Hey folks, sorry for the long delay in this latest chapter, but I went through some personal drama the last month and had little to no inspiration to write. Anyway, my inspiration showed up one day and slapped me in the face with some ideas, and so I've been working on those in my free time. I also got a beta to help me with my story, so while that helps me write a better story, that does add a slight delay to my posting.

I'm going to try to upload a chapter a week, but my life is still in flux. Anyway, shout out to x1tears1X, my new beta. Also, a big shout out to all those that gave me awesome reviews. Please keep it up as it helps me stay inspired. Ok, enough of me, on with the show!

Naruto sighed as he shuddered in memory of the events of the day before. He had just left the Hokage's tower after spending some time filling out the paperwork needed to officially register him as a genin level ninja of Konoha. He was beyond happy that he no longer needed to go to the Academy anymore, yet he was also sad. While he would advance and become the ninja he was meant to be, he was also leaving behind all his friends, who would still need to continue at the Academy for another year.

Naruto found his feet taking him to the Yamanaka flower shop, where he figured he'd find Ino and her dad working, as classes had already let out for the day. He was an adult now, seeing as he was a registered ninja, and he needed to act like one and stop avoiding his best friend just because she made him uncomfortable with her focusing on the Uchiha in their class.

A bell rang as he entered the shop, the sound comforting him with its familiarity. However, the only person he saw in the shop was Inoichi, who was doing an inventory count. The older man looked over at Naruto with a smile when he saw the boy.

"Naruto, it's been a while. How have you been?" Inoichi asked as he placed his clipboard down and focused on the young blonde. Over the years, he had come to view Naruto as part of his family, and he was always glad to see the boy.

Naruto visibly brightened up as he walked closer to the only real father figure he'd had in his life. "That's actually why I'm here," he said excitedly as he leaned against the counter. He pulled out his hitai-ate and placed it on the counter. The light glinted off the freshly polished metal.

Inoichi looked at him with a frown as he noticed the hitai-ate and he was about to scold Naruto for stealing another ninja's hitai-ate, but then he thought about who he was talking to. Naruto was many things, but he wouldn't do that, which meant…

"They promoted you?" he asked as his eyes widened in surprise, as well as a little bit of fear for the boy. While it was normal for someone to be promoted early in times of war, it was almost unheard of in times of peace. The fact that Naruto of all people had gotten an early promotion was unexpected in the extreme, especially considering how many people still despised him for containing the Kyuubi.

"Yeah! Seems I really impressed the Hokage when I helped Shisui with Danzo, though I was just happy to get outta that alive," Naruto said with a wide grin as he slipped his hitai-ate back into his pocket. He still wanted to surprise Ino and didn't want her to see it too soon. "By the way, where's Ino? I don't sense her anywhere nearby."

"I have to say, Naruto, I'm proud of you. You've become a remarkable ninja already, and I look forward to seeing what you can do," Inoichi said as he ruffled Naruto's hair. When Naruto just glared at him, his blue eyes gleaming, Inoichi sighed and rolled his eyes. "Alright, alright, Ino said she was going to go shopping with one of her friends from class before coming home. I had thought she meant you, but…"

Naruto sighed and nodded his head sadly, his head dropping slightly. While that was something they used to do, they hadn't really hung out like that in months, and it looked like it wasn't likely going to happen any time soon as he was likely going to be very busy training with Anko.

Inoichi came around the counter and placed his hand on Naruto's shoulder comfortingly before pulling the young boy into a hug. "Why don't you head towards the shopping district and see if you can find her? I bet she'll be just as excited for you as I am."

"Thanks, Inoichi," Naruto said as he pulled away. He gave the older man a wide smile and a thumbs up before dashing out the front door. Inoichi just laughed and gave the excited youth a wave goodbye.

