Chapter 2: Joint Training Sessions
The next day, Team 7 consisting of Kakashi, Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura all reported to the mission room in the Academy where Iruka and the Third Hokage Hizuzen Sarutobi were waiting. Inside they found the other two teams of genin that had passed. Team 8, lead by Kurenai Yuhi, was made of shy Hinata Hyuga, dog loving Kiba Inuzuka who had his white puppy Akamaru on his head, and Shino Aburame who had a bug or two buzzing near him as they were part of his family jutsus. The other one was Team 8, led by Asuma Sarutobi (the Third Hokage's son), and his students Ino Yamanaka, fat and always eating Choji Akimichi, and the lazy but ingenious Shikamaru Nara.
"Sasuke! I knew you would pass!" Ino screamed for joy as she ran over and hugged her crush.
Sakura narrowed her eyes as she saw her rival hugging their mutual crush. She used to be friends with Ino back when they were young, but she'd ended their friendship so they could compete for Sasuke. Looking at the last Uchiha she noticed that he scowled as she clung to him.
"Ino! Get off of him!" Sakura shouted, anger sparking up in her.
"Hey just cause he's on your team doesn't give you the right to have him all to yourself!" Ino snapped.
The recent events that had happened ever since their squad had formed had opened up Sakura's eyes a bit. Now when she looked at Ino, she didn't see a girl in love with the same guy like she'd thought of herself and most of the other girls as. She saw an obsessed fan girl that let her life revolve around one guy. Even though she still felt jealous over how Ino was clinging to Sasuke she also found herself a bit disturbed by it. No wonder Sasuke had felt she was annoying.
"Hey, I don't think Sasuke likes being hugged by you!" Sakura said.
"No, I don't!" Sasuke agreed as he pulled free.
Ino just smiled as she looked at him.
"Oh Sasuke, there's no need to be shy!" she said.
Sasuke could have said he wasn't shy and that she was just annoying, but he just gave a "Heh!" and looked away.
"So you guys managed to pass huh? I bet it was as much a drag as our test was," Shikamaru said.
"Well our team passed with flying colors!" Kiba shouted.
"Ughh! I just want to get this introduction over with so we can all grab lunch!" Choji said.
"Hi Naruto," Hinata said quietly as she looked at the blonde.
"Huh?" Naruto was surprised that she talked to him.
Sakura looked at Hinata. She'd always noticed that Hinata had been perhaps the only girl to be truly nice to Naruto during the Academy days. It was obvious she liked him. But she'd always been very shy and not as forward as Sakura or Ino about their feelings toward Sasuke.
"Well done! All of you have made it as this years group of nine ninja," Hiruzen said. "I expect great things from you in the future."
"Oh yeah old man! We're gonna make you proud!" Naruto said. "Alright, I'm ready for danger and to take down some enemy ninja!"
"Naruto! You will not be going up against enemy ninja right now!" Iruka scolded his old student. "You and all the others will start out doing D-ranked missions!"
"D-rank? What are those?" Naruto asked.
"They are the easiest missions that don't have much or any risk. Things like gardening or repairing a broken roof on a building," Iruka explained.
"Those aren't missions!" Naruto complained. "I want to fight something. Other ninja, wild beasts, or something!"
"For once I agree with Naruto," Sasuke said.
"So do I!" Kiba said.
"Yeah old man give us something dangerous and exciting!" Naruto said.
"Naruto!" Kakashi scolded.
"Kiba!" Kurenai did the same with her canine student.
"That's enough!" they said together.
"You have all just become genin! You will be trained by your sensei's. They will judge when you are ready to do anything more," Iruka said.
"We'll wait at least a few weeks," Kakashi said. "Then we'll see about doing C-ranked missions. First we will do the D-ranked missions then we will hone our skills through training."
Naruto, Sasuke, and Kiba all looked disappointed. Sakura and Hinata were relieved while Ino just watched Sasuke with hearts in her eyes. Shino and Shikamaru made no expression (though no one could see Shino's anyway since he wore that jacket that covered his mouth and the glasses that blocked his eyes. Chojii just stood there clutching his stomach.
"Come on! I'm hungry!" he whined.
The Hokage gave them the current available D-rank missions. Weeding, repairing a roof, walking dogs, and babysitting some kids of other ninja while the parents were away on a mission for a few days. Neither Naruto or Sasuke were too thrilled about the selection, but they couldn't do anything right now.
"Um… I guess we could take the babysitting mission," Hinata said.
"Well maybe that will be fun at least! Beats boring stuff like pulling weeds!" Kiba said. "I'm sure they'd love to play with Akamaru!"
