Chapter Five

Ken, the real Ken, now with his headband around his neck instead of a neckerchief, reported to training ground twelve a half hour before schedule. Taking a seat on the same fallen tree from yesterday, he checked the seals placed on the steel plates sewn into the bracer on his right, non-dominant arm — each one containing dozens of tools or weapons. Being raised with sealing arts as a way of life had a way of encouraging creativity, and his grandfather had been known before the Fall for his preparedness, which he had passed on to Ken in full force.

With that done, he pulled out his sealing notebook and began working on something he'd had an idea about. He considered making a shadow clone to train with, but decided against it to conserve chakra. He sighed to himself at the thought of the clone he'd left back with Naruto. He really should have used his little trick to keep most of his chakra, but the fact that he was leaving his little cousin to train with a clone at all made him feel a little guilty. Oh well, his reserves were still above average at half-capacity.

A few minutes before the clock struck eight, Tomoko and Aoba arrived together. Ken snapped his notebook shut and stowed it on a seal on his forearm before unsealing his black wakizashi and slipping it into the back of his belt.

"Arming yourself at our approach? One might think you were afraid of an attack, Uzumaki," Tomoko said.

"'Always, always be prepared,'" Ken replied. "That's something my grandfather taught me from a very young age. And why waste time unsealing it right before a spar?" Tomoko nodded to concede the logic and crossed her arms beneath her bust.

"So, Uzumaki," Aoba said, adjusting his shades, "you're the newcomer here. How would you like to proceed? With taijutsu, straight ninjutsu, a free-for-all, what?" In reply, Ken smirked and crossed his fingers in a familiar seal, conjuring a shadow clone.

"You really want to spar at half-chakra?" Tomoko asked.

"I was already at half-chakra," Ken replied. "Or, maybe sixty percent after waiting here." He looked to the clone, who smirked and formed the hand sign again, conjuring two clones this time. With that, the original clone dispersed.

After a quick bit of silent arithmetic, Aoba frowned. "You wish for us each to fight a clone at ten percent chakra supply?" he asked. "I feel I should be insulted."

"Chakra supply has no effect on a clone's durability; only the caster's skill affects that. I'd like each of you to spar with one of my clones. It'll give me an idea of your skill levels and styles faster than going one-by-one." The clones each unsheathed their wakizashi and stood at the ready. "Though, as they are just clones, perhaps only taijutsu and weapons?"

Aoba and Tomoko glanced at each other for a moment. Tomoko grinned and unsealed a weapon of her own, a naginata with a wicked foot-long blade. With that, she leapt away into the trees, one of the clones following. Aoba shrugged and produced a kunai knife, leaping in the other direction to be pursued by the other clone.

Ken glanced in each direction before shrugging and following the first pair. He wanted to actually see at least one of the fights from an outside perspective. And with no disrespect meant toward Aoba, he was far more eager to see a Sarutobi in action.

"This is so boring!" Naruto cried. He crushed the leaf Ken had given him in the palm of his hand in frustration. "You said we'd be training today! And you give me this dumb Academy exercise? Instructor Iruka makes me do this during detention!"

Ken's clone glanced up from his book, clicking the stopwatch in his other hand and writing the given time on a notepad. "You only held that leaf to your face for fifteen seconds," Ken noted. "You wanted training? Well, here it is. Again." With that, he reopened his book and continued where he'd left off.

Naruto grit his teeth, but replaced the now-crumpled leaf and focused his chakra to make it stick. After a few moments, his focus wavered and it fell again. Naruto groaned and rubbed his face. "What is the point of this?" he asked aloud.

"Are you seriously asking?" Ken replied absently. "Because I will gladly tell you."

Naruto looked at his cousin-slash-teacher and then back down to the leaf in his hand. "So, what's the point?" he asked.

"Control," Ken replied, snapping his book shut. "That is the single most important skill with chakra any ninja worth his salt will cultivate. More important than elemental conversion, or expanding reserves, or even number of techniques." Ken tapped his book on his arm. "And believe it or not, this is true just as much for those with huge reserves as those with small ones."

