8 Taijutsu Training

(Quick Note: The clone personality was a joke, she doesn't actually have five split personalities, and will not actually be used in the story. There will be a maximum of five clones at once that have at least a little intelligence and can keep memories, while any others spawned will cost significantly less chakra and will just be a doll that only fights using instincts and muscle memory.)

Naruto walked away from the coliseum as she thought about the rest of the matches. Soon after her match, her shadow clone had left and returned home, because carrying a lot of money like the clone was doing in the underground is not the greatest of ideas. But, the memories also gave her another perspective of her match.

She sucked, is what she gathered. He was an easy opponent, with no strategy and pure brawn. And she decided to try and match him in the thing he was the best at when she could've just as easily tripped him or done anything else.

She turned her thoughts back to the other matches, there were plenty of competitors that could easily defeat her. There was a woman who could produce different kinds of poison from her body, she left her opponent paralyzed while she played with his paralyzed body. That was the match that affirmed in her mind just how dangerous and ruthless this place is. There was also a man who could turn his body parts to steel and relentlessly pounded his opponents into the floor. At first, she wondered why these people were in the Genin brackets before she heard other spectators comment about the Chunin brackets. If she thought these people were powerful then they couldn't even begin to compare, because the Chunin bracket is when competitors begin to truly use ninjutsu and chakra efficiently, instead of the brawling that occurs in the Genin tournament.

Then, there was Rhino. The person she was warned of, was a tall man that had cropped silver hair and dangerous yellow eyes. He was muscular and appeared to be able to manipulate his chakra to form barriers. He used these to do various things, like using it to tackle his opponent, and then strengthen his fist to destroy his opponent in one punch. She still winced from the person when she thought of it, everyone had heard the sickening crack when Rhino smashed his opponent's chest. It was said he was soon moving to the Chunin tournament.

She had also finally found out why most of these people were not ninjas. Arrogance, or hatred. Many people around the continent hated ninjas, they hated the way they did their jobs and how they would kill anyone just for their next paycheck. Then some people did not want to listen to superiors and just wouldn't fit in. Their arrogance also kept them from working as a team. Some people failed to become ninjas, either due to them just not having enough talent and wanting to try their luck here, or not having enough patriotism. So they came to the fighting arenas around the continent to battle it out.

But ninjas still came down here all the time, for either the entertainment, shops, or potential training that can come from it.

Of course, Naruto still desired to become a ninja and crawl her way up to Hokage more than anything but seeing all of these people's different perspectives has given her a new outlook on life. She understood that the system needed to be changed, but there was nothing she could do about it, and she was sure a lot of people understood that. But now she was determined to be more than just the Hokage, she would change the world.

As Naruto was reveling in her new grand desires, she accidentally bumped into someone. Falling backward she caught herself right before she hit the ground and looked up. She saw the man that was at the entrance to the place standing there. She finally noticed that he had a crutch and was holding his left leg up. She must have missed it when she was coming in the first time. The man glared down at her before recognition sparked in his eyes.

"Ah, you're that first-timer who went straight to the Genin tournament. Pretty ballsy if you ask me, most people scout out the different tournaments first to determine where they would fit. I like your style kid." He said, drawing out a bit of smoke from the cigarette hanging out his mouth, Naruto's face flushed a bit at that. But then a question came to her mind.

"Why don't some of the stronger competitors just join a lower tournament for the money." She asked, the man looked at her like an idiot.

"Ah, forgot you were new here. People down here rarely do this for the money. They do it for the fame and reputation, and no one wants the reputation of fighting those lesser than them, how embarrassing." He laughed a bit to himself.

She felt her eyes glance a bit to his left leg, and she couldn't help but question how he got hurt. The man must have noticed her stare, as he chuckled a bit. "I got this in the Jonin tournament. My opponent fractured my leg right before I knocked him out. It should heal soon, though I had to quit out of the tournament because of it." He says, before doing that scan that gave Naruto chills the first time it happened back at the entrance.

