Disclaimer: Refer to chapter 1.
AN: 4 out of 4.
"I'm glad you two could make it." Gai grinned up from where he sat at his fellow two Shinobi. His choice of seating was a booth not too far from the entrance and he poured both a glass from the bottle resting on the table. The two slid into the side across from him and took up their drinks. "Unfortunately I don't think my rival will be joining us tonight."
"He's still training that pink haired girl?" Asuma put his cigarette out in an ashtray set off to the left before taking a drink from his glass. "I'm surprised he hasn't given up on her."
"He shouldn't." Kurenai's red eyes turned to Gai. "I don't think he made the wrong choice when it came to picking her over the other two."
"Come now Kurenai, his other two students are not that bad." Gai grinned as he poured himself a glass and set the bottle down. "Naruto has a great drive and Sasuke…well it is better he be occupied with Naruto's goal than his own at such an age."
"You're saying killing his brother is harder than world conquest you know." Asuma tipped back his drink, draining most of it, before setting the glass back down on the table. He sighed after a moment and rubbed at the side of his head. "With what I've heard about that kid since he left, you may be right."
"I am certain that there are lighter topics than this to discuss." Gai was not ignorant of the somber mood that had swiftly settled over the table at the reminder of heinous act committed by Itachi Uchiha against not only Konoha but his own family as well. "Let us discuss one of them instead of a traitor like him."
"The only other thing interesting to talk about is Kakashi's team." Kurenai's eyes drifted to the drink in her hand. "He's certainly not all talk from what I've seen of him so far. He could do with a little humility but with all those clones of his it's unlikely he'll ever get a chance to know what it is."
"The kid's going to start a war if my old man doesn't rein him in soon enough." Asuma substituted his cigarette by polishing off his drink and accepting the offered bottle from Gai and refilled it. "I wanted to do it the night Kakashi decided to pass that team of his but he decided to listen to that brat instead." The Sarutobi's tone was more than a little spiteful as he started on his second glass. "I wished he had so we wouldn't have to deal with the kid's ridiculous cockiness now."
"You're holding a grudge against a simple Genin you know." Gai's grin was a bit cheeky as he took the bottle back from the Sarutobi Clan member and somewhat echoed his earlier words. He sat the bottle back down on the table and looked to both of his fellow Jonin. "Since Kakashi is absence, it is boring to talk about his team so I shall instead begin the discussion on our own." Both Jonin hid their sighs at such a thing with a well-placed cough. Gai either didn't notice or ignored their reactions as his eyes shined with pride. "Lee's flames of youth truly burned bright today as he completed his sixth lap around Konoha on his hands with a boulder balanced on his feet. His passion for improvement and his dedication to becoming a Ninja of pure Taijutsu skills continues to astound me." Both swore they saw a tear come from Gai's eye as he spoke of his pupil. "That is not to say anything less of my other two students through. They both excelled at their own training today as Tenten has improved her accuracy against a dozen targets and Neji continues to impress me in our brief spars together. He even succeeded in countering several of my more pressing blows with his mastery of the Gentle Fist." Gai had swiftly ascended to the table, one foot planted on it as he rose his cup into the air. "I believe we must toast the great passion for the Will of Fire the Shinobi of this generation has shown us recently!"
"Yeah."
"Of course."
Both Kurenai and Asuma rose their glasses as Gai descended back to his seat and the three briefly touched their glasses together before downing them all at once. The bottle was once again held up by Gai and he refilled all three empty glasses before setting it down off to the side.
