Hurray, chapter 4!

I bet you didn't know that an otter's home is called a holt or a couch.

JJafan: Fair enough, I don't want the work to be too present.

The next day, outside Training Ground 7

Takai looked at Naruto who was currently practicing his water walking to exercise his control. The pair had grabbed a scroll on a taijutsu style from the archives earlier that morning. Naruto had left Takai to figure out their training schedule to introduce it. To Naruto, it looked like gibberish, but to Takai, it was practically gold.

The scroll was labeled 'Lightning Fist'. It was based on the idea of lightning quick and agile attacks. Further down the scroll it described some katas along with a few basic illustrations. Takai looked up and glanced at Naruto as he fell through the surface of the water next to the bridge. So far, neither Sakura nor Sasuke had shown up, but he didn't blame them. It was six in the morning right now.

Naruto growled as he swam over to the edge and pulled himself out of the water. "Hey, Naruto, take a look." Takai said from his cross-legged position on the bridge's guardrail. The boy perked up and walked over to Takai, who tilted his scroll to show Naruto the katas.

"If we can do these on water, then I think we'll be perfect." Takai began, "But we should get them down on dry land first-", looking over Naruto's sopping wet clothes. "Don't...make fun of me." Naruto said, pointing accusingly at Takai. He held his hands up in surrender as he hopped off his guardrail. He propped the scroll up so the pair could see the katas and replicate them.

"Just copy me, we'll get this down eventually." Takai said as he took the first stance. One foot forward, the other slightly offset as to allow easy omni-directional movement hands loose and open with the dominant hand forwards. Takai slowly and carefully maneuvered into the second kata, taking a step forward and twisting his torso, thrusting his non-dominate left hand forwards in a fist.

It felt incredible to be learning something about taijutsu again. His skills hadn't really advanced since the academy. Really, academy taijutsu's only redeemable quality in his eyes was the fact that it was extremely easy to learn in his eyes. He had picked it up and mastered it within a few weeks. There wasn't much to it honestly.

The next kata had him twisting his torso back to the left to allow him to lean onto his left hand, going into a one-handed handstand which had him swing his dominant right leg in an arc, which would hit someone in the head before using that motion to swing back onto his feet in a crouch leaning to the front. That was only the first kata.

There was nineteen more. He nodded as he took the time to glance at Naruto. He sort of got it, albeit not as fast as Takai. His movement were wobbly. He watched for about four minutes until Naruto could go through the first kata without messing up. Takai stood up from his crouch and restarted the kata, repeating it over and over. They had about two hours until Sakura and Sasuke showed up, then likely three until Kakashi appeared. Takai nodded to himself as he completed the kata another time, being able to nearly go as fast as he could.

He glanced at Naruto who had built up a good sweat, so he had discarded his coat to the side, leaving only a mesh armor shirt and his weight vest.. Takai stared in amazement as Naruto sped through the kata and then managed to complete the next in full-speed. That lasted up until Naruto spun out of control and hit his head on the guardrail.

"DAMN!" He shouted, clutching his forehead as a rather large red mark began to form. It wouldn't stay long at all and Naruto could just shake it off. Takai shook his head in amusement as he worked out the next kata.

The pair worked for two hours. That was about when Sakura and Sasuke showed up. Well, more like Sakura followed Sasuke like a lost puppy. Sakura was going on and on about how great Sasuke was as he walked over to the pair and plopped himself onto the bridge's guardrail, watching with mild interest what Naruto and Takai were doing.

"Even with a new taijutsu style, you can't beat me, Naruto." Sasuke remarked...only to receive no response. He stared at Naruto for a moment, who was laser focused on his katas. Him and Takai had managed to get through six of them relatively easily and were busy mixing them up an mastering them to the utmost degree. Their focus lasted until Takai stopped, panting with a little intensity.

"Alright Naruto, we're going to be busy with D-ranks today, so we won't have much of a chance to get our workout in, let's get it now" Takai said as he leaned forwards and flipped into a handstand, beginning to go up and down.

"Yeah!" Naruto did the same, to the amazement of Sakura and Sasuke. Who knew Naruto could do this stuff? Wasn't he always a failure? The thoughts of Sakura and Sasuke unknowingly echoed each other.

After about ten push-ups, Naruto started talking, "Wait- what are D-ranks?" He questioned Takai.

"Low rank missions, fresh Genin get them. They're basically chores done around the village. Takai had done a lot of investigation over the years and that was something he had heard a lot.

Naruto whined, "Aww, what?! How are we supposed to get stronger with D-ranks?" He complained.

"I believe its for teamwork." Takai answered patiently.

