The following Monday after graduation, all of those who passed the Academy test came back to the Ninja Academy to be assigned to their genin squads. Naruto was wearing a black long sleeve shirt with an orange zipper and dark orange long pants. There was a red ring of fabric on the left arm of Naruto's shirt that hid several seals containing different supplies. On Naruto's right leg was a kunai and shuriken pouch position to be in easy reach for him. His shirt had the Uzumaki swirl on the back in a prominent manner and this was partly obscured by the ninjato strapped to his back. Thanks to the loose manner he was wearing his shirt, Naruto' belt with its hidden lock pick set, ninja wire, and seals with additional supplies was obscured from sight. The belt itself was a special order belt from a ninja store and was rated to double as a garrote even if an enemy used rank C chakra enhanced strength according to the taijutsu assessment scale to try and break the belt. Finishing Naruto's outfit was his headband proudly worn on his forehead.

Once Naruto got to the Academy, he headed to the gymnasium with the rest of his fellow students. The number of graduates this year was large enough that they couldn't fit everyone in a single classroom; not even a classroom for the first year students. Naruto was one of the early birds and headed for one of bleachers in the back that were set up for the students. He then spent the next fifteen minutes watching as the rest of the graduates made their way to the gym. Most were very familiar to Naruto as either friends or people he had been in several classes with. A few others were only vaguely familiar to Naruto as acquaintances he only passed in the hallway from time to time.

Naruto could see why the graduation was held in the gym when the 84th graduate entered the room followed shortly afterwards by Headmaster Roshi. With 28 possible new genin teams Konoha would be getting a rather large infusion of new ninjas even if only half of the teams passed the Jonins' final test. Naruto knew that odds of such a low rate of final genin were very low. It was a popular prank among Jonins to tell their new teams that each only had a 33 percent chance of succeeding on the final. Since the tests were only ever passed as a team, three separate 33 percent odds added together gave the team a 99 percent chance of passing. On average, 70 to 80 percent of the academy graduates would pass the Jonins final test of teamwork. From what Naruto could remember, the highest percentage of a class to pass the Jonins' test was three years before Minato became a Jonin instructor with the record of 96 percent. The lowest ever was a 53 percent back during the latter half of the Shodai's reign. That low graduation rate was partially due to sabotage on the part of one of the Academy Instructors. Hashirama sentenced that saboteur to 400 lashes in public over a five day period.

Roshi took the set up stage facing the bleachers and spoke at his former students while politely ignoring the stares of those who didn't know that the headmaster liked to wear a turtle shell shaped weight on his back. "Congratulations on graduating my former students. Regrettably, there are far fewer of you here than there were back when you all started at this fine institution four years ago. The path of the shinobi is not an easy or forgiving path for those who choose to walk it. This profession of ours involves pain, suffering, sweet, and blood while offering us only the next mission as a reward for success."

"Look around you to the people sitting on the bleachers with you. These are some of your brothers and sisters in arms. Any issues or complaints that you had against anyone in this room while you were studying in the Academy will be left here in the Academy for all time. The only thing that is standing between you and a new career as urn fillings in your family shrine are the other shinobi on the force. In a minute I will be letting you know who your fellow genin teammates are and I can guarantee that all of your teammates are here in this room. These are the people who you will be counting on to watch your back in a fight or on patrol just as they will be counting on you to do the same for them."

"Remember your training and make sure to keep it up! Your training is the greatest weapon in your arsenal and the second best thing to insure you stay alive out in the field besides your teammates' help. Always add to your abilities and practice them when you get the chance. A shinobi is like good steel, adding multiple skills together like a smith does metals until a powerful warrior is created by the shinobi just like smith forges the alloy steel. A shinobi also understands his limits and doesn't puff himself up with pretentious pride. Sasuke Uchiha, as the Rookie of the Year for this promising batch of graduates, this upcoming warning is especially true for you even though it applies to everyone in this room. Far too many genins have had promising careers cut short because they bit off more than they could chew due to their pride and are now permanent fixtures of their family shrines. You are no longer the top class of the Academy. As of this day you are simply new genins at the very start of your career. Everyone on the force who is not currently sitting on a bleacher in this room is your superior in experience and likely rank as well. Use this fact to help keep your pride and tempers in check or an enemy will kill you when you leave the village on a mission."