"I'm gonna be straight with you. You have potential, unfortunately, that won't get you far at the rate you're going. The man you faced also happened to be new to the Genin tournament, he had previously been one of the top competitors in the Civilian bracket. Right now you will probably lose your match tomorrow afternoon. But there is a way to win. You have amazing battle instincts that even though cant be fully harnessed, can probably be drawn out quite quickly. I do not want to see your potential wasted, so I'll train you for the rest of the day, and maybe, just maybe, you might be able to make it through uncrippled." The man laughed to himself, while Naruto's face turned to a chalky white, what had she gotten herself into!

"I accept!" She instantly agreed, she still had her future ahead of her and she wasn't going down this easily. The man smirked before he walked away, Naruto quickly followed them as they wandered the streets before coming to a tall building.

"Come inside." The man said before he swiftly entered, Naruto followed behind him cautiously, she wasn't a hundred percent sure if she could trust this guy and only followed because she was pretty sure she could escape him because of his fractured leg.

"So what is this place?" Naruto asked as she glanced around. It was filled with all types of people, doing different types of exercise. From practicing taijutsu to lifting weights.

"A gym, people from the underground come here to train muscles and taijutsu, there are separate places to train ninjutsu and other techniques scattered throughout the underground too." He said as we arrived at an open area. "I'll be teaching you the basic stances to my style, it's the best I can do for now and anything any more complicated will be useless for tomorrow. Based on your bottle style and what I observed, you would do better with a form that combines flexibility along with speed. Even though you're strong, most of that comes from your chakra compared to your muscle, making you on the looser and more flexible side. So I'll be teaching you Hakucho no Odori, or Dance of the White Swan. It focuses on countering your opponent's moves and using their strength against them while utilizing your legs. The first stance and beginning is Swan's Security. Stand on the soles of your feet to allow you to quickly use your legs if your opponent attacks you, and allows you to quickly attack back. Your arms will be held slightly forward to also react quickly, but you won't use your arms to punch but instead grapple."

Naruto watched as the man stood on the soles of his feet and raised his arms into a slightly raised position. It seemed like all of the openings in his stance had completely disappeared. She was amazed at it.

Hours passed as Naruto learned from the man. He wasn't very talkative and only truly told her what she was doing wrong if it was absolutely horrendous. Naruto quickly picked up on the Hakucho no Odori under his guidance and had a basic understanding of the Swan's Security stance, along with basic knowledge of the kicking and grappling that goes along with it. She had truly thrived under a teacher who actually wanted to learn, and his praise made Naruto feel warm inside.

They were both walking to the exit together when Naruto suddenly felt compelled to ask something. "Where did you originally learn this style." She asked, glancing towards the man waddling next to her on his crutches.

"It was passed down in my family. But that can no longer happen. My family was slaughtered when I was younger, we had a reputation as ninjas after all. My parents made some enemies they shouldn't of. I was consumed by revenge and once I achieved it I was spat out, left with the cruel truth of the world and how little killing them had done. I didn't feel any more complete than when I did going rogue to get revenge. I feel bad for any poor sod that follows the same path as mine, but it happens constantly in this ugly world." The man next to her stated in a calm voice. She guessed he had accepted what had happened. But as he told the story, a certain face from the academy couldn't help but appear in her mind. She shook it off though. She hated the academy, the bias, the bullying, everything about it was wrong. Of course, she wasn't bullied, being bullied would be nice though. That would mean people actually paid attention to her and didn't avoid her like the plague. She sighed a sad sigh remembering what she would soon have to go back to, she couldn't leave a clone there forever.

They soon reached the exit and Naruto was about to leave before she felt a hand on her shoulder. She glanced back to see the man holding onto her. "I forgot to tell you. The names Iketa, and my family name was lost long ago. If you make it through the tournament, I wouldn't be opposed to training you some more.

And as he turned away, butterflies flew their way into Naruto's stomach. A fuzzy feeling spread throughout her as she realized someone finally accepted her. She didn't think Iketa would ever understand how much those words had meant to her after her ten years of misery in Konoha. She turned around and headed home through the lonely back streets of Konoha, the warm feeling lingering there as she eventually reached her apartment.

And as Naruto fell asleep, a small smile wormed its way onto her lips as she thought about another person she could add to her slowly growing list of people who she could call special.