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Special thanks to ChangeMe4574, Magic29, PepperonyOwl, ChemsF, Blu3b3rryT3a and Alice918.
Sorry about the delay! But on a happier note, my mom just celebrated her 53rd Birthday! Yay!
Also I posted a one-shot for Japan Sinks. If you guys have watched it, read my one-shot! If not, Please go dedicate a little bit of your time to it. I swear it won't disappoint.
I'm sorry about the delay, it was a tad hard to write Team 10 for some reason! I hope you guys enjoy this chapter!
Enjoy!
Narumi found herself giggling on her way back to her apartment. She had waved off Kakashi not too long ago, and now she was just thinking about her day and finding him adorable. It was funny the way he had opened up to her through the day.
Well, she said 'opened up' but she just meant he actually talked. In the beginning, it was just her talking about the kids, and he had been so different from the way he was that night she confronted him, that it had thrown her off. He had been so casual and teasing with the kids, that she felt like it was a totally different person.
She hadn't even known he could be like that.
She had to stifle her laughter so many times when he deadpanned something that he didn't even realize was funny. Over the course of the day, she had fallen back into her role of teacher and it had been...unexpected that he had sort of, fallen in line?
She had faced with so many jonins who had mocked her for being a trainer that she had been surprised to see someone actually respect her specialty.
He acknowledged her superiority in this and he had listened to every piece of advice that she had absentmindedly thrown out. He had added in some new things for her consideration, then listened when she contemplated about those additions. They had become quite comfortable by the time the training session got over. The kids were tired, and he had dismissed them for the day.
Then, they had just gone on talking even without the kids there. When he had awkwardly asked her out for a drink about her newest promotion, she had been feeling quite accommodating. They had been interrupted a few times, and she talked a few other jonin-sensei who had been delighted to interrogate her about her students too. She had even eaten after, while talking to different people, or Kakashi, when no one came over.
It had all been very casual, and she had actually been quite comfortable the whole time. While she did have friends, she didn't generally spend much time with people casually. Other than Genma. So, it had been a nice change of pace.
After they parted, she found her mind wandering to Genma, who she hadn't actually seen in a while. While they met up sometimes, they had a very casual friends-with-benefits type of relationship. They had an open relationship, mostly on his side, because she barely had much time what with her teaching the kids in the Academy, then her own training.
Genma sometimes dropped by, and she knew neither of them were romantically interested in the other. They had established that in the very beginning. Neither Genma nor her were the type of people who led people on. They were both straightforward with what they wanted.
She reached her apartment, immediately showering and changing her bandage, before ending up in her bed. She didn't even remember falling asleep after, still thinking of that one moment where Kakashi had turned to look her her with this slight crinkle at the corner of his eye while she was talking about something or the other. He had laughed then, looking at her with surprised eyes.
It had been quite an enjoyable night, to say the least.
-x-
Without the Academy taking up her days and her training, making regimes and training whichever of her kids were around taking her night, she actually ended up feeling a tad lonely. Generally this was around the time she would go looking for more missions...
But this time she didn't want to. She wanted to be around to see her kids grow stronger, to see how fast they grew and the way they utilized her training methods for themselves, even beyond the Anbu recruits.
The Anbu recruits she trained ended up good, but it was different with these kids. They were building their base with her training. They weren't just building another wall to protect themselves. They were building themselves with a part of her training that would always be with them.
How could she not find it meaningful?
She wanted to see it through. She wanted to see them grow from these buds and bloom brighter. She wanted them to enchant the world with their own brilliance.
She had been worried that she hadn't trained them well enough, that they could die easily in the bloody world out there. But she shouldn't have. If there was one thing that she loved about Konoha, it was that they would support each other when it came down to it.
There were some idiots who caused her more work, some who troubled her when she didn't need it, some who were clumsy or some who were too naive. There were some too kind, some too moronic, some too cruel. Some that might not even love Konoha, in the end. But, when it really truly came down to it, most would abandon all the shallow ideals and stand beside their comrades.
A lot of people doubted the way Konoha prioritized teamwork over all else. Konoha had many bloodline limit users, it had many ninjutsu users, many swordsmen, but even with all the skill, Konoha had never prioritized power. Kiri praised skill, Kumo valued kekkei genkai, Iwa had a hold on rare ninjutsu, Sand had unique talents and fields unheard of in any other place, but Konoha prioritized something as common as teamwork.
