25 Chapter no.25 Revelations

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After finishing their day's work, Asuma directed traffic to their training field. Asuma looked over his team with a huge grin on his face. This was almost as good as smoking the last cigarette in the pack for him. Almost. He had watched his fresh little genin team trudge through the monotonous and spirit crushing hazing process known to all shinobi of every age as D-rank missions for the first time, and he truly hoped that the entertainment value of watching them do the glorified chores and odd jobs never faded. He could seriously have watched them work all day, it was that entertaining.

The last mission they took was the one that had them cleaning out the general store's storage, and that had just been fantastic to watch. It took forever for them to get actually started since once they walked past the clothing section to get to the back, Ino had dragged Naruto right over there to give him what she had called an emergency makeover, which led to Naruto screaming bloody murder at Asuma and Shikamaru to free him from the injustice.

Asuma laughed and walked away to buy himself a carton of cigarettes while they were there and left the kids to work… and Shikamaru just left since he found getting involved to be too much of a hassle. Thus leaving Naruto to be Ino's life-sized dress up doll that would not take no for an answer, and Naruto quickly shut up once Ino said that he was getting out of that beat up orange jacket even if she had to use Shintenshin no Jutsu (Mind Body Switch Jutsu) to get him to cooperate.

In the end after a lot of griping from two stubborn sides that ran their time inside the store without having done a damn thing in an hour of being there, Naruto relented once Ino actually took aim at him with her hand-seal and picked what she selected for him, allowing them to head to the back and get started… where they found Shikamaru asleep on the empty boxes in the storage room.

Which eventually led to now after they completed their work. Once again, all three genin were sitting under the shade of the tree and looking at their sensei.

Naruto was tugging angrily at his new clothes until Ino swatted him one to get him to stop. He still had his headband on his head and his goggles around his neck, but Ino had managed to get Naruto into a pair of orange shorts and an orange short-sleeved windbreaker that was left open with a dark blue shirt underneath. Ino had also forced a pair of dark blue arm-warmers kind of like hers onto his arms. Naruto had vehemently fought that one for a while, not wanting to wear arm-warmers like what Sasuke had, but Ino had already granted him a concession in her mind by letting him keep the orange, thus by virtue of that, this was one fight he was going to lose in this instance. It didn't make him feel any better that all the money he had made that day went into getting a few pairs of all of those things, but Ino insisted that he would make it back tomorrow.

"Okay." Asuma said to them, "It was a decent first day. I've seen far worse and at least you didn't fail any of those missions so good work." All three of the genin looked at each other, who could fail those missions? They could have done those things in the Academy.

Ino looked at Asuma inquisitively, "So… what now Asuma-sensei?"

He pointed at Ino and Shikamaru, "I pretty much know what you two can do. You both know your family techniques and I've worked with plenty of Nara and Yamanaka shinobi in my time, even your fathers." He looked at Naruto, "I don't know that much about you though Naruto. I know you can use Kage Bunshin, and quite a lot from what Hokage-sama told me. Apparently you can also sense the locations of others, is that right?"

Naruto rubbed the back of his head, "Well, I'm not that good at it yet. I just learned the jutsu last week and I need to learn how to tell things apart better, like what's a door, a wall, and other stuff."

Shikamaru looked at Naruto, "So what jutsu is it and how does it even work?"

Naruto grinned at the chance to explain Iruka's cool jutsu to others, "It's called Chakura Hankyouteii no Jutsu (Chakra Echolocation Jutsu). It lets me send out a burst of chakra that somehow lets me sense where stuff is around me, all over. I'm just not that good at it yet. If I use it outside, like where we are now, it works great, but if I'm inside all I can sense is down a hall, behind me, or beside me. I can't tell people apart either, and when I use it in the streets and stuff I can barely tell what's what."

Shikamaru's eyes widened, that was a very useful move, but it had to take a ton of chakra to use even sparingly. Naruto's chakra would be pushed out of his body and would saturate the air, staying connected to him long enough for him to feel the things around him with it. If Naruto ever mastered that move no one would ever be able to properly set traps or ambushes against him. He could take away an enemy's advantage of surprise.

