2 Chapter no.2 Iruka vs Mizuki

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Mizuki frowned, he really wanted to take the demon brat down a peg, but he was going to die whether he told him the truth or not so it didn't really matter in the end. He shook his head before taking another large shuriken from his back, "Well that was the general idea when I had you take it for me Naruto. No one would miss you once you were gone, trust me."

Iruka looked back and saw that Mizuki's words cut deep inside of Naruto from the change of expression on his face. Even he knew it was true, "Mizuki…" Iruka growled lowly, "Surrender now. I don't want to have to hurt you, it doesn't have to be this way."

Mizuki let out a loud bark of laughter, "Why would I possibly surrender? All I've got standing in my way is a lackluster schoolteacher and the talentless dropout dead-last of his class. If I lose to a glorified babysitter like you Iruka I deserve to be punished."

"Naruto." Iruka said firmly, keeping his eyes on his fellow teacher, "I'm going to need you to stay out of the way. Can you do that for me? Get far out of the way so that you don't get caught up in this fight." He would have told him to go and get them some help, but if he went to anyone else other than himself Naruto would probably have been immediately detained or even killed. It would have been a boy who cried wolf scenario.

Naruto nodded hesitantly and picked up the scroll, however the second he made his move to leave Mizuki launched three shuriken at him. The only thing that saved him was some spot on marksmanship from the instructor seemingly on his side in this situation, Iruka.

"You're going to fight for that little monster Iruka?" Mizuki shook his head as he saw Naruto vanish into the woods, "I thought you were smarter than that. You know you can't beat me. All this grading papers for the last several years made you lose what little talent you have, clearly you couldn't move up."

Iruka wanted to laugh in Mizuki's face. Oh well, he was about to get his in just a moment anyway. Obviously he had been whipping himself into shape for this little plan of his, but it wasn't like Iruka had just been sitting on his ass doing nothing.

Being the teacher he was he had free reign and plenty of reason to head to the library, not just to gather extra material for his lectures, he also dropped in from time to time in the section set aside for exercises and jutsu, and while there was never anything too high level in there for all to see beyond basic and at the most intermediate techniques, that was never really a bad thing. Basics were basic for a reason, because they worked, and the tactics and theoretical ideas in tome were more than enough for someone like him, it helped him develop his sonar technique all on his own.

Being the teacher he was he also stayed after school plenty of times to finish his work for the day when Mizuki simply got to head home as he was simply his assistant. Seemingly a good thing, but Mizuki had to isolate himself to set all of this up, to plan and prepare. How much could he train and improve on his own? Iruka didn't have that problem. All teachers were at the very least chunin by prerequisite, and they all trained together regularly after school to ensure their skills stayed sharp in case they were needed. He never remembered Mizuki ever getting that memo as it was an ask-receive basis for that privilege, no one was going to make you train.

Being the teacher he was he may have been just a chunin, but he was a chunin with every single battle scenario worth memorizing and remembering ingrained in the back of his brain. Mizuki may have been treacherous and cunning, but Iruka could be just as cunning as he was, and he had the technical nuances of being a ninja all locked up in his head. While they may have been on a similar level of strength and while Mizuki may have been slightly stronger than him he knew he was better, Mizuki simply thought he was better, but in a straight up fight Iruka was positive that Mizuki couldn't beat him.

"Naruto's no monster, I learned that a long time ago. The only monster I see here is you, turning a student's trust into a weapon against him for your own bidding." Iruka held a kunai in his right hand, ready for combat.

Mizuki chuckled and drew his own kunai to humor Iruka, "You should have just left Iruka. I tried to talk you out of this just so you know. Why are you defending him? He's just the-."

Iruka cut him off sharply, "I'm done listening to you talk. The next words I want to hear from you are your pleas to Ibiki to stop." With that both men flew at each other in a blur of speed, at least it was a blur of speed to Naruto who knew full well he couldn't move that fast on his best day.

Iruka and Mizuki met on the ground, clashing their kunai against one another in a test of strength. Mizuki had a smirk planted on his face while Iruka's face was one of focus and intent. In a burst of energy, Mizuki overpowered Iruka and threw him off balance before making a move to stab Iruka and end the fight.

Iruka let the kunai sail past his throat, coming short of slashing out his esophagus, and returned with a short backhand with his free arm to Mizuki's face that the man blocked. Iruka was not deterred and fired off a side kick that caught Mizuki in the body, sending him back. It was just as he thought, Mizuki wasn't that much better than him, if he was at all. He hadn't used any jutsu yet, but then again Iruka hadn't either.