Training Ground: Throwing Weapons, Morning…

4 years and 3 months since arriving in Konoha (Jin: Age 4)

Jin stood back with Shuro as Anko stood a fair distance away holding five kunai in each hand. Suddenly, she moved quicker than the youngest Kettou member could follow. Shuro directed his gaze a little to the left, and he saw Anko flipped above the ground with her eyes closed.

She threw four kunai in quick succession before then throwing the last two. They nailed two of the kunai sending them on the proper course and ultimately resulting in every kunai nailing their respective targets around the area dead center before she landed.

"Whoa, that's amazing!" Jin exclaimed as Anko approached. "Can all Shinobi do that?"

"It's hardly the level of skill most Shinobi bother getting to." Anko shrugged. "I've often been told my aim is better than most. Though I've also heard there's an Uchiha prodigy that can do what I've done, and he's seven years younger."

"Even with that being the base, Jin's compliment holds water." Shuro then patted the boy's shoulder. "Now that you've seen what Anko can do, she's going to begin teaching you how to throw shuriken and kunai."

"Alright!" Jin declared excitedly.

Anko got on one knee before him. "The weapon I just used are kunai." She produced one. "They have a handle which means they can also be used for close combat; however, that's a lesson for another day. All you must concern yourself with for now is throwing."

She then produced a star shaped hunk of metal. "Next are shuriken which are usually only suitable for throwing. Given they don't have a handle, the best way to hold them is by the center. The last throwing weapons I want to mention are senbon.

I didn't bring any today since they require more precision to be effective. If you decide they're right for you, that's your business. Either way, you still require time with kunai and shuriken first. Now, your dad's going to work on getting you to grip them while I clear the targets."

While Anko could simply speed around to collect her kunai, she took her time to give Shuro the opportunity to make Jin's grip passable. Once all the kunai were collected, she began instructing him on how to properly throw both weapons.

After each throw at one of the various targets she'd point him to, the Shinobi would adjust Jin's stance and give constructive criticism that helped him get closer to what they wanted. Ultimately, it was going to come down to practice, but that was only to be expected.

Chakra Control: Midday…

Once the day's lessons on throwing weapons were done, Jin demonstrated his current Chakra Control. Simply learning how to control one leaf on the forehead had only been the beginning. Once he had that down, Shuro gave him a leaf for his left and right palm.

The boy would have to manage all three at once for Shuro to consider moving him onto the next level. Even with Anko around more now, they couldn't spare the time to bring Jin out training every day, so relatively slow going was to be expected.

When you accounted for the days he trained, against the days he couldn't, Jin was making quick progress in whatever he was taught. It was self-evident today as Jin showcased he could do the present exercise to Shuro's satisfaction.

With that in mind, Shuro brought him to the nearest tree. "Alright, looks like you're ready to move onto Tree Climbing."

"Climbing a tree is the next Chakra Control exercise?" Jin asked.

Shuro never alluded to Chakra Control exercises beyond Leaf Concentration. Still, hearing this was the next exercise didn't make sense. As little kids tend to do, Jin's climbed trees before, but it never felt anything like Leaf Concentration did.

"While you've climbed your fair share of trees, there's actually a better method to it that Shinobi utilize." Shuro smiled. "Observe as I'm about to climb this tree without the use of my hands."

"Wait, we can climb trees without using out hands?" Shuro asked.

"It is indeed possible." Shuro demonstrated the hand seal for it even though he didn't need it these days. "Observe."

To Jin's amazement, which amused Anko to see, Shuro walked up the tree and only stopped upon reaching the bottom of a branch of the tree.

"The idea is to focus your Chakra to the soles of your feet and use them to climb." Shuro explained. "This is the next step in Chakra Control. The prior one, as I had you do it, helped you grasp drawing a precise amount of Chakra to a point on your body.

That is difficult to do, yet it is something I wanted to instill within you as a fundamental basis. As with the prior exercise, this will require a subtle mix of spiritual and physical energies. The real kicker here is where you must now focus.

The bottom of one's feet are by far the most difficult place to focus Chakra. To master this next step, your first goal will be to simply make it up the tree. Then, you will keep working until you can walk along a tree effortlessly. Anko, if you would?"

"Got it." Anko produced a kunai and gave it to him. "Here, you should be able to at least lay a cut into a tree. The goal is to make it further up the tree with every attempt, so work to bypass the last mark you make. You'll first want to run at the tree until you get used to it."

Shuro lept off the branch and landed just behind them. "Think you can handle it?"

"If I can't, I'll keep working on it." Jin declared.

