"So I heard your tem managed to beat Gai's," Yuuhi Kurenai said as she took a sip of the hot sake from the saucer she held. The raven-haired beauty was sitting with several other jounin in a seedy bar that they regularly gathered in to let their hair down and unwind. Her question was directed at Sarutobi Asuma, who was the leader of one of the other rookie teams this year and someone that she had long felt a definite attraction to. Around the table were Gekkou Hayate, Uzuki Yuugao, Shiranui Genma and Mitarashi Anko.
"Oh, someone finally showed up Gai's assault squad," Genma asked interestedly, downing a huge gulp of sake from the glass in front of him on the table.
"Well, sort of," Asuma admitted sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head in embarrassment. "My team is built a little more for infiltration and espionage, but I've been working on their combat strength to balance them out. Unfortunately there was no good information on how they'd fare against other genin, since Shikamaru usually wasn't willing to fight hard I the Academy and Naruto had been holding back a lot for the last few years. So I asked Gai if he'd mind having his students spar with mine."
"I'll bet he just loved that," Hayate said with a smile before he broke into a hacking cough. Yuugao rubbed a hand on his back as he hacked and wheezed. Giving support, but not treating him as an invalid like many did.
"You all know Gai," Asuma groaned. "He started going on about youth and probably would have talked my ear off if I hadn't managed to distract him with some story about Kakashi doing something. I forget what I told him, but I was desperate by that point."
"So how did your brats do," Anko asked crudely. It was not widely known to anyone but Kurenai, who found herself in the awkward situation of being the psychotic woman's best friend, but Anko had been on a protective detail watching the Uzumaki boy off and on over the last couple of years.
"Not bad," Asuma said, taking a long drag from his cigarette. "The kids couldn't outfight them as they were and knew it, so they outsmarted them. Shikamaru is one scary tactician when given any time at all and Ino has proven to be fairly good with thrown weapons, but Naruto is the real fighting power on the team. You'd love him Hayate, since he uses a sword most of the time. A real special blade too, although it's not my place to give away the boy's secrets. He's developed some real skill with it, an improved variant of the shunshin and an odd if very flexible set of jutsu unlike anything I've ever seen."
"You're bullshiting us, aren't you, Asuma," Genma scoffed. "There's no way the kid could do something like that unless he was a certifiable genius on the level of Kakashi, or…"
"Or he's had someone training him intensively for years," Asuma finished. "Which is what happened." Anko twitched in her seat but didn't say anything as she attacked a skewer of dango with an unusual amount of viciousness even for her. "They moved to attack and swapped opponents immediately. Shikamaru used one of those advanced shadow jutsu that you always hear the Nara tell stories about to force Lee to move where he wanted, while Naruto rushed the Hyuuga. Ino rushed the kunoichi to keep her out of the way, then used her family jutsu to posses the mini-Gai. When Lee was out of the fight, Shikamaru sent his used his shadows to move under the Hyuuga while Naruto moved against the girl.
"I really doubt that Shikamaru could have caught the Hyuuga before he was exhausted, but Naruto suddenly disengaged from the girl and used some kind of jutsu to make ropes rise from the ground and wrap themselves around the boy. I don't know how he missed it since the Hyuuga are all so damned cocky about how much their eyes can pick up. Once he was down, the other two ganged up on Tenten and Naruto can be damned scary to fight if you don't have any backup."
"How good is he," Hayate asked curiously.
"His forms still pretty sloppy, but he can put a lot of power into his blows," Asuma replied proudly. "But it's his speed that is really his strong point."
"Oh," Yuugao asked, speaking for the first time that evening, her eyebrow arched questioningly.
"You all know that the shunshin is pretty much worthless in combat, right," Asuma asked as everyone shook their heads. "It takes too long to get moving and your path is glaringly obvious by the chakra motion. Even a non-Hyuuga can sense it if they try. Naruto's developed something he calls shunpo. He literally disappears between steps and reappears somewhere else on the battlefield. He says that he just elongates the step he makes, pumping energy into his body to make the transition, but I've never been able to track his movement by the chakra and the Hyuuga wasn't able to either."
"Damn, that would be awesome," Anko grinned. "A move like shunshin that you can use in combat? No one's been able to do anything like that since Yondaime's Hiraishin no jutsu. I wonder if he could teach one of us to do it?"
"I don't know," Genma frowned. "He is likely going to want to keep any special moves like that to himself, given his lack of family techniques."
Kurenai noticed that Asuma's face had closed up at the question and wondered if he knew something extra he wasn't sharing, then berated herself. Of course he wouldn't just give away information on one of his student's abilities. That would break the trust between them and probably destroy any chance the team had to work together. That was something she had to deal with on a daily basis as all three of her own genin can from clans with hijutus and teaching them to work together without divulging secrets was definitely a trying experience.
