Son of the White Fang
by Lord Dragon Claw
Disclaimer: Always make sure your drinking buddy isn't an inborn master of Suiken (Drunken Fist).
Chapter Two: Ding
Guy found his "Eternal Rival" fuming over a bottle of sake in the bar they regularly visited. Realizing that Kakashi was really peeved, he decided to simply find out what had happened that morning rather than introduce himself with his usual boasting about "youth" and "springtime". Ordering a beer, he sat across from his cyclopean friend.
"Mind telling me what happened today? They didn't fail your bell test, did they?"
"No," mused Kakashi just after taking a quick sip around his mask, not allowing anyone to see his face. "They passed, but barely. That's what's got me pissed. Two of them are total idiots and it took most of the morning for the third one to figure it out. Uzumaki attacked me right off the bat with at least a hundred shadow clones which were easily dispatched with my Keysi style. Yamanaka was a little overenthusiastic about using her clan jutsu, so she missed with her mind control jutsu and incapacitated herself for about a half-hour. Aburame tried to attack me while I was busy so I punched him in the face only to learn he was a bug clone and the real him was making off with Yamanaka's body while Uzumaki continued to create more and more clones and try to dogpile me. Obviously, it failed."
"And you whipped him, eh?"
"Thousand Years of Pain has that effect. With how awkwardly Uzumaki was walking the rest of the day I was almost tempted to send him to the hospital to see a medic-nin well-versed in proctology, but I remembered his healing factor. He'll be fine."
"Kunai-version?"
"Without."
"Ah. No worries then."
"I tied both Yamanaka and Uzumaki to posts for their stupidity and then told Aburame to eat his lunch while I did some stretches in the next clearing for round two. Against my orders, he fed them food. While I would have normally turned someone in for insubordination, it showed that the Aburame got the idea. But the other two did not. Yet, anyway. Another fight, with them trying to work in concert, and Uzumaki managed to get both bells. He handed those to his teammates. I was able to pass them after that."
"And you're still angry at their unyouthfulness?"
"Yeah..." Kakashi suddenly stiffened. "Damn! She's coming!"
Guy looked a bit... startled. "She is?"
Kakashi created a shadow clone and left it behind while he ran outside, throwing a small wad of bills at the proprietor as he left. The owner of the bar, being a former ninja who had lost a leg, caught it easily.
"Well," began the clone. "Let's continue where we left off while the real me plays cat and mouse with Anko."
Guy nodded. "It is true that the youthful path of the ninja is fraught with perils."
Kakashi's clone's eye twitched as the image of a fat, balding, bespectacled man superimposed itself on Guy, and then turned into a panda.
"Guy? Never phrase it that way again!"
Kakashi made sure Anko would follow him by throwing a shuriken at her as he ran across the rooftops in the other direction. She easily caught it and threw it back, the silver-haired Jounin also catching it and returning it to his weapons pouch.
"Come back here, Kakashi!" she yelled.
"Nope. I don't think I will."
"I'm going to make you feel pain!"
"You'll have to catch me first!"
In response, she threw a couple snakes at him. He easily deflected them with his gloved hands and they dispelled, returning to wherever it was summons came from. It was then that he sprinted off, leading her on a merry chase. She smirked as she realized the direction he was heading in would quickly take them to her favorite place in all of Konoha...
"YOSH! TO INCREASE THE YOUTHFULNESS OF BOTH MY STUDENTS AND YOURS, I AGREE TO GIVE YOUR GENIN SQUAD ADDITIONAL TRAINING IN EXCHANGE FOR YOU TO TEACH MINE!"
"Geez, Guy! With the volume you shouted at, you could have ruptured my eardrums, dispelling me."
"Sorry. BUT THE FLAMES OF YOUTH WILL BURN BRIGHTLY!"
Poof.
"Eh heh... oops?"