Both Shinobi smiled as Jin performed Shuro's prior hand seal. When he felt the Chakra at his feet, the boy ran and managed to get up a few steps. Then, his left foot caved in the trunk, and he lost his footing. Before he fell, Jin got off a slash with the kunai and landed ungracefully.

"Okay, that's really different from Leaf Concentration." Jin noted.

"Well, he did better than most four-year-olds I've seen attempt it." Anko noted.

"It's down to his prior work with the leaves." Shuro noted. "Still, he's got quite the path ahead of him before he makes this one as natural as I'll accept." He then nodded. "He's got a whole other exercise beyond this one before I'll teach him about our bloodline."

Still, Shuro was positive Jin would have this down, to his standards, sometime next year. At least, at the rate the boy could train. If Shuro allowed him to train at his leisure, without either of them needing to accompany him, he knew Jin would majorly cut that time down.

Until Jin was an academy student, Shuro felt safer with one of them accompanying him. Even with this aspect, his brother's potential and rate of growth were rather impressive. It likely didn't help that his standards of mastery went beyond what a typical person would ask.

"Maybe in the future I'll experiment with letting him go off on his own before the academy." Shuro thought.

It was a brief thought, but one that moved to the back of his mind where he'd think about it more as time wore on.

Taijutsu: Evening…

After Tree Climbing for a while, Jin joined his perceived father and mother for lunch. Once that was down, as well as getting a bit longer of a break in, Jin got back to work. He ultimately managed to make it one-fourth of the way up the tree before being told to take another break.

Initially, the idea had been to start Jin on Ninjutsu, at least the three academy ones, but there was still a year and a half before he entered said academy. Ultimately, Anko convinced Shuro they should let the academy handle those and start teaching him more around that time.

For now, continuing to improve the speed he wove signs, and some generic combinations, would do. What she stressed they should be teaching him now was Taijutsu. The standard academy fair was fine, but nothing compared to what they could show him. Shuro ultimately agreed.

Anko was going to lead this section off, so she stood behind Jin while Shuro stood back. "The first step in Taijutsu is adopting a stance that works for you. For now, we'll start you with the academy standard since it's designed to work out bad habits…provided its taught right.

You'll want to adopt a solid stance without tensing up and put your nondominant foot ahead." As she instructed, Anko moved him into place. "This is as basic as it gets, but it's important to memorize it. Once you have it down, you can branch off into a stance that's more your own."

"From here, we'll expect you to get this stance down." Shuro now stepped forward. "We'll also be showing you how to properly throw a punch and kick."

"Well, Shuro will show you those." Anko couldn't resist throwing in something a little more advanced than the standard fair which she thought paired well anyways. "I'll be teaching you about knees and elbows."

"My knees and elbows?" Jin questioned.

"That's right." Anko nodded. "A lot of fighters tend to focus on fists, feet, and legs. Throwing in elbows and knees can only make you that much better. For example, if you get ahold of your opponent's head, move it down and your knee up."

Jin nodded in understanding as he took in what he was being told. Shuro must admit that for as far as he's come in his own training, what Anko preached was something he never considered. In truth, this was a lesson for himself as well on improving his own Taijutsu.

Konoha: Day…

5 years since arriving in Konoha (Jin: Age 5)

In the Land of Fire, there was a brief window of time for it to get cold enough that it snowed. In fact, the last time it snowed the Kettou Clan had still been around in full. As such, Jin had never seen snow considering he hadn't been alive.

What made today even better was the fact that it was the first time Shuro let him go somewhere alone. Even when Anko and Shuro were both away on missions, he was usually made to stay with Kurenai or Teuchi & Ayame. In short, Jin was taking today to walk around.

"It really is different without dad or mom with me." It was by no means a bad difference but certainly noticeable given what every past instance of stepping out of the apartment had been. "Even then, the feeling pales in comparison to mom and dad's wedding."

Upon seeing the white snow, thoughts of that day couldn't help but enter Jin's mind. It was a happy memory as Anko finally became his mom officially though he'd obviously thought of her as such before. Regardless of whether it was official or unofficial, he thought she was great.

"If you're really a Hyuga, show us your Byakugan."

Jin had been walking down a snow-covered road through trees that had lost their leaves when he overheard someone talking loudly. While he did hear everything said, Hyuga and Byakugan caught his attention. He'd read about them in those books dad got him.

"If you refuse, don't look at us."

Jin could now see three kids standing before a girl with a fair complexion, featureless lavender eyes, and blue hair in a hime-cut. Like all of them, she was wearing clothes fit for cold weather. It was clear that the comments leveled against her were bringing the girl to tears.

"Yeah, your eyes are creepy."