Naruto stopped complaining at that.

After one hundred of their push-ups, Takai went down and pushed himself up into the air, landing on his feet, Naruto doing the same. A sheen of sweat was on both of them as they high-fived. "Now, legs!" Takai said as he started doing squats on one leg, Naruto mirroring him.

This went on with quite a few exercises. Sakura was mind-boggled as the two finished up, conveniently right when Kakashi showed up.

He was crouching on the guardrail of the bridge, "Hey, gang." He said blandly. Sakura immediately jumped up and screamed, "You're late!" Sasuke rubbed his ear a bit. Naruto and Takai didn't acknowledge his arrival. "Come on, we're going to the Hokage Tower for our assignments for today." Kakashi said. At that, Naruto and Takai immediately rolled up their scroll and stood up straight. Sasuke hopped off the guardrail.

How strange, he didn't give a cappy excuse.

The four Genin followed their sensei as he got off the bridge and began walking towards Hokage Tower.

Hokage Tower

As the group of five entered one small boy exited. He was young, probably around eight or nine years of age. As he ran out of the door, he ran right into Takai's leg, which didn't even buckle. The group of ninja looked down at the young boy who was rubbing his head. He looked up at Takai.

"You! You dare attack the Hokage's grandson?!" The boy yelled.

Takai looked at his teammates who remained silent.

He decided to humor the kid, "Yeah, sure. I attacked you. What are you going to do about it?" He taunted.

The boy in response looked offended. He reached towards his pocked and pulled out a kunai, lunged at Takai. The Genin simply stretched out the back of his hand, slightly tilted right where the boy was attempting to strike. The kunai glanced off the metal on the back of his glove, causing the boy to fall over.

"Umph!" He exclaimed, scrambling to stand up.

Naruto began to laugh, Sasuke cracked a smile and Sakura smiled awkwardly.

The boy pointed accusingly at Takai, "Oh, you're going to get it now!" The boy attempted to throw his kunai at Takai's face who once again used the metal back plate to his glove to block it, sending it spinning away. The boy himself had charged Takai attempting to grapple with him. Takai jumped up, flipping in the air, bracing himself with on hand on the boy's back and landing behind him, kunai drawn and at the boy's throat.

"Dead." He remarked in the boy's ear. He holstered his kunai and walked around the boy, the rest of his team following as he made his way up to the Hokage's office. They could hear the boy shouting behind them, "My name is Konohamaru, and I'm going to beat you!"

Takai waved over his shoulder as he ascended up the stairs.

They soon entered the office, Naruto and Takai feeling right at home.

"Hello Jiji!" Naruto exclaimed as Takai followed him. The two sat down in the two chairs in front of the Hokage's desk who merely chuckled at the relaxed attitude which contrasted with Sakura who looked like someone had slapped her.

"WHAT?!" She screeched, "DO YOU KNOW HOW DISRESPECTFUL THAT IS, NARUTO?!" She exclaimed.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah...Old Man Third doesn't care, if he did, he would have done something about it a long time ago." Naruto waved her off while rubbing his ear.

"Now, Sakura-san, I allow them to behave this way." The Hokage said, also rubbing his ears gently. Damn, the girl could be loud.

For a moment she paused before acknowledging what the Hokage said, "Yes, Hokage-sama."

He looked to Kakashi, "I have a choice of things for you, Kakashi. Chizuki-san needs her fence painted, some dogs need to be walked at the shelter, and Tora needs to be found and caught once more." The Hokage listed off.

Takai's one eye widened at the last one turning to Kakashi, moments away from begging him to not chose the last one.

"We'll be taking them all." he said.

Takai sighed.

Chizuki Family's House

The four Genin were painting a fence, Naruto and Takai having done the majority of it while Sakura was trying to get a date from Sasuke, who merely grunted in response. Kakashi was sitting in a tree above them, occasionally looking down to make sure they were working. Once in awhile, they'd hear the sound of a page turning in Kakashi's smutty book.

Naruto and Takai looked at each other. They both nodded.

They formed the clone seal and on Takai poofed into existence, as did one Naruto.

The clones grabbed the painting supplies and the real ones rushed off, Naruto following Takai.

Konoha's Red Light District

Naruto and Takai were currently stalking a very specific cat.

"You still haven't told me what we're supposed to be doing here in this pervy district!" Naruto whispered harshly.

Takai grunted and pointed at the cat, "That's our target. The cat is a pet to the Daimyo's wife."

"Wh-" Naruto began.

"I know. It doesn't seem right, but apparently the cat comes here quite often with her master." Takai said.