Just inside the Forest of Death (officially known as Training Field 44) Kakashi stumbled as the memories of the clone he left with Guy slammed into his head. The feeling of pain in his eardrums, though only a phantom pain, was still enough to throw off his sense of balance and he missed the tree branch he had been aiming for. He plummeted towards the ground, trying to right himself so he could land on his feet, but it seemed he would simply land on his right side. He pumped chakra and ki into that side to reduce the impact to a negligible level.
It was then that he felt himself pinned to the ground, and suddenly on his back. He looked up to see Mitarashi Anko sitting on his stomach, grinning hungrily at him, but also a bit worried.
"What happened?" she asked.
"One of my shadow clones was painfully dispelled," replied Kakashi with a sigh. "It was an accident though. Guy got a little excited."
"Ah," she said, as she scooted a little further back so that she could rub her female area against his crotch. She then leaned down and simply lay on his stomach, rustling his hair with her hands. "That was a nasty trick you played on me this morning, Airen."
Kakashi smiled a bit, thankful that his girlfriend was in a similar situation to his own - she also had dreams of someone else who seemed to be in a relationship with the pigtailed boy/girl from his own dreams. He wrapped his arms around her back, just holding her close to him.
"Yeah, I suppose it was."
"Where did you find so much butterscotch pudding, anyway?"
"Probably the same market where you found all that salami you put in a bucket above the door to my apartment."
"Ah." She then giggled, thinking of how funny it was to see all the cats and dogs in Konohagakure no Sato trying to follow the infamous Copy Kakashi around town.
"I have a favor to ask of you," Kakashi said as Anko removed his mask.
"Go on," she said as she removed his second mask that was under the first, finally revealing his face. He looked a lot like his father, Sakumo, but also looked a lot like that boy in her dreams, that the girl she saw those dreams through called "Airen" (which was why she called Kakashi that in private).
"I want you to help me train my team, especially the Yamanaka girl they put on it."
She stopped and considered it. It could help prove to the Sandaime Hokage that she was capable of being a full-fledged Jounin, rather than a Special Jounin, by showing that she was capable of teaching Genin. She smiled and kissed Kakashi on the lips, forcing her tongue into his mouth. He returned the gesture and soon they were playing tonsil hockey. When she parted for breath, he asked her a question.
"I take it that was a yes?"
"Obviously."
Several hours of... "endurance" training with Anko later, Kakashi and Anko began to spar, both using the fighting styles and nintaijutsu hybrid moves (that used only the physical half of chakra, ki) that they had learned from their dreams to fight (Kakashi having helped Anko develop them when she began to have the dreams after Orochimaru fled the country).
Anko used the Kachu Tenshin Amaguriken (Chestnuts Roasting in an Open Fire Fist) and Kakashi blocked using the same move. Then Kakashi tried for a roundhouse kick, but that was blocked when Anko used the Hidden Weapons technique to pull a shield out of her trench coat. As she placed the shield back into her Hidden Weapons space with one hand, her other shot forward holding a ki-reinforced naginata. Kakashi deflected it to the side with the small metal plate on the back of one of his gloves and shot forward to knee Anko in the stomach, which she barely caught using a chakra-reinforced hand.
They continued to spar for a full hour before stopping to rest (but only because Kakashi won), Kakashi's clothes having some tears and his skin being a bit lacerated. Anko, who was tied, upside-down, to a tree with ninja wire and an unrolled chakra-sapping scroll wrapping around her to keep her from using taijutsu, ninjutsu, or nintaijutsu, to break free, was fuming. Also, she had lost her trench coat (which Kakashi was holding).
"Do you concede defeat?" asked the cyclopean Jounin.
"Fine; you win. Now get me down!" Knowing that combat still wasn't her specialty but Kakashi excelled at it whereas she was perfect for torture, interrogation, infiltration, and assassination was still not the same as having a positive win-to-loss ratio against her cyclopean boyfriend.
Kakashi chuckled. "Certainly."
That made Kakashi have a score of seventy-three, whereas Anko only had twenty-two. And Anko was well aware of the fact that Guy had fifty against the grey-haired Jounin's forty-nine. Her score against Konoha's self-proclaimed "Blue Beast" was thirty-six to his thirty. The three ninja tended to help one another train when they could, and made games out of it. Obviously, they kept score.
