Naruto Primer: Teachers
Training Piñata
Our four favorite jounins were all sitting in Iruka's classroom, waiting for him to return from the storage closet. After he finished setting up for his next class, the five of them were going to go out and have a Teacher and Jounin and Chuunin Party.
"Are you almost done, Iruka?" called Gai.
"Almost!" Iruka yelled from the closet.
"You know, all this waiting kind of reminds me of…" Asuma began. "Of… of that time when Shikamaru became a chuunin! Do you guys remember that?"
The other three glared at him.
"EVERYTHING reminds you of when Shikamaru became a chuunin." Said Kakashi.
"Isn't he just the greatest ever?" sighed Asuma.
"I am SO sick of hearing about Shikamaru being a chuunin." Kurenai said.
Just then, Iruka came walking out of the storage closet with a big box in his hands. Everyone watched him walk by, struggling slightly with the weight of the box, but none of them jumped up to help him. He set the box down on his desk and began looking through it.
"Can't you look through it AFTER our party?" asked Gai.
"I have a class after our party." Iruka pointed out. "I have to be ready for the class so we can stay at the party longer."
He pulled a colorful piñata in the shape of a little horsey out of the box and set it down on the desk.
"Good god, is that what I think it is?!" Asuma gasped.
Iruka looked down at the piñata. "Um…the training piñata?" he asked.
"It IS!" said Asuma, springing up.
"Did you just say training piñata?" Kakashi said as he, Gai, Asuma and Kurenai all went over to look at it.
"I haven't used one of these since I was in the academy!" said Gai, picking it up and getting all nostalgic. "I think I want to use this for my team. I think it could really improve their ninja skills."
"Um…no, I think I want it for my team." Said Kurenai, taking it away.
"My team is older." Gai said, taking it back.
"Well my team won the competition." Kurenai argued as she snatched it again.
"MY team has a chuunin so I think that I deserve it the most!" Asuma declared as he yoinked it out of Kurenai's hands.
"And since I have the most prominent team, I should get it." Kakashi finished off as he swiped it from Asuma using his mad ninja skills.
"HEY!!" yelled all the other jounins as they leapt on Kakashi and then they all started fighting in a cloud of dust and flying paper. The piñata popped out of the mess and landed in Iruka's hands.
"Guys, this piñata is for my students." He said. "It's to help them train. Your teams don't need this because that's what you guys are for."
"Don't be so selfish, Iruka." Said Gai, standing up and brushing himself off.
"Yeah, you just want it for yourself!" Asuma chimed in.
"I thought we were your friends!" said Kurenai, crossing her arms.
"Apparently not." Said Kakashi.
"There's no reason to get mad!" said Iruka. "I'm just saying that this is a training piñata and you shouldn't be fighting over something so lame! Look, I'm almost done getting ready for the class so we can go have our Teacher and Jounin and Chuunin Party!"
"Right, so that one of those three can just sneak back in at some point, take the training piñata and then use it to train their students?" Gai said, eyeing the other three.
"Only someone who was planning an idea such as that one would be able to come up with something so ludicrous!" announced Kurenai.
"That's not going to happen." Said Iruka. "All I have to do is set up the training piñata and then we can go and have a fun time, okay?"
"OKAY!!" said everyone, including Iruka.
So, once again, the four jounins watched Iruka's toils in trying to do something by themselves when they could have easily helped him. "That knot's not going to keep it up." Asuma observed as Iruka climbed down his stepladder.
"You should be more careful with that." Said Kakashi. "Any slight bang and you never know what might happen!"
"Don't worry, I know what I'm doing." Said Iruka. "I've set up the training piñata before."
Suddenly, entirely without warning, the string snapped and the piñata dropped from the ceiling, smashing on the ground. Then, from it's mouth came four shuriken whizzing towards Iruka. Iruka sighed and went to catch them very easily but all four of our jounins jumped out in sacrifice and each caught one of their very own.
"What did I say about being careful?" Kakashi said, shaking his head.
"You could have been killed!" said Kurenai.
"Good thing we were here." Said Gai.
"Guys, I may be a chuunin but I'm not incompetent." Iruka said.
"Yeah but you know that the harder you hit the training piñata, the more treacherous the outcome is!" said Asuma.
"I know that." Iruka said. "And I dropped it. That's why only four lame shuriken came out."
"I think four is little much for you to handle." Said Kakashi. Iruka sighed and decided not to argue and JUST when he was about to suggest they go have their party, Gai put his foot on the piñata.