Naruto's eyebrow rose in confusion. "Why?"

"Because those with poor chakra control are wasteful," Ken started, taking a small glass and a pitcher of water and approaching Naruto, kneeling in front of him. "Let's say the rim of this cup is the amount of chakra you need for a technique, okay?" Naruto scrunched his face up, but nodded, and Ken began slowly pouring the water into the glass until it was an inch from the rim. "They either pump too little chakra into a technique and it fails …" he gestured to the cup and then kept pouring until it began to overflow and wet the ground," … or they pump in too much and waste all of that chakra."

Ken handed the water to his cousin to drink and waited for him to finish before he kept explaining. "If two people with equal fighting skill and chakra supply fight, it's the one with greater chakra control that will win. Even if a man has more chakra than anyone else in the world, if he wastes it all in battle, he's left at a disadvantage. And someone with smaller reserves but better control can outlast him and beat him."

Ken sighed and rubbed his face, then fixed Naruto with the most dire expression he could. "Naruto, I want you to learn something right now — and learn it well." Naruto paled a bit and nodded. "It's not the flashiest technique or the biggest weapon or the most power that wins a fight, especially among ninjas. It's the most effective technique. Bar none.

"I'm gonna warn you now, there are a lot of exercises I will have you do that seem pointless and boring, and others pointlessly boring. But what I am doing is preparing you for the bigger, harder, more intense stuff. Nothing I do is pointless. You seem to naturally know that only hard work will get results, but there's more to it than that. You have to start small and work your way up. Master the easy stuff, and the hard stuff will be that much easier. Is that clear?"

Naruto glanced down at the leaf in his hand and nodded.

"Good," Ken said. "You know, if it makes you feel any better, this is not the only chakra control exercise I have planned. And the upcoming ones are a lot more active. So when you master this and keep it up for, oh I don't know, three minutes flat, we'll move on to the next one."

Naruto paled a bit at the goal given to him. Three minutes?! He could barely keep this up for fifteen seconds!

"What? Is it too hard for a future Hokage?" Ken asked wryly. "I'll be you anything Lord Third could have kept this up way longer than three minutes at your age." This wasn't pointless boasting, either. Hiruzen Sarutobi's reputation as a ninja prodigy was legendary!

Naruto set his jaw and stuck the leaf to his face, his eyes scrunched in concentration. "Nothing's too hard for me! Not for long! I'll master this and then kick the next thing's butt, y'know!"

Ken nodded and started the timer.

That time he got to twenty seconds.

Ken tilted his head as he watched his clone do battle with Tomoko from a tree branch. She was good … very good. There was no doubt about that. Even from a distance, he could tell she was pressing his clone, and there had been several near misses with dispelling it. His clones were tough compared to most, but even a blunt instrument with enough force behind it could disperse them. And Tomoko was clearly comfortable with the bladed end of her spear.

Ken smiled a little when he caught the sound of Tomoko laughing after the clone had kicked her away. "She's certainly enjoying this," he commented to himself.

"She always does," an unfamiliar voice added.

Ken leapt from his spot on the branch as it exploded into splinters. He landed lightly on the ground and looked up at the remains of the branch to find … huh? Was that an orangutan? No, not an orangutan. The clothes and forehead protector meant it was a summon animal. And given the reputation of Tomoko's clan … this was a monkey.

Though about his own height, the monkey was built differently than in the illustrations Ken had seen in various books and scrolls. Rather than lean and wiry or traditionally muscular, it — he — was built like a sumo wrestler, squat and wide with a heavy belly, though still with clearly defined muscles. His fur was snow white except for his beard, which was a rich russet color. He was dressed in a leopard hide kilt and cross-body sash, with an open dark grey vest and finned arm guards. A black Konoha forehead protector rested on his brow below a snowy top knot. And resting on his shoulder was a fearsome-looking kanabo club.

"I am Yama of the Mountain of Fruit and Flowers," he offered in a rumbling voice. "And yourself?"

"Ken Uzumaki," he said. Politeness never hurt, right?