After that chilling note, Roshi began to read off the teams and who the Jonin senseis would be. Naruto caught onto this year's composition pattern once he heard several names that he recognized well. The teams were set up with a heavy hitter, a support member, and a tracker. Naruto gave Roshi full attention when the headmaster called out, "Team 10 is composed of Naruto Uzumaki, Sakura Hurano, and Kiba Inuzuka with Fuka Asakawa as the Jonin instructor. You will be meeting your instructor in class room 312."

Once Roshi finished calling out the instructors he dismissed the new genin to meet their new instructors. There was an immediate rush for the gym door by most of the students. Naruto decided to avoid the crowd which was on the verge of triggering a fistfight by walking up the wall of the gym and squeezing through a ventilation window to leave. Roshi was the only one to notice Naruto's means of leaving the room bringing a small smile to the headmasters' face.

Kiba with Akamaru resting on his head ran up the stairs to the third level of the school with a grin on his face. There was a big grin on Kiba's face as he said, "Oh yes Akamaru. We're going to be the first ones to meet our new sensei just like we're going to be leaders of our new team!" Akamaru barked in agreement as Kiba grabbed the doorknob for room 312. Kiba opened the door as Sakura appeared in the stairwell causing the rambunctious boy to call out, "First one in the room is the best shinobi on the team!" He then turned his head to look in the room and step inside. However, Kiba's eyes bulged out in shock when he saw what was inside.

Naruto was sitting in the instructor's chair with his feet up on the desk in a lazy manner. Furthermore, Naruto had created half a dozen kage bunshins and had them henged into amazingly beautiful female models wearing different designer bikinis. Two clones were fanning Naruto with exotic feathered fans. On was behind Naruto looking like she was rubbing his shoulders One was on the other side of the desk preforming a slow dance on one of the student desks. The last two were standing on either side of Naruto with one apparently holding a bowl full of grapes while the other was serving a martini.

In a lazy manner, Naruto looked at Kiba and said, "You were right Kiba. The first shinobi to be in this room is the best genin on the team. Thank you for recognizing my magnificence and you will be ecstatic to know that life on the top is good. Oh Sakura, thank you joining us as well." Naruto looked at his clones and said, "My teammates have arrived ladies which unfortunately means that our time together is at an end."

All of the bunshins let out sigh of sadness as one. The bunshin that was seemingly holding the bowl of grapes put the bowl down on the teacher's desk and clapped her hands. This bunshin then said in a commanding voice, "You heard the master ladies. Reverse summon yourself to the mansion at once!" The other bunshins dispersed themselves one by one until the former holder of the bowl was left. This bunshin bowed her head and said, "Until we can serve you again Master Naruto." It then dispersed itself along with the bowl of grapes on the table.

Naruto got his feet off of the desk and smirked at his gob smacked teammates. He then started to chuckle and said, "If only you two could see your faces right at this moment. I mean seriously, I just used a couple of henged bunshins and you two are completely shocked into silence. Any of us could have done this back in third year given that we learned this jutsus back in second year." Preforming a combo with a regular bunshin and the henge jutsu was possible for an Academy student. It just would take a lot of practice that most students wouldn't put in to work just those two jutsus together. Since Naruto used kage bunshins who then used henge it actually wasn't a combo in the traditional sense.