Naruto headed towards the shopping section of town, keeping his senses open and searching for Ino. After getting there and looking around, ignoring all the dirty looks and sneered comments about him, he finally caught onto the feeling of her mind and used that to track her down. His range was slowly expanding, and he couldn't wait to see how far he could go with it.

After dashing around several crowds, using the rooftops when necessary, Naruto almost literally ran into Ino as he turned a corner where she was walking in his direction. "Whoa! Hey Ino! I've been looking all over for you," Naruto exclaimed excitedly. He was practically bouncing in place.

However, Ino was less than enthused about running into Naruto, especially as she had dropped a bag of clothes. "What is it, Naruto? I need to get home and get changed," she said with a frown as she bent down and grabbed the dropped bag before she headed off in the direction of her house.

"Cool, I'll walk with you," Naruto said happily, his hands behind his head as he walked. He had to force himself not to pull out his hitai-ate too soon and ruin the surprise.

"Whatever, just don't slow me down, I'm in a hurry," Ino said with a sigh and an eyeroll. She looked around to see if anyone was looking at them and she flinched when she saw a number of people staring at her walking with Naruto. Ino picked up her pace to get away from the people watching them and she was sure she could hear them start whispering and pointing at them.

"So, what's the big rush to get home?" Naruto asked curiously as he easily kept pace with Ino. He knew that people were watching them, but he didn't really care about that anymore. He knew why they didn't like him now, and he refused to let them get him down with their stupidity.

Ino looked at him with an annoyed expression. "Sasuke is supposed to be working on some big jutsu with his brother Itachi and I want to go cheer him on," she told him in a terse tone. She looked around and let out a sigh of relief as they had gotten clear of the shopping district and there weren't any people that were staring at them anymore.

"Oh, I guess that's cool and all," Naruto said blandly, just waiting for the moment to tell her the big news. He stuck his hands in his pockets, his right-hand curling around his hitai-ate.

"Cool? If Sasuke can pull off this jutsu, it'll mark him as an adult in his clan and that'll mean that he'll be able to start learning the more advanced techniques! He's so cool," Ino gushed, her eyes growing distant as she imagined Sasuke blowing out a huge fireball and then winking at her as the fireball turned into a heart.

"Hey, that reminds me!" Naruto said as he saw a good lead in. "I've got some cool news of my own!" He started to pull out his hitai-ate but stopped when Ino turned and glared at him.

"Oh, Naruto, I don't care about whatever prank you have planned, or whatever gossip you overheard by accident," Ino snapped at him as he broke her out of her daydream. "Can't you see that Sasuke is about to do something truly amazing? No other Uchiha his age is even close to being able to perform this jutsu and he almost has it mastered! He's a prodigy of his clan, just like his brother."

Naruto felt his heart drop as her obsession remained as strong as ever. He narrowed his eyes and couldn't stop a scoff from escaping. "Please, Itachi is good, amazing even, but he's got nothing on Shisui. Shisui is the best of the best in the Uchiha Clan," he told her, his pride forcing him to defend the man that had helped him so much over the years. He'd even seen Itachi and Shisui spar once and they were almost evenly matched.

"If he's so good, then why did he have to spend so long in the hospital after he got attacked? Hmm?" Ino said with a small sneer as she poked a hole in Naruto's argument. "Itachi and Sasuke never would have ended up in the hospital like that, they're just too good."

"Hey, it's not Shisui's fault! That Danzo creep ambushed him with like twenty guys!" Naruto exclaimed in defense of his hero. "And he still managed to survive and keep them from taking his eyes." Naruto had to give Ino the official version of the story, as the Hokage wanted to keep his involvement secret for as long as possible to protect him. So that meant that he couldn't tell Ino just how much he had helped Shisui.

"Whatever," Ino said with a scoff as she flipped her hair and started back towards her home. "Shisui is nothing compared to Itachi and Sasuke…just like you. You can't compete with Sasuke in class, so you wouldn't be able to compete with him in real life either. That's why I would rather hang out with him, or anyone else, instead of with you. Sasuke is gonna lead his clan one day, while you are just some Clan-less loser with no one to care about you except a few people who only deal with you because they pity you."

