to be an incredible shinobi now.
I've had to curb stomp his idea of using shadow clones and Rasengan in continuous waves though. I won't allow him to become a predictable shinobi.
After all, those are the first shinobi to die. He uses his claws to spar with me on a daily basis. I use my sword. The ability to absorb jutsu really annoys him.
It causes him to come up with new and creative approaches each time. He'll need that ability when we finally have to face off with Kisame Hoshigaki and Nagato.
On the first day of our fourth month as a team however, after training, I have a surprise for my team once we're at the Hokage Tower.
" Team 7 would like to request a C rank mission Lord Hokage. " I say once we're in the missions office. My team looks at me with surprise.
The Hokage looks pleased however. " I was beginning to wonder when your team would finally request one. "
" You're in luck actually. We have a merchant caravan that's headed to the port city of Nobo. It's on the western side of The Land of Fire. "
" Your mission will be to escort the merchants and protect them and their cargo. Mission is expected to last no longer than two weeks. "
" You will meet the client at the gates. Departure time is in two hours. Good luck. " I nod my head and we bow and then leave.
I give the three of them instructions to pack for two weeks. I tell them I'll meet them at the gate. I make a clone, to inform Guy sensei my team won't be here for training.
I go and stock up on my favourite sweets. After all, who knows what will happen on this mission. It sounds simple enough, but in this world, it's best to be prepared for any eventuality.
In about an hour, my team and I are already by the gates. I introduce them to our client Toshiro and then we wait.
" Are you guys nervous? This will probably be the first time that you're leaving the village. " They look between themselves and shake their heads.
I smile. " Good. Now I know that on the surface of things, this is a pretty straightforward mission. Don't let that lull you into a false sense of security though. "
" Mission parameters are often wrong. Keep your guard up. Anything could happen. " They nod their heads resolutely and straighten their postures.
An hour later we set out. Things are pretty standard, until the third day when I sense a dozen people hiding in the treeline just ahead of us.
I prompt Neji to look and he informs me that they are all armed with either swords or axes. I sigh internally. Our first mission out of the village and we already encountering bandits.
I inform the rest of my team as well as the merchants. My team don't look nervous, but they have become tense.
" Our task will be to eliminate these bandits. If we don't, the next time they encounter civilians without a ninja escort, what do you think will happen? "
Now they look apprehensive. Still, after a moment they all nod in agreement. " I will leave the fighting to the three of you. I will only step in when I have to. Be careful. "
They then start planning between the three of them. Under the direction of Neji, they split up. I keep track of their locations though.
After about three minutes, they burst into action. Soon I start hearing screams and curses. Then I feel small bursts of chakra and suddenly branches and debris start flying.
After a moment,r silence falls. I create two clones to protect the caravan then I body flicker to my team.
I appear in the middle of dead bodies. Strangely enough, some of them look like they killed each other.
A few of them have no visible marks, except blood stains around their mouths, while the rest seem to have holes piercing right through them.
I look towards my team. They look slightly agitated so I give them a few moments to process their first kills. Based on what I've seen, it's pretty obvious what happened here.
Yakumo must have used genjutsu to make them fight among each other. Neji must have used the Gentle Fist to deal with his opponents.
A tap to the head or heart would have done it. As for the rest, the holes inside them are too cleanly made to have come from a weapon. If I had to guess, I'd say wind bullets.
" I know taking a life isn't easy, there's nothing wrong with feeling bad about it. In fact, it's human. There is one thing that you must realise though. "
" There are people that can't be reasoned with, who won't stop because of words. People who just enjoy hurting others. "
" If you didn't kill them, they would have just attacked the next caravan. If you look properly around the camp, you'll see what I mean. "
It's then that they finally came back to themselves. Looking around the camp proper. That's when they noticed the chains and manacles tied to trees.
Saw the discarded clothes of women strewn about the camp. That's when they realised exactly what these bandits were about.
I indicated to them that we were leaving. As they moved past me, I flashed through a number of handsigns.
Earth Style Mobile Core. The ground shuddered and opened up, taking all the bodies and their campsite. After a moment, the ground closed up again. Leaving no trace of them.
We set out again and continued our journey. Fortunately, the rest of the trip passed by uneventfully. It's when we finished our mission, that the trouble began.
I had felt a number of sizable chakra presences as we entered Nobo. I ignored it however, because none of them were particularly large.
Nevertheless, I recognised that I was feeling the signatures of shinobi. It's for that reason that I decided not to allow the three of them to wander around.
We had arrived in the city, late morning you see. After escorting the merchants to the warehouse, our mission was then complete.
Naruto convinced me to allow the team to have lunch at a restaurant. I agreed so we went to a sushi place. As we were leaving the city though, I felt them.
" Listen up you three, we're being followed. Prepare yourself. Neji? " He knew immediately what to do.
Activating his Byakugan surreptitiously, he scanned our surroundings. While I could feel their chakra, I had no idea what they look like.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him tense. " There are five of them sensei, they all have scratched out headbands. Hidden Cloud rogue ninja. "
I grimaced slightly. Just great. " Get ready, I'll make the first move. " I waited till we moved beyond sight of the city, into the treeline.
I could feel our stalkers chakra getting agitated. Likely to attack. I didn't give them a chance though.
In a instant my sword appeared in my hand, just a second before I dissapeared in a body flicker.
In a flash of fire I appeared behind the rearmost shinobi. He flinched violently as he turned around. Too late however. I ran him through and then spun my sword in an arc to deflect a brace of kunai.
" You Hidden Leaf bitch! I'll kill you! " Snarled my attacker. A kunoichi. She was running through some handsigns. I let her.
It's at this point that my team attacked. Yakumo's fireball jutsu collided with a wind jutsu of Naruto's and another of the shinobi died as a large firestorm engulfed him.
The ninja next to him was able to move away in time, but the light and heat distracted him for a moment. His last moment as it turned out.
Neji immediately appeared before him and tapped him against him head. He collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut.
I raised my brows slightly at the A rank jutsu my opponent flung at me. Lighting Style False Darkness she screamed. A beam of lightning shot towards me.
I braced myself with chakra in my legs then I activated my sword. I saw her comical disbelief as my sword absorbed her jutsu.
I didn't give her anymore time to gawk however. With a flicker of chakra, I activated the second feature of my sword while pointing it at her.
In a flash, her jutsu was sent right back at her. She managed to dodge the most of it, but the lightning still stunned her for a moment.
It was all I needed to take her head off. I looked around then. The last enemy stabbed himself in the throat, while Yakumo watched.
My team were all breathing heavily, adrenaline no doubt. After a moment though, Neji smirked. The other two followed.
" Alright, alright, you three are awesome shinobi. I think we've had enough excitement on this mission though. Let's head home. "
All three of them laughed then. " Race you guys " said Naruto and suddenly the three of them were gone. I groaned. Then raced on after them smiling.