The sound of senbon flying through the air caused Naruto to drop to the ground while yelling, "Get Down!" He rapidly pulled out a shuriken and threw it in the general direction of the incoming senbon before he leapt behind a desk. Naruto pulled a desk down to form a barrier and grabbed a fist full of kunais. His eyes instantly darted to Kiba and Sakura to check on their status. All it took was a split second for him to verify that they had heard his warning and had ducked for cover on the other side of the classroom door. Naruto's eyes then looked for the shuriken he had thrown and saw it near the window where there was a very faint distortion.

All three genins then heard the sound of clapping being thrown throughout the room. A joyful and slightly sultry voice then called out from seemingly everywhere. "Very good reactions you three. The Academy instructors didn't mess up in that aspect of your training." A genjutsu ended to reveal an incredibly beautiful woman with long burnt red hair wearing a tight fitting and somewhat scanty outfit that highlighted her natural charms. The woman ended her clapping and then pointed to the shuriken that was three inches from her head. "Bit off in your aim Naruto. You did well for a genin aiming just by sound. However, I still would have been free to kill you if I was an enemy ninja instead of your Jonin instructor. I also could have killed you long before Kiba or Sakura showed up because you never detected me hiding my presence with a genjutsu."

The jonin turned to look at the duo hiding behind the classroom door and took a step towards them. "Both of you left yourselves wide open to an enemy attack because you fell for Naruto's prank. That should never happen as a ninja. A simple application of genjutsu," there was a split second pause as Fuka activated a genjutsu on the trio. All three genins were shocked as Fuka's clothes appeared to fade away into smoke. Bits of the smoke started to circle around Fuka's naked and sweaty form barely protecting her modesty. Fuka walked through the smoke fully revealing herself to her three students as she continued to speak. "Can allow a shinobi to show anything to an enemy that they wish to show."

Kiba wasn't paying the slightest bit of attention to what Fuka was saying. All he could think about was the sight before him that put the centerfold he had once seen in a stolen porno magazine to complete shame. Sakura was staring at her sensei in complete shock that a kunoichi would expose herself in such a brazen manner. Naruto knew that Fuka must be casting a genjutsu and that he should be breaking it. However, something about Fuka was just so enthralling that he couldn't bring himself to end the glorious sight before him. Naruto was able to keep enough wits about him to keep his kunais in his hand and hiding the fact as best he could that he was ready to throw those kunais at Fuka's back at a moment's notice.

Fuka gave a sultry smirk as she continued, "The enemy will only see one thing until they are dead." She ended her sentence in a much more hostile tone. Fuka also canceled her genjutsu to reveal that she was fully clothed and holding a kunai in each hand against Kiba's and Sakura's necks. Fuka pressed against the duo's necks just hard enough to draw a drop of blood on each kunai before jumping behind Naruto. She immediately put a fresh kunai to Naruto's back and said, "Tell me Naruto. Why shouldn't I just cut you now and declare all three of you failures? You have five seconds before I draw your blood and you all fail my test."

Naruto responded by using a kawarimi with the teacher's chair to appear behind the teacher's desk. He then called out, "Regulation 37, paragraph 4 of the Jonin instructor rules states that no Jonin test of potential genin may begin without informing the potential genin of their status, the test conditions, test requirements, or at least 2 hours of notified prior prep time for the potential genins. You have not told us about your test, its conditions, or the prep time. Thus, you cannot fail us just yet even if you were to draw my blood."

Both Sakura and Kiba looked at Naruto in surprise not knowing what he was talking about or what regulations he was talking about. They then turned to face Fuka who was chuckling. "I have a special dispensation from the Hokage on that regulation Naruto. After all, the normal test doesn't take into consideration a student with a kekkei genkai that grants him the genetic memories of five highly elite ninjas no does it? You very easily could have told everyone in the class about the Jonins' test to truly determine who goes on to become genin."