"I bet you're some kind of monster."

"Yeah, a Byakugan monster."

The boys all laughed as the girl curled in on herself and cried prompting Jin to act. "You three are being mean so cut it out."

"Look at the purple on this one."

"Yeah, must be some kind of purple people eater."

"If you three have nothing better to do than talk down to people, maybe you should find something productive to do." Jin retorted.

The girl stopped covering her eyes and looked at Jin a bit surprised since he didn't react negatively to them attempting to insult him as she had. As for the three boys, they confidently approached Jin, not dissuaded in the slightest.

"Oh, looks like someone thinks they're mature."

Suddenly, one of them slugged Jin across the face. Despite what training he's had, the Kettou member hadn't been expecting this to get violent. At the same time, all his prior training did wonders in making him capable of taking the punch.

"I probably should have seen that coming." Jin thought.

Considering one of them threw a punch, he reciprocated with one of his own into the guy's gut winding him. Upon seeing their friend take a rather strong hit, as far as a kid's strength really went, they immediately moved to help their friend.

Before they could reach Jin, he grabbed the current boy's head and pulled him down. The Kettou member then brought his knee up landing a blow that laid the first bully on his back. Despite being unable to prevent this, the other two got their hits in.

One of them clocked Jin in the stomach not necessarily winding him, but he did still need to take in a sharp breath. The other took that moment to hammer home another punch in his face knocking Jin off his feet. By this point, the first bully had stood back up.

"I'll admit, that kid has a little strength to him."

"Even if he does, just look at him."

"Yeah, he couldn't take attacks like you."

One of the first things Jin learned from Shuro was perseverance. To him, that meant if he wasn't unconscious, he should keep going. Beyond even that, he simply didn't like the thought of these boys taking any sort of victory. The way they conducted themselves meant they didn't deserve it.

Jin rose back to his feet, to the surprise of the three boys and girl they'd been picking on, before getting into a proper stance with a grin. "You'll need to try a lot harder than that to beat me. After all, what kind of future Shinobi falls to something as simple as that?"

The three boys shared a look before ultimately deciding on rushing Jin. This time, he wasn't only ready but determined not to fall again. As such, even though he was currently facing down three opponents, the boy gave as good as he got.

He implemented elbows and knees, as Anko had been teaching him, with punches and kicks. Through this, Jin managed decently. After all, such unexpected avenues of attack, on more than one occasion, managed to disrupt one of his attackers from landing another hit of their own.

After several minutes of fighting, Jin was roughed up, dirty, and exhausted. At this point, he seemed insurmountable to the three boys who were only in slightly better condition. Considering there were three of them against one of him, that said nothing.

"We're getting out of here!"

The first bully was the one to crack. With his current injuries, he did his best to run the opposite way. The other two quickly followed. The girl looked on awestruck, upset by the violence, and extremely worried for the remaining boy's wellbeing.

Despite all odds, he'd gritted his teeth and dug in his heels to take a win she didn't think was possible. Once all three of those other boys were out of sight, Jin collapsed onto his back unconscious. Despite his current state, he's still won.

"Oh no." The girl immediately rushed over as her worry for this boy outweighed her usual timidness. "Hey, are you okay?"

There was no response. Considering the girl didn't know how she could help, there was only really one avenue afforded to her.

Down the Road, Later…

The girl was managing to slowly drag Jin along while looking for help. Fortunately, someone she knew, in the form of an older branch member, came along. Given his duty, even if the Branch did not think fondly of the Main house, he was immediately over to her.

"Lady Hinata, what are you doing outside of the compound, and why are you dragging this unconscious boy!?"

"He stepped in and got hurt fighting off three boys who were making fun of me." Hinata answered quickly. "Please, take this boy somewhere he can be helped."

"Alright, I'll get him to the village hospital after I've at least brought you to the Hyuga compound."

The branch member picked Jin's body up and slung it onto his back before grabbing Hinata's hand to lead her away.

Hyuga Compound: Evening…

Hinata learned, from that branch member, that Jin Kettou would be fine. The escort was nice enough to say his name upon his return. Now, she was in her traditional room thinking about what happened earlier.

"Could I possibly do what Jin did?" Hinata pondered. "Can I be strong enough to endure on when outmatched and keep going despite my body telling me I should quit?"

Beyond the questions, Hinata was now curious enough to seek out her father. She soon found him in the main room of the mansion where she bowed respectfully.

"Father, I have a request." Hinata stated respectfully. "Would it be possible to thank Jin Kettou for what he did earlier?"

