20 Naruto : Chapter 20
Well, except if you didn't train, then it would be best to just train your muscles without chakra. With the seals staying active for the next two weeks he would see if that was true.
"Okay, that was enough of a break. Next part of our training is teamwork." Kakashi said.
...
"How are we going to do this, sensei?" Naruto asked.
"We will do several exercises that will teach you to trust your team-mates." Kakashi said.
He took out two scarves and handed them to Sakura and Naruto.
"Tie them around your eyes." He instructed them.
They did. Kakashi handed Sasuke a piece of wood and a small metal bar. Then he prepared some obstacles in a small round course.
"The intention of this test is to lead your team-mates safely through the course, only using Morse-code. You learned the code at the academy. Now, you will morse them where to go, what to be aware of and so on.
The only possibility they have to finish the course is following your instructions. No talking at all." Kakashi said.
"We will start with Naruto, then Sakura. Once you are finished, we will change places, I will change the course and we will repeat it until each of you went through the course twice and led the others once." Kakashi said.
Sasuke nodded. He took the wood and the metal bar and began drumming his message to lead Naruto. It was harder than he thought it would be. He had to remember all the commands. And morsing words like left, right, forward, stop and so on took more time than he thought they would.
Thankfully Naruto seemed to know the Morse code well enough to follow his commands without problem. Finally Naruto was done. Now it was Sakura's turn. Sasuke began drumming again. Naruto took off his scarf and watched how Sakura fared.
He had noticed some problems while he was in the course and now by watching Sakura, the problems seemed even stronger. They needed shorter signals that weren't normal Morse code.
Especially as remembering all the Morse signals was a problem if you were pressed for time, which he guessed would be the next thing Kakashi would have them do.
So he went through the Morse signals and decided what would be proper short signals to work with. Finally Sakura, after misinterpreting the signals Sasuke gave her twice, was done with the course.
"Okay, next Sakura will give the signals and Naruto and Sasuke will do the course." Kakashi announced and Sakura handed her scarf to Sasuke, blushing.
Sasuke just took the scarf and tied it around his head, Naruto put his back on. Kakashi changed the course and now Sakura was trying to get Sasuke through the course, which was a lot worse than the two tries Sasuke had with morsing.
Sasuke ran into stones, tripped over logs, went too far to the left once, because Sakura wasn't fast enough with her signals. When Sasuke was finally finished, he was cursing.
Naruto then went into the course and after hitting a log he always waited for Sakura to finish her signals. Once he heard new signals he stopped to process the new information. It took horribly long, but he avoided further problems that way.
"Next is Naruto morsing." Kakashi said.
"Sasuke, Sakura, I will use four signals outside the normal Morse code. Four long signals mean left, four short ones mean right. One short and one long signal mean forward.
One long and one short means back and one short signal, which will be louder than the rest means stop. The others I will morse with normal Morse code." He explained them.
Sasuke nodded. After the disaster with Sakura leading him that was sensible. Sakura grudgingly also nodded.
She had hated being the worst in a discipline she should have been good at. But she hadn't thought to practice Morse code much in the academy. It was after all such an overcome method to send messages and everybody could overhear them.
Sakura was the first to go through the changed course now. Naruto's idea to shorten the commands was working well. She managed to get through the course with only making a mistake once and then the stop signal prevented something happening.
Sasuke then went through the course and was happy to notice that with Naruto giving the signals he didn't get hit by obstacles once. He also noticed that he had to get used to differentiating left and right first as they were so similar.
When he came out of the course, he took off the scarf and turned to Naruto.
"Your idea with shortening the signals worked well, but we should think of two signals that are more different from each other for left and right. A different number of signals would be best. In the beginning it was a bit confusing to recognise short and long signals." Sasuke informed Naruto.
"Okay, that makes sense. Perhaps left two short signals and right four short signals. As we stop after that signal it can't be thought to be a complete message anyway, so it doesn't matter if it is also the signal for a letter." Naruto admitted.
"Good, now I want to discuss the things you learned with this exercise." Kakashi said, having his team sit down.
"We had to always concentrate to get the signals of the one morsing. And with the shorter signals it was easier to get it." Sakura said.
"It takes practice to react accordingly to the signals. You can't rely on your own senses that much, as we normally rely on our eyes to navigate." Sasuke said.
"Wrong signals can be dangerous. If a signal is too long and not correct we hit the obstacles. Sometimes it was safer to go slowly than to hit something." Naruto said.
