Arc I: Cultivation

Chapter III: Taijutsu

Summary: Kakashi starts training Naruto and Sasuke a year before they would have graduated from the academy. Tenten becomes the third member of Team 7. Kakashi thinks it's appropriate training to have them cross the wilderness of the Land of Fire on their own, twice.

"If I had seven hours to assassinate a target, I would spend the first six hours sharpening my weapons."

- Sakumo Hatake

"Where are we sensei?" asked an extremely tired Tenten, they had been following Kakashi since last night and it was already well past noon. Now they stood at a river, somewhere in the east of the Land of Fire, with the foliage of the forest not even ten meters behind them. It would have been a nice view for all of them, if they wouldn't have been so damn tired.

"Mah, our base camp for at least the next month, now go to sleep you three, we will talk later." Kakashi said before leading them to a clearing were, to their surprise, a camp was already set up, with tents, some training dummies, a campfire and everything else that one would need in a more permanent camp, all hidden under a large tarp that blended in well with the environment.

They hesitated for a moment, there were only two tents, one of them larger than the other. They looked as if they wanted to protest, but they had spent the last month, especially the last two weeks, joined by the hips at day to protect each other from danger and curled up into a heap at night, because of the cold-rainy weather and their sheer exhaustion .

Kakashi sighed he would need to make sure that they had The Talk, the academy should have covered this, but young students more often than not only listened half-heartly to those lectures. He would make sure they knew the danger and what "No" meant. "You won't always have the luxury of separate sleeping arrangements, better get used to it. Now scram."

True to his word, Kakashi let them sleep, eat and clean up in the nearby river before starting his lesson. "During the next month we will work purely on the most basic skills any Shinobi can have, meaning Taijutsu alongside strength, endurance, speed and your Chakra control and capacity. We will see how we progress your training afterwards, through I have already some ideas about what you will learn. Any questions?"

"Uhm, sensei why do we learn Taijutsu but no other field like Genjutsu or Ninjutsu?" Tenten asked .

"Ahh, a good question. You see I expect of you three to become great ninja, and like each good ninja you will ultimately have to specialize on one field or another. That being said, I still will teach you in every aspect a ninja can learn, and while I'm certain all of you will choose a combat related path in your own category, Taijutsu will be the one thing all of you three are going to need in nearly every situation , " the copy-nin said cheerfully before giving his students a rather menacing look . "Now get up and start running your physical training begins."

o0o0o

After a week of the most exhausting training any of the Genin had ever done, they set in front of Kakashi again. During the last days his students had already shown progress in stamina, strength and speed but Kakashi already had the next step planed. "So, your training is getting easier isn't it?" he asked innocently.

Naruto still being the brash loudmouth promptly shouted that it was before Tenten could clamp her hand above his mouth to shut him up. Unfortunately it was already to late, and with an almost cruel look Kakashi pulled out twelve prayer beads, which he tossed toward his students. "Place them around your ankles and wrists, they will help your training immensely."

Kakashi pressed his palm against Naruto's chest while calling out " Fūinjutsu: Shishi Jūfūin (Sealing Technique: Four Limbs Weighting Seal) . They will change color from white to blue, green, yellow and finally red. Once they are red we will get you another sets of weights, but that won't be in the foreseeable future" the Jōnin explained.

With the training weight in place he gave them their individualized training, most of them incorporated into team-building exercises and to his delight the didn't argue about it. They complained about the intesity, like most fresh Genin - or even Chuninn - would, but they did it all the same, not doubting that it was effective. Even through most would consider the things Kakashi expected them to do ridiculous, but unfortunately or fortunately for his Genin, Kakashi had only experienced training a few Anbu recruits for Team Ro, all of them being at least Chūnin level.

"All right, stop", he called, three Genin immediately falling to the ground in exhaustion, before slowly coming back to their camp, were Kakashi had, to the joy of his students, already prepared lunch for them.

"Questions?" Kakashi asked while, in an totally un-Kakashi-like style eating his lunch slowly. It had only taken him the two weeks they were in the wildness to decide that he would trust his team, with his darkest, best kept secret, he had. His face. In an adorable show of ignorance towards what it meant for Kakashi to show them his face, Naruto had asked why he didn't wore his mask from the first meeting anymore, which Kakashi had only shrugged of with an half-assed statement about style, privacy and tradition.

"When do we start doing Chakra exercises and what are Chakra exercises in the first place?" Tenten asked, Sasuke and Naruto perking up.

"Hmm, after lunch we will start with tree-walking, it won't be as physical exhausting as the things you did before lunch, nor will it give you as much training in endurance, but it will help to improve both your Chakra control and reserves."

"Uhm sensei, are we going to do some missions any time soon?" Naruto asked.