"Well…I don't know if my team is as impressive as yours but I'll give it a go." Asuma leaned forward, his free arm coming to rest on the table in front of him and he sighed. "Let's start off with Inoichi's kid, Ino." Kurenai briefly reached up and patted him on the shoulder. "She's…a different type of Kunoichi than I grew up knowing. She's got the Yamanaka Clan Hiden techniques down, the sensory skills she has are impressive for a Genin like her despite being from a Clan, and the rest of her skills aren't things to scoff at. Overall, a good third of this generation's Trio with plenty of potential. She would be one of the best of her class, perfect for the Ino-Shika-Cho, if she wasn't always talking about that Sasuke kid. It doesn't help that she won't stop going on and on about him unless I train her until she drops from sheer exhaustion. Not proud of it but I've done it more often than I should recently." He knocked back a third of his glass before continuing. "Next is Choji and he's a good kid. A regular Akimichi from the looks of it but he's got a helluva protective side." The Jonin smiled as he spoke. "On a mission a day ago, a quick run that just involved dropping a few things off, some kids from Iwagakure coming in for the Chunin Exams decided to pick a fight with the Ino-Shika-Cho team of their generation. I let it go since it was harmless and Shikamaru went down, got buried. Choji blew up and was about to smash the kid into a paste if Shikamaru didn't come out of the trees and tell him to forget about it." Amusement shined in his eyes as he remembered the sight. "The kid was cowering on the ground and, the entire time Shikamaru's talking to him, Choji's got his fist bigger than the rest of his body just hanging above the kid and ready to put it to use." A chuckle escaped the smoker before he could continue the story and Gai and Kurenai shared in it.
The fury of an Akimichi, especially when protecting a comrade, was legendary among more than a few Shinobi. It was especially prevalent for those that had been on the battlefields with them and seen them demolish entire enemy squads without mercy.
"Speaking of him, Shikamaru's been different these past few days." Asuma knocked back another third of his drink. "He's gotten more focused on training, talked to his dad about learning some more of the Nara Clan's Hiden techniques, and I've seen him out and around the village more instead of just cloud watching all day. He's determined to do something and, from how he's been in the past until Naruto showed back up, I'm guessing it has something to do with Kakashi's kid."
"I thought we weren't supposed to talk about Kakashi's team?" Kurenai tried to lighten the mood but Asuma merely threw back the rest of his drink and wordlessly accepted the bottle from Gai. She briefly frowned before turning back to the contents of her own glass, red eyes focused on the swirling liquid for a moment. "Since we're breaking that rule, I'm not holding anything back." She mirrored Asuma and downed some of her drink before continuing but not anywhere near as much, a fifth at best before setting it down. "Hinata's got a crush on Naruto and a major one." She sighed and Asuma reached out and took her hand into his. "She's been training more with her Byakugan and her Gentle Fist, improving by leaps and bounds really, but it's all so that she can try and impress him. She's even trying to convince Kiba and Shino to do the same before I enter them in the Chunin Exams. From what I've seen, she's succeeding at it too." Kurenai couldn't help herself but smile. "Those two are really just putty in her hands half the time."
"Man, I'm glad Ino's not able to do that with Shikamaru and Choji." Asuma seemed to shake in horror at such a thing and a still smiling Kurenai gently squeezed his hand.
"Tenten simply threatens her teammates into doing whatever she requires of them with a multitude of weapons." Gai's words, in addition to the way he spoke with his proud smile and customary thumb up, drew a look of almost concern from the two Jonin.
"You should probably talk to her about that Gai." Kurenai focused back on her story with that. "Kiba is an Inuzuka through and through. He's not afraid of most things, is never that far from Akamaru, and I'm pretty sure he has a crush on Hinata. It's nowhere near as bad as hers is for Naruto but it's not a small thing either. He's trying to get stronger now because he wants her to forget about Naruto, he's got the idea in his head that he's too dangerous for her to be around anymore." The red eyed Jonin sighed once more. "He's not wrong. That kid is going to be nothing but trouble for anyone around him with how he's acting and I don't want her, any of my team really, anywhere near him when people stop treating him like some kind of a bad joke. Kiba's been pushing himself harder and harder every day because he can't stand the idea of Hinata getting hurt when everything eventually blows up in his face. He's doing everything he can to make sure he can beat Naruto if it ever comes to it and I'm sure he can."
"That kid laying him out would knock him down a peg, that's for sure." Asuma looked to Gai. "What do you think?"
"I'm not so sure we should be encouraging conflict between our students." Gai refilled his drink and placed the empty bottle at the edge of the table where it was grabbed by a passing waiter. "Competition to promote drive is alright but competition out of a desire to inflict pain is not. The Will of Fire does not thrive off fuel filled with animosity. Such a thing dulls our springs of youth into something bitter and dark."
Asuma was about to respond when Kurenai cleared her throat.
