9. Academy days-III

In the forest of death you can see two 8 years olds doing warm up to get ready for further training. Seeing them doing initial warm up, Anko too does her own warm up to get ready for teaching some water jutsus to Ino.

Anko,"Alright gakis, Now for further training lets go to a spot where there is large enough source of water so that we can spend comparatively less chakra to do some water ninjutsu."

They arrives near small lake like water body. Anko," Now, Ino you are with me as I'll introduce you to water affinity and Ryu as you already know some water jutsu you will do some water walking for further chakra control such that while standing on water you will perform required jutsu, this way if you have to battle on any water surface you can do it very effortlessly, now then gaki get to it."

After instructing Ryu, Anko shifts her focus on now too excited Ino for her first ninjutsu lesson. Anko smirks and continues her water affinity lecture about its advantage, disadvantage and usage.

And the day quickly passes while Ryu manages to do water jutsu while standing on water but still needs to focus while doing it, while Ino manages to learn one D-rank ninjutsu (suiton: Mizudeppo{Water Release: Water Gun}) at lesser degree which means it requires more training and decides to call it a day.

As time passes, they continues with their academy studies along with training under Anko's guidance. After nearly two years Ino learns many D-rank and C-rank Water Jutsus while Ryu learns to run and fight on water with lightning as well as water ninjutsu with less focus. They also learn battle tactics with Anko by continuous sparing with her. Also they manages to complete one combination Jutsu of Lightning and water release which is yet to master, which is:

Spear and Shield: hogo suru to bokire no jutsu

Description: The user makes a water shield and a lightning spear then the user "clinks" the spear against the shield to charge it with electricity, making it not only a multi layered shield for defense but a rather harmful blunt object to be hit with.

Also during this two years, both Ino and Ryu shows tremendous progress in their academy's theoretical courses suchas, Shinobi history and geography where they remembers exactly what is taught by Iruka sensei and answers all the questions being asked to them, along with theory they also excels at practical shinobi art such as, kunai and shuriken throwing and weekly sparing matches.

In kunai and shuriken throwing Ryu excels with 9/10 accuracy only second to Sasuke, Ino too manages to score 9/10 accuracy in both kunai and shuriken throwing. Also in weekly spars they are too good to lose due to Anko's drilling, but they had decides to not to go all-out as deception is ninja's greatest tool. With that being decided, they manages to win most of the matches by knock-out. Ryu can best all the students including Sasuke (if wish to), but whenever he matches with him he completes as a tie which irritates Sasuke too much, but he doesn't care about it.

During this two years, Ryu also increased his body training by using resistence seals which were gifted by his nee-chan, while using the seal, his body becomes heavy and its difficult to move with seals on. But he perseveres and soon experiences the benefits of it, such as tremendous increase in speed and agility, his reflexes also improves drastically and main benefit is his chakra-pool, it increase to genin level finally.

With Ryu, Ino also gets motivated to use resistence seals but of moderate amount not as many as Ryu, still she manages to increase her speed and agility, along with her reflexes and of course the main benefit, her chakra-pool, it increases to high academy level and her control over it was already high genin level which was very impressive according Anko and Ryu.

Ino's parents too, gets surprised by her resistence seals, but still encourages her to strive to fulfill her goals and to complete her goal she needs strength so they happily agrees with her training. But they still don't know about her ninjutsu training which she even hid it from her parents to give them a big surprise (she means shock by that) later.

During their morning run they also sometimes encounter YOUTHFUL teacher and student pair running around in green spandex yelling about SPRING OF YOUTH in damn early morning. Guy and Lee seeing them gives their signature smiling pose and encourages them to run along with them, which Ino finds too horrible for her mind, body and soul. (Ryu laughs at that comment of hers)

Ryu also manages to learn Anko's hebi style to some degree but finds that hebi style is not suitable for him while Ino manages to surprise him by perfecting it, which earns high amount of praise from both Anko and Ryu, while Ryu gives her a big hug which Ino finds too much of encouragement.

Ryu then asks Anko what should he do about his taijutsu style. Anko states that he must study different styles and find his own style by either combining them or making a style tailor made for him only. Ryu decides to do that as there are still two more years till graduation and somehow he will manage to make his own unique taijutsu style.

So, for this topic he goes to none other than the only taijutsu expert in konoha Guy-sensei, to find some advice. Guy being guy becomes more enthusiastic than Ryu himself and quotes few YOUTHFUL sayings about Ryu being so YOUTHFUL that he decides to make his personal taijustu style and cries those infamous anime tears( basically small rivers flowing through his eyes), while Ryu seeing this sweatdrops.

After the waterworks and Guy's advice, Ryu visits library and studies different styles and decides to practice them in his weekly spars and understand them first then he will work on his unique style.

Also in this two years, he befriended Naruto too by treating him Ramen the food of gods according to him. He also sometimes help him in academy regarding his weapon handling and taijutsu. Seeing this Ino too manages to be friendly to Naruto and builds her own opinion on him like her Ryu-kun.

Remaining two years passed like this, Ryu and Ino improving themselves in whatever they find interesting or worthy to learn. In these last two years of academy Ryu also finds kenjutsu attractive and decides to learn some. He discusses it with Ino who is not at all interested in it so he finally decides to tell his nee-chan about his new passion of learning kenjutsu.