disclaimer: naruto, g-gundam, clannad, boy's empire and other cited works are not mine, and no copyright infringement is deliberately intended. this is a fan work of dubious quality and thus must be read with several pinches of salt.
All together now:
The School of the Undefeated of the East!
The Winds of the King!
Zenshin!
Keiretsu!
Tempa Kyouran!
Look!
The East is burning red!
Chapter 3: BURNING
Uzumaki Naruto - the latest in a long line of apprentices to Touhou Fuhai - had just finished the most frantic two weeks of his life.
Namely, the Konohagakure Ninja Academy crash course.
12-hour study periods left him with roughly 2 or 3 hours to at least maintain his physical condition, and then it was off to Ichiraku's for a quick bite, the market for some food shopping, and then back home for some home-made protein shakes (which he still hated) and then off to bed.
Weekends were his way of unwinding - after breakfast and some hors d'ouvures from Ichiraku's - it was all training, all nonstop.
First Saturday in, and he runs into this duo of taijutsu specialists...
...and when that day was done, Naruto was utterly convinced that Might Guy was a practical genius hiding behind the facade of eyebrows so thick they could warp reality, the eye-searing green jumpsuit and the constant echoing of THE POWERS OF YOUTH!
Well, he did just stoke those flames INTO OVERDRIVE when he first did the Greeting with the Konoha jonin and his apprentice, young Rock Lee.
He snickered to himself as he remembered the details of their first meeting.
Naruto was almost finished with his daily two laps around the village, when he saw the strangest of sights.
Two green blurs were going at it at one of the training grounds.
Naruto's eyes weren't yet able to catch the nuances of their moves, but to him, he could see enough of what the two people sparring were doing.
He'd seen a demonstration of the Ninja Academy's taijutsu before, and was convinced it was good - for an entry-level school of martial arts.
Entry-level meant it was only good for spars. Real life would show the cracks, and if you didn't start making adjustments, the consequences would be lethal.
He tried a few of those forms, but found out that they seemed to both restrict his movement AND his expression - the thing that the School of the Undefeated of the East allowed him free rein in. After all, "martial artists express their emotions through their fists", so his Shishou's saying went.
And so he went through the motions just so he'd get through the day, hoping the Hokage would finish the paperwork and he'd get his clearance to use the School's taijutsu in Academy classes.
This isn't any of those situations, Naruto thought as he saw the two green blurs move faster and faster until...
"LEE! Let us take five. It appears we are being appraised."
Okay, he had gotten used to Shishou's bombastic tone (the man was larger than life, so there), but this was a whole other level entirely.
When the two green blurs stopped, Naruto could finally take a good look at them. They were almost carbon copies of each other: shiny black hair in a bowl cut, green jumpsuit, and those eyebrows...
"Greetings," Naruto said, bowing courteously to the two Konoha-nin.
"Ah, so you must be the Uzumaki. Hokage-sama had given me word that one of Lee's age would be scheduled for a spar."
Well, would you look at that. He actually stumbled onto the person who was supposed to gauge his skill in taijutsu. But something bothered him... how would this man know that he was a taijutsu specialist himself?
"Yes, sir. My name is Naruto. Uzumaki Naruto," the boy said, bowing again.
"I am Might Guy, jonin of Konoha, and this is my apprentice Rock Lee."
"Yosh! I have seen you watching over my and Guy-sensei's spar! Your instincts show you to be a fighter like us!"
Naruto just smiled at the genin.
"Yes, but I've received my training from outside Konoha, and I've only recently been cleared to return here by my Shishou."
"Shishou...?" Guy said, his mood shifting suddenly from outgoing to contemplative. "Could it be that you were the child selected by that man to be his apprentice?"
"Oh, you mean my Shishou?" Naruto asked. "Don't really remember the first time meeting him. All I know is that we've been going everywhere and training."
"Guy-sensei, is something the matter?"
"LEE!" Guy suddenly exclaimed. "If Naruto-kun's Shishou is who I think it is, you will find him to be a worthy sparring partner. Yes! I suppose a spar between you and this genin from Whirpool is in order!"
"...but I'm an Academy student from Konoha, not a genin from Whirpool..." Naruto explained, silently cursing himself for wearing his mother's only keepsake around his forehead.
"Nevertheless, I am sure you have the aptitude to wear it!" Guy said, getting into his Nice Guy (tm) pose, causing Naruto to flinch from the sudden glare of the Konoha jonin's teeth.
"Yosh!" Lee added. "I would be honored to spar with one of your caliber, Naruto-kun! Guy-sensei must hold your Shishou in such esteem to ask for a spar so soon!"
"All right..." Naruto said, pocketing the Uzu forehead protector.
"Let us get into positions now, Lee! Naruto-kun!"
Naruto nodded, unaware of what he was getting into.
Two hours later, it was a bone-weary and bedraggled-with-sweat Naruto who dragged himself into Ichiraku's Ramen.
In spite of his physical state, he was wearing the biggest smile on his face he had ever sported.
"Two extra-large bowls of beef ramen, extra shoulder for one, and two patties for the other," Naruto said as he placed his order.