"Before you two get into a debate, let me finish." Kurenai took a sip of her drink once she had gotten the two's attention. "Shino is a quiet boy. He keeps to himself and spends anytime not training in the Aburame's Hiden techniques or working on his insects, doing…well I'm not entirely sure what he does in his free time, or even if he has much of it." Her cheeks turned red and it was not due to the minor amount of alcohol she had ingested. "I honestly don't know much else about him even as his sensei. It's a bit embarrassing really."
"Aburame Clan members aren't exactly the most open of people." Asuma swirled his drink in the glass in his hand before taking a sip of it. "No shame in not knowing a lot about him. We haven't had teams for that long anyway. It'll be different in a couple months once he gets to know you."
"I hope so." Kurenai took the time to down the rest of her drink with Asuma following her.
"Well, this has been quite a talk." Gai reached into his pocket and paid the bill for the bottle without the waiter even bothering to approach. The three, normally four, Jonin were well known customers to the bar at this point and the owner didn't worry about them paying before they left. "I believe we have quite a few hours left before any of us have to leave."
"I've got a night mission coming up soon actually." Kurenai paid the tip as she and Asuma stepped out of the booth. "I've got about another hour or two before I need to meet my team at the gate and head out."
"You didn't tell me about that, when are you due back?" Asuma reached into his Flak Jacket and drew out a cigarette he placed between his lips before going for his lighter.
"I'll be back by noon tomorrow." Kurenai smiled as she patted him on the arm as she stepped past him. "Happy now that I told you?"
"Maybe." Asuma followed after her and Gai merely shook his head ruefully at the two.
'The flames of passion burn greater than many others between those two.' He smiled as he followed after the two and stepped outside the bar with a wave of goodbye to the waiter.
Neither of the two Jonin seemed to have any intention of moving away from the door and Gai swiftly pinpointed the reason why such a thing was the case.
"Yugao?" Gai looked to the purple haired woman he knew was an ANBU Black Ops agent. She was dressed as a Chunin though and her boyfriend, Hayate Gekko, stood with her. "What are you doing here?"
"I'm out with Hayate for one." Yugao smiled at the exuberant Shinobi with the two Shinobi's arms interlocked. "And two, we're heading to go spy on Kakashi." The gleam in her eyes, something familiar to the three Jonin standing in front of her, promised a certain level of mischief. "Want to come?"
"To spy on my eternal rival as he trains his students?" Gai smiled as he gave her a thumb up. "I shall join you and excel at such a task!"
"I'll be embarrassed if Gai's better at spying than me." Kurenai locked arms with Asuma and pulled him forward. "What do you two think about us heading off with the happy couple?"
The way Kurenai's eyes shined in the dying light of the sun and the way Hayate silently told them to give up made both Shinobi nod. Asuma found himself pulled forward as Kurenai walked and talked with Yugao and Gai only chuckled as he followed after them at a more, for him, sedate pace.
His eyes never left their new purple haired companion.
'You're up to something Yugao…but what is it?' His thoughts on the Kenjutsu practitioner would plague him the entire time the group moved through the streets and, eventually, across the rooftops until they reached the entrance to Training Ground 7.
"HOO!"
"HOO!"
"HOO!"
Trees made the ground shake as they fell one after the other, crumbling down and uprooting the local wildlife in a flurry of movement. Birds took to the skies to escape the crumbling foliage, bugs whizzed past their ears or hopped away, and smaller wildlife like rabbits darted to and fro from the underbrush.
"Those clones must like cutting down trees."
"LIFT!"
"HOO!"
"MARCH!"
"HOO!"
The five Shinobi swiftly made themselves scarce as the clones of Naruto marched past moments later, a dozen or so devoted to moving each large tree in its entirely from the training ground to someplace else. One of his centurions walked with them, his eyes darting back and forth as he lead them to wherever their destination was.
"Wonder what they're using all that wood for." Asuma had put out his cigarette once the quintuplet of Shinobi had begun to move and now sorely wished for it back to deal with the approaching headache as his mind tried to find a reason. "Man, this is going to be a drag."
"Don't borrow you're student's catchphrase." Kurenai smiled at him as Yugao emerged from where she had hidden herself and dropped down to the floor of the forest. She motioned for the other four Shinobi to follow her and they did so as she bounded through the trees.