Naruto stopped in shock at hearing that, his heart breaking a little with each harsh word she said, and it wasn't just what she said verbally, but also what he was picking up from her mind and her emotions. She truly believed what she said, that he was nothing compared to Sasuke, that she didn't want anything to do with him. He had a brief glimpse into her mind and realized that all the times she had told him that she was too busy to hang out the last year, had just been excuses not to be seen with him. She had started to believe all the rumors that had been spread about him by the villagers, that he was worthless, that he would never amount to anything, that anyone hanging around him would be judged the same.

So, she started distancing herself from him, started hanging out with other friends more and with him less and less. And now, she had taken a kunai to his heart with her words. Tears formed in his eyes, though he refused to let them fall. "But I…" he started to say but was cut off by Ino. She wouldn't even let him get a word in in her hurry to get away from him.

"Go play ninja with someone else, Naruto. That's all you'll ever amount to after all. A pretend ninja," she said as she turned a corner, not bothering to look back at the heartbroken boy she left in her wake. His hitai-ate dropping to the ground from his limp fingers.

It took him several minutes to recover somewhat, and he slowly bent down and picked up his hitai-ate, wrapping it around his forehead and wiping his eyes of the tears that had formed with a soft sniffle. He turned the other direction and started walking, not bothering to care about where he was going. After a while, he slowly came back to his senses and found himself on top of the Hokage Monument, standing on the head of the Yondaime Hokage.

Naruto dropped to the ground and looked out over the whole of Konoha, his mind and emotions a mess. He still hadn't fully dealt with the lives he had taken before, and then this mess blows up in his face. In just a year, his entire world had been flipped, tossed around, and then pureed in a blender. He didn't know who he was anymore. Maybe Ino was right, maybe he would never amount to anything…but then again, he was only eleven and he had his whole life ahead of him.

Naruto pulled out a picture of his mother, Kushina, and looked at her with a sad smile. She had apparently given her life to protect him, according to the Hokage, and if he didn't do the absolute best he could, then he would be disrespecting her sacrifice. She was beautiful and full of life in the picture he had of her, and yet she had willingly given up everything for him, to make sure he had a future. She had loved him; he knew that with absolute certainty.

"I promise you mom, and whoever my dad was, I promise you both, that I won't ever give up or let others tell me who or what I am," he said with a watery smile as he watched the sunset, tears rolling down his cheeks as he made his vow. "I'll do my best to make you both proud of me."

Naruto stayed up there on the mountain until long after night fell, looking out over the village and watching the stars.

XxXxXxX

Naruto met with Anko the next day, still a bit down from what Ino had said, and not said, to him. It was enough that Anko remarked about it to him.

"Hey, brat, what's with the long face? Usually you're bouncing off the walls, but today you can't even smile," she said as she munched on a stick of dango. She swung her legs under her as she sat up on a tree branch above him.

"Usually I'm bouncing off the walls to avoid the kunai and senbon you throw at me," Naruto muttered as he sat down at the base of the tree. He yelped in pain as Anko threw the dango skewer in her hand at him, the stick stabbing into his leg. "Hey! Fine, if you gotta be so nosey, my oldest and first friend told me yesterday that she thinks I'm worthless, that I'll never amount to anything." He glared up at the older woman before looking back down at the ground, pulling the stick out of his leg absently.

"Well, boo-hoo," Anko said sarcastically as she dropped to the ground with barely a sound. "Want me to get you a blanket and a pacifier? Maybe a nice glass of warm milk? I certainly aint going to change your freaking diaper." She grabbed him by his shirt and pulled him to his feet. "Alright, brat, listen up. The moment you put on that hitai-ate you became a soldier of Konoha, not some snot nosed brat that needs his hand held and someone to tell him he's special."

