The kunoichi should be more comfortable with the male shinobi. Thus, a request to the kunoichi to train together shouldn't be a problem.
Though not technically a date, it is rather close and can be classified as an impromptu date. If the male shinobi has gotten here then they should congratulate themselves! They are now very close to wooing their desired partner, as this is physical proof that the female is willing to trust the male with her life!
This part is a rather simple concept. The male shinobi should approach the kunoichi, engage in conversation and steer it towards training. Once so, ask if they can train together.
On acceptance, the male shinobi should take it easy on the kunoichi. Since the likelihood for the female shinobi is either a Genjutsu user or a Medic ninja, the male shinobi should not try to over do their counter-parts, lest they make them feel vulnerable.
Once the sparring goes for an appropriate duration, it can be concluded in two ways;
-take a non-threatening hit and fake an injury
-fight until both parties are tired and surrender, admitting you are too tired to continue.
"Well... I guess that's true." Naruto mumbled naively.
All the women he knew, had counted under Jiraiya's chauvinistic definition. However, he had forgotten to consider a certain weapons-specialist, a fan-using sand-sibling and a blood-lusting once-snake apprentice.
And thanks to this particular irony, the chances of him meeting all three, within the next few days, rose remarkably.
DISCLAIMER: In Soviet Russia, you own Naruto. Over here, Naruto owns you.
Single Ninja on the Town
By Arkhe
Chapter 3 : Training
Subtitle - Clash of the Tenten.
Eager to give his next piece of advice a try, Naruto waited until the completion of the day's D-rank mission before implementing what he'd learned.
"Sakura-chan!" Naruto called out.
"I'm not going out with you, Naruto." Sakura replied on schedule.
"No, no, no!" He waved his hands out in front of him. Being quick to denial had Sakura settle him with a questioning gaze and a hand on her hip.
"What? You want to just talk again?" She tilted her head to the side, an amused smile crossed her face.
"Nah! I wanna spar!" Naruto replied, bouncing up and down from one foot to the other.
Sakura scrunched her face at the thought. "Spar?"
"You choose the rules, Sakura-chan!" Naruto grinned at the prospect.
"Eh, why in the world do you want to spar now?" She groaned. "We just finished a D-Rank mission and I just want to go home and wash up."
"I'm going to be Hokage sometime, Sakura-chan! I need to learn how to fight against all different kinds of people!" Naruto replied in earnest.
"Feh. I'm going home." The pink-haired genin dismissed him and started on her way.
Desperate to get a spar with Sakura, he blurted the first thing that came to mind. "A round of anmitsu says you can't beat me!"
The shout had caused Sakura to stop. She turned her head slowly, her brows rose in curiousity. "How did you know...?" She started to ask if only slightly bewildered.
Naruto kept his arms folded and continued grinning, hoping against all hope that he would get a spar in with the girl he likes. "You game?"
Sakura fully turned around and cracked her knuckles. "Who's to say I'm not one to turn down an invitation like that?" She smirked.
The female genin began to approach her blond teammate and started laying down her rules. "Restrictions are; no weapons and academy ninjutsu and taijutsu allowed only. Anything else is instant disqualification, ok?" She punctuated the question with moving into a combatative stance.
"What!-?" Naruto whined. "That's not fa-"
He started to whine about how she outlawed his best stuff, but was cut off as he dodged a round-house kick aimed for his head, then backed off from the follow up back kick with her opposite leg. His attempt to force distance and recover, however, had him on the receiving end of more attacks, as Sakura rushed in and pressed on, this time with a faster and fiercer barrage, not allowing her opponent an inch to recover.
However, Naruto got his chance. Once the adrenaline started coursing through his veins, a grin covered his face and he spun into action. He brought in the first use of ninjutsu when Sakura next attacked and he'd been replaced with a log.
An attack came from behind her and she'd replaced herself with a log as well.
The battle went up a notch.
A few minutes into battle, Sakura noticed that many of her blows didn't seem to be slowing Naruto down and she soon realised that he would outlast her with his astonishing amount of stamina. So she reduced herself to stealth, diversion and hit and run tactics. Her blond opponent would eventually learn to watch his back.
Naruto though, played upfront. He would purposely take attacks head on and use it to be able to deliver some counter-attacks. However, his use of ninjutsu had been less than straightforward as he specialised in deceit quite well. His emerald-eyed opponent would soon learn not to take her eye off the log that Naruto 'replaced' himself with.
The battle had gone on and on and soon, Sakura was really tiring. Naruto didn't notice as he was enjoying their spar for so long that he'd forgotten what the book had said and was completely intending to take the win for himself.