Another wordless signal brought them to a stop a few minutes later.
"Again." It had been easy for Kurenai to remove the Genjutsu around the two Shinobi and now the five observed from the trees.
Sakura slowly rose after being hit into the ground by Kakashi, wincing as she held her stomach before she darted forward. Wisps of Chakra erupted from her feet and her speed more than doubled as she threw a rather decent combination of blows forward. It was at least something a Taijutsu master like Gai would appreciate as she avoided taking too strong a stance, flowing from one blow to the next and they ranged from straight jabs to kicks.
Kakashi avoided her entire assault before his foot lashed out and planted itself in her chest. She went skidding back across the ground end over end, only coming to a stop when her back hit an already existing obstacle that proved insurmountable to the force of the Jonin's blow. It was one of the three wooden posts that Kakashi would have normally already tied at least one of his students to yet so far he hadn't made use of them. The Jonin lowered his foot back down slowly and crossed his arms over his chest.
"Again."
Sakura groaned as she rose back to her feet and Gai could tell she would be nursing at least a dozen bruises tomorrow once she woke up. She nearly fell back to the ground the moment she had risen to her feet and one hand pressed against the wooden post at her side to steady herself. She took one step forward before using it as a launching point and rocketing forward.
"Has anyone ever told you you're a natural at Taijutsu?" Kakashi avoided her newest assault with ease, dodging from side to side as she unleashed blow after blow against him.
Sakura didn't bother answering his question as Kakashi was actually successfully struck by her Chakra shrouded fist. He immediately exploded into a burst of smoke and the real Kakashi silently appeared behind her, a kunai held to her throat and she only released a sigh.
"Good natural strength by the way." Kakashi removed the deadly tool from her neck and returned it to its place at his side. "You're getting better if you took out my Sha-"
"SHANNARO!" She struck him and he once again burst into smoke before she rose one foot into the air and brought it down with force on the ground.
It simply erupted outward from the impact of her foot, blue lines of Chakra racing through the growing divide between segments of earth before a silver topped blur emerged from one and was airborne. His arms were a blur before he brought one hand to his mask and blew out a stream of water that swiftly flooded the battlefield. Sakura cried out as she was swept away in the sudden crushing wave and slammed into the lake behind her, hitting it with a great splash.
"You're getting pretty good Sakura." Kakashi casually crouched on the shore next to the water logged pink haired Genin after she had mostly dragged herself out of the water. "Just a couple days ago you would still be out in the middle of the lake."
"Ow." Her head fell onto the soft mud. "My everything hurts." Her voice was muffled but still clear.
Kakashi patted her on the back of her soaked clothes.
"Don't worry. That just means you're getting stronger." He smiled at her beneath his mask and Sakura offered a weak grin of her own even as her eyelids slowly lost the battle to stay open.
"That means…" She yawned and drifted off before she could finish what she was saying. Kakashi slowly shook his head, no malicious intent behind it, before he drew the pink haired Genin up and into his arms. He ignored the way that her soaking wet clothes let water seep into his Flak Jacket and instead vanished in a puff of smoke.
"Looks like that girl isn't as weak as I thought or from what Ino told me." Asuma swiftly lit a cigarette as he spoke. "If Kakashi's training her himself, she's got to have at least some talent."
'Good for you Kakashi.' Gai couldn't help but smile after what he had seen. 'We shall see who has the better pupil sooner rather than later.'
AN: Well, I'm of a mixed feeling of these 4 actually. On one hand, I did what I wanted to with the Legion. On the other, a few things simply don't click with me...Whatever.
Also, King of Konoha, I hope this has cleared up everything for you when it comes to Sakura. If not? Give me a a few more chapters and I'll definitely make it clear. Or just PM me.
Onward to replies:
BetaZackFan: Read something exciting then. There's not much else I can do when it comes to Orange Legion.
tastybigsexy: I'll post the origins of the Legion eventually. Or just PM me and I'll just answer.
Guest: Thank you.
Delicious Cookie: I discovered I can't write crack in the process of writing Orange Legion. Good on you for pointing that out. Want to know something? I was originally going to have the Legion pray to some ramen god but I cut that bit out before I posted this.
Well that's it. PM me any questions or leave a review.
Peace.