The next morning, Kakashi showed up about an hour late at six-o-clock at the bridge he ordered his team to meet him at.
"YOU'RE LATE!" yelled both of the blonde Genin. Shino merely adjusted his sunglasses.
"So sorry, but this black cat crossed my path so I had to go the long way around..."
"LIAR!" accused Ino.
Kakashi ignored her in favor of figuring out what his Genin had been up to in the hour he hadn't been around.
"So... Bugman is the only one to have trained in my absence?"
"Huh?" retorted Ino.
"I didn't see Shino do anything..." muttered Naruto.
"That's because he was doing a chakra-control exercise - the leaf-sticking one to be exact. Except he was using it to keep a couple of shuriken stuck to his forearms and hidden in his long sleeves. Am I right, Bugman?"
Shino nodded.
"Now, after today's mission, we will train..."
"A mission! YATTA!"
"Uzumaki, calm down."
"What is it! Rescuing a princess! Defeating a bandit troupe!"
"What! With almost no training? No. Those would be C Rank or even B Rank missions. Besides, we have to do twenty D Rank missions before we are allowed to even think of getting a C Rank."
"So, what kind of mission is a D Rank mission?" asked Ino.
"HELPING AN OLD LADY DO HER GROCERY SHOPPING!" exclaimed the two blondes.
"Well, that is the mission the Hokage gave us," replied Kakashi, his nose in his favorite book.
"Sensei," began Shino. "Even I don't see the point in calling this a 'mission'. It is merely a chore."
"Once you get to my level, killing bandits is a chore," retorted the cyclopean Jounin. "Besides, do you three remember what I said yesterday? About looking underneath the underneath? After the mission is over, I'll find out from each of you what you thought the purpose of today's mission was."
Naruto was loaded with the heaviest of the food items (using the leaf-sticking exercise to carry more than his hands were used to), but Ino was forced to carry her fair share too. Still, Shino carried a load that was between the blondes' in weight, whereas Kakashi carried all the fragile stuff. They returned to the mission office to collect their payment, all the time his three students being rather quiet. Naruto seemed to be the most introspective.
Once they returned to their training ground, Kakashi made two shadow clones (Naruto's way) and each Kakashi took a student aside, out of hearing range of the others.
Ino had two theories as to why they took the mission; the first being that it was to train their diplomacy. The other was to strengthen their muscles.
Shino also thought that it was to train their diplomacy, but to also determine the roles that the individuals had on the squad - Naruto being the heavy assault. Shino had not quite figured out what he and Ino were for, exactly, but he assumed that Kakashi was for more delicate matters.
Naruto had several ideas. He also thought that it was to train diplomacy, but to also learn how to do bodyguard details in boring areas (he had been on the lookout for any nasty surprises, just in case Kakashi had decided to have someone attack). Muscle training was another theory of his, as was teamwork (as evidenced by Kakashi's bell test). His last theory was that Kakashi had been messing with them to try and test their critical thinking skills.
Kakashi got the three of them back together and dispelled his clones.
"Okay, so all three of you had guessed diplomacy. Purple-skirt and Uzumaki thought that it might be muscle training. Bugman thought that I was testing out what your combat roles might be. Uzumaki thought that I might have been testing your awareness or your teamwork. He also thought that I might have been pulling your legs to see if you can think of reasons why we might do such boring missions."
The three Genin nodded.
"The truth is, all those theories were correct."
The three Genin gaped at that.
"The remaining reason that none of you had even hinted at, though it was okay as we've only done one mission so far, was that the D Rank missions are to get you used to the vast number of different personalities that your clients may have, while doing so in a safe environment to prevent deaths."
Ino looked thoughtful, Shino looked... like he usually did, but Naruto's face had a look of understanding on it.
"So, now for training, I've enlisted the help of a Special Jounin to help you three learn what you need to."