"Ah, I should have known by that vibrant hair," Yama chuckled. "The little one asked me to deliver a message. 'Have fun with the mountain, you lazy ginger,' were her exact words."

Ken unsheathed his black wakizashi and started strategizing. "I suppose it was a bit presumptuous of me to let my clones do all of the work. If I may ask, when did she summon you?"

"Before your clone caught up to her."

With that, Yama leapt from the shortened branch and swung his kanabo downward. Ken dodged to the side, just in time to see the ground crater from the impact. Taking advantage of the opening from swinging such a heavy weapon, he spun and delivered a side kick to Yama's belly that sent the monkey sliding back a few feet.

After a beat, Ken exclaimed in pain and hopped on his other foot for a moment. "Sweet ramen, what are you made of?"

"Flesh and bone, same as you," Yama chuckled and readied his kanabo. "But for all the good it will do you, I might as well be made of stone." With that, the monkey charged with deceptive speed and swung sideways this time. Ken jumped above the attack and swung down with his blade, but Yama lifted his arm and caught it on his guard, turning his arm to lock it between the fins and delivering a palm strike that sent Ken flying backward without his wakizashi.

Ken rolled and landed on his feet again, producing a kunai from the seal on his arm. Yama laughed and tossed the sword upward then clapped his hands into a Snake hand seal. As the sword fell back to the ground blade down, he slapped his meaty hand to the soil as it entered.

Yama backed away and gestured to the sword, a twinkle in his eye. Ken narrowed his eyes and approached cautiously, never taking his eyes off of the monkey. He reached for his weapon and tugged — only to grunt in surprise as it didn't even budge. Ken altered his grip, still watching Yama and his club, and pulled again with identical results.

Ken finally looked down to find a sealing array spreading out from his short sword, which a practiced examination revealed was linked to Earth Release chakra. He looked up at the monkey in shock. He'd heard monkeys could use ninjutsu, but sealing techniques? And ones tied to sustained elemental chakra, which were exceedingly tricky.

"How'd you do this and will you please teach it to me?" Ken asked.

"If you are an Uzumaki, I'm certain you could figure it out," Yama replied.

Again the monkey surged forward with remarkable speed, but this time Ken was ready. Turning on his heel to narrowly avoid the strike, Ken flicked a prepared sealing tag from his belt and slapped it on the weapon. In a puff of smoke, the kanabo was sealed and the tag was tucked in Ken's shirt.

"Thought I'd repay the favor," he smirked. "I'll give it back after."

"That is … acceptable," Yama rumbled, then jumped back onto his hands and struck Ken full in the chest with his hand-like feet. Ken flew backward with the wind thoroughly knocked out of him, his kunai long gone, and rolled along the ground. With a quick breath, he spun to his feet and flipped out of the way of a hammer kick from the monkey.

The duo traded blows for several minutes, Ken dodging Yama's swings while Yama didn't even bother to block Ken's punches. And with each strike, it felt as if Ken were punching a brick wall.

Finally, Yama simply caught one of Ken's punches and held onto his fist with an iron grip. Ken's next punch was caught in the same way and he was trapped. Ken, remembering that two-foot kick from earlier, took the initiative and lifted himself by the arms to wrap his legs around Yama's thick neck with intent to choke him out.

"Poor … choice …" Yama grunted, as Tomoko landed next to them in a burst of smoke from the shadow clone she had landed on. As the memories from the clone poured into Ken's head, Tomoko lifted a kunai and placed it against his throat.

"We win," she said cockily, even through haggard breaths.

Ken unwound his legs from Yama's neck as Yama released Ken's hands and backed up a few steps to Tomoko's side, his eyes never leaving the redhead. "Will that be all, little one?" he asked.

"Yes, Sir Yama. Thank you for your time," Tomoko replied.

Yama nodded and fixed Ken with a side eye. With a start, Ken removed the sealing tag from before and unsealed the kanabo, grunting at the weight before passing it to Yama. The monkey nodded his thanks. "I like this one," he mused with a mischievous toothy grin before disappearing in a puff of smoke.

"What did he mean by that?" Ken asked.