"For example," he said. "If I were to stomp on the piñata very hard, there would obviously be more force than if I just dropped it! Therefore, the level of attack would be much more advanced than the four shuriken that attacked you!"
"Gai, now I'm curious." Complained Asuma. "Now you HAVE to stomp on it."
"Brace yourselves!" said Gai. "I've got a hard stomp."
Before Iruka could stop him, Gai stomped on the piñata as hard as he could. The piñata opened its mouth and four piñata shadows, like Bunshins, came out. Each of the piñata bunshins surrounded Gai and shot off four shuriken at him.
"Ha!" said Gai as he dodged all the shuriken by merely jumping up in the air. All the Bunshins retracted back to the piñata.
"That piñata is very skilled in Fuiuchi no Jutsu." Said Kakashi, rubbing his chin.
"All right…" said Iruka. "Can we got to the party now?"
"Wait, I want a turn to hit it!" said Kurenai. "Let's tie it back up!" The other three jounins cheered and, with their combined effort, they tied the piñata back on the ceiling nice and secure. Kurenai got a stick from the supply closet, wound up and then smacked at the piñata.
The piñata's mouth opened and then it started to spit out purpley colored smoke.
"Look out!" exclaimed Gai. "It's poison gas!"
"We'll protect you, Iruka!" said Kurenai as they all grabbed Iruka and jumped to the ceiling using the chakra in their feet where there was no smoke.
"What now?" said Kakashi.
Iruka rolled his eyes and performed a hand seal. "Kai!" he said and, immediately, all the smoke dispersed.
After a moment of hanging on the wall, they dropped down to the floor. "That's cheating, Iruka." Said Asuma.
"Kurenai, you should know better than to hit it with the stick!" said Kakashi. "It always makes the blows weaker so something easy like poison gas comes out."
"Well, I wanted to make it seem like I was actually playing with a piñata." Said Kurenai, looking satisfied.
"I'M going to try it now!" said Asuma.
"Can we just go?" said Iruka because he knew he would have to play with the piñata with his students all day. Besides, it was kind of annoying that the jounins kept 'saving him' when he could do just fine by himself. In fact, he was the one who supervised the young students when THEY hit it so why would he need to be saved?! ARGH!
"But it's not fair that Gai and Kurenai got to hit it and I didn't…" said Asuma sadly.
"Fine, but THEN can we go?" requested Iruka.
"Well, I want to hit it too." Said Kakashi.
"THEN we can go?" Iruka asked.
"YES!" yelled the others.
Asuma cheered to himself and then leapt into the air. Flying down at lightning fast speed, he smashed the top of it. Out of the mouth came a giant net that wrapped around Asuma and then, following the net, a stream of fire came out, shooting right at him. In the midst of the fire was also a whole mess of shuriken too!!
Before this got too out of hand, Iruka got the piñata to stop and the net to disappear.
"I would have been fine." Said Asuma. "You didn't have to stop the piñata."
"You were just sitting there." Kurenai pointed out.
"That net was SO sucking out all my chakra." Said Asuma.
"Then you wouldn't have been able to escape." Iruka said.
"YOU might not have been but keep in mind that I'm a jounin." Said Asuma.
"You better not stop the piñata after I attack it!" said Kakashi. Iruka turned around to see that Kakashi was standing there with a big ball of chakra in his hand that was emitting lightning and all sorts of other scary and dangerous things.
"NO!" said Iruka. "DON'T USE THE CHIDORI ON MY PINATA!! YOU'LL DISINTERGRATE IT!!"
But Kakashi didn't listen. He wanted to top Asuma. He wanted the piñata to attack him with something SO difficult that everyone would be impressed with him so he charged at the piñata despite Iruka's pleas and then threw the chidori at it. What followed was a humungous explosion that filled the entire room.
When the smoke was all cleared, Kakashi was still standing in the same position with his hand extended and a string dangling above it. His front was all black and charred and his hair had a little flame burning on top of it.
Iruka whined a little bit as he slapped his forehead.
"Was that the attack?" said Kakashi as he stood up straight and extinguished the flame in his hair as if it was a candle.
"No, you overwhelmed the training piñata." Said Kurenai, looking sad.
"It exploded." Said Asuma, looking even sadder than Kurenai.
"I told you not to use the Chidori." Said Iruka, looking sadder than everyone else combined. "You all owe me a new training piñata."