She poked him on his forehead protector. "So what if she thinks you aren't worth shit. That just goes to show how little she knows," she snapped at him. Naruto was staring at her wide eyed as she scolded him worse than he had been in ages. Plus, her emotions were hitting him hard too, all of them backing up her words and thoughts. "The freaking Hokage himself thought that you were a good enough ninja to be promoted without going through the last year of the Academy. You think he does that for just anyone? No! You think that your little friend knows better than the Hokage? You better believe she doesn't know anything! So, who are you gonna put your faith in? Huh? Some brat that is obsessed with the Uchiha? Or the leader of the entire village?"

Anko crossed her arms across her chest, incidentally enhancing her bust, as she stared Naruto down. He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "Well, when you put it that way, it does seem pretty silly," Naruto said with a nervous laugh.

"Good. Now, if we have to have this conversation again, blood is gonna be spilled, got it?" Anko said dangerously as she ran her finger along the edge of a kunai. Naruto nodded fervently, fully aware that she wasn't bluffing at the moment. "Well, now that that's settled, got some tests for you," she said happily as she pulled out a notebook from her jacket.

"Ah, man…I thought I was done with tests," Naruto whined in dismay as he kicked the ground in frustration.

"Not those sorts of test, brat!" Anko said as she smacked him on the head with her notebook. "After the Hokage asked me to train you, I went and did some research on what little is known about psychics, both fiction and non-fiction. And I gotta tell you, kid, there is a lot of mixed up messages being thrown around about psychic abilities. As I'm sure you know, there hasn't been a documented case of someone with your abilities ever. So, I'm pretty much throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks here, ok?"

Naruto nodded and moved a step away from Anko in case she decided to hit him again, though he knew she could throw things at him with deadly accuracy, so it didn't help too much. "So, what first?" he asked, biting his lip in anticipation.

Anko opened her notebook to a page and started listing things off. "Ok, so we got empathy and telepathy already shown and developed. Just need more practice and range on that," she said as she made a tick mark on the page. "Hokage-sama told me that you found Shisui by following 'echoes'?"

"Yeah, I came across a clearing in the woods and saw a mental echo of him getting ambushed in the recent past and followed the echoes until I found him," Naruto told her with a shrug. He didn't really understand the ability but figured it could possibly be kinda cool in some ways.

Anko looked at him over her book with a deadpan expression. "Brat, that's called psychometry, and it means you have the ability to look into an object or location's past and see what happened to it. We are definitely gonna be working on that," she told him with a shake of her head as she made a few notes in her book.

"Why? What's so cool about that?" he asked her, not really understanding why she thought it was so important. It was pretty much just like watching a movie or something, and it wasn't always interesting to him about what was going on.

"Kid, imagine if you are sent to find out what happened to someone. A normal person has to go to the location, search for clues, spend hours, days, or weeks investigating everything that happened, and hopefully figure out the truth," Anko told him seriously, her hand twitching as she fought the urge to stab him with her pen. "With you, all you gotta do is show up, feel out the echo, and then bam! You know just what happened and you can cut out tons of the boring bullshit and maybe save someone's life or avenge them before the bad guy gets away."

Naruto blinked in surprise as he had never thought of it that way. "Oh. I, uh, I guess that's pretty cool after all," he said meekly. As she had been explaining it to him, she had been thinking in her mind about similar situations she had personally dealt with that would have turned out differently had she been able to do what he could. As he had found out himself, that ability could save lives.

"Moving on," Anko said with a sigh, resisting the urge to smack the blonde boy. "Next we got…telekinesis. That's always showing up in the stories about psychics. The ability to move things with just your mind," she explained to him.

"Oh, kinda like what I do with my arrows!" Naruto exclaimed as his eye widened a little, happy to be able to add something to the discussion.