"Rwoff!" the puppy barked.
"I agree. That's probably the least tedious mission," Shino said. "But we can't only go for the fun missions. The tedious needs to be done."
Kurenai made to lead her Team to begin their first mission. As she did so though, Hinata looked back at Naruto.
"Umm… Kurenai Sensei? I was thinking…"
"Yes Hinata?" Kurenai asked the shyest member of her squad.
"Perhaps we could all train together with the other teams as well?"
Kurenai looked at the other squads. Though she noticed Hinata was focused on Naruto.
"I suppose some joint training could strengthen all our genin. Kakashi… do you think any of your squad members might be interested?"
"Hmm… well Sakura hasn't displayed any remarkable jutsu yet. Though from what I heard she had rather good chakra control and test scores in the academy," Kakashi said.
"That's true. I think that we should join each other later tonight. A squad member and I can come and train while the other two stay and watch the kids." Kurenai said. "So… Sakura. How would you like to try and learn to use genjutsu?"
Sakura hesitated for a moment. She'd always been so focused on Sasuke before. She looked at him and asked.
"What do you think Sasuke?"
"Do what you want," he said indifferently.
Do what I want? Sakura repeated in her head. I want to get your attention!
"Naruto?" she asked.
Naruto looked at her and shrugged. "Well… maybe you can give it a try? Wait… why couldn't I try it?"
Kurenai looked at him. "I'm sorry Naruto but you lack the characteristics of a Genjutsu practitioner. They require excellent chakra control and a… gifted mind."
Naruto folded his arms. "You saying I'm not smart?"
"That would be one way of putting it," Kakashi said.
Naruto pouted. "Ah man."
"Well, see you later Kakashi," Kureanai said.
She and her squad moved out to go to their babysitting job.
"We'll walk the dogs," Asuma said. "But I think we'll do our own training."
"Man, what a drag," Shikamaru said. "I hope it's just walking."
"Alright let's get something to eat then take care of the dogs!" Chojii said.
"Bye Sasuke!" Ino waved.
Sasuke didn't reply as the blonde girl made her way out with her team.
"Well, we'll take the weeding job then," Kakashi said.
"Right," Iruka said.
Naruto grumbled for a while but accepted it.
"Alright but I'll go on a real mission real soon! Believe it!" he shouted.
Sakura looked at him. He was annoying and a pain with how loud he could be. But he did have a sense of confidence, and he never gave up… no matter how many looked down on him.
They went to the spot of the mission, a house here in the Hidden Leaf that had a garden filled with weeds as well as beautiful flowers. The house owner, an old woman waited outside.
"Thank you for coming dears, I'm just not young enough to pick these weeds anymore with my bad back," the woman said.
"Ha! Don't worry Granny! We'll get all those weeds out! Believe it!" Naruto gave her a thumbs up.
Sakura frowned at him with an annoyed looking hearing him call the lady granny. But she managed a smile at the boy's optimism. Sasuke even smirked a bit.
"Yeah, those weeds will be gone soon," he said as he bent down and began pulling them out.
Naruto glared at him. "Hey no way you're gonna get more weeds then me! Multi-shadow clone jutsu!"
Three more Narutos appeared and all of them began to pick out weeds relentlessly. Sakura sighed, having a feeling this wasn't going to go well.
Then she suddenly felt a hand on her shoulder. She looked and saw it was Kakashi.
"Hey, I want you to keep an on Naruto," her sensei said.
"Huh? Why?" she asked.
"Let's just say he gets a bit carried away when it comes to Sasuke. He views Sasuke as his rival you know. Just look at how he's moving!"
She looked and saw the Narutos were indeed moving quickly, pulling weeds out at an alarming rate while Sasuke struggled to keep up. Then Naruto grabbed hold of-
"No Naruto! Don't pull those out!" Sakura warned.
To late… Naruto had pulled out a flower from its bed in the garden. The other Narutos likewise pulled a flower or two out as well.
"We have to pull the weeds out! Not the flowers you idiot!" Sakura scolded and gave him a slap on the head. "You trying to make us lose the money?"
"Sorry Sakura!" Naruto said.
Sasuke smirked. Kakashi joined in pulling the weeds. Sakura did as well, but also kept her eyes on Naruto, all four Narutos. It was hard to balance doing the weeds and watching him. The clones were forced to work slowly as Naruto being the dummy he was couldn't tell a weed from a flower.
"No that's a flower! See the petals?" Sakura had to yell at him. "That's a weed!"
"Well at least we have the girl with brains to balance the boy without them," Kakashi said.