Tomoko shrugged. "Yama fancies himself a matchmaker. Which means he's tried to set me up with most of the guys he meets that aren't enemies. That made it really awkward when our team was first formed, what with both of the others being guys."

"So you and Aoba aren't …?" Ken asked.

Tomoko laughed. "Yeah, no way! I mean he's a great friend and all that, but we are so not like that. And that goes double for Yuto, the guy who was originally part of our team. I mean, nothing against him as a person but he's just way too weird."

Ken nodded in partial understanding. Having never been part of a team, he wasn't really familiar with inter-team relationships. But the matchmaker comment had made him double check and he realized that Tomoko was actually quite a pretty woman. With a shrug, Ken cast it out of his mind — and it was immediately replaced by an onslaught of memories from his clone's fight with Aoba.

Ken stumbled a bit as he sorted through them. "Aoba's done. And he has a summon, too."

"Yeah, the crow tribe really enjoy doing their swarming thing. They think it's funny, or something," Tomoko commented. "You know where he is?"

Ken shook his head, mind wandering to something else. Without thinking, he said, "Hey, take off your shirt."

Tomoko's face went blank and she raised an eyebrow. Ken's face went red as he realized his mistake. "Not like that! Just- just- um, I have an idea to help during missions. But, on second thought, maybe I should tell you about it first. Or, you know, wait for Aoba?"

Tomoko smirked and crossed her arms. They didn't need to wait long before the third member of their team landed in the clearing, a crow on his shoulder that disappeared in a puff of smoke.

"Your clone really gave me a workout, Uzumaki," Aoba laughed.

"I aim to please," he commented. "I notice you tried to snare me in quite a few genjutsu," he added.

"Yes, I did. And while we're on that subject, how'd you shrug them off so fast? I'm pretty good with genjutsu and I haven't seen someone throw them off like that since I first started out."

Ken answered by removing his hooded shirt and turning his back to them, carefully concealing the rest of his back while still revealing a detailed, swirl-patterned seal inked into the skin over his right shoulder blade. No, not inked … more like branded.

"It's an ANBU seal from Uzushiokagure. The seal is designed to react to fluctuations in your chakra system caused by genjutsu. When it detects them, it triggers the pain receptors in your skin and the pain helps break you out of it, all within a few seconds." He replaced his shirt. "That's what I mentioned to Tomoko a second ago. Would either of you guys like one?"

The duo looked at each other in surprise, deciding in less than a second.

"Absolutely!" "Hell yeah!"

Ken smiled, genuinely happy with their response, and unsealed a Uzumaki seal inking kit. In addition to their skill in creating different types of seals, they had developed several unique ways to apply seals, too. "Take off your shirt, please. And where would you like it? I would recommend somewhere hidden by your clothes — part of its effectiveness is the fact that no one knows about it."

"Where you have it then, I suppose," Aoba shrugged, removing his flak jacket and turtleneck shirt. Ken nodded and removed a jar of sealing ink, a fine-pointed brush, and the schematics for the seal itself (written in Uzushio cypher, of course). He glanced up at the sky to gauge the time and began his work. As he painted sealing formulae on Aoba's back, starting with an Uzumaki swirl as the core of the design, Tomoko spoke up.

"You know, I've heard rumors about seal masters who could apply seals with their bare hands," she pointed out, with legends of the Fourth Hokage and his Flying Thunder God Technique in particular coming to mind. "Can you do that?"

"It's called 'marking'," Ken explained, not pausing in his work. "And yes, I can. But it's an advanced technique for a reason: to mark a seal, you have to know it perfectly — as in being able to transcribe it blindfolded. And I don't know this seal that well. Besides, using traditional tools is simply easier when not in combat or other high-adrenaline situations." Tomoko shrugged in acceptance of the explanation.

In less than fifteen minutes, he had the seal script covering Aoba's back completed. Now came the hard part. "Okay, I want you to focus your chakra onto that point." Ken instructed. "That'll prepare the seal to monitor your personal chakra signature." Aoba nodded and began to focus his chakra onto the back of his shoulder. Tomoko, who had watched with casual interest, noticed Ken moving through a series of hand seals and placing his thumbs on the sides of the seal matrix. "The seal is saturated, so … brace yourself."