However, true to her intellect, Sakura managed to devise a plan at the last second and she put it into action when she managed to counter Naruto's parry and throw him towards a tree.
Seeing the obstacle coming to meet him head on, the orange-clad ninja spun himself in mid-air, so that his feet struck the trunk, absorb the impact and prepared to push off to attack her again when...
"You lose!" Sakura laughed, pointing at him triumphantly.
And he stopped at that.
"What?" He quirked his head to the side in confusion.
"Look at your feet!" She pointed out.
He looked down. He was sticking to the tree. So what? It's not like he didn't use anything he learned outside the acade-...
Oh. He was sticking to the tree. He learned that from Kakashi-sensei.
"Damn!" Naruto swore. He'd let the chakra stored in feet seep away, allowing him to extract himself from the tree and land safely at the base.
Sakura giggled as the blond boy sulkingly approached her. Her inner-self had scolded her at being cheap for telling Naruto to stop from jumping at her, causing him to unconsciously stick to the tree, but she didn't dwell on it for long when she'd remembered that she'd soon be having a nice bowl of jelly and syrupy goodness. Besides, she rationalised, if he was just a little bit smarter, he would have atleast tried to contest her under-handed ways!
She still continued to giggle as he kept sulking when they were walking side by side towards a restaurant where she could receive her prize.
"It's not so bad, Naruto!" Sakura's melodic voice sang out in an attempt to lighten the mood. "You'll be in my presence as I enjoy my lovely hard-earned..."
Then it struck her.
Seeing his teammate pause in mid-step, Naruto stopped too and turned to face her.
The cotton-candy-haired girl turned on him with an accusing finger. "You cunning little fox!" She started, though a lopsided grin and cheerful attitude accompanied her odd choice of words.
Naruto looked around confused and he pointed to himself with a scared and questioning look.
"If you lose, you'd have to buy me anmitsu... If I lose, I'd buy you anmitsu..." She accused. "Meaning either way, we'd actually be going out. Together." She concluded. "You were setting me up for a date!"
Naruto went up to scratch the back of his head and grinned with his eyes closed. He didn't really think of that! He was only actually trying to earn a spar out of her like the book told him, though this was sounding pretty awesome too!
Sakura shook her head and rubbed her eyes, though a wry smile didn't move from her face.
"Is there something wrong, Sakura-chan?" Naruto asked worriedly.
"No, Naruto." She finally decided, straightening up with a casual smile. "I think I'll take a rain-check today on that anmitsu." She said and started heading in a different direction. "I think I'll be resting up for today, like I said I would."
Naruto bid a quiet farewell, though when his love-interest reached the next block, she turned to face him and called out.
"Don't forget that you owe me though!"
Naruto nodded and waved. Once she was out of sight, he decided on a quick lunch before heading back to his Team's meeting area. It was Friday and he'd made a promise to be training with Hinata today.
---
Much to Hinata's dismay, her teacher, Kurenai, had her stay behind after training to help the Hyuuga-heiress with various techniques. Much too polite to decline her teacher, Hinata had been training until her teacher was satisfied, and let her go, albeit border-lining late.
So here she was, sprinting as hard as she can to meet Naruto for their training session, hoping against hope that he hadn't left yet.
"Hinata-chan!"
And being ever so polite, the Hyuuga stopped to see who addressed her, further burning away at a fuse leading to her reserve storage of patience.
"Good afternoon, Ino-chan!" Hinata said with a bow.
"You're going to meet Naruto now, right?" The blond girl asked excitedly.
"Yes!" Hinata desperately wanted to move this along.
"Well, I'll come with you, like I said I would!" The Yamanaka daughter grinned.
Hinata forced a smile back. Somewhere in the back of her mind, an expletive was set off, destroying a block of reserved good will.
Hinata nervously ran a hand through her violet locks. "Well, I'm running a little late, so we'll have to run..."
---
"Hmm... Wonder what's taking Hinata so long?" Naruto wondered.
Checking his watch, he'd found that she was late by 10 minutes already.
"Hinata's not the type to be late..." He pondered. "I better go find her!" On a spur decision, he decides to run over to her training area to see if she's still there.
It was only a few scant moments when he left, that Hinata and Ino arrived.
"Damn! He's not here!" Ino exclaimed.
Hinata was too refined to murmur an obscenity, but she has been really close as of late.
"Maybe he's gone to eat?" "Maybe he went home?"
They both suggested at the same time.
Ino brought a hand to her chin in serious contemplation. "I think you're on to something, though we'll check his house afterwards..." She said eyeing the direction for Ichiraku since she didn't know where he lived... yet.
