Naruto: Repetition
It was nearly time for graduation and Naruto was nervous. His kotai-henge was flawless and his kawarimi was perfectly adequate, but he couldn't do bunshin to save his life. Not that it ever would. Stupid prissy jutsu. He wasn't very good at throwing kunai or shuriken either, but that was because the civilian shops wouldn't sell him good quality weapons and the ninja shops were only open to people with hitai-ite.
Hibana-nee had taught Benihime acupuncture, how to throw senbon and wield tessen, but if Naruto were to demonstrate those skills he would give himself away. Similarly, he couldn't use Benihime's developing taijutsu style because his body wasn't the right shape for it. Being two different people at once was harder than it looked.
In addition to this uncertainty, Naruto wasn't sure he even wanted to graduate with this class. None of his classmates liked him, or even talked to him. In fact, they all treated him like the adults did: a mixture of disdain, hatred and wilful obliviousness. Naruto didn't want to be on a team with people who deliberately ignored him. Plus, they were all a year older than he was.
With all of this in mind, along with the fact that furthering his ninja career this early would delay Benihime's maiko education, Naruto decided not to try too hard to graduate. On the upside, delaying gave him an extra year to improve his chakra control, weapons and taijutsu.
After failing -rather badly- he explained his reasoning to Hibana-nee, who agreed that failing might have been the right choice, but admonished him to 'discuss it next time, chibi!'. Four teams from his former class actually graduated and started taking missions with their journin-sensei; having spied on them performing said missions, Naruto was perfectly happy to drop down a year and graduate at eleven with his age mates. Plus, Hibana-nee promised to get hold of some proper shuriken and kunai for me to practice with, and Takemaru-nii-san said he'd teach me boy-taijutsu!
Naruto's eleventh year was... eventful. He actually made sort-of friends with Rock Lee, a dark-haired boy with incredibly bushy eyebrows who couldn't use chakra at all. Lee worked extra hard on his taijutsu to make up for that deficiency and Naruto sparred with him regularly, both to help him and to improve the blond's own taijutsu.
Lee was very hard-working and very grateful for Naruto's support of his dream, which was to become a great shinobi without needing chakra. In exchange lee helped Naruto with his stances and borrowed a succession of different taijutsu books from the library, which they went over together and tried to learn from. Naruto's time studying under Himitsu-okaa-san had improved his memorising skills from 'poor' to 'almost photographic', so he absorbed knowledge like a sponge.
Their only point of contention -which came up at least twice a month- was that Lee believed that a shinobi needed to know one strong style really well, while Naruto insisted that it was better to know lots of styles just well enough, so you could be both adaptable and unpredictable.
Lee was Naruto's first and only friend his own age, as well as his first male friend in his own generation. As Benihime Naruto was friendly with the four other maiko in the Mitsusha okiya, but they were all older than him since Benihime was fifteen to his eleven. It was kind of weird being nee-san to little Momo-chan, who at thirteen was the youngest and shyest maiko. It also made it difficult for Naruto to socialise with girls his own age, as they were never as mature as he expected them to be.
The other boys were almost as bad. Other than Lee the taijutsu fanatic, the only only other one who seemed to be taking the whole ninja thing seriously was Hyuuga Neji, who was an A-class bastard and irritatingly fatalistic. Worse, he was a natural in the shinobi arts and effortlessly rose to the top of every single class. His doujutsu, the byakugan, and its associated taijutsu style made him impossible to beat in a spar, which he touted as evidence of his own genius.
Genius my foot! Naruto knew better. Neji had been born with a natural advantage into a clan of people who had long ago worked out how to use it to greatest effect. None of Neji's admitted excellence was his own work; he was a diligent student, nothing more. Real genius lay in adapting what you had in order to prevail in any given situation. The byakugan was just a tool that made everything easier for him, when real genius thrived upon difficulty.
It was amusing however that Neji's supposedly 'all seeing eyes' hadn't spotted that one the girls in their class had a crush on him. That she was the only truly serious aspiring kunoichi in the entire class just made it funnier.
Having been a minarai since he was six and a maiko from nine-and-a-half, Naruto knew more about sex, seduction and flirtation than most chunnin level kunoichi and could probably -in female guise- outmanoeuvre a decent proportion of Konoha's male journin. This translated into unmatched emotional awareness, which he hid very handily behind his idiot-loudmouth mask. He was still amazed that people actually believed the mask. Honestly, could anyone really be that stupid? Of course, sometimes he couldn't stop himself from commenting on what he saw, but it still got ignored or brushed off as good instincts rather than experience-based intensive study. He had been pigeon-holed -even before becoming a ninja- as a physical student with the brain of a stunned chicken and the emotional maturity of a six-year old. Naruto would have been more irritated at the slander of his person if he hadn't been milking the situation for all it was worth.
Hibana-nee-chan had warned him to never underestimate the power of assumptions and denial. She had once again been spot on; people didn't see what they didn't believe was there.
The exams at the end of his eleventh year were more a chore than anything else. He did averagely in the written, pretty well in the weapons and taijutsu but again failed miserably to pull off the bloody bunshin. Unfortunately his other scores were not high enough to compensate for that failure. Naruto sighed, congratulated Lee on scraping a pass and wished him luck with his journin-sensei before slouching home. Why do they always test me on the bunshin? They're supposed to just pick one of the basic three and I'm really good at the other two. It was probably because they knew he couldn't do it, Naruto concluded as he shut the door of his apartment behind him. They were failing him on purpose.
Next year he would have a different sensei, who just might be less irrationally prejudiced against him. Of course he'd also be in a class full of clan heirs and rabid fangirls, but he'd cope. If they failed him again he really would call it quits and vanish, he decided. People actually liked Benihime, and having the occasional bowl of ramen with the Hokage was no match for the everyday joys of friendship and fun he experienced as a girl.
Jutsu list
genjutsu = illusory techniques. Alter the victim's perception of reality.
ninjutsu = shadow techniques. As a rule, these physically affect their surroundings.
taijutsu = body techniques. Mainly combat styles.
kinjutsu = forbidden techniques. Generally involve some form of damage to the ninja performing the jutsu, or are morally repugnant.
henge = transformation. Gives the ninja the appearance of a person or object of choice.
kawarimi = substitution. Allows the ninja to change places with an item (or person) of choice. Useful for escaping.
bunshin = clone/doppelganger. creates insubstantial copies of the ninja to distract or confuse an opponent.
shintai-bunshin = Usei's bunshin kinjutsu, also called flesh clone. Created a solid, flesh and blood clone which the ninja can use like a puppet. Does not disperse after being 'killed', allowing the ninja to fake people's deaths convincingly.
Tsukiyomi = Sharingan technique. Imprisons the victim in a 72 hour genjutsu controlled by the caster. Only possible if the caster has achieved Mangekyou. Generally used for torture.
kotai-henge = solid transformation. Naruto's name for his henge variant.
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