Naruto stood with his back against the wall and he discreetly put a kunai in his offhand with the point aimed at the wall. He kept his nervousness from showing and stated as confidently as he could. "You all would know if I told a soul. It would have been impossible for me to pass along that information discreetly in four days to all 84 graduates. Especially since I live at the Shinobi Orphan's Care Complex where it would have been very suspicious for me to leave after graduation with the basic training ground provided on campus. Someone would have undoubtedly discovered such an information leak days ago and I would be summoned for breaking shinobi secrets. Grandfather Hokage declared years ago that anyone with an active Aima Sophia is bound to keep any and all shinobi secrets their genetic memories inform them about to the same level of a registered shinobi. That means that I'd suffer the same punishments as any ninja for breaking a shinobi secret. The Jonins' final of the genin is a class D secret."

Both Kiba and Sakura gasped in shocked when they heard that news. Sakura blurted out, "Revealing a class D secret carries a 500,000 ryo fine and 40 lash penalty with an additional 50,000 ryo and 10 lashes for every person the secret is revealed to by the guilty person!"

Fuka nodded her head and continued on, "Such a penalty for Naruto if he did reveal this information to everyone would land him with a 4,700,000 ryo fine and 880 lashes with a whip like this one in my hand." Fuka then revealed a cat-o-nine-tails with half a dozen rusty and jagged nails tied onto each tail. Kiba and Sakura both paled at the sight of the diabolical looking whip. They had never seen a punishment whip before and had thought that the whips mentioned their textbooks for certain punishments were the whips used to get animals to move. The thought of getting one of those whips used on them for breaking certain rules had been the stuff of nightmares for the two former students. Now those nightmares looked like pleasant daydreams compared to the image the demonic thing in Fuka's hand was giving them.

Naruto shivered slightly at the sight of a kyuubi whip. His ancestors had never had to suffer from one of those things and they only had to sparingly use it for punishments of criminal shinobi. Thanks to Aima Sophia Naruto knew that those things were coated in a special minor poison that heightened the pain one would feel from a lash. Given how well medical jutsus could heal someone there wouldn't be any muscle damage or even scars from the whipping after a few weeks. The doctors' healing abilities were why the lashings were made so agonizing. If the pain wasn't agonizing then a shinobi would soon forget about it since you had to develop a high pain tolerance to be a successful shinobi.

Fuka tapped the kyuubi whip with a finger and said, "As I said the Hokage gave me a special dispensation because of Naruto's kekkei genkai to insure that his team's test is on the level just like every other team. Naruto is a good academy student who didn't become Rookie of the Year only because of an unexpected oversight in the Academy's grading matrix that has been corrected for the future. It is well within the realm of possibility that he could have slipped you two a message between the time of the team announcements and your arrival in this room. This puts me in the position of possibly testing you when you already know how to beat the test without actually having what you need to truly beat the test."

The jonin paused a second for dramatic effect and said, "I think I'll be generous and cut you all a deal. If Naruto agrees to receive 60 lashes for the suspicion that he could have spoiled the test and he doesn't reveal what the test is supposed to be about during the flogging I will let you all be tested in the regular manner. However, your two hour time limit for prep will occur after the whipping and then the test will begin for the three of you."

Naruto gulped in shock at that announcement. Even with his healing, 60 lashes from a kyuubi whip would put him down for the rest of the day. Hell, he'd have to be patched up and taken to see a doctor to help heal. He'd also have to wait until after Fuka's test was passed to go to the doctor or all three of them would flunked.

Kiba blurted out, "Why the hell should Naruto accept such a deal when he's done nothing wrong? 60 lashes with that monstrosity will send him the ER!"

Fuka turned to Kiba and rebutted, "If Naruto goes to the ER after his flogging but before the test is passed everyone fails. Life is not fair and its time all of you accepted that fact. You and Sakura can field dress him to insure he doesn't die of blood loss. There will be times you'll have to complete a mission with a wounded comrade if you three actually join the shinobi forces."

Naruto put his kunais away and calmly said, "I'll do it. I'll take the 60 lashes if you'll honor your offer with your word as a sworn shinobi of Konoha to stick to the regular regulations for testing prospective genin."