"Yeah, exactly. Now, Shisui and Hawk both say you almost never miss with your arrows, yet your accuracy with your kunai and shuriken aren't as good. So what gives, brat?" Anko said curiously. She purposely tried to call him a brat every chance she could as she knew it bothered him and his eye twitched when she did.

Naruto considered his words carefully. "Well, when I make a shot with my bow, I focus on the arrow and where it's going and when it's released, I can just 'feel' it and I know whether it's gonna hit or not. If I know it's gonna miss, I try and nudge it with my mind," he told her after a minute. "It's hard to explain, it's just something I do, and I don't really think about it."

Anko frowned in thought and looked at him with narrowed eyes. "And you don't have that same feeling with your kunai?"

"Well, generally when I'm throwing kunai, I do it a lot faster than when I shoot an arrow. I take less time to prepare, plus my target is usually a lot closer," he told her with a shrug. His accuracy with his kunai and shuriken was still really good, almost as good as Sasuke's, and loads better than anyone else in their class.

Anko put away her notebook and held up a kunai, placing it flat on her palm and holding it slightly away from her body. "Ok, brat, seems this is an important skill that you have been neglecting. Time to change that," she told him sternly. "I want you to nudge the kunai, got it?"

Naruto gave her a confused look before focusing on the kunai, trying to replicate the feeling he got with his arrows. But he was having trouble as with the arrows he was touching them, feeling them with his senses as well as his mind. The kunai wasn't just much further away, it was being held by someone else. It was as if it didn't even exist to his senses, except for sight.

Naruto stared at the kunai, trying desperately to move it, to get it to do anything. He narrowed his eyes in concentration, and he could feel his face flush with exertion from the strain. He was about to give up when he felt a flicker of sensation and saw the kunai shift slightly as his mind brushed against it. He focused on that feeling, blocking out everything except for trying to repeat that same sensation. His entire focus and will were thrown into moving the kunai and with a wordless roar of effort, he felt that same sensation flare inside his mind and the kunai shot from Anko's hand and buried itself into a tree right up to the ring at the end of the kunai.

Naruto collapsed to his knees as he felt utterly drained, and he had to blink away stars that appeared in his vision after straining his mind so hard. "That…was tough," he muttered tiredly, fighting the urge to just fall asleep. He blinked a few times and the tiredness he was feeling started to fade quickly.

Anko looked at him, then to her now empty hand, and then to the small ring of metal sticking out of the tree, all that could be seen of the kunai. "Damn, kid. I just asked you to move it, not to send it into the next country," she muttered in surprise. Ideas started to form in her mind of things that Naruto would be able to do eventually, and an evil grin formed on her face. Unfortunately for Naruto, he was too tired and distracted to pick up these thoughts, or else he would have been very scared at what lay in his future.

"I couldn't get a feel for it, not like I could with an arrow," Naruto told her as he shook his head to clear the cobwebs. "Maybe if I had been holding it, it would have been easier, but with you holding the kunai, I had nothing to get a feel for it with. I guess maybe I used a little too much power," he said sheepishly.

Anko nodded and took out her notebook and made a few notes. She then shut it and put it away. "Ok, the next two are kinda odd and hard to test so just gonna ask you if you've ever had anything like them happen to you," Anko said with an upbeat tone. Naruto just sighed and gave a noncommittal shrug. "Ok, have you ever seen dead people or seen the future?"

Naruto just gave her a blank look. "No, and no. I didn't even think those were possible," he told her blandly, though he gave a small shiver at the thought of seeing dead people.

"Well, like I said, hard to test, but I'll figure something out. Now, the last one on my list, and I'm sure I missed something, I only had a couple days to prepare, was something called pyrokinesis. It means you can control fire," Anko told him helpfully, though her smirk and her emotions revealed how much she was enjoying this.

Naruto actually started grinning at the thought. "Wait, you mean control fire with just my mind? That would be awesome! Can you imagine someone trying to use a katon jutsu against me and then I just turn it around on them? That would be so freaking cool!" Naruto just about shouted in excitement. He couldn't wait to try that particular ability and he really hoped he had it.