"Brace my-?" Aoba said, before shouting in surprise and pain. The seal script covering his back rapidly shrunk together into a spiral shape, the feeling like fire ants crawling over his skin — and when it was done, wisps of white smoke began to curl off of the seal as it branded itself into Aoba's skin. The Yamashiro lunged forward and away from Ken, patting his shoulder in surprise. "Is that smoke?!" he shouted. "Why is my shoulder smoking?!"

"Sorry," Ken said with a sheepish grin. "But this makes sure the seal is pretty much permanent. And don't be a baby, it's not that bad."

Even behind his shades, one could feel the glare he was shooting at Ken. But the redhead was right; it was more the surprise of the pain that had freaked him out, and it hadn't lasted more than a handful of seconds anyway.

"You sure you still want this?" Ken started to ask, but Tomoko's shirt was off and she was baring her back to him as her shirt covered her front. "Bring it on! No pain can get to me!" she shouted. "Burn me up!"

Ken stared for a moment before shaking it off and repeating the process for Tomoko. Another fifteen minutes later and he repeated his instructions and the branding technique. When the branding started, Tomoko didn't cry out — quite the opposite, she almost seemed to enjoy it.

"Well, that was fun," she chuckled, rolling her shirt back on with both men's eyes carefully averted. "Now onto the next phase of our training: ninjutsu sparring." She rolled her neck and crossed her arms. "Who do you want to tackle first, Red?"

Ken blinked a bit and thought it over. "Sorry Aoba, I should really fight her while I'm still fresh."

Aoba smirked and spread his arms in acceptance. "That's a pretty shrewd move, Uzumaki." With that, he ran up a tree to watch.

Ken prepared himself, resealing his wakizashi and cracking his knuckles to prep for serious hand seals. Tomoko made a show of shaking her whole body out, then stretching her shoulders, calves, and hamstrings.

"Okay, let's go." She slammed her hands together in a Tiger seal. 'Fire Release: Majestic Fire Technique!' With a near-manic grin, Tomoko spewed an expanding stream of physically dense fire toward Ken. Ken slammed his hands into a Snake seal and raised a brick-patterned wall of stone carved with the Uzumaki seal, just like the day before. But unlike Iruka's Fire Release technique, the flames lingered on the wall as if the stone were covered in oil, burning for several seconds before flickering out.

Tomoko smirked and focused her chakra. She'd neglected to mention that she was a sensor-type, a talent she'd had tutoring from Lord Third himself in honing. As she had expected, she felt Ken's chakra beneath her and leapt into a backflip to avoid his exploding from the ground. 'Predictable,' she thought. But what wasn't predictable was the electricity wreathing his hands. Huh.

Landing lightly and sliding back a few inches, Tomoko flicked through hand seals and focused wind chakra into her own hands, making sure to alter the technique to cushion rather than slice, before lunging forward. Ken and Tomoko's fists met and her wind chakra neutralized his lightning, the strike blowing him backward.

Ken grimaced and massaged his hand. "Fire and Wind Release," he surmised. "Anything else I should know about?" He regretted his words when Tomoko produced a handful of shuriken and tossed them with a series of hand seals. Three shuriken suddenly became dozens and Ken had to drop to the ground to avoid them.

"That's the Shuriken Shadow Clone Technique," Tomoko commented. "Uncle created that one himself. Now it's a clan technique."

Ken resisted the urge to reveal his own combat-oriented clan technique and settled on a different approach. "You wanna see a real clan skill?" he asked, unsealing a kunai with a prepared sealing tag attached. "Prepare yourself." He tossed the kunai, the tag flaring orange, and it exploded into a roaring, swirling vortex of flames. From an Uzumaki Inferno Tag.

Ken's grin was cut short by Tomoko's scream. He ran around the slowly fading vortex and found her … completely unharmed. She'd jumped completely clear of the inferno tag, so why-? Wait, was she trembling? And why was she grinning like a lunatic? Tomoko let a giggle escape her lips, which exploded into hearty laughter. "Do it again, do it again!" she cried out with obvious glee.