"Hmm, we could go back to Konoha soon and you could start doing D-Rank missions, I'm sure you will love them, how does that sound?", Kakashi didn't really plan to go through with this, but he wanted to test his Genin, wanted to see if they could see the hidden meaning in his words.

"What do D-Rank missions entitle, sensei?",asked Tenten catching on to the sarcasm in his words.

"Oh they are great tasks, like…", Kakashi paused for dramatic effect, each of his students inched closer to him,"…wedding gardens, walking dogs and painting fences."

"You can't be serious, why would they have Ninja do such things?" asked Sasuke.

"Hmm", Kakashi contemplated if he should tell them, most Chūnin after all never really found out, or to be precise they didn't bother thinking about the tasks anymore. "You see there are three sorts of D-Rank missions, some train teamwork and help endurance, speed and strength, like catching stray animals or walking some of the more vicious Inuzuka dogs, then there are missions that provide practical skills that can be used in anNinja career for everything from infiltration mission to simply understanding process that civilians have to deal with, this are things like farm work, carpentry etc. and lastly there are missions that simply make use of cheap workforce."

"That sucks." Naruto stated, getting a nod from Tenten and an agreeing "Hn" from Sasuke.

"Don't worry because your sensei is so cool we have a long time of training to do before we begin missions." At this a shudder run across the back of the three, each silently wishing for boring missions.

o0o0o

14 days, 336 hours or 20.160 minutes later, however you measured the time, Team 7 could agree on one thing, it was the most exhausting two weeks in their live up until now: Kakashi had run them in the ground with physical training in the morning and Chakra exercises in the afternoon, all followed by a repetition of what must have been the entire academy curriculum at the night. And worst of all, the only progress they could feel was in their Chakra control, they could walk on water and trees without problem now, but whenever one of them showed only the slightest sign of improving physically, or maybe even if they didn't, they weren't sure who exactly the training weights worked, said weight would become even heavier, making the training even more strenuous. To make it worse Kakashi had tasked them to run through the twelve basic hand-seals whenever they didn't use their hands for training.

"Now do you know why I had you run through the basic twelve hand seals for so long?"

"Uhm, because the faster you can form them, the faster you can use both Genjutsu and Ninjutsu?" asked Tenten as it was plainly obvious.

"Correct, but also to make sure you remembered all of them correctly and could recall them at any moment, without confusing them with other seals."

"Sensei, you said 'basic seals' are there more than 12?" Sasuke asked with narrowed eyes, catching on to his sensei's hidden message.

"Very good. Yes, in fact there a lot more than the twelve basic seals. I supposes you don't know about the history of modern hand seals?", he asked only two get nod of confirmation from his Genin.

"Okay, it goes like that, along time ago, one of the first Chakra users created what we now know as the basic twelve hand-seals after the model of the zodiac sings. Those twelve seals made it far, far easier to mold chakra, but over the course of centuries, different people created different techniques that needed a Chakra flow that vary from the flow you can achieve with the regular seals. In history there might have been hundreds of different seals, used by different people during different times, but with the founding of the hidden villages, those seals became more widespread and were categorized again. Each village has it own set of expanded hand-seals, the only thing all of them have in common are the basic twelve. Fortunately, thanks to Nidaime-sama and Sandaime-sama Konoha has one of the most advanced set in the entire elemental Nations, consisting of two sets that each contain 36 different hand-seals. The first set created by Nidaime-sama consist of various seals that today are mainly used for technique development, while the second set of Sandaime-sama includes the majority of seals used by Konoha's Clans and other family techniques from the entire elemental nations." Kakashi explained.

"How are the Nidaime's seal used in the development of a technique. For that matter how does one even develop a new technique and why should that need different handsigns, sensei?" Tenten asked.

"Hmm, you see, most experienced ninja never create real original techniques, but instead alter existing ones, that is because the creation of a new technique is incredible hard and requires a really skilled ninja. The seals that Nidaime-sama described are used for this exact purpose, they use different Chakra flows, that let the user experiment with the results easier. In fact nearly every technique you have heard of has an expanded set of hand-seals, because they are harder to remember and use most of this hand seals are bastardized, resulting in less refined techniques, that can be used by a larger mass of ninja."

"So what use do these hand-seals have outside of technique creation?" Naruto asked.

"You will learn all of the techniques with the expanded set of seals, it will force you to truly understand how the Chakra is supposed to flow, from their one you can more easily cut down the number of seals you use, or may even revert to the original seals. It will be way harder to learn technique that way, but it will pay of in the end because they will be more precise and powerful. "

Anticipating his students technique before he could even ask it, Kakashi answered "The Sharingan can theoretically copy the Chakra flow of a techinque that is used without or with fewer hand-seals, practically this isn't viable because it is nearly impossible to recreate the necessary hand-seals from the Chakra flow. Your technique would be incomplete"

o0o0o

The other Jōnin always joked that they felt bad for which ever team Kakashi would finally pass, despite his rank as an Elite Jōnin, something he was all to happy to let people forget about, most thought that with his laziness, lateness, and all around weirdness, he would make a bad teacher, or at least not a particular good one. Sometimes he wondered if he should feel offended or proud that even his peers were fooled by his act.