Suddenly, a large dark shape shot into the clearing and suddenly spread out, showing a black banner. It was stuck to the ground by a pair of kunai and the two remaining corners were attached to ninja wire, which were attached to shuriken imbedded in a pair of trees. The banner read "Introducing the Lovely Mitarashi Anko, Age 24". Anko herself stood there wearing her short skirt, hitai-ate, fishnet shirt, and trench coat.
"So these are your maggots, Hatake-san?"
Ino, without thinking, blurted out: "He hired a prostitute?"
Kakashi palmed his face behind the banner while Anko bristled. She leapt forward to punch the blonde girl with a left hook, only to have Naruto leap in the way and take the hit. On reflex, Anko also caught Shino's wrist as he tried to stab her with a kunai. She kicked him in the stomach only to find that it was a bug clone. Her remaining leg was kicked out from under her by the prone Naruto. She rolled to the side to see that the boy had back-flipped, and was taking up a butchered academy taijutsu stance. The real Shino had taken Ino into a tree some distance to the right of Naruto, while the leftover bugs from his clone were trying to swarm at her.
Meanwhile, Kakashi had taken the banner down and neatly folded it.
"I applaud your teamwork, Bugman, Uzumaki. Purple-skirt, you need to learn discretion. Mitarashi-san is a Special Jounin with her specialties lying in torture, interrogation, infiltration, and assassination. Bugman, recall your swarm and come down here. Purple-skirt will have to take the punishment Mitarashi-san will give her, as she will be training her first in interrogation."
Ino swallowed hard at that.
While Ino and Anko were... training under a genjutsu that cancelled sound escaping the area they were in (to prevent the screams from getting out and disturbing the peace), Kakashi took the boys aside.
"Uzumaki, Bugman, you obviously know the leaf-sticking exercise. I will be teaching you both another chakra-control exercise - you will be learning how to climb trees."
Naruto, having gotten a bit wiser, kept his mouth shut. Shino adjusted his sunglasses again.
"You will be doing it without the use of your hands. Observe."
Kakashi walked right over to one of the trees and began to walk right up it, without pausing at all like it was simply part of the ground. He stopped while upside down on a branch.
"This is much like the leaf-sticking exercise, but you must do it through your feet. You must use enough chakra to keep yourself anchored to the tree, but not too much, or else the ambient chakra in the tree will react and the bark will expand violently. You must also exert a constant flow of chakra. Since channeling chakra through your feet is more difficult than through any other part of your body, mastering this exercise should, in theory, make learning any jutsu much easier."
Kakashi flipped back to the ground.
"Bugman should be able to get this within a day. Uzumaki, with your poor level of control I would expect you to get it no sooner than a month."
Naruto looked depressed at that.
"But you have an advantage that Shino does not, so I expect you to get it at about the same time he does."
"Kakashi-sensei?" both Genin asked in unison.
"Uzumaki, you have the Kagebunshin. When a shadow clone is dispelled, you receive its memories. This is great for scouting, as you don't need to worry about the scout coming back alive. It is also great for reading; as you will know what the clone knows when it dispels. Since chakra control is a mental exercise, you will reap the benefits of whatever your clones do. Create fifty clones and have them attempt the tree walking exercise while you also do so. In half an hour, you should dispel your clones and create fifty more. You will repeat this several times today. Each of you should use a kunai to mark your progress, though Uzumaki should not have his clones do so - we don't want to cut down the forest, ne? You may also want to use a running start, but it won't necessarily help. Begin."
Shino was able to go about six steps up the tree before he began to slip, and back-flipped, marking his progress on the tree. Fifty-one Narutos only made two or three steps before falling to the ground, either because the bark exploded or they just slipped off.
Kakashi created a shadow clone to watch their progress while he went to check and make sure his girlfriend hadn't killed Ino in the fifteen minutes he had left them alone.
The violent violette Special Jounin was fairly certain that the Academy's standards had declined in years - the blonde girl didn't even truly know the basics of seduction, nor what to do afterwards if the situation called for it! Flower arrangement? Tea ceremony! That's what they taught young kunoichi these days! Seems someone was, or still is, trying to sabotage the ninja ranks... She'd have to discuss it with the Hokage.