"I think that's enough of that," Aoba intervened. Though with a flick of his wrist, he sent two senbon needles flying into Ken's shoulder. Senbon connected back to Aoba's fist by lengths of ninja wire.

"Hey, what the-?" Ken cut himself off as he felt foreign chakra invading his system, and with that the loss of his motor skills.

"Since we were showing secret techniques, I thought I might as well join in. That's the Secret Stone Needles Technique of the Yamashiro clan."

Ken quickly used his other hand to jerk the needles from his body, cutting off the spreading paralysis. He slapped at his unmoving arm to try and jog his motor control, but had no effect.

"That won't help," Aoba interjected. "Your arm will be dysfunctional for about fifteen minutes. Usually I use kunai; that can freeze someone up for hours."

"Good to know," Ken deadpanned. "So I guess that ends training for the day?"

"Yeah," Tomoko answered, her voice sounding a bit distant as she settled down. "Yeah, that's it for today. We can get to more formalized training tomorrow. You know, after we see the Hokage and get our first mission." She chuckled. "Team TAK is going to be full-on official!"

"Team tack?" Ken asked.

"TAK. T-A-K. As in Tomoko, Aoba, Ken."

"Wait, why am I last in that acronym?" Ken asked.

"Because you're the newest of the bunch," Tomoko smirked. "And, besides, I like the sound of TAK way better than KAT. I don't like cats."

"I'm partial to AKT," Aoba said.

"Nope," Ken and Tomoko chorused with identical grins. Aoba merely frowned and adjusted his shades.

"Team TAK it is," Ken said. "Same place, same time tomorrow?"

"Absolutely," Aoba nodded.

Chapter Five, and with more action and development. How do y'all like this new team? Leave a review about the chapter and your thoughts on what this team might do next.

*Yama comes from the same mountain as Monkey King Enma, Lord Hiruzen's summon. The monkeys are an old and respected summoning tribe who live on the Mountain of Fruit and Flowers - named for Sun Wukong's home in "Journey to the West" and referenced by the Four-Tails - and with strong ties to the Sarutobi clan. Yama is coded after an orangutan as opposed to Enma's more general big monkey design - and there are other designs that will pop up. His leopard skin kilt and sash are based on Wukong's tiger skin kilt from the novel, which inspired Enma's tiger patterned vest in canon. ^Yama's use of a kanabo is a subtle reference to Sun Wukong's staff, the "Compliant, Gold-Hooped Rod" or "As-You-Will, Gold-Banded Cudgel" depending on the translation. Yama here uses an actual cudgel.

**Yama's name means "mountain" in Japanese, an obvious reference to his home. But in traditional Chinese religion, Yama is the head of the ten kings of the underworld, whose name in Japanese is ... Enma. I thought that was particularly clever.

*Tomoko and Aoba's previous teammate, Yuto, will not be appearing. His name means "leisurely" and was chosen as one of the top ten most common male names in Japan.

*Tomoko's "Fire Release: Majestic Flame" Technique is my own spin on the otherwise titled "Great Flame Technique" from canon - the hiden/clan technique a line of Sarutobi used to dry the quicklime that was meant to trap the Ten-Tails during the Allied Shinobi Forces Technique. As Kishimoto tended to differentiate his Fire Release techniques with "bigger and hotter," I wanted to do something different. This technique has the user knead chakra into a tangible consistency before igniting it and spewing it out; it can then land on a target and continue to burn for several seconds to inflict more damage. No, it's not like Amaterasu that burns for seven days and can't be extinguished. But it is very formidable.

*The canon seal chain for "Earth Release: Earth-Style Wall" is Tiger+Hare+Boar+Dog/Ram+Dog+Ox+Snake. Ken can use the technique with a single Snake seal due to good chakra control and tons of practice with that specific technique. It's the same idea as Tobirama Senju using the 44-seal "Water Dragon Technique" with a single hand seal, just way less impressive.