"Naruto-kun! Are you all right?" Ayame, daughter of THE BEST RAMEN CHEF IN ALL THE FIVE ELEMENTAL COUNTRIES AND BEYOND (to Naruto's humble opinion), asked.
"Just a little sparring..." Naruto answered, smiling. "Thank you for your concern."
He had said nothing further after the food had been given, instead devoting all his attention to savoring his meal - and after paying, he gave an abridged account of his academy days so far before shuffling towards his apartment.
Nobody noticed that he had a bright green bundle in his other hand as he did.
Whereas before, he had a few misgivings, now he was thoroughly sold on the idea of Might Guy as a genius, savant, or something in between the meaning of those two words.
Seriously.
When he saw the Konoha-jonin work to incorporate styles other than Gouken to his apprentice, it reminded Uzumaki Naruto of the purity of movement [note 1] the School of the Undefeated of the East offered. He saw Guy-sensei deferring to Gouken as a primary taijutsu style and adapting all others on those terms), the Academy student was still a little shocked at the results.
It also served to keep him grounded, as despite all the theoretical advantages the School had, nothing really beat experience.
To further ram home the point, the eyebrow-laden taijutsu expert also had a pragmatic streak when it came to training: case in point, the bright green jumpsuit he had given Naruto as training wear.
The Uzumaki was blown away by the discovery. Not only was it the most maneuverable thing he'd ever worn - like a second skin, even - it also absorbed sweat like no one's business. An afternoon of training meant by the time you were doing cooling-down exercises, you were carrying several extra pounds of water weight on you.
Naruto gaped as the first day he'd worn the suit on a weekend, by the time he hit the showers, he squeezed out a veritable stream of sweat from the jumpsuit he trained in.
Damn, if that wasn't smart, he didn't know what was.
Naruto got over the squeamish feeling of wearing that color by simply dying the cloth an even darker shade of green, almost black. While Guy-sensei wasn't too happy about it, he did appreciate Naruto's acknowledgment of the feasibility of that kind of training wear. Unfortunately, Guy-sensei already had an apprentice AND a genin team, because he would have loved to see a practitioner of the last pure [note 1] schools of martial arts on his team.
Uzumaki Naruto smiled as he returned to his forms, happy that there were at least two Konoha-nin who knew about what he did and just how difficult it was.
Let's not forget about the Greeting - both Guy-sensei AND Lee knew it by heart. Heck, in some taijutsu-users' circles, the School of the Undefeated of the East was the theoretical pinnacle of marital arts. This was why Guy-sensei and Lee knew the Greeting but couldn't actually USE it as a Greeting... unless you did it with an actual practitioner of the School.
At the end of the two weeks, after the sparring and theoretical questions on the Academy taijutsu classes, Guy-sensei (Lee's way of addressing his sensei bled off on Naruto) and Lee finally asked him outright if he was indeed a practitioner of the School of the Undefeated of the East.
When he said he was, Lee asked to do the Greeting, which Naruto gladly obliged to.
"The School of the Undefeated of the East!" Naruto took up a combat stance.
"The Winds of the King!" Lee followed, taking up a similar stance as his sparring partner did.
"Zenshin!" Naruto exclaimed, throwing out a random flurry of punches.
"Keiretsu!" Lee added, parrying those punches and throwing out his own.
"Tempa Kyouran!" they yelled together in a furious exchange of punches.
Lee threw an epic left while Naruto threw an epic right.
They both posed in the prescribed stance of the Greeting.
"LOOK!"
"THE EAST IS BURNING RED!"
Whoever said Rock Lee had NO Genjutsu ability was a damned liar, as the sheer exhilaration caused him to instinctively produce a genjutsu of burning fire to appear behind Rock Lee and Uzumaki Naruto - from Might Guy's point of view.
This was the fire of a heart burning with the flames of the School of the Undefeated of the East, and it need not be said that from then on, Naruto would spend weekends hanging around with the taijutsu specialists whenever he could.
Naruto's devotion to learning wasn't done overnight, and he grimaced as he remembered his Shishou beating it into him.
Speaking of beat, he remembered that last trip he took with his Master out of the Elemental Countries to check up on one of his students.
They had reached a strange building that looked suspiciously like the Konoha Ninja Academy, but much larger.
After his Shishou had asked for directions from a brown-haired girl with tufts of hair that looked suspiciously like insect antennae (to Naruto), they made their way through the halls of what they were told was a school...
...only to dodge at the last moment as a human projectile went sailing towards them, past them, and finally crashing into a wall.
"Like I said, Sunohara, you know you won't win," an exasperated voice came from the other end of the hall.
"That's her," Master Asia said.
"My senior?" Naruto asked.
"Yes."
They walked through the hall, ignoring the stares, until they came across a young man with a bored-looking expression and a gray-haired young woman.
"So... Shishou... who's my senior?"
"Shishou?" the young woman asked. "May I ask why you are here?"
"Tomoyo-san," Master Asia said. "Have you finally made up your mind?"
She took in a deep breath.
