Chapter 2: Three Months of Hell
Naruto awoke at 4 a.m. and got up to shower and eat breakfast. At 4:48 a.m. he left in a hurry to training ground one where Ibiki-sensei told him to meet him. "Okay brat," Naruto stood at attention, "first thing is first. You're doing D-Rank missions under henge. At no point will you break henge during, before, or after the mission until either I say so or you're back home with your curtains and door closed." With a glare that still sent shivers down Naruto's spine, Ibiki finished, "Are we clear?"
"Yes Sensei." Naruto stated.
Ibiki expected a louder response, "I said, 'ARE WE CLEAR?!'"
"YES SENSEI!" Naruto shouted with gusto. Ibiki nodded with satisfaction.
"Now let us work on your henge. First pick something taller and non-descript." Naruto made the hand signs and proofed into a taller version of himself with black hair. Ibiki looked him over and shook his head. "No, you have to change your face as well. Get rid of the whiskers, use a different hair style, slouch a bit so that even your form is different." Naruto did those things, by adding a more pointed nose, smoothing his cheeks, and changing his posture so he looked entirely different. His hair was lengthened to fall over one eye. "Good. Your work with the henge technique is adequate. Now you will keep this up for the day. Now come, let us complete missions." Naruto eagerly followed him to the mission office.
Naruto's enthusiasm disappeared well into his third D-Rank for the day. Painting a fence. Without help. While henged. Nearly finished, Naruto exclaims with indignant fury, "Oh come on sensei why do I have to do these, these… these chores?" Naruto flailed his arms nearly spilling the paint bucket everywhere.
Ibiki sighed. "These, 'chores,' are the main lifeblood of many ninjas. Not only does this teach you trades to fall back on if you're retired or injured, but during infiltration jobs, you may be required to pose as a handyman or a freelancer. This is especially important for you. Have you noticed something today?" Naruto frowned as he thought. Something was bugging him today. The people seemed especially off to him. They seemed… cordial. Understanding dawned on Naruto's henged face. "Yep. A Ninja's job is not to stand out, but to blend in. You're adept at information gathering, escape artistry, trapping, and infiltrating short term. My goal is to train your other skills for the next summer until you go back to the academy-."
"The academy!?" Naruto shouted in disbelief "I don't want to go back there! I thought I passed!"
Ibiki held up his hand, calling for silence, "Sometimes missions call for us to do things we don't want to do. To endure that which normal people cannot." He undid his bandana showing his scarred and defaced head, that looked to have endured torture of the highest and most sadistic degree, "failure can mean death," Naruto gulped audibly, "or worse." Ibiki hid his scarred head again. "As for the academy, it is both a final test from me, and an A-Rank mission.
Naruto's eyebrows shot up at the mention of that. "A-a-an A-Rank? What am I doing there? Trying to flush out a spy or something?" Naruto chuckled at his own joke.
Ibiki simply nodded, "exactly."
Naruto face faulted at that. "Wait, I was just kidding!" He looked around before grinning madly, "so am I seriously going to flush out a spy?"
Ibiki gave a small smirk, "yeah. By the time you graduate from the Academy, which I expect you to do at the top of your class, you will need to have enough evidence and proof to put away whoever the spy is." He then turned serious, holding Naruto's gaze before continuing to impose how important his next words are. "Failure could doom Konoha. Treat your training like it's a life or death mission, and treat every mission like Konoha's very life depends on the success of the mission." Naruto gulped again and nodded his understanding. Ibiki then went back to finishing the paint of his part of the fence while Naruto went back to finishing his part. The two painted in silence for the rest of the job and received their pay.
Afterwards, they went back to training ground one where Naruto was allowed to drop the henge and taught Ibiki's taijutsu style meant to capture and disable opponents. Through the breaking of bones and knife strikes at tendons. Naruto took to Hokaku style very well. His natural flexibility and speed helped him. The only thing he needed to really work on was precision and understanding of the human body. The worst part for Naruto was the book work necessary for this style.
Ibiki forced Naruto's focus and ensured any distraction from gaining information, both from the obvious and his surroundings was met with brutal punishment. Usually in the form of Anko hitting Naruto with dulled kunai and shuriken which still stuck into him due to the speed they were thrown.
Soon the sex talk and seduction tactics was taught to Naruto whose face remained a cherry red throughout the discussion. Anko enjoyed teaching the young preteen blonde these simple facts of life immensely. His embarrassed face was absolutely hilarious especially when she showed him diagrams and pictures. He fainted no less than three times much to her delight and Ibiki's growing headache.
Situational awareness was constantly trained especially on days when Anko joined the training to help 'motivate' Naruto 'properly.' The creation of explosives without seals was taught as well. Naruto noticed that Ibiki seemed to have more fun with this teaching as he grinned viciously as explosions of varying size and power went off in Training ground 37, which had building structures of different types and ruins of said structures. Urban combat and capture was taught as well as his taijutsu grew.
It was nearing the end of the summer break when the subject of ninjutsu was broached. "This," Ibiki holds his hands in a cross guard pattern, "is the Jutsu known as Shadow Clone Jutsu. It creates a duplicate made of pure chakra given form and the same personality. Everything they learn, or see, or hear, will get sent back to you as a memory when dispelled." Naruto was listening in rapt attention as Ibiki and his clone explained the Shadow Clone Jutsu. "This technique is technically a forbidden Jutsu due to how chakra intensive it is. Half my chakra is gone and used by my doppelganger." Ibiki glared in a way that ensured one would listen closely, "under no circumstances should you underestimate this jutsu." It took half an hour for Naruto, under guidance of Ibiki, to produce a shadow clone. This both surprised and pleased Ibiki. Anko cracked a joke about big chakra coils equaling big dicks which made Naruto blush only a bit. He had grown fairly immune to Anko's antics but not entirely.
Finally the day before Naruto was to start his counter espionage mission he met with his Sensei and Anko for one last debrief. After receiving his orders, and told where to go to make contact, Anko hugged the young blonde tightly, smothering him in her chest while Ibiki smirked at her antics. They both left first back to T&I while Naruto waited a bit before leaving to go get ready at his apartment.