Anko just sighed and added a few more notes to her book. "Well, like I said, that does it for my list, but I can tell we have a lot of work to do ahead of us…"

"Wait, what about my other ability?" Naruto asked her, cutting her off mid-sentence, earning him a glare from her. "You know, the one where I almost shocked you?"

"Hmm, yeah…I had forgotten about that," Anko said as she scratched her chin with her pen. "Well, I didn't read anything about that, but we can work on that too. If you can use that energy as an attack, maybe you can do other things with it." She tried not to be too encouraging in case nothing came of it.

She shut her notebook with a snap and tucked it away in her coat pocket. "Ok, brat. You look a little tired, so we aren't going to start training right now," she told him, grinning at his sigh of relief, which caused him to tense up as he caught what she was thinking. As he tried to make a run for it, she snagged him by the back of his shirt and lifted him off the ground.

"Yup! No apprentice of mine is gonna go around looking like you do right now," she told him happily as she started dragging him back into town and towards the shopping district. "You are getting a new wardrobe, kid. I hope you brought your wallet as I aint paying."

XxXxXxX

Naruto glared at Anko as he tugged at his new shirt. He hadn't had too much in the way of choices as she pretty much handed him clothes and told him to go change. He had put his foot down on a few things, but overall, he just went with her choices. In the end, he ended up with an armored mesh shirt like hers, with a black hooded jacket that was made of some kind of reinforced fabric that was supposed to be very durable yet easy to clean. The jacket alone cost most of his money, but he still had enough for multiple shirts as well as a few new pants that were made of a similar fabric to his jacket but were much less expensive. Wrapping off the look was a new pair of black combat boots, though when he found that they cost more than he had with him, he was happily going to put them back. However, Anko saw him doing that and marched him up to the counter with them. She 'loaned' him the money needed to get them, saying that she'd make sure he paid her back as he needed them to complete his new look. The only thing he was able to get that he wanted, was a dark orange belt, as they didn't have anything brighter that was in orange, his favorite color.

While he liked blue, considering that he had blue crystals all over his bedroom and had one hanging around his neck, there was just something about orange that called to him. But the only thing orange he could afford after Anko's purchases using his money was the belt, and even she had to admit that it went well with his new outfit. The only problem had been when they went to check out. The clerk had taken one look at Naruto and threatened to call the police if they didn't leave. Naruto had been willing to go with it, he wasn't looking to cause trouble, but Anko wasn't having any of it.

By the time she was done with the clerk, not only had she gotten an apology from him, but they had gotten a nice discount as well.

So, there he was, his clothes fresh off the rack, and they were back at the training ground they had been at before. Naruto was still pouting as he itched absently from his new clothes. "I liked my clothes," he muttered crossly.

"Well those were the clothes of an Academy student, and guess what you aren't anymore," Anko said cheerfully, continuing on without letting him reply. "That's right, you aren't an Academy student now, you're a real ninja, so it's time you looked like one. Now that you're recovered, it's time to work on your training."

Naruto just let out a low groan as he followed behind his crazy sensei. He had no idea that being an actual ninja would be so exhausting, and they hadn't even gone on an actual mission yet. But he did as he was told and he knew that she wouldn't lead him wrong, especially after what he had managed to gleam from her mind earlier.

"So, Anko-sensei," he spoke up as they got to a clearing and she started him on warm up exercises to help break in the new clothes. "When were you planning on telling me that you were bribed into training me?"

Anko actually almost tripped from his question and turned to look at him in shock. "You did tell me to scan other people's minds, including your own," he reminded her.

Letting out a long sigh, Anko motioned for him to keep stretching. "Well, to be honest, I had hoped not to have to tell you, but since you dug a bit deeper than I had thought you would, I'll be straight with you," she told him as she leaned against a tree and threw senbon at him randomly to test his reflexes. "As you may or may not know, I'm not exactly the most trusted person in Konoha, even though I've been a loyal ninja for years and have done a lot of good around here. No one cares due to who my sensei was: Orochimaru, the traitor."