The jonin politely nodded her head and said, "I swear Naruto Uzumaki that if you make it through all 60 lashes I will honor my agreement and test you three according to the regular regulations. Now, let's head to the courtyard. One of the throwing posts will do very well in place of a regular whipping post."

"Wait." Everyone turned to face Sakura who had quietly spoken up. The young kunoichi to be was obviously trying to keep her courage up as her body was trembling slightly. Sakura turned to look Fuka in the eyes and nervously spoke. "I'll take half of those lashes since I'm under suspicion of possessing knowledge that I shouldn't have had." Inner Sakura was screaming that she was utterly crazy for making this offer. However, Sakura doubted that she could pass whatever test this powerful and ruthless kunoichi could throw at them if her strongest teammate was completely out of action.

Kiba then cut in, "Just give Sakura and Naruto 20 lashes each and I'll take the final twenty. I'm also a member of this team so part of the suspicion falls on me as well." Kiba was also thinking he was kind of crazy making an offer like this. However, he was hoping that the two hour prep time would give the three of them enough time to be patched up enough to succeed at Fuka's test. Having two badly wounded team members or one needing to go to the ER wouldn't allow them to pass. Kiba's mother and sister that the only way one could succeed on a mission was by working with one's teammates. Headmaster Roshi also had hammered that point home in his farewell speech.

Fuka nodded her head and said, "Very well then. Kiba's modification to my deal is accepted. However, now all of you will fail if any of you backs out of this deal. Now follow me to the training posts. Any delays will be seen as you attempted to back out the deal." As Fuka walked out of the classroom she made sure to keep the kyuubi whip in easy view of the trio who followed after her looking like condemned men. Each step through the formerly happy halls of the Academy filled the prospective genins with nervousness and fear that they had made a terrible choice.

Once outside the Academy building, Fuka led the trio to shuriken posts and had each member of the trio stand in front of a post. Fuka then ordered in a commanding voice, "Team discipline is about to commence. Remove all clothing covering your backs and stand in front of the shuriken posts with your arms wrapped around the posts. Sakura, all clothing includes a training bra if you are wearing one. You all have one minute to remove the items of clothing mentioned before you will be deemed to be reneging on your deal with me starting now."

Naruto took off his ninjato followed by his shirt. He then grabbed the shuriken post like he was instructed with his bare back to Fuka. Kiba put Akamaru down on the ground and started to take off his upper clothing. Sakura waited a second, but quickly followed orders once she saw that Kiba and Naruto weren't looking at her. All three potential genin were ready for their lashings before the time limit.

Fuka uncoiled the kyuubi whip and gave it a test strike on the ground. All three prospective genins flinched at the sound of the whip, but they kept their hands wrapped around the posts. Fuka then said in her commanding tone adding a touch of killing intent to her words to really make the trio sweat. "This team of potential genin has been found under suspicion of breaking a class D shinobi secret earning the primary subject of suspicion 60 lashes. Upon teammates' request, the sentence has been split among all three members. This disciplinary punishment is to be carried out on a cold day in hell."

Naruto, Kiba, and Sakura all blinked when they felt the killing intent vanish while their fear and dread was cut in half. Kiba nervously piped up, "What was that sensei?"

Fuka sealed away the kyuubi whip and jumped behind the shuriken pots so the trio could see her. There was a much friendlier look on her face as she spoke in a soft and kind manner. "There will be no punishment for the three of you. There will also be no Jonin's test according to the normal regulations like I promised as I never gave Naruto the 60 lashes. You three passed my test. Now put on your clothes and sit by me so I can explain things in more detail."

The trio quickly got their clothes back on and then sat in a circle around Fuka on the throwing grounds. Once Sakura, who was the last to get dress due to making sure that Kiba and Naruto couldn't see anything naughty, sat down Fuka began to speak. "The Ninja Academy gives you all the skills you need to start your careers off as shinobi. However, the Academy cannot really test you all for teamwork, critical thinking, self-sacrifice, and willingness to face danger like you'll need to be able to do in order to succeed on dangerous missions. That is where the Jonins' final comes in to test to see if you all have enough of these qualities right now to become genin."