"Ichiraku's this way!" Ino grabbed her pale-eyed partner's hand. "C'mon!"
They went the direction completely opposite the way Naruto left towards.
---
In truth, Naruto honestly had no idea where Hinata's training ground was. But little details like that never stopped him before.
It was at this point in his running, he accidentally tripped over a kunai that stuck face down in the ground.
"Damn!" He managed to cry out before his mouth was filled with various foliage.
---
Tenten had been collecting her weapons after a long grueling exercise she'd placed upon herself.
Normally, she would be training with either teammate or teacher, but they were all predisposed of for some reason or another.
Gai had been assigned a jounin mission.
Lee was doing his rounds for another loss to a self-imposed rule.
Neji had been assigned to certain family duty.
So this left Tenten by herself to work on a certain technique of hers, namely; summon bundles of weapons at a time and then have them thrown in a blanketed swarm in a set area.
In all, the technique was best against swarms of attacking ninja, as the area spread of her attack would definitely wound someone, especially if they were all clustered. Otherwise, it'd work in a pinch to at least tag a ninja that would try to escape from it.
And right now, she was looking for the last kunai to store again when...
"Damn!"
A yelp in the direction of the woods nearby, had her pause. She approached cautiously as the mumbled swearing grew louder. A familiar looking spot of spiky hair had her grab the offending mop and pull on it hard, flinging the crouching genin out of the bushes and at her feet.
"OWWW!" Naruto cried out, fiercely cradling his throbbing scalp.
Tenten blinked.
It was that loud Uzumaki boy who had defeated Neji in the finals!
She started wondering what his business was here, but she couldn't help but smirk when she noticed him holding one of her kunai -to which she plucked out of his grasp and replaced it into its scroll. With the action done and her collecting task completed, she turned to address Naruto.
"What are you doing here?" She asked expectantly, hands on hips. "Were you spying on me?"
The orange-clad boy shook himself and looked up confused. "This isn't Hinata's training area?"
"Hyuuga Hinata, right?" She asked to clarify, to which he nodded. She only knew the former from her teammate's various rants about his cousin (though in her opinion, it could be constituted as an obsession and she personally thought that he was probably crushing on her -shudder- ).
"No, this is the training area of Tea-" She couldn't even get to saying her team number when he interrupted her.
"Who are you supposed to be, anyway?" He pointed at her in sudden surprise. "I haven't seen you around before! Are you a spy!-?"
"NO! I live around here!" Tenten lost her composure. She made it to the third portion of the Chuunin test! Why couldn't he remember her!-? "My name's Tenten--"
Naruto slammed a fist into his open palm in recognition, effectively interrupting Tenten again, this time from introducing her last name.
"OHH! You're that weapons-specialist girl!..."
Tenten preened at being called a 'weapons specialist'.
"...who lost to that fan-girl!"
And Tenten slumped. She didn't want to be remembered for THAT! She knew she could have won if she wasn't mismatched with her worst possible opponent... Or maybe if she wasn't so fool hardy...
"You were alright in your fight though..." Naruto shrugged, bringing his hands behind his head. The comment had her loss alleviate a little.
"...I was better though! I beat Neji!" He added inconsiderately, making Tenten slump further into depression.
It was a sore point, considering Neji was a possible unrequited crush (she wasn't even sure if he was even that) and that the Hyuuga only trained with her for his own ends.
It was an even bigger sore point, that Neji (as well as the rest of her team) treated her so delicately. How could she become a great ninja someday, if she wasn't getting the kind of training they did with each other? Granted, she didn't want to end up a smoking heap much like Lee ends up after challenging Neji, but she wanted her own share of bruises too...
...err -not in any weird kind of way, mind you. Bruises to harden her up is all. Get her more battle ready and all that.
And if it wasn't infuriating enough, Neji ALWAYS defeated her. He never pushed her to her limits, rather pushed her away. With his Kaiten -the damn Heavenly Spin.
And to think, this poor excuse of a ninja beat Neji...
A burning desire erupted in her at the thought of such incompetence.
"You..." She faltered.
"You..." She faltered again.
"You asshole!" Tenten snapped, a finger squarely locked on Naruto. "That must've been a fluke! There's no way you could have beaten Neji!"
Naruto's defense died on his lips, as he decided to dodge Tenten's weapon offensive rather than mouth off and get skewered.
"Oh shit! Not again!" The blond complained at having to get into another fight with another female in such short amount of time.
However, his dodge was cut short as he had to keep dodging in mid-dodge, as the weapons-expert had thrown various weapons to areas just in front of him.