"Actually, Hayate-san," Asuma said, interrupting Genma and Anko's argument, "I was wondering if you might be willing to work with Naruto a little. You're the best swordsman in the village and while I don't expect you to teach him your style, I would appreciate it if you could go over the basics with him."
"I'll think about it," the thin, sickly looking man allowed. "I've never really been interested in teaching, but I'll at least consider it."
"That's all I can ask," Asuma said with a grin that gave Kurenai a warm jolt in her stomach. "Now, who wants more sake?"
Naruto winced as Tenten slipped a section of the staff inside his guard. It hurt, but he grinned like a madman as the two battled their way across the training ground that was already littered with the weapons the kunoichi had discarded over the course of their spar. He hadn't had this much fun in a long time and the blonde guessed that Tenten felt the same way that he did by the matching grin on her face.
"Ready to give up," he asked cheerfully, dodging a particularly nasty blow that would have split his skull had it connected.
"Not on your life," Tenten replied, leaping back and whipping a handful of shuriken from one of her pouches and loosing them in a smooth motion. It would have been easy to just dodge them, but she had taught him not to when the wire she connected to them wrapped around him in her first victory.
"So what do you do for fun," Naruto asked, starting to breathe a little heavily as the battle continued. "Besides fighting with charming men like myself that is."
"Well," Tenten panted, her exhaustion beginning to show. "I sometimes get to use my parents forge to work on my own weapons and I really enjoy going to the movies every so often."
"Chick flicks or action movies," the blonde asked, noting his opponent's state and bit back a curse as she pulled a kusairgami from a scroll.
"Action films are okay," Tenten shrugged, "but a good mystery is fun every now and then and I really love horror movies."
"Brrr, not me," Naruto shivered as he parried the sickle and tried not to get tangled in the chain as she swept it at his legs. "The scary stories freak me out. I like good old fashioned action movies. I heard that they were filming a new seven warriors movie the other day and I can't wait. Even if it is just a movie, it's still a lot of fun to watch."
"I think I need a break," Tenten wheezed as she fell back from the force of the blonde's parry and landed on her rear. "I knew you were strong, but even Lee would be exhausted by now and you're barely breathing hard."
"Heh," Naruto smirked as he sat down next to the girl and laid his sword across his lap. "That's cause I have a disgusting amount of stamina. You shouldn't feel too bad about that, since my stamina is because I can use all of my chakra for physical enhancement instead of jutsu."
"Are you saying that thing you did to Neji wasn't a jutsu," Tenten demanded.
"Yep," Naruto beamed innocently. "It's called kidou and it just uses spiritual energy, which I have an excess of. My shunpo works the same way."
"Do you think you could teach me how to do that shunpo thing," Tenten asked nonchalantly, but holding her breath as she waited for an answer.
"I don't think so," Naruto replied, his brow furrowed in thought. "I can do that stuff because I had my spiritual energy awakened into reiatsu by Tenken. You just have spiritual energy that's being used in the chakra conversion process and the leftovers that you don't have stamina to match. It might be possible if we could find another zanpaktou or could find a monster that puts out enough spiritual pressure. It's too bad there's no Hollows here, though, since encountering one could wake up your spiritual abilities…"
Do not even joke about that, Tenken said sternly. These people have no real protection from Hollows and would be devoured to a man.
Naruto winced at the vehemence of Tenken's admonishment, causing his training partner to look at him curiously. "Sorry," he said quickly, "I just remembered why that would be a really bad idea."
"So I'm pretty much stuck with normal skills and jutsu," Tenten summed up philosophically. "Don't worry too much about it, Naruto. I get by just fine with my weapons."
"Still," Naruto frowned, "You should probably ask your sensei to get you some chakra building exercises and learn a few support ninjutsu or even genjutsu. Your teammates are pure taijutsu specialists, which means that you will need to be able to give them more than kunai and shuriken as support fire eventually."
"I suppose so," Tenten sighed. "That was why I was kind of hoping to learn your stuff. Gai-sensei may now a few ninjutsu, but they'd probably be useless to me without a long term chakra building regimen. I really doubt he knows anything about genjutsu."
"Well, from what I remember them talking about genjutsu ion the Academy," Naruto said, "most genjutsu is developed by individual users, not taught. That's why they teach the basics in class. If you study the scrolls available at the genin library, you can probably start making your own. Hell, I'll be your test subject if you want since detecting and breaking genjutsu is one of my weakest areas."
"You might just regret that," the kunoichi said with a grin that made the blonde feel more than a little nervous.