"I'll keep going on this path," she said before giving the bored-looking boy (a boy friend? Naruto asked himself) a small look. "I thank you for what you have taught me, sensei, but..."
"I see," Master Asia answered. "It seems you have indeed reached your limit with what the School can show you. One last question: do you regret it?"
"A little," the woman named Tomoyo answered, "just a little."
"Good. Now perform the greeting with young Naruto-kun here and we shall be leaving."
"Yes, sensei."
What followed left the bored-looking young man gaping, as the Greeting really was made of so much awesome that anyone who would look at it directly would have their blood start to boil.
Oh yeah, instead of punches, Tomoyo threw kicks, which Naruto likewise responded to.
Once the Greeting had ended, Naruto was asked to stay behind while his Master would finalize a few things before their departure...
Multitasking was hard.
But yes, it was one of the basic skills of the School that its students needed to know.
So while Naruto was writing down notes on the conjectured reasons of the Third Ninja World War, his mind wandered over to his little talk with Sakagami Tomoyo, his senior in the School of the Undefeated of the East...
"Senpai, can I ask why you joined the School?" Naruto asked.
"...It's kind of a long story, Naruto-kun," Tomoyo answered. "But if you like, I can give you the short version."
"That's fine, Tomoyo-senpai," Naruto answered. "No problem at all."
"Very well," Tomoyo said, and began her story.
The Sakagamis were known to be a family of skilled combatants, and also had a Main and Branch family. But ever since the Main House prodigy Umeko had the philosophy of "make love, not war", that simple decision changed the fate of both Houses of the Sakagamis.
Not only was this the reason Tomoyo joined the School, but also because she was now the heir apparent to the Sakagami family.
"I guess you don't really know people at first glance, senpai..." Naruto finally said after his senior had told her story.
"Well, it all turned out for the best. Umeko-oneechan's doing fine now, and Tamura-san is working hard for their family," Tomoyo said. "Maybe that was oneechan's way of saying that... I don't know, things change and we should be ready."
"Why can't you have both?" Naruto asked. "I mean, you're really strong, so..."
"It's not that simple, Naruto-kun."
"It should be," Naruto replied. "The School, if you think about it, is the simplest way of life to follow. We're fighters; we express ourselves by fighting, right? What's that got to do with your dream?"
"You'll understand, Naruto-kun... when you have someone or something important to protect," Tomoyo answered after a minute of silence.
And then she started to ruffle the boy's hair.
"Yikes! Stop it!"
"Hope I'm not interrupting something, Tomoyo-san," a voice said.
"Sensei."
"Shishou!"
"Come now, preparations are complete. We need to be going."
"WAIT! YOU'RE NOT LEAVING UNTIL YOU WITNESS MY DEFEAT OF YOUR STUDENT SAKAGAMI!" a shout came from the distance as Tomoyo rolled her eyes.
"It's him again," Tomoyo whispered. "Naruto, deal with him, please. As a favor from your senpai."
"Of course," Naruto said, readying his hands into the Tiger hand seal.
Before the blonde boy could close the distance towards him and Tomoyo, Naruto had already moved to the side and aimed his hands at a vulnerable spot.
"Konohagakure Hiden Taijutsu Ougi," Naruto whispered, gathering momentum in his arms before thrusting his fingers forward.
"SENNEN GOROSHI!"
As always, on target; thus Uzumaki Naruto and his Shishou left that strange school with smiles on their faces, a former student and an unfortunate victim of that vicious technique lying on the floor and asking for ice cream.
"Final exams will be held the end of this week," Iruka said as the class was drawing to a close. "We're not going to give any special treatment to anyone here," and by 'special treatment', he probably meant Naruto, "and make exceptions for those who decided to enroll for a limited time."
Zing. Yep, definitely Naruto.
He just shrugged. So what if he failed, there were other ways of being a ninja anyway. Ninjas were deceptive and relied on sleight-of-hand and other tricks, and Naruto was beginning to expect something unexpected to happen soon.
That unexpected thing happened in the form of Uchiha Sasuke suddenly appearing without warning as he did cooldown exercises later that night in a training ground.
"Now, you have to fight me," the Uchiha said.
Naruto shrugged.
"Fine, have it your way, then," he replied resignedly, going into his most comfortable taijutsu stance.
Sasuke's eyes widened as he saw it. Those aren't Konoha standard! What's going on here?
He dismissed the thought as he charged towards his fellow Academy student...
Chapter 3: END
[note 1] The terms "pure" and "applied" are used extremely loosely in this fic. In the Narutoverse, most taijutsu schools are "applied", i.e. meant to be used in battle, and have the intent to kill. "Pure" martial arts, on the other hand, focus more on form analysis, adaptation, and poetry in motion. Most schools in the Narutoverse are more "applied" than "pure" (with the exception of Jyuken the Gentle Fist), which makes Guy doubly happy to see Naruto. Why? Neji uses the Gentle Fist in the more "applied" manner.
[note 2] Naruto knows Sennen Goroshi because Master Asia saw Tsunade using it, and taught it to the boy.
Poor Sunohara can't catch a break, can he?