It didn't mean sacrificing Konoha for their comrades, though that was one way of thinking of it.
It meant, to hold the ideal of 'protect' inside everyone.
Hashirama, the First Hokage, held in him his ideal to protect the future; and so did every Hokage after him, because that was the role of Hokage. People rarely agreed with all the choices their Hokage made, but that was okay. The Hokage was supposed to protect the future, not the current generations. It was the duty of the shinobi to protect the now.
Many people saw 'The Will of Fire' as different things. But as she herself grew, forgave, mourned and protected, that was the answer she had come up with.
Protect.
She wasn't anything special. She was one of thousands. She wasn't going to be anything special in the future either. But, she was still glad she was able to protect a piece of the future, even with what little power she had.
She invited some of the other teams over to her place. If they had some trouble at home, or they wanted to meet up with their friends in different teams, they started coming over to her home. Her nights started become more lively, and she spent her days with Gai, or sometimes Genma, or Raido, or sometimes even Kakashi, who ended up inviting her along for their training every time they met.
She even started training while Team 7 trained. She had laughed for an hour when she saw Kakashi whipping their ass in a full out team vs Kakashi. She finally realized why everyone who used to watch her fight her class laughed at her so much.
If she didn't know better, she would have said Sasuke was sending shuriken her way on purpose while getting beaten to near-death by Kakashi. Sakura almost manifested killing intent at one point there.
It was pretty impressive, if she didn't count the singed eyebrows on Naruto and the pathetic death glare on Sasuke's face. Aime was getting good at dodging too. Kakashi had started sneaking in more chakra training for everyone so Aime could finally pull a Kakashi with her clones.
As in emergency escape and trickery via clones everywhere.
Kakashi used clones to escape paying his own tab on her. She never minded paying for others, so she found it hilarious, but she had heard that quite a few jonins straight up refused to eat out if Kakashi was there. She wasn't sure if she should be pitying those jonin or Kakashi's terrible communication skills.
Helping out Team 7 was always entertaining though. Kakashi and her always ganged up on the kids- quite unfairly, in their opinion- and they ended up punished so badly that they barely managed to walk back.
She was sure she would lose count of how often they were spending nights in her apartment. She had even bought more towels and futons for everyone, what with most of her kids dropping by sweaty and tired after training.
Shikamaru and Ino finally pouted her into coming to their training session, then sheepishly presented her to Asuma like a cat's gift to their master. Turned out they had been pushing for her to attend their training without gaining permission from their jonin-sensei.
Generally, it was a risk. But the ones asking were three major clan heirs and their sensei was actually a pretty laid back person.
Asuma had been in Konoha a little more than 6 months, when he was requested to take on this team as his genin. He had been planning to take it easy on them, but they had actually managed to injure a jonin.
He hadn't wasted time working them through. There weren't any teamwork exercises like Kakashi did, but there were many strategic plays. It wasn't only Shikamaru wracking his brains either. Ino and Choji were working to find different answers for the same question.
Choji had surprising out-of the-box ideas that sometimes gave Shikamaru a pause. Ino's emotional analysis was above average, but sometimes her own stubbornness was her own wall limiting herself. Shikamaru, on the other hand, had a different issue all together.
Shikamaru thought too much. He would overthink while trying to under-think, which ended up giving himself a headache. A battlefield actually gave him many variables to analyse, which helped him reach the correct goal, but his lack of field experience betrayed him quite a few times.
She had spent quite a few nights sitting on her couch with him, explaining where he went wrong. Shikamaru wasn't suited for a mediocre life, no matter what his initial life aspiration had been. He wouldn't have been able to stand it. He wasn't the kind of person to step aside and let someone else take the hard road, when he knew, he could make it easier. He was kind in his cruelty.
Perhaps, that was why he was overly attached to her. She was quite familiar with 'tough love' after all. What other sort of love had she ever received after all? Her family, her team, her students... Wasn't every one of her relationships based on tough love?
She didn't remember when it started, but maybe it had always been there. She had found so many discrepancies in his behavior from what Iruka always told her, and somehow, Shikamaru's behavior had only gotten further away from what Iruka had first told her about him. Shikamaru put in more of his effort, then more and more until he was struggling harder than he ever had in her class.