"I was going to ask why its so ugly." Naruto replied, face expressionless.

"I don't know, why don't you go and ask, hm?" Takai responded dryly.

Naruto flipped off Takai as the two pushed off the ledge they were on, landing side by side on the wall above the cat using surface sticking. Not a noise was made.

Tora was currently eating trash from the bin outside a brothel. Takai cringed at the thought as he pointed to the left of the cat and nudged Naruto. Naruto got the message and leapt to the opposite wall and snuck across on his feet and hands

Takai himself slowly inched down the wall to ground level. Naruto was directly across from him. Tora hadn't noticed them. They didn't have to be so quiet because of the loud music blaring at all hours and the wanton moans of prostitutes was more than enough to keep them covered by sound, but they didn't want to risk it. Takai began to take his vest off, slowly as possible.

Naruto copied him.

Takai held up three fingers, dropping one at a time until he hit zero.

He wound up his arm, Naruto mirroring him.

They threw with all their might, the vests traveling even faster than they could run.

They clashed, throwing dust in the alleyway around. Takai drew a kunai and began to run in, Naruto forming two shadow clones and dashing in as well. Naruto quickly looked around, both clones drew a kunai each. Takai saw a shadow dash through the smoke. He heard a shadow clone get dispelled along with a grunt from the real Naruto. Takai swept his arm, waving some of the smoke away.

The remaining shadow clone was currently getting scratched to hell by Tora, who was on his face. The original Naruto was on the ground, his face a horror show of scratch marks and blood. Takai briefly thought about the STDs Naruto likely has now. He approached the cat from behind. With one smooth motion he dropped to his left hand and swung his right foot into the side of the cat, drawing a yowl from it.

Tora sailed across the alleyway, landing in a trashcan. The clone attempted to stand from the garbage can it fell onto and crushed, but dispelled once he face-planted.

Takai winced as the cat rose from the trashcan. He went into the first stance of Lightning Fist. The cat charged from the trashcan she was in, going so fast she managed to run on the wall for a moment. Takai nearly wavered as he steeled himself. The cat got within range.

Takai took a powerful step forwards, adding momentum to his turning torso and swung. He turned his thrust into a left hook, striking the cat in the side of the face. Tora practically shot into the wall, impacting it and falling down into a puddle. Takai looked down at the cat.

This animal was perhaps one of the toughest foes a Genin could face. Tora could take strikes from Chunin, shrugging them off. There are records of her being hit with Katon: Gokakyu no Jutsu (Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique) and while not in any rumors Takai could dig up, apparently the cat had even managed to take a kunai to the throat.

He wasn't quite sure with that one, but he wouldn't-

Poof

Takai stared as a man in a Chunin vest and Konoha headband appeared in place of Tora. The man's clothes were rustled and there was a massive bruise on the left side of his jaw. His jaw was slightly off. Takai did punch him pretty hard, so his jaw could have been broken.

Takai nearly jumped out of his skin as two other Chunin arrived, one to either side of him, in a Shunshin no Jutsu (Body Flicker Technique).

"Damn, Toyuma. Beaten by a Genin? All new low." The one to the left said.

The other just shook his head and clicked his tongue. They moved in unison, shouldering the unconscious Chunin and Shunshin no Jutsu (Body Flicker Technique). Takai didn't so much as whisper a word during the event. He looked back at the knocked out Naruto and sighed.

Takai's Apartment

After getting Naruto to the hospital, they tested him for STDs. He in fact did not contract anything from the cat. After that, he headed back to help with the other D-ranks. There really wasn't much to them. Neither Sakura nor Sasuke questioned them about their escapades.

Takai took off his vest, dropping it on the floor by his door and kicked off his sandals. When was the last time he had a moment to relax?

He couldn't remember.

He walked over to his table, which was piled high with fuinjutsu attempts. Next to the haphazard pile was a stack of books that he had collected over the years. One caught his attention as he walked by- "The Summoning Clans of The Shinobi World". He homed in on the book, pushing the tomes on top of it off and picking it up. For some reason, it really stood out to him.

He opened the book, flipping to the table of contents. It listed entries on every known animal summoning clan in the world. Takai's skin tingled. He looked through it. How had he never heard of this before? There were entries on all sorts of animals such as bats to various birds, to...cows?

He blinked at the page. It displayed a few pictures of cows with Kirigakure headbands.

Moving on.

Eventually reached a page on toads. It had some interesting things, but not much information. None of them really had much information to be honest. But it seemed that it made sense. Except for their summoners, it seems these animals considered themselves completely independent. He flipped back to the front, noting a brief mentioning of a specific jutsu, the Kuchiyose no Jutsu (Summoning Technique).