"All those are correct. This exercise teaches you to always find the best possible way to fulfil an exercise. As you noticed the shorter signals were easier to process.
But even if you shorten them, you need to make them different enough to not get confused.
We will practice with Morse signals in the future. I want you to make sure you are fluent in the signals the day after tomorrow. So if you are still a bit out of practice, I suggest you use the breaks tomorrow to read up on the code.
Okay, now we will do something more physical again. Naruto, I need twenty shadow clones." Kakashi said.
Naruto made the clones.
"You really are abusing my ability to make them, sensei." Naruto grumbled a bit.
"Well, tough luck. A ninja needs to use everything he has at his disposal and for me that means sometimes using your shadow clone jutsu to get the necessary number of opponents for training exercises.
And you know you don't even feel the drain of twenty clones." Kakashi said.
"Okay. We are practising dodging projectiles now. I will demonstrate it. Naruto, have your clones throw those rubber balls on me." Kakashi said pointing at two bags full of red rubber balls the size of golf balls.
"Gladly, sensei." Naruto said with a grin.
The clones took position around Kakashi.
"You can start in twenty seconds and keep it up for five minutes straight." Kakashi told the clones.
They nodded and waited until the twenty seconds were up. Then they started pelting Kakashi with the balls. Kakashi dodged, jumped, deflected and spun out of the way of the balls. The only place on his body the balls ever hit was his hands. Then the five minutes were over.
"That's the exercise. You're only allowed to have the balls hit you on your hands to deflect them. In a fight you only have the possibility to deflect weapons that are thrown at you with kunai in your hands or by intercepting them with your own weapons.
That will be part of a later exercise. For now, we'll only work on dodging and deflecting in a limited area. As you aren't as used to this kind of exercise as I am, you'll work with ten shadow clones throwing balls at you each." Kakashi said. Naruto made ten more clones.
Then the clones spread to surround the three genin. Naruto was used to doing this with higher numbers of clones, but it wouldn't be good to inform his team-mates of that fact yet. Kakashi gave the signal to start and had his genin practice dodging.
...
In the evening at eight Kakashi dismissed his team. He had had Sasuke and Sakura continue their tree-climbing while he took Naruto and played shogi with him. He was pleasantly surprised how well Naruto did with the strategy game.
In the end Kakashi managed to win, but the game was pretty evenly matched. Kakashi walked towards the Hokage Tower to hand in his report for the day and to ask the Hokage about the incident with the civilian council calling Naruto in.
He reached the office and knocked at the door. The Hokage, still working despite the late hour, called him in.
"Ah, Kakashi. You had your team train long today." The Hokage noticed.
"Yes, Hokage Sama. I think it's best for now to keep them busy. And it seems Sasuke is happy enough to train the whole day. I have the impression he didn't feel challenged enough at the academy.
Naruto will take some time to warm up to me, but he is doing well so far. Today I played shogi with him while I had Sasuke and Sakura practice tree climbing. He is quite good in the game. I think he was really surprised when I told him that we would play shogi while the other two did their exercise.
By the way, the civilian council sent an ANBU to us, calling Naruto to the council. I refused to follow the order, but you should take care of that." Kakashi said.
"I already did and put them in their place. I think they will still try to get rid of Naruto in the future, but the ANBU have already been reminded that I am the one who gives orders in the village.
Cat is having an eye on the ANBU now to make sure they won't follow the council's orders anymore. I have called Shikaku to have him brief the normal forces on the issue." The Hokage informed Kakashi.
"That's good to know. It's high time the council was reminded of their real power and not the one they think they have." Kakashi agreed.
"Yes. I wish I could do more, but somehow the amount of paperwork I get doesn't let me." He complained.
Kakashi had an idea. After seeing Naruto using the jutsu so much, he thought it would also help the Hokage.
"Why don't you use shadow clones? I mean, I know that Naruto used them for his training and I have to admit I am abusing his ability to make them for training the others as well. With the memory transfer they would be perfect to help you get the paperwork done much faster." Kakashi suggested.
"Shadow clones?" The Hokage said shocked. "Damn it, why didn't I think of that earlier? That must be the secret how Minato always managed to get it done so fast." He raged.
"Well, sensei did use that jutsu for many things." Kakashi admitted.
"From tomorrow on I will use it. I'm done for today. Screw the paperwork." The Hokage declared.
Kakashi sweat dropped. Perhaps it would be best to just leave the Hokage now. He didn't seem to be that sane at the moment judging by the insane laugh he was sporting now.
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