"Yo!" said Kakashi, startling Ino.
"You know," began Anko. "I have a feeling that someone sabotaged this girl's education. She's also got the wrong mindset to be a kunoichi."
"HEY!"
"Prove me wrong! What is your purpose in becoming a ninja!"
Ino's face went red with rage as she glared at the snake kunoichi.
Kakashi chuckled. "I'm surprised you haven't killed her yet, Mitarashi-san."
He had to quickly catch the kunai that Anko chucked at him on his blind side. Ignoring her, Kakashi turned to Ino, who was a little shocked to see the display of skill she had just seen.
"You said your goal was to marry the Uchiha, correct?"
Ino sheepishly nodded.
"You should forget it."
"WHAT!"
"Though he may be attractive and very talented, do you know what he broods about all day?"
"Uh... no?"
"I looked at his last psyche evaluation just before Hokage-sama had gathered the Jounin who wanted to take teams together. His mind is set on revenge, and he can't think about anything else, really. He wants to kill his older brother, the one who slaughtered his own clan, so badly that the revival of his clan doesn't even factor into it. And he HATES his fangirls. Best drop your current ambition."
Ino was sniffling a little, and her shoulders were drooped a bit. "But... can't somebody... help him?"
"You think Hokage-sama hasn't tried?" asked Anko. "He's had the best psychologists, including your father, try and get him at least sociable, with barely any results. But no. The boy doesn't want to be helped. He thinks that everyone else will just slow him down."
Ino slumped to the ground. "What can I do?"
"Move on," replied Kakashi. "Study. Do what it takes to become an excellent kunoichi. Mitarashi-san is here to help you do that, as she is one of the most talented kunoichi of our age, but is held back in rank due to political reasons."
"Train," added Anko. "Research the human body and what can kill it. You are supposed to be a kunoichi - not a damsel in distress nor a hero. The way of the ninja is a dangerous one, and is never pretty. Your clan's jutsu deal with the mind - so study the mind."
"Do you know what our squad is supposed to specialize in?" asked Kakashi. At Ino's shake of the head, he continued. "Everything. Infiltration. Assassination. Spying. Tracking. Assault. Torture. Interrogation. Diplomacy. Weapons. Taijutsu. Ninjutsu. Genjutsu. Medical jutsu. Traps. Everything. Hokage-sama has high hopes for this squad, and he hopes you'll all be able to make ANBU. I hope for the same thing, which is why I am having what few friends I have left help me train the lot of you."
Ino nodded in understanding.
"Now," began Anko. "You've got to be more serious about being a kunoichi. Ask your father if you can study the Yamanaka library about psychology and human anatomy. I'll help you to create poisons, and we'll find a medic-nin who can start you off on those jutsu."
"We've got a lot of things that the Academy mis-taught you that we need to fix," added Kakashi. "But we'll have the best of the best be helping all three of you." He then turned to Anko. "Return to the main clearing in about an hour. I have the boys working on their control at the moment."
Anko nodded.
When Anko and Ino rejoined the others, one of Naruto's clones rushed over when he saw that Ino's eyes were a bit red and puffy.
"What's wrong?" asked the shadow clone.
"I don't want to talk about it," she replied.
"I hope you didn't do anything to her, you crazy woman!" he yelled at Anko.
She smirked. "I did nothing but make her see reality."
The clone frowned, but returned to his tree. Anko noticed that most of the clones were able to make it about halfway up the tree before they had to back-flip and land on the ground. Shino was about the same distance up the tree, if only a little ahead.
Kakashi walked over to explain what the exercise was and how to do it. Soon, Ino was going up the tree. She got higher than either of the boys on her first try, but Kakashi told her to keep going up and down the tree as much as she could. After he decided the exercise was over for the day, Kakashi told them that they had a standing order to practice tree walking or any other chakra-control exercise that they knew or could create while they waited to meet him in the morning. Of the three, Ino was the only one to have made it to the top, with Shino and Naruto being about tied for making it up about eighty-percent of the tree.