The kunoichi unsealed a tea set and poured all four of them a glass of tea. She then politely said with a refined air, "Drink this. It's a special blend that helps to calm one down and all of you will need it after passing that final." Fuka took a small sip first of the tea before her student's followed her example. She then put her cup down and continued her lecture. "Naruto with his kekkei genkai is a snag to the normal Jonin final as he knows what is being tested and what needs to be shown in order to pass. The Hokage felt that there was too great of a chance that any team he was on would work towards the test instead of genuinely being able to pass it. Oh don't make that face Naruto. None of us thought you'd spill the beans on the test beforehand. However, you could give too many hints during the test and you'd be actively working to insure that everyone passed the test knowing what is required. This would normally be a good thing for a ninja since in our profession we need to seize any advantage that we can give ourselves."

"But, this test is an exception as if you don't have these abilities to a certain level you could cause a catastrophe on a mission that would probably result in someone's death. So the Hokage decided that you three couldn't have the prep time or even be told what your test was; especially so that Naruto could be tested without realizing he was being tested. Trust me when I say that it wasn't easy to come up with this test for you three. I spent almost a month crafting it."

Sakura spoke up after finishing her tea. "Could you explain the test for me sensei and how we demonstrated those skills? I want to make sure I fully understood everything about the test." Inside her head, Inner Sakura was ranting that she didn't understand a single thing about Fuka's test.

Fuka nodded her head and quietly refilled Sakura's tea cup. "Certainly Sakura, since all of you are now my genin students I'm free to discuss the test. My test focuses on teamwork, self-sacrifice, and especially willingness to face danger. Critical thinking is involved in it, but it is not a focus of the test as I find it to be the easiest trait of the four to drill into genins. Now to explain things by the numbers, your teamwork was tested by whether or not you all were willing to make a sacrifice in order to insure that the team got a fair chance to be tested. Naruto demonstrated this by agreeing to the blatantly unfair punishment while you and Kiba demonstrated this by being willing to take part of the punishment on yourselves. This directly feeds into the self-sacrifice part of the test as anyone can see that a kyuubi whip can inflict absolutely horrendous amounts of damage. I also placed a minor genjutsu on the three of you that enhanced your feelings of fear and dread at the sight of the whip. Your willingness to face danger was tested by the three of you following me here and standing at the posts ready to endure a flogging. It's easy to say you'll make a sacrifice for others, but it's an entirely different thing to actually make the sacrifice."

Naruto then asked, "What about the critical thinking? Was it me realizing that having two teammates face a mission that they know about was better than me facing a mission I didn't have much information about?"

The kunoichi nodded her head as she answered her student, "For your part yes Naruto. Sakura and then Kiba demonstrated their critical thinking by realizing that having a team member down in critical condition would almost assure them of failure. So they did the only rational choice they could make in the circumstances they were in and tried to reduce the burden you would have had to deal with."

Fuka checked to see that her students had finished their tea and resealed the tea set away. She then stood up and said, "As I said, we are officially genin team 10. From now on we will be meeting six days a week at 8 am on training ground 10. Our team schedule will be as follows. From 8 until noon we will have a warmup and light practice. 12 to 12:20 will be a quick team lunch. After lunch our schedule will be a bit more varied. We will be alternating between doing D rank missions one day and heavier practice the next day during the afternoon. Our daily practice will end at 6 pm or when you have completed all of your assigned tasks for the day. It will be the later of the two that determines when you get off and not the earlier of the two so keep this fact in mind. The seventh day of the week will be your day off to relax and have fun. Don't even think about training or studying on this day because you need the break to avoid burnout or injury. Now do you have any questions?"

The trio was silent for a moment and then Kiba pipped up, "Was that genjutsu really how you look naked?" Sakura quickly smacked Kiba on the back of head for that comment. "Ouch, what the hell was that for Sakura?" Kiba asked while rubbing the back of his head.