Naruto continued to talk, "Oh, and I'm also trying this cool taijutsu called Nebaiken (Sticky Fist) that a friend helped me find. It's hard to learn it by myself though, and making the clones over and over that dispel in one hit is a pain."

Asuma smiled, "Well that's one thing that a team is for Naruto. Training partners. I'm supposed to be training all of you, helping you all get stronger, but I don't really know what I'm allowed to teach you as far as techniques go, nor what I actually know that any of you are suited towards using. You all don't look like you can fight the way I do. Besides that, you all have your family jutsu that you're to learn." Asuma pointed at them all, "You're all just genin right now but I expect you all to get very good very fast. You all certainly have the talent for it." Naruto and Ino seemed pleased to hear him say that, but Shikamaru rolled his eyes. Apparently someone didn't really want to excel.

Naruto looked at Asuma and all of his teammates before frowning, "But I don't want to use Nebaiken on any of them." He said, "It's not really nice, even in practice."

Asuma looked at Naruto thoughtfully, "Well, try it on me. I'll be the judge of that." When he saw Naruto shy away from actually wanting to beat up his sensei, Asuma insisted, "Naruto I'm a jounin. I can take it. I promise."

Shikamaru and Ino prodded him to get up and give it a try, so Naruto stood up and stood in front of Asuma, "Um, I'm not that good at it yet. If it doesn't work right then tell me." Asuma nodded and gestured for Naruto to come forward.

Naruto hesitantly did so and came at Asuma who had a guard up. Naruto led off with a punch that Asuma already had a guard prepared for, 'I don't see what's different about this style, it's just Academy taijutsu isn't it?'

He thought that when he lifted his arms to block Naruto's punch and respond, only his plan of action never got that far. Naruto's fist opened up into a hand that grasped Asuma's leading wrist like a leech. Naruto spun inside, still holding on to Asuma and threw a back elbow low (or for Naruto, at the level) at his body that Asuma had to defend with his remaining arm. Naruto switched to a high elbow that Asuma had to keep from hitting him in the jaw. Asuma then shoved Naruto by the back of his head to get him out of his range and get them back at a distance from one another, but Naruto seemed to have a damn good grip on his wrist because he stayed attached and reeled himself in, jumping at Asuma, leading with his shoulder for an attack.

When he saw this, Asuma added to Naruto's momentum, pulling his diminutive frame in faster before shocking Naruto with a shoulder-to-shoulder smash that jarred Naruto's grip loose and sent him bouncing off of Asuma to the ground.

Naruto sat down on the ground, rubbing his shoulder and backside while Asuma analyzed what he had just seen, 'That style would be way out of the comfort zone of most shinobi I know of. All he needs is some size and strength and only an Akimichi could decisively deal with moves like that.'

Naruto picked himself back up and went over to sit back down with Shikamaru and Ino, "Naruto why do you know how to fight like that? You never did that stuff in the Academy."

A shrug from the blonde shinobi was the response, "I just felt like going over taijutsu and I ended up finding that in the library. I don't know that much about it, there's some complicated stuff in the scroll and my clones aren't that good of test partners for it. They dispel way too easily for me to get a good workout against."

Shikamaru had also analyzed Naruto's fighting style, it seemed to be a lot of short range offense, not so much with defense, "Well what else can you do with it?"

Naruto's eyes squinted in thought, "Um, some throwing stuff, and some grabby moves, but I'm not good at those yet and Asuma-sensei is too big to use that stuff on."

Shikamaru's eyebrow quirked, 'Throws and locks maybe?' He thought, '*sigh* If Asuma ever makes us spar I'm going to need to catch Naruto before he can ever get anywhere near me. Troublesome. Or maybe I could just throw the fight?'

Asuma took all of his information in about Naruto, "Alright then. Ino, fight Naruto."