It had no instructions, but it explained what it did.

Summoning animals.

At first it didn't seem useful, but he remembered the mentions of hundred foot tall animals who were capable of jutsu of their own along with other clan specific skills.

He read further down the page, eventually reaching what seemed to be more theory orientated things. Sensing his moment, he reached across his table for some paper and a pen, scribbling down the entry. It talked about summoning contract seals. It had a small illustration of one. He recognized a few pieces from some books and scrolls he had read from the Shinobi Archive.

A lot of it looked like a foreign script to him, but that was a part of learning. He paused as he read over a specific line. He read it out loud to himself, ""While it is mostly unknown as to how summoning clans came into existence, it should be theoretically possible to make a new summoning clan simply by copying a summoning seal and tuning it to the blood of a specific animal.""

Takai sucked in air through his teeth.

That's insane.

He stood up straight, staring at his wall absently, thinking about the gravity of that idea. He could in theory make a summoning clan. He would just have to kidnap an entire family of animals and forcibly train them to be warriors. Not impossible he mused. After all, Kakashi-sensei has his dog nin. Takai hummed carefully.

Unfortunately, there was an annoying caveat to that plan: he couldn't use a seal he didn't fully understand. Only the most basic of seals could be activated by someone who didn't know of the arts of sealing. He sighed. Great, one more project for him. He set down his pen and turned towards his couch. He couldn't be bothered to get to his actual bed.

He walked up to the arm of the furniture and flopped over it, asleep before he even hit the cushion.

Training Ground 7, the next day

"Gah!" Naruto grunted as he took a kick to the ribs from Takai, who back flipped away and pulled out a hand of shuriken, lobbing them at Naruto. Naruto ran through hand signs, ending with snake.

Takai, noting his hand signs, had already turned around and blocked a flying kick from Naruto with his arms in a cross guard. Before Naruto could get away, Takai gripped his right ankle and swung him into the ground, making him cough up spittle. Naruto bounced up into the air for a second before Takai spun, driving his right leg into his torso. He was thrown across the easily thirty foot clearing and hit a tree.

Takai dropped his stance and made the seal of reconciliation, as custom for training bouts. Naruto pushed himself up, and while he still looked like he was raring to go, pouted as he formed the seal. The pair started walking towards each other. He felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise, 'We're being watched.' Takai locked eyes with Naruto, quickly glancing over to a specific tree near the entrance to their training ground. Naruto merely nodded.

They suddenly charged each other, Naruto dropping to a knee, back to the tree and his hands out in front of him. Takai jumped onto his hands and allowed himself to be launched, using Naruto as a springboard and extra force.

Takai rocketed towards the tree and breakneck speeds. There was a startled 'eep' as he flipped himself in the air and landed on the ground behind the tree, only to see the Hyuuga girl from their class. "Oh-" Takai began, standing up straight as Naruto came charging towards them. He stopped next to Takai. "Who-" He looked at Hinata.

They looked at each other. Takai snickered briefly as he thought of some perverted things. He looked back at Hinata, who was frozen in place.

"Hm, didn't know you were a pervert like that, Hinata-san." Takai remarked teasingly. The heiress's cheeks flared red as she opened her mouth to make an excuse.

Takai held up his hand, "No, I get it. Me and Naruto really are just total studs." Takai nearly laughed as her eyes darted to Naruto and looked over him quickly.

He dropped his hand as he started shaking his head, "But if you're going to use this time to be a pervert, you should at least be training your Byakugan at the same time." He pushed on, "However, since we've caught you, I'd say you owe us time training."

"Wh-" Hinata began before Takai cut her off, "We just want some experience with fighting the Gentle Fist is all." Takai explained. Naruto didn't look like he understood, but nodded along with Takai's words.

Ten minutes later

Takai hacked up phlegm as Hinata hit him in the center of his chest, throwing him to the ground. Naruto rushed her from behind, but took a palm strike to the chin as she snapped around. Naruto landed in the mud, his clothes being smeared in the thick substance.

Takai struggled up, even with the vest, it still hurt like a bitch to get hit.

Once he got up, he assumed the first stance of Lightning fist, his movements slow and jerky, Hinata staring at him from the first stance of the Gentle Fist, Byakugan activated.

It boggled his how badly Hinata was kicking their asses.

She went from a shy, timid girl to an ass beating machine.

It was kind of scary.

He saw Hinata was in her zone. Not thinking, just acting. Takai braced himself as Hinata launched forwards and aimed a finger strike at his chest again. Takai lunged forwards in return, taking the strike to the chest. He powered through the pain flaring in his chest as he grabbed her wrist and threw her over his shoulder.