She sighed and threw another senbon at him, almost nailing him in the leg as he dodged it. "Anyway, due to him training me, people tend to lump me in with him and so I've been stuck as a Tokubetsu Jounin for years, despite me being good enough for a promotion to full Jounin. When the Hokage asked me to train you, yeah, he said that when I get you to Chuunin, he'll make sure I get promoted as well."

"So, is that the only reason you decided to train me?" Naruto asked as he ducked under another senbon and immediately dodged another two by rolling to the left.

"Nah, you impressed me that first time we met," she told him with an absent wave of her hand. "Figured that if the Hokage thought you learning from me was a good idea, then maybe there was something special about you. The promotion is just a bonus."

Naruto nodded as that was along what he had figured from his glimpse into her mind earlier.

"Now that we've gotten that out of the way," she said with a grin that sent chills down his spine, "I want you to hit me…if you can."

Naruto gulped as he took a loose stance as she pulled out a kunai and lovingly caressed it. Before he could grab his bow from where it was leaning against a tree along with his quiver, Anko was on him, sending a fist at his face. As he ducked under the strike, he was forced to dive away as she spun around and slashed at him with her kunai.

Naruto frantically backpedaled away from his teacher and unrelenting attacks. He had a sudden glimpse of her next attack and moved just before she did, dodging around her slash and sending a quick kick towards her open stomach. However, her free hand flashed through the air and grabbed his leg, and with a vicious grin, she threw him across the clearing.

"Not bad, brat, but not good enough," Anko said with a laugh. She threw her kunai at him, causing him to roll away and jump to his feet.

"It's not fair, you're too fast!" Naruto protested as he rapidly looked around for anything that could help him.

"Too bad, little boy. Guess you'll just have to get faster," Anko said with no sympathy as he rushed at him and delivered a brutal two punch combo to his sides before snapping his head back with a kick. Naruto hit the ground hard, but he had the presence of mind to roll away as a knee impacted right where his stomach had been seconds before.

Naruto got to his feet and wiped away a thin trail of blood from where he had bitten his lip from her kick. But he had barely done that when Anko was right in front of him and raining blows on his body. He put his hands up to protect his face, but she ignored that and hit him in multiple tender spots, choosing her strikes carefully to do maximum pain but with minimum damage. One strike was to his groin, and when he clutched himself in pain, she struck him in the face and throat in punishment. After several more seconds of striking him, Anko stepped back and let him collapse to the ground.

"Bah, if that's the best you can do, maybe I shouldn't waste my time and just send you back to the Academy," Anko said scathingly. She headed away from him with a disgusted look on her face.

"Wait!" Naruto shouted; his voice hoarse from an earlier strike to the throat as he was falling to the ground. "I'm not done yet!" He struggled to his feet, barely able to stand through the massive pain his body was feeling.

"Look at you, you're one strong breeze away from falling on your ass. It's over," Anko scoffed, though she stopped and turned to look at him over her shoulder.

Naruto couldn't disagree with her, but his eyes caught the gleam of reflected sunlight off the kunai Anko had thrown at him earlier, it being lodged in the ground behind her, and he had an idea. He held his hand out towards her, focusing all his might on trying to summon the kunai to him.

"What, are you trying to choke me with your mind? Please, don't be even more of an idiot than normal," Anko said with an eye roll as she turned to face him.

Naruto ignored her words and used all the tricks he had learned over the years from Inoichi to focus past the pain, to ignore it in favor of his task. His eyes narrowed as he saw the kunai move slightly and grinned as his eyes shifted up to look at Anko. He gave her a foxy grin as with a surge of mental effort, he pulled the kunai from the ground. The kunai flew to his hand, but catching it proved to be the last straw and he fell to the ground in a heap. The last thing he saw before he passed out was a thin line of blood on the edge of the kunai.