There was no doubt that he was smart. If anyone were to give him anything new to study, he would have it down in the fifth of the time it took anyone else. If Shikamaru wanted, he could have become better than Ino at her specialty, someone who was born and bred by the Yamanaka. If Shikamaru ever dedicated himself to jutsu analysis and creation, he could create a few different fields on his own.
But, he was born and bred for strategy, like his father.
If he hadn't spent so much time improving himself, learning more things, changing his own world view; she might have been defeated by her class months ago.
If she faced off against her class now, she doubted she would win that easily, or at all. They had none of the restriction the Academy had placed them under and on top of that, they had about half a month of learning under a new teacher- a jonin, at that.
So, her first day with Team 10 began with her apologizing to the jonin instructor while Ino whined at Asuma, Shikamaru coming up to her with an exhausted sigh and Choji greeting her cheerfully.
Needless to say, she could predict the entirety of how the day would go.
-x-
No she couldn't have predicted the way the day would go. She really truly couldn't have.
Asuma started his lessons after lunch and started with training their strategy, tactics and methods of operation. From what they had already told her, they usually started their training like this. Asuma gave them a task and they had to find a method to accomplish it in a given scenario, Asuma would walk them through the scenario and tell them about everything that could go wrong.
Needless to say, they were almost always dying before accomplishing their mission in those scenarios.
He had assigned them as a assassination squad instead of a search and rescue like the previous Ino-Shika-Cho, which she had found curious considering she hadn't even realized that was the direction the three of them were going to. The last time she had fought against those three, they had been sneaky and used a few tricks, but it had mostly been a frontal attack.
Asuma must have seen their direction of development. She had been with them every step so it wasn't surprising that it was hard for her to see the big picture. That was why jonin sensei were assigned after all.
By the exercises he assigned them, she realized what he was doing. A Guardian, like Asuma, was basically a bodyguard. After so long, he had to be excellent. So, he was going to teach them the tricks of his trade.
Assassination and body guarding were two sides of the same coin after all.
Ino was good at the subtleties of assassination, using subterfuge to slip under the radar. Shikamaru, on the other had, had taken a liking to body guarding. He liked planting ambushes on people who thought they had won. Choji was the one who was good at finding out Ino's tricks, even better than Shikamaru. He was empathetic and he instinctively understood when someone had ill intention. He had a well developed sixth sense.
While Shikamaru saw the world with facts, Choji used his instincts just as well.
Perhaps this was why they were turning out to be the most surprising team out of all her students. Like most of the students, they didn't manage to show off all their skill and develop them to their potential in her class, restricted as they were.
Now, without the rest of the class to make up for their weaknesses, they had to become all rounders themselves.
In Narumi's class, they had developed their strengths and recognized their own weaknesses, while developing their skills of teamwork with anyone they were thrown together with.
Even now, she knew that her students were learning about their new comrades, so as to not be a hindrance in any actual battle. Of course, Genin wouldn't voluntarily be thrown in any dangerous situations, but it had already been a decade since peace between the Nations started. It wouldn't be surprising if war were to start up anytime soon.
Just by knowing something about their allies, they had a major heads up in case of an invasion or war. Most jonin could do that by sheer experience though. She could look at someone and predict the kind of combatant they were, made much easier if they were of Konoha.
It was also why it was both easier and harder to fight missing nin from their own country. You could predict them, but they could predict you too.
It was another reason why missing nin from Konoha didn't last long. They were hunted down unless they were overwhelmingly strong like Orochimaru or Itachi. There were a few hidden ones too, but overall, Konoha had the lowest number of missing nin. Though the few that were out there, were the truly dangerous ones.
A squad like the newest Ino-Shika-Cho could be the ones going after A or S ranked missing nin, after a few years, of course. Maybe even a decade. S ranked nin were hard to handle even in the peak of a shinobi's life.
Nonetheless, the light dimmed into evening and that's when Asuma offered her his attention with a wicked grin.
"How about you show them how it's done with a practical exercise, Narumi?" Her eye twitched, but she gave in when she felt the students boring a hole through her head with eager eyes. She was glad she hadn't expended much chakra, because with a training field, a Nara level intellect, and the teamwork of one of the greatest teams of the batch present, she was going to have a hard time.