Sasuke just huffed as he worked. They got the weeds done, even with Sakura's watchful eye she couldn't keep track of all the Naruto's who got impatient every so often cause Sasuke was picking the weeds with perfect technique while even with all his clones, he wasn't as wrong and sometimes only got the grass of the weeds rather than the roots. In the end, Sasuke won, his pile of weeds being just slightly larger than Naruto.
Sakura watched him with a smile. Even if he was colder, he was smarter than Naruto. She just had to try and figure out a way to make him see her. Though the blonde haired knucklehead did at least try, and he could be amusing.
They went back to the Academy and collected the reward. There was a slight deduction of ten percent from the old lady for the number of flowers Naruto had pulled out with the weeds.
"Well, I suppose that could have been worse," Kakashi said. "Now lets go to train."
They made their way to one of the training fields and some of Team 8. Only two members though, Kiba and Kurenai. Akamaru was there too of course but did he really count?
"Alright! Time for some serious training! Hinata and Shino are still babysitting the kids and cooking them dinner, so I get to practice my techniques with you Sasuke!" Kiba shouted.
"Hey, I'm here too you know!" Naruto shouted, angry at being ignored.
"Yeah right! Dead-last like you wouldn't last two seconds against me!" Kiba taunted.
"What?" Naruto exclaimed.
"Just pipe down Naruto!" Kakashi said. "Alright. Sakura you go with Kurenai and practice some genjutsu."
"Right!" Sakura agreed.
She walked over to the older woman. Kurenai was certainly a beautiful woman with her dark hair and the red and white dress. Her eyes were red too, but not scary like they might have looked on someone else. Her eyes showed a kind smile that reminded Sakura of a warm heart. Though if they had been glaring that might have been a different story.
Naruto, Sasuke, and Kiba all began sparring each other while Kurenai began explaining to Sakura the use of genjutsu.
"It uses the Yin chakra, and can allow you to confuse, immobilize, or fool your enemies," Kurenai said. "Like so."
She formed a quick set of hand signs, and suddenly she vanished.
"Demon Tree Binding!"
Suddenly a tree seemed to pop out of the ground around Sakura and wrapped its legs around her as she screamed. She could still see though and watched as Kurenai came toward her with a raised kunai.
"If you were an enemy, I'd use this opportunity to stab you," Kurenai said. "But I can also use it for interrogation. This technique has been passed down for generations in the village."
The tree released Sakura and vanished, it had never even been there. Sakura looked in amazement. Kurenai then taught her the hand signs for the jutsu. Dog, Snake, Monkey, Ox, Tiger. Sakura went over the sequence a few times and then performed it. Roots erupted from the ground and wrapped around Kurenai who smiled.
"Well done Sakura. You may make a good user of genjutsu yet."
Sakura smiled back. She went back to Naruto and Sasuke who were both sparring with Kiba. Or rather, Sasuke was sparring them both. All three if one counted Akamaru. The puppy was easily knocked back, almost as easily as Naruto. Kiba was more skilled right now. Though Naruto hadn't used any shadow clones that Sakura could see. All the boys were sweating and panting.
"Alright that's enough!" Kakashi said. "How did it go with Sakura?"
"I think she has potential in genjutsu. She's learned a jutsu already," Kurenai said.
"Wow great job Sakura!" Naruto praised her.
Sakura looked at Sasuke, who simply huffed and looked away. She'd hoped he might be impressed if she at least learned a technique or two.
She sighed, but then put on a smile and looked at Naruto. "Thanks Naruto."
Well, he's certainly more supportive then Sasuke. Maybe we should give him a chance. Her inner self said.
Maybe. She thought.
"I have a scroll of some at home that I think I will give her. But Sakura, don't limit yourself to any one branch of shinobi skill," Kurenai said.
"Right. Thank you sensei," Sakura said.
And everyone left.
Alright, I think this is a good spot to stop with this chapter. I had considered having Hinata be around for the joint training session but ah well. Maybe she'll become Sakura's new love rival soon enough. If you guys have any ideas for what kind of genjutsu Sakura can learn please state in a review (include how you feel about the chapter as well please). I looked at Kurenai's list of jutsu on the Narutopedia and gotta say for someone that is hailed as a genjutsu master she doesn't show a lot. And most of what she is shown using is only in the anime. So there could be a whole bunch of things we could come up with. I considered having Sakura learn a darkness genjutsu to completely blind the opponents. What do you guys think? Ah well, the Land of Waves arc should start either next chapter or the one after. Be back in two, maybe three weeks unless something happens.