A tick mark appeared on Sakura's forehead. She then angrily said, "Do you even have to ask why I hit you Kiba? What on earth would possess you to ask sensei a question like that?"

Fuka started to chuckle drawing all of her students' attention. She shook her head slightly and said, "The answer to your question is obvious Sakura. Kiba here is simply a young boy on the verge of becoming a teenager and unable to deal with all of the hormones his body is producing. Genjutsu is not my forte like ninjutsu, but a relatively simple one like I used before cutting you two is within my abilities. Yes Kiba, that is how I look without any clothes on and you shouldn't be shocked at all about it Sakura. My sexy figure is simply another weapon for me to use. So what if enemies see my glorious and desirable form? Their lust will paralyze them and then a simple cut allows me to collect the viewing fee of their lives. Or if I so choose, I can drain all of the chakra from their bodies with a single fatal kiss."

Both Naruto and Kiba let out small shivers of fear when they heard Fuka state that. Kiba became really afraid of Fuka deciding to collect the viewing fee from him. Naruto was nervous because Fuka was throwing off his normal expectations. He was pretty sure that his father would have known where her skills were over a decade ago as Hokage, but he hadn't called up those memories. Chunins and Jonins typically focused their skills into different basic types that could be identified. These types were useful for helping to assign shinobi to a mission and using a traditional build insured that one could get training from others specializing in the same manner. Fuka was throwing Naruto off because she was showing the signs of a seductress kunoichi, and the ninjutsu was at odds with that build. Seductress kunoichi typically favored genjutsu or poison as means to attack so they could get in, remove their target, and get out without causing a commotion. Ninjutsu was typically loud, obvious, and announced that one was a ninja. It was great for an assault or heavy support build where fighting power was paramount, but typically terrible for mission involving stealth.

Fuka then said, "I need to be off to inform the Hokage about our team becoming official. You three have the rest of the day off and I suggest that you enjoy it. You're not getting another day off until next Monday." Fuka then vanished in a swirl of leaves.

Authors note: I was not expecting to get another chapter out before 2016. However, the inspiration fairy hit me on Christmas so you all get this late Christmas present from me. Fuka is the kunoichi that was part of the grave robbers in the Naruto Shippuden anime filler. Considering that she's listed on the Naruto wiki as being a citizen of the Land of Fire and the group's goal I figured it would be reasonable to assume that she had some sort of background as a Konoha ninja. She hasn't broken away from Konoha because whatever happened to have her disillusioned with the position of Hokage didn't in this story. Consider it a minor butterfly flap. That's the Watsonian explanation whereas the Doylist reason is simply that I wanted Naruto to have a strong female sensei and I didn't want to use the standard Kurenai, Anko, or to a lesser extent Yuugao.

For those of you with issues on me adding the flogging for punishment in Konoha's criminal justice code, it is perfectly believable in a semi feudal setting like Kishimoto shows in Naruto. It's not pretty, but it is believable. Also, there would be less of an incentive for a society like Naruto's to end corporal punishments given all of the amazing abilities the medic ninjas can pull off. Think for a moment how many permanently crippling injuries the medics are able to take care of in the manga and anime letting the ninja suffering those injuries return to active duty. To the ninjas, punishment like flogging would be a day or two of agony and then the medics patch you up good as new with the knowledge that you don't want to mess up like that again. Also, our own use of this form of punishment isn't as far in the past as you might think. The last prison flogging in the UK happened in 1962 and corporal punishment for prisoners in the UK wasn't abolished until 1967. In the US, the last judicial flogging was in 1952 against a wife beater and the last state to remove flogging from the criminal code didn't do so until 1972. I detest this manner of punishment myself and I wish that it was completely banned around the world. But, I'm man enough to recognize that just because I detest a practice does not make it any more likely or not to be practiced by different cultures.