"Taijutsu is what we shall focus on next," said Kakashi. "Each of you will be learning at two ancient styles to supplement or replace what you already know. Bugman, you're up."
Shino walked forward until he was facing Anko and Kakashi.
"You will first be learning a style both of us know," said Anko. "Once you have learned enough of it, I will bring you a weapon that goes along with the style and we shall move to the other style."
"The name of the style is Silat," added Kakashi. "Its basic premise is to fight dirty. Take cheap shots. Go for vital areas. That sort of thing. If the ancient history scrolls are to be believed, it was developed by a nation of many small islands that had been invaded and attacked throughout most of its history. This is a killing style, but we will teach you some variants of it that will allow you to practice without killing your comrades."
"It also uses poisoned weaponry a lot. Since you are an Aburame, your insects can extract the venom if you accidentally harm an ally with said weaponry."
"Or if I harm myself," added Shino.
"Correct," replied Kakashi. "Another style you'll be learning is a really old style called Krabi Krabong. Swords and staves are major weaponry in it, though halberds, shields, and arm guards are also used. It was created in a jungle country that tended to be attacked without provocation. It is brutal, even without the use of chakra to aid you, making it perfect for an Aburame like yourself. It was used by a monarchy's bodyguards and requires extreme mental focus and placid emotions, especially so that you don't harm whomever you're sparring with but it also allows you to play mind games with a serious opponent, such as a ninja of superior skill that you must kill. Now go with Mitarashi-san - she'll get you started. Purple-skirt, you're up."
Ino walked forward.
"You'll be learning two styles that came from vastly different places. The first is Eskrima, developed in a similar island nation to that which Silat came from, though Eskrima is much older. It uses the same basic techniques whether you are unarmed, are holding a knife of some sort, or have a stick or metal rod. The islands where Eskrima came from had been invaded and conquered many times, but the people always fought back until they managed to assert their independence from everybody. The second comes from a large nation mostly covered in ice and snow, and was developed by a number of bodyguards. It is called Sambo and is based off of the idea of stealing an opponent's weapon and killing them with it."
Ino nodded as Kakashi created a shadow clone. The clone led her away to teach her the basics of Eskrima.
"Uzumaki, I will be teaching you two similar styles that should mold together quite easily. The first is one of my favorite styles - Keysi, developed in a country much like Fire Country, in that it tended to get involved in many different wars. It is based off of your fighting instincts and warrior spirit. You have a lot of spirit and determination, as well as decent instincts, so we have a lot of raw talent just waiting to be released from you. Keysi is also rather unpredictable, much like yourself."
Naruto grinned at that.
"The second style is called Krav-maga. It was developed by a very small nation surrounded on all sides by enemies. The basic principles are to fight according to your emotions and to disarm, seriously injure, or kill any threats that attack you or your friends and to get out of there as soon as you can afterward. Both styles tend to use anything available to their advantage. Due to your prankster nature, I'm sure you'll excel at these styles."
Naruto's grin became even wider.
Around five in the evening, after the vigorous taijutsu training, Kakashi called an end to their training for the day.
"Now, you have some free time, but I do expect you to get some reading in. Don't be all work and no play though - in our profession any moment could be your last, so do try to enjoy yourselves at least a little. And Uzumaki - you may be the most behind when it comes to knowledge, but ask those you can if you can study from their libraries using your shadow clones - just don't dispel them all at once unless you like migraines. I'll meet you at the bridge tomorrow at our usual time, but we'll be doing training with another Genin team, one which graduated a year before you."
"I won't be here though," added Anko. "I have a mission that might last a few weeks, but I expect you to train on your own in my absence!"
With that, she used the Shunshin (Body Flicker) to disappear out of the clearing.
Kakashi pulled out his book and began walking away. "See you all tomorrow! Ja ne!"
End Chapter Two.
Author's Notes
More fodder for someone to work off of this idea.
I think this might be the last story I remove from my profile for a while. Like, a long while.
Someone should adopt some of these...