She landed with cat-like agility in a crouch, springing forwards and pushing both the heels of her palms into Takai's torso, throwing him to the ground and flipping over him.

Naruto had finally jumped up from the mud with much slipping involved. He managed to turn to face Hinata before blinking as her palm came into his view. His head snapped back as he flopped into the mud again.

No snarky response, no fight, just slap.

Takai's eyes widened as Hinata rushed him.

He groaned as he bruises and aches screamed in protest, by the time he got up, she was already on him.

Takai's Apartment, the next morning

Takai groaned as he sat up.

His mind flashed through his ass getting beaten. He couldn't believe the shy little Hyuuga heiress could fight like that. At the Academy, she usually forfeited immediately in matches. But he got what he needed.

After he and Naruto woke up, he managed to convince Hinata to explain Gentle Fist to him using Naruto.

Somehow, that worked.

It blew his mind that it worked. He would keep that admiration in the back of his mind in case he needed it again.

He held his right hand in front of him, forming the two fingered attack.

He looked to the notepad to his left which he had passed out with.

Takai reached up to his face and briefly rubbed his eye before grabbed the pad.

"Hm, that's really it?" Takai questioned.

There was very little there. It made sense though he supposed, after all, one could use the finger attack, but couldn't accurately target tenketsu. It wasn't really much of a huge secret either. The training, however, was.

Takai hummed as he channeled some chakra to his fingertips.

They glowed a faint ghostly blue.

Takai grinned in triumph.

It took a lot of chakra control though...

Takai flinched back as he lost control of the chakra, causing a small pop at the tip of his fingers.

His one uncovered eye widened.

What had he just discovered?

Training Ground 7

If an uninformed person walked by Team 7's training ground, they would think someone was detonating bombs in there-

Which, was kind of related?

Takai could be spotted standing in the middle of a group of training dummies, each with small hole in their bodies all over. Takai himself was smeared with sweat and was panting heavily. He had been trying to replicate the Hyuuga gentle fist.

He raised his fingers, two forwards and charged the center dummy.

In his fatigue, he tripped and lost his footing.

His hand flared out and slapped the torso of the dummy.

Fwoom.

The center of the dummy exploded. Chakra burns were prevalent on the training device and Takai's palm.

The boy hissed in pain, holding his injured palm to his chest as he observed the dummy fall off the post.

His one good eye seemed speculative.

Had he just inverted the Hyuuga technique?

He stalked forwards carefully and crouched down by the fallen dummy. His hand found purchase on its shoulder. He flipped it, allowing his eyes to stray down to the hand sized crater in it.

Takai moved his hand to the hole, running his good hand over the crater, finding it to be perfectly smoothed. Chakra had seemingly eaten the dummy.

He frowned as he got a shooting pain up his bad hand. He had some work to do for this technique before it could be usable.

Takai reached back to his supply pouch, pulling out a small roll of shinobi bandage. It was a bandage with a chakra infused healing salve.

He had absolutely no idea how it worked.

But damn, it certainly worked like a charm.

He took off his now ruined glove and wrapped the bandage around his palm, carefully doing one finger at a time as to retain the ability to form hand signs. Takai brought the excess up to his mouth and chewed it apart, separating the roll from his hand. He slipped the roll back into his pouch and tucked the end into the rolls of wrapping.

Takai clenched his fist hard as he stood back up. He noted his chakra capacity, which was quite low. However, he had to get to the team meeting outside Hokage Tower. Today was their first C-rank!

Takai hummed as he stomach rumbled.

Could he afford to stop at a fast food place? After all, that stuff was practically gold when it came to regenerating chakra.

Yeah, yeah, he could.

Konoha's North Gate

Takai couldn't believe it.

He was going on his first mission. He hummed as he brushed his good left hand over his person, feeling out his storage seals and his ninja tools. He ran his chakra through his system a few times, preparing it for use.

Takai looked to his teammates, who were also preparing.

Except for Sakura.

Stupid fan-girl.

Kakashi looked over them. His eye lingered on Naruto and Sasuke for a short moment before turning towards the front gate and calling out to them.

"Come on, you four." He said.

Takai frowned, why did he look at those two specifically?

This chapter is slightly shorter than my usual five thousand, but I'm quite happy with the results.

Team Kakashi are off to a certain land! Virtual cookie for whoever can guess correctly. The mission is not going to Wave. This will be a completely original work of mine.

Quite the under taking, I know, but I'm hyped to write for it!