Asuma fidgeted as he stood outside the Hokage's office. He didn't get called here very often and was more than happy to avoid it whenever possible. It wasn't that he didn't care for his father; they just had too many areas where they disagreed. That had been one of the things that had driven him to leave Konoha all those years ago and join the Twelve Guardians in protecting the Daimyo.
"Hokage-sama will see you now, Asuma-san," Kaneko, the Hokage's secretary said, letting the bearded jounin sigh in relief that the irritating wait was over. He opened the door and looked in on the old man, noting that his father was really showing his age these days. It started a slow burn that no decent candidate for Hokage had come forward in the last twelve years, forcing the Sandaime to stay in office when he was well past the time when he should have retired. By all rights, the old man should be at home watching his grandchildren play and sit smoking his pipe as he watched the sunset.
"Come in and close the door," the old man ordered. Asuma swung the door closed and moved forward to stand in front of the desk, trying to relax and not feel like an anxious ninja called in front of the Hokage for the first time.
"You wanted to see me," Asuma prompted when his father continued to shuffle through papers.
"Do you think your team can handle an upper C-Rank mission," the Hokage asked bluntly.
Asuma blinked in surprise as his jaw dropped and the cigarette in his mouth fell to the floor. He stamped out the butt as he regained control of himself enough to ask, "What brought this on?"
"It's complicated," the old man sighed. "Kakashi's team took on their first C-Rank escort mission a week ago and things started going wrong from there. Yesterday I received a message from him along with a pair of nukenin who had attacked them. Team Seven chose to continue the mission to Nami no Kuni, but Kakashi did express a reservation that there might be more attacks coming."
"Who were the nukenin," Asuma asked.
"The Onikyoudai," Sandaime replied. "I've looked up the information we have on them and they were known associates of Momoichi Zabuza, an A-Rank nukenin from Kirigakure. This could spell some serious trouble since Kakashi indicated that the head of the Gatou Shipping Company seems to be behind the attacks."
"And you're thinking about sending Team Ten," Asuma concluded. "Why us? Surely a team of chuunin could handle this better than a team of genin."
"Unfortunately, that's where one of our current problems arises," the old man sighed. "Most of the jounin are out on missions and the chuunin that haven't been assigned out are currently working on preparation for the upcoming chuunin exam. Gai's team is already out on a C-Rank and Kurenai doesn't feel her team is ready to handle this. That leaves you and your team."
Asuma scratched his head as he rolled the situation over in his mind. While he had a great deal of confidence in his genin and was going to request a C-Rank for them soon, were they ready for a mission like this where the likelihood of running into nukenin was high? "I think we can do it," Asuma said reluctantly. "I would have preferred they get another C-Rank under their belts before doing something like this, but there isn't a lot of choice."
"I'm relieved to hear that," Sandaime said with a smile of relief for his son. "You'll need to head out first thing in the morning and make your best speed to Nami no Kuni. I'm worried that Kakashi might have bitten off something his team can't chew, so I want you there to back him up as soon as possible." He held out a mission briefing scroll that Asuma took. The bearded jounin made a hand seal and disappeared in a swirl of leaves.
Naruto covered his mouth as he yawned broadly while walking towards the village gate. He'd been surprised when Asuma-sensei had found him at the training ground where he'd been working out and told him to prepare for an extended mission outside of the village. The blonde had been so excited that he'd barely been able to sleep that night and had woken up more tired than he would have preferred for what was sure to be a long day of travel.
Shikamaru was leaning against the wall by the gate, asleep while vertical, and Ino was pacing nearby while Asuma-sensei watched amusedly. Naruto waved absently to his team as he joined them, snickering as Ino gave Shikamaru a light punch in the short ribs. The kunoichi had a scary smile as she watched the boy wheeze from the wind being driven out of him.
"All right, that's enough fooling around," Asuma said before Shikamaru got enough breath back to complain. "We've got a lot of hard running ahead of us today, so save your energy for that."
"Ne, Asuma-sensei," Naruto asked, "what exactly is out mission? You just told me to pack for a long trip and that it was supposed to be a C-Rank mission."
"That's right," Ino nodded. "We could use a few more details, you know."
"Fine," Asuma sighed. "We're heading to Nami no Kuni to back up Team Seven. Apparently they ran into some nukenin on their way to Nami, but decided to continue the escort anyway. When Hokage-sama found out, he assigned us to go and be a backup and support team for them in case more nukenin are involved."
"We're going to help Sasuke-kun," Ino squealed, clasping her hands together under her chin as she nearly swooned.
"Oh great," Shikamaru grumbled, "We're backing up Emo the wonder boy." He shut up and backed away as Ino turned a threatening glare on him.
"Anyway, we need to get moving," Asuma intervened. "Nami no Kuni is a couple of days away, even at a hard run. Let's go."