And the game kept, up as Tenten launched weapon after weapon at the frantically dodging genin.
"I never miss a target, you know..." She said casually, a smirk lighting her face. "And I've had enough! Playtime's over! You're mine!"
Whilst Tenten opened up a new scroll altogether, Naruto gained his bearings. "No way, I'm losing to you!" He retorted.
Multiple bursts of smoke dictated the creation of a sizable team of Shadow Replications to Naruto's aid.
"I gave you a chance to hide and all you do is make yourself more prominent!" Tenten cut her thumb. "I don't know how you could have ever passed the genin exam!"
At this time, the hair-bunned girl finished wiping her blood on the weapon-summoning scroll and whipped it around her partially uncloiled like a gymnast's ribbon. Weapon after weapon appeared in existence and all were flung in Naruto's direction.
Seeing the onslaught, the Naruto army picked up the many weapons on the battlefield and some attempted to defend themselves, while others threw some projectiles back. This move had deterred most of the flung weapons but in the end, only one Naruto was still left standing from the rain of steel.
A little surprised, Tenten went to quickly finish the job with one of her simpler but effective moves.
She summoned and threw a Fuuma Shuriken in his direction and just as expected from anyone, Naruto included, the defender went to dodge the over-sized blade.
However, the Shadow Windmill had actually been a ruse that covered a kunai that she also threw. It arced in the direction he was heading and just as expected, he took the hit.
Or rather, he was supposed to.
Any below average ninja would take the hit normally in the shoulder because they wouldn't see it coming.
An above average ninja would not even try to dodge, but either deflect or take the hit in a less crucial area -since it's a really base weapon and the damage can easily be minimised.
But Naruto wasn't just any Joe-ninja.
He tried to dodge it.
Which put him back into the flight of the overly large shuriken.
Tenten's aim was always perfect.
The shuriken embedded itself into Naruto, causing the male shinobi to deviate from his lunge and ungracefully impact the ground with a sickening thud.
"Shit!" Tenten swore.
She never meant to go this far! He was supposed to take the kunai hit! Her thoughts panicked as she sprinted over to the fallen shinobi.
Just as she reached him, her frantic eyes scanned his twitching form, as blood pooled everywhere. "Shit, shit, shit!" Her panic rose, her hands covered her mouth.
Naruto struggled to lift his head to look at his attacker.
"Gotcha!" And with that triumphant grin of exclamation, he exploded in a puff of smoke.
Tenten gasped, as a kunai embedded in the dirt transformed into the blond ninja she was fighting and proceeded to tackle her to the ground. She realised he'd must've changed using the shadow replications as a cover!
Soon, they were struggling in a fierce lock. Each attempt Tenten made to retrieve a weapon or scroll was thwarted, so she had to resort to base Taijutsu and grappling.
It became a roughhousing of punches, jabs, grabs, reversals and hair-pulling as both combatants fought for dominance and their bodies tossed and tumbled in every direction. Tenten had to push for every taijutsu technique she learned in the academy, while Naruto went on to improvise on the fly with sloppy but effective returns.
Eventually, their struggle had them inch towards the various weapons that lined the field and Tenten managed to wrap her hands around a dagger.
It would have been the turning of the tides if it weren't for the fact that her hand was halted in place by a third-party. Looking up, Tenten noticed a Naruto holding her hand back. Caught by surprise, she loosened her grip enough for the clone to remove the weapon and toss it aside.
The distraction allowed Naruto to push Tenten over on her back. Kneeling on top of her, he propped his legs along her hips and used his weight to pin her from pushing him off. He then furthered it, by grabbing her hands and intertwined their fingers halting her from being able to retrieve another weapon.
Tenten struggled in a last ditch attempt to take control, but when she'd scanned the field for the nearest weapon, she froze.
"I don't own that many katanas..." Confusion tittered on realisation.
Naruto grinned as many of the weapons littering their battlefield, turned into more doppelgangers.
Tenten slumped, knowing she was defeated.
Allowing herself to relax, the dark-haired genin's eyes unconsciously searched out her opponent's as she assessed their battle.
Though she lost, she knew he couldn't have been better off than her -especially when she had a couple of good hits and weapon nicks, as well as a precise knee to the groin once.
And then she considered her present state.
Her weapons were cluttering the field.
She was thoroughly exhausted.
Her breathing was haggard.
She got the shit beaten out of her.
Her hair was hanging freely as somehow her ties became a casualty.
...she got the shit beaten out of her.
It was awesome!