Hinata's father, Hiashi, has long, black hair and featureless white eyes like almost all members of the clan. He wore traditional, loose-fitting robes with a long-sleeved, brown haori. Upon hearing mention of Jin Kettou, the man frowned.

While he wouldn't normally mind Hinata being around such a boy, the girl was already getting bullied just for being a Hyuga. Adding on an association with Kettou members was only asking for worse. He personally thought they were a fine clan in their prime.

Due to that clan's refusal to join Konoha, before their destruction, rubbed many people the wrong way. Even over four years with two of them in the village hadn't assuaged as many people as Shuro thought they had. Then, there was the fact that Shuro had married Anko.

Again, Hiashi had no ill will towards her. Whatever happened to that girl was on that traitor, Orochimaru's, shoulders. Once again, many in the village had yet to come to terms with it. All of this didn't even mention the elder of their clan who tended to share such views.

"Despite what that boy did, associating with him and his family, at this time, is only asking for trouble." Hiashi shook his head. "The elder would not want you associating with that boy or his family until a later date. Beyond that, you should focus on your training. The fact that a Hyuga got him medical attention should be enough."

This news dismayed Hinata, but for all the ways she acted today, the girl was too timid to demand anything different from her father. As such, she merely slunk away to her room, yet she hadn't peddled back from everything. Thoughts of what Jin did circulate through her mind.

Konoha Hospital: Next Day

Jin groaned as he finally awoke, and his attention was immediately drawn to his parents who were in the room with him.

"Jin, you're finally up." Shuro stated happily as he moved to his bedside.

Anko followed with a proud smile. "Good job putting the beat down on those snot nosed brats."

Upon waking, Jin was confused why he was in the hospital. Now that they mentioned it, he did at least remember the fight.

"Oh yeah, the fight." Jin stated.

"You didn't remember?" Shuro asked worriedly.

"No, it came back to me once mom mentioned it." Jin responded. "I stepped in because they were picking on someone…I…I can't remember who it was."

He did take quite a few blows to the head.

"Maybe it was a Hyuga since one of their branch members dropped you off along with the explanation we were given." Shuro frowned. "Though, they hadn't been forthcoming with who you defended, so we were hoping you remembered."

"Clearly, I need to head down there and get the answer." Anko stated firmly.

"Anko, that wouldn't be a good idea." Shuro reasoned.

"Listen to dad." Jin spoke up, drawing their attention as he managed a weak smile. "Besides, it doesn't matter who I stepped into defend. In the end, I managed it and didn't lose. That's enough."

"Well said." Shuro agreed.

"Fine." Anko sighed. "I won't raise anything over this since both of you don't want me to." She then smiled. "Still, the fact that Jin managed to drive off those three first year academy students shows they likely won't make it to graduation."

"Likely not, even if Jin is coming along well with Taijutsu." Shuro agreed with a nod and his pride in Jin now showed as his concern faded. "If he keeps up with his training, I'm sure he'll become a great Shinobi."

With everything settled, Jin smiled knowing his parents were proud of him. At the end of the day, it was something simple, yet it was all he needed.

This chapter is by no means meant to put canon Naruto down. For one, I'm taking liberties with when this particular event happens in the timeline. At least, I'm fairly certain this event happens when Hinata and Naruto are younger. Secondly, it's a matter of perspective. Back when Naruto encountered this scene, he clearly hadn't been training much. Unlike Jin, he didn't have anyone to teach him at this point. As for age, Jin is the same age as the canon rookie 9, so they are around 5 as well.

As for where this difference in events will lead? That will be next chapter as it will have a heavy focus on Hinata. Additionally, an event I know happened earlier at this point hasn't happened yet. The Cloud's false ambassador hasn't entered Konoha, but that will happen next chapter as well. Finally, even though Anko pulled off what Itachi can do at this point, as well as what Sasuke would show up in that Shippuden episode, I made it clear Itachi is still the prodigy here.

If you didn't peep it, Anko mentioned hearing that an 'Uchiha Prodigy' did what she showed here and is seven years younger than her. In short, anyone thinking of raising their pitch forks can put them down. Before anyone says you need the Sharigan to do this trick, Itachi and Sasuke both did it with their eyes closed. Last I checked, they were Uchiha rather than Hyuga, and the Sharingan wouldn't let them potentially look out their own eye lids like the Byakugan.

One last note: I gave Anko the capability to do this based on her making the Leaf symbol with dango sticks in what I think was a filler episode. If you don't like that I did this, then you have every right to.

There is a question concerning Sasuke on my profile so take a look if you want a hand in deciding how Sasuke grows from the Uchiha Masacre.

Geneva Convention Article 34: Thank you.

volcasiron30: Thank you.