A very hard time, she rephrased internally, looking at Asuma's hidden grin and Shikamaru's sly smirk.
So to rephrase her earlier statement, no she couldn't have guessed how the day as going to go. She hadn't had any idea that she was walking right into a trap. Abet a mostly harmless one.
The night was basically a wild goose chase, where Narumi stumbled over pre-set traps, ambushes, disabled genjutsu she almost hadn't found, and had a lot of mind-numbing action- thank you Ino- and managed to get by without getting captured by either of the three.
They ended up expending too much effort into capturing her and ended up exhausting themselves.
Well, Asuma did tell her to do a runaway missing nin simulation for them, since that was their topic of the day. So she didn't give them much of a leeway in that regard. They were fine as long as they had a stable location, but they were terrible at chase and capture.
Ino-Shika-Cho was originally a rescue and capture squad, but this newest version was surprisingly not as good as she had been expecting. Though, it shouldn't be much of a surprise considering she had taught them survival combat and Asuma had just started teaching them about the more advanced techniques.
They had good tricks up their sleeves but it wasn't blended in to their fighting style by experience just yet. They needed to do more of the searching type missions, and improve their own stealth, of course.
After the exercise, Asuma made them play the whole chase out and pointed out mistakes they made. He even pointed out a few things she should have been aware and more wary of- Ino's new genjutsu skill, and Shikamaru's blending with the shadows- along with things she could do better- be more aggressive to pursuers.
She might have ended up a tad more wary.
But, she was a little disappointed too.
Asuma was good, but somehow Kakashi- with her trouble children- were ahead of them.
In the past few weeks, Kakashi had improved their skill level tremendously without giving them a single one of his revered thousand jutsu. She had been right there watching them.
But she had actually been expecting more improvements from them than what had she had seen. They were good, but. Not that good.
It was interesting to develop them as shinobi by teaching them to use the cover of the night, but the dark was also a Nara's comfort zone. He should have held it at mid-day, under the blazing sun, where every shadow would be seen.
Asuma was developing them mentally and physically, but it was still lacking.
She laughed under her breath.
She finally understood why they had insisted on bringing her into their team training.
So after training ended, she called Asuma away from under the watchful eye of the team, and ruthlessly tore into him for letting their talents go to waste.
All three were receiving training from their clan, but Asuma wasn't just supposed to show them to work as a team, he was supposed to help them grow as shinobi as well. What was with this wastage of potential? Asuma had spent two weeks with his team and he hadn't even had a proper talk with them. He hadn't realized Choji's self consciousness, and if he had, well, that was even worse!
He was letting Choji lag behind his team.
Un. Acceptable.
She broke down every part of his training and its purpose, and reconstructed the whole thing from base up. She spent two hours pointing out every single flaw he had as a teacher and how to fix it. He better fix it or next time it would be Shikaku on his ass instead of their Academy instructor.
He sat speechless for about five more minutes after she finished talking, before asking for a pen and paper and writing all her tips down from memory.
In the end she concluded that anyone who could take her tearing into them and actually use the advice instead of dissing back at her had to be one heck of a good person.
So. Yeah. Finally. Done. Team 7 and Team 10 first meet is done!
What do you guys think? Should I write a training for the major teams? If yes, then which teams would you like to see?
ChangeMe4574: Well, Wave arc might or might not happen. But if it does, it might take a while!
Magic29: I'm glad you liked it! I hope you like this chapter too!
PepperonyOwl: I'm glad you're enjoying Kakashi's journey of growth as a teacher! No girl is gonna be taken lightly in this fic!
ChemsF: Thank you so much! I'm really glad you enjoyed this fic so much! I'll try my best to keep a better update schedule so you can enjoy it more!
Blu3b3rryT3a: Danzo haters YAY! Yup, Yup, Kakashi li~kes her. The teams are badasses! And Narumi is still in the thick of it! Sorry, Kakashi! You don't get her all to yourself! (Not that he ever would, the kids have more claim on her than him! Hehe)
No, Kizashi has someone else as their jonin sensei. Anko is still tokubetsu jonin. It was just the petty revenge of his jonin to throw the whole team in the forest of death as revenge for being humiliated by genin.
Alice918: Thank you so much! I'm so glad you liked it!
PLEASE CONTINUE TO REVIEW!
You guys are all so sweet! Thank you guys so much for the love!