Tenten couldn't believe she actually had a good roughhousing with someone who wasn't afraid to hit a woman (in the right context)! She let out an exhilarated whoop followed by a laugh.
Naruto, who was watching her reaction since she relaxed, looked on confused. She had just been staring at him for a minute or so, when out of nowhere she just burst out laughing! For some reason he couldn't quite fathom, he found himself joining in as well.
When it started to die out into chuckles, Naruto slowly stood up and held out a hand for Tenten to take. She took it and was promptly helped to her feet.
The wind picked up a little and her hair flailed. She pulled it back behind her head with one hand, never once breaking eye contact with her blond opponent.
"That was a great fight!" Tenten complimented, looking at Naruto in the eye intensely. She unconsciously decided he had deep sky-blue eyes.
"Oh yeah..." Naruto agreed, though he was idly wondering why she wasn't letting go of his hand. He'd consciously noted how she was looking at him a little weirdly too.
"Great figh-" he started to say, before his face gained a somber expression and he pulled away roughly.
"Ah geeze! I was supposed to be looking for Hinata for our training!" He slapped his forehead in irritation. "Got to find out why she was late!"
A little disappointed that he'd be leaving so soon, Tenten instead focused on the great feeling of the bruises and so merely stood and bid her sparring partner farewell.
"See ya, Naruto! Let's spar again sometime!" She called out after his fleeing form.
"Bye Tenten! Will do!" He called out behind him and waved a hand back as he sprinted away.
Tenten was still staring after Naruto's back some minutes later with an elated smile on her face, when a certain duo ran up to her.
It was Ino who pointed at the older girl and couldn't help but point out. "You look like hell!"
Despite such an exclamation, the older girl didn't respond.
"Maybe we shouldn't bother her." Hinata erred on the side of caution.
"Umm..." Ino fumbled for a name. "Tema... Tena... Tenten, right?"
Finally, the hair-bun-liberated girl blinked, as if for the first time noticing her audience.
"Yes?" She responded though still looking noncommited to the exchange.
"Have you seen a loud blond genin wearing orange? Says stupid things and claims to become the next Hokage?" Came Ino's direct question.
"Naruto?" Tenten blinked, suddenly giving the current blond her full attention.
"Yeah!" Both younger genins exclaimed (though they internally winced at noticing how the older girl knew the person they were looking for by his first name).
"I was just sparring with him!" Tenten couldn't stop a smile from blossoming on her face.
"The scumbag!" Ino shouted. Hinata wasn't one to voice her concerns but she thought it.
"Well, he rushed off a little while ago. I think he was looking for you." Tenten quickly defending her recent sparring partner and pointing at the Hyuuga-heiress. "Weren't you supposed to meet him for training?"
"That guy keeps on giving!" Ino's attitude did a 180. Similarly, Hinata held a hand in front of her mouth for even doubting her idol.
"Let me help you guys out-" Then Tenten remembered the mess of her weapons around her. "-after I get my stuff together!"
Hinata and Ino didn't really want another female helping them look for Naruto, so they managed to diplomatically talk Tenten into letting them search him out and the weapons-using girl can find them afterwards.
---
Jiraiya had been furiously writing into a notebook whilst muttering words such as 'pain', 'pleasure' and 'leather' under his breath.
"Damn you, Naruto..." He growled.
"It was only supposed to be a push in the right direction, not to cause a friggin avalanche!"
Once satisfied that he wrote enough into the notebook, he whipped out the leather-bound manuscript and started writing.
"The student teaching the master... Pfft."
Single Ninja on the Town - Amendments.
Amended Chapter Three ...Training
Now, another way to earn a spar is the double standard bet. Simply bet lunch (preferably the chosen Kunoichi's favourite dish) and the loser pay for it and it gives added incentive for a spar AND a date!
Another way to finish the fight would be to use certain grapples to bring together the bodies of the male and female in close quarters. Anything relative where both faces are parallel to the other are highly recommended but should not be used on the kunoichi if they are uncomfortable with the male shinobi just yet. Beware this technique, as hits below the belt become VERY frequent.
The following is a list of possible finishers for that last paragraph.
---
End of Chapter 3 ... Training.
Next up!
Chapter 4 ... Gifts.
Subtitle: On the Winds of Temari.
Author's Notes:
You know, I think I played off Tenten liking pain a little too much...
Man, these chapters are getting longer...
Oh, and I liked writing the last chapter so much that I'm planning a one-shot Naru/Ino sometime -for those of you interested that is.
Uploaded: November 11th, 2005.
First Revision: February 7th, 2006.
Second Revision: August 4th, 2006.