That was his behavior for most part after all, an carefully executed act. He could only giggle when he imagined the faces of his colleagues if, no, not if, when , his team would completely dominate their first Chūnin exam. Or even better, if his team would drop the bombshell that they saw his face all the time. Truthfully he did that equally because it was his sigs of trust, something he only had done with very few people in the past, and because the face of the other leaf -n in and even foreign ninja would be priceless. After all only a handful of people had ever seen his face, and sadly even fewer were alive, his Genin had more than doubled the people that met both requirements.

But those thoughts as giddy as they may made him were not on Kakashi's mind at the moment, far more important was how utterly the academy had failed in some points and how amazingly well his students did. Some of the question they asked were usually not on the mind of most Chūnin.

"Kakashi-sensei, why would a ninja willingly show of, like in the Chūnin Exam? And why would a village encourage that? Wouldn't it be better to keep skills hidden?" Tenten asked.

"Maa, you are partially right, if you are only see the life of a ninja combat wise it would be better to always be underestimated, the enemy will likely become careless. But even if you are famous for you skills that can aid you in battle, some people will loose faith in their ability to win and will make it easier for you. But there is another angle you need to look from, the life of a ninja doesn't exclusively consist of fighting, famous Jōnin can increase the missions a village gets and if you're renowned enough, some people will be more likely to talk to you instead of fighting."

"So if you do a really bad ass techinque Konoha gets more missions?" Naruto simplified .

"Yes in the essence, but even more importantly powerful ninja are a war deterrents. Without Sandaime-sama or the Sannin it's likely that we would have gone to war after the death of the Yondaime"

"So we should show of our techniques all the time?" Sasuke asked

"No, absolutely not." Kakashi said with passion. "As I said before the most important thing is to be swift and to not explain your technique, even if you aim for show off, but you should only aim to show of if it will be of use for you or your team. You need to remember, when you are on a mission, your life and that of your comrades is always in danger, so if the time to kills come. Kill. Do not mock enemies. Do not test their abilities. Do not toy with them. Make sure that they aren't a danger, either by killing or making them incapble of attacking, do so as swift as posible."

o0o0o

The last weeks had went, in Kakashi's humble opinion, rather well. No, his cute little Genin had excelled all expectations . He ran his students into the ground everyday, first physical and later mentally. They spent many hours working on their Taijutsu. Sasuke learned more of the Uchiha's main form, the Interceptor Fist. Naruto was, like Kakashi had already noted, a brawler, teaching him a redefined style now wouldn't do much good, instead he showed him how to shift between stances, counter or dodge attacks and a lot of other things. Afterall he was sure that the blonde would one day meet Jiraiya and that his godfather would teach him his personal style, that like Naruto's didn't follow any formal Katas, and that the Toad Sage had developed to use with Senjutsu, another thing Kakashi knew Naruto would learn.

Tenten, to his mild surprise, was suited best for a style he would have liked to teach Naruto, the Hummingbird Fist, the personal Style of Naruto's father, the Yondaime Hokage, and a style that was orientated for maximal flexibility and speed. It had the downside that the speed based style along with Minato's constant teleportation, made Sage Mode next to impossible. That's why his sensei had nearly never used Sage Mode, and had treated it as a last resort if everything failed, Kakashi had the suspicion that Naruto was, like Jiraiya, the exact opposite and would use Sage Mode and slower but stronger attacks as his main fighting style.

Evenings or rather the time when they were to exhausted from physical training were spent with lectures about various non-Chakra using survival skills, tactics for both battlefield and general use, manners and when to use them (and when it was okay to forget them) and nearly every other thing that could become handy in a Shinobi's life.

On the days they were to tired to move, and Kakashi had enough pity to not force them to, they were tested on the things they had learned and if they hadn't payed enough attention to his lectures, which more often then not happened in at least Naruto's case, they would receive… incentives to do better in the future.

Exhausting physical task, like running away from a group of ninken, proofed to be an effective way to get Naruto to pay more attention and to break away more of the arrogance the two boys had en masse. On top of that it was a great teambuilding exercises, at least in Kakashi's eye(s). Nothing made you connect better than to run away from certain doom together.

He was happy to notice that his assumption that Sasuke and Naruto would do whatever he wanted them to do, in order to keep up with their rival and prevent to fall back, had proven true. He was even more pleased that both boys quickly added Tenten into their rivalry and that they now were pushing each other even harder. The girl, and her competitive nature, really had been the best choice for both boys.