XxXxXxX

When Naruto woke up later, he found that he had been moved into the shade of one of the trees the bordered the clearing, and his jacket had been rolled up to provide a pillow for him. He groaned in pain as he slowly sat up, though he noticed that the pain was much less than it was before he passed out.

"I was wondering when you would wake up, lazybones," Anko said smugly as she munched on a stick of dango. Naruto's eyes were immediately drawn to a bandage that wrapped around her left leg as she sat nearby him. "You took too long to remember about that kunai, brat. We're gonna need to work on your situational awareness."

"You planned that from the beginning?" Naruto asked in surprise as he scooted back against the tree. "Then why did you beat me up so much?"

"Cause it was fun," Anko replied with a shrug. "Plus, you needed some toughening up. Still do." She finished off the dango and tossed the stick away nonchalantly. "Not to mention it was a good chance to show you personally my style of taijutsu. If I have to fight someone, I go for their vital and weak points. Forget going toe to toe with someone, trading punches until someone loses. I'd rather put them down hard and fast before they know what's happening all while avoiding anything they send at me."

Naruto nodded as he gingerly touched the spots she had hit him. If she had been holding a weapon, each blow would have hit something vital. Some would have been instant kill shots, while others would have slowed him down or caused him to slowly bleed to death. "I see."

Anko grinned at him before lifting herself of the ground with her hands, keeping her legs crossed, before slowly unfolding her legs and rotating her body so that her face was almost touching the ground. She then moved into a handstand before letting her feet fall over her head until they touched the ground before shifting her weight onto her feet and standing up. It was a ridiculous and impractical way to stand up, but she had done it for one unspoken purpose.

"You did that to show me how flexible you are…" Naruto said in a deadpan voice, though the furious blush on his face showed how much he had enjoyed that display.

"Exactly!" Anko told him with a wink when she saw his blushing face. "And guess what, you'll be just as flexible by the time I'm done with you. You heal fast, but why bother even getting hit in the first place when you can just dodge the attack? When we mix my Snake style with your bojutsu and kyūjutsu, if anyone manages to get past your arrows, thinking that they'll have an easier time fighting you up close like most ranged fighters, you'll be able to make them pay for their mistakes."

Anko then turned serious. "Now, you currently have one major flaw that I highlighted in our spar," she said, ignoring his scoff at her calling his beating a 'spar'. "In case you weren't paying attention, without your bow or any of the weapons you've gotten used to, you were useless. You've spent so much time focusing on your weapon skills, that you've forgotten to develop your unarmed taijutsu skills. That's gonna be the first thing I'm working with you on for taijutsu."

Naruto sighed and laid back on the ground. He had a very strong feeling that things were going to suck for him for a long while. He winced as Anko 'lightly' kicked him in the side. "Come on, lazy bones. We're wasting daylight here," she told him cheerfully.

Another chapter done, and things are looking up for our blonde hero. His new mentor is taking her job seriously, unlike a certain silver haired cyclops. We have a good year before the rest of his old class graduates, and that's a year of cool new experiences for Naruto.

Ok, I'm just going to put out that I will try to keep any bashing to a reasonable and justifiable amount. There are several characters that I just do not like, one of which is Sasuke. He will be made fun of, and unless I change my mind, he probably won't be a very pleasant person. That being said, one of my inspirations is 'Better Left Unsaid', an amazing story and I highly recommend reading it if you haven't. And in that fic, Sasuke is actually a productive and valuable member of the village...though he's still an ass. But that's ok! Also...Sakura fans, be warned, she's another one I'm not crazy about and neither she nor Hinata will be hooking up with Naruto...ever.

But, as I said, I will be keeping any 'bashing' to justifiable levels. Anyway, please read and review, as I said, it helps keep me inspired.