28 Naruto : Chapter 28

Team ten was not amused that their sensei had arranged for a sparring match with another team. Ino was annoying Shikamaru with her blabbing about impressing Sasuke and showing up Sakura.

"Just make sure you aren't too loud. You know how Naruto will react." Shikamaru warned her.

Ino obviously remembered the incident at the academy well enough from the look on her face.

"Why are we even doing a sparring match with another team so early into our training? We didn't learn that much yet." Choji asked.

"You were just unlucky to be the first ones that will have those matches. Kurenai, Kakashi and I decided that it would be good for the developments of the rookie teams if we had them spar against each other regularly to get you all used to multiple fighting styles." Asuma explained. "

Once you have got more experience we will probably also ask some older genin teams to be included."

"Troublesome." Shikamaru said.

Then they saw team seven appear from the entrance of the training ground.

"Hello, Asuma." Kakashi greeted.

"Hello, Kakashi. It's really strange to see you nearly on time." Asuma replied.

"Well, you know how that is. So much to do with the team to get them up to snuff. No time to be properly late." Kakashi sighed.

Asuma grinned. He knew Kakashi was ordered to be more punctual because he needed to get his two male students improved in the mental area. And that meant keeping them busy. He wondered just what pace Kakashi had set for his team.

"Okay, how do you want to do this? Three against three or one-on-one fights?" Asuma asked.

"I think for now one-on-one fights will work out better. It will take some time until they can work as a coherent unit. After all, they just trained a bit more than a week under us. Too little time to get them trained on team formations." Kakashi answered.

Asuma had expected that. He would make sure the next match against team seven would be team-fights; that was the strong area of his genin team.

They drew the matches. Shikamaru had to fight Naruto, Choji Sasuke, and Ino Sakura. First Naruto and Shikamaru were up.

"What a drag." Shikamaru complained.

Naruto decided to just go with taijutsu. Shikamaru was no match for his speed and he still needed to work on his shadow possession. Even if he got caught in it, Shikamaru couldn't hold it for long yet.

When Asuma started the match, Naruto shot forward, always keeping an eye on the shadow, but as Shikamaru needed to be stationary for it to work, Naruto had the advantage.

He quickly kept Shikamaru busy in a taijutsu match. Naruto was clearly superior in taijutsu and nailed Shikamaru to the ground with a kunai to his throat after a short time.

"I yield." Shikamaru hurried to say. Naruto nodded and helped Shikamaru back up. "Geez, you were holding back even more than I already thought Naruto. So troublesome." He said.

Naruto just grinned and let the next two take his and Shikamaru's places. Sasuke won the match against Choji, though he noticed that the resistance seals slowed him down considerably compared to his former speed at the academy. It took him more work to defeat the physically strong Choji.

As he didn't want to use harmful jutsus in a simple training spar against a boy who was weaker than him, he kept it to taijutsu and the basic three academy jutsus.

Having trained under Kakashi had shown him the great possibilities of them, especially the replacement jutsu.

Soon Choji got frustrated with Sasuke always switching places with logs, tree branches, stones and whatever else he thought useful. Finally Sasuke managed to tie Choji up in ninja wire and place a kunai at his throat.

"Is it my imagination or was Sasuke slower than at the academy?" Shikamaru asked Ino.

"No, he was slower, I just wonder why." She answered.

"Part of our training." Naruto said.

"So he is wearing weights?" Shikamaru asked.

"No, resistance seals. They work similar, but strengthen the whole body without adding additional weight which wouldn't be good for a growing body. Weights are mostly used by taijutsu specialists as they need much muscle power for their attacks." Naruto answered.

"Are you all wearing them?" Ino asked.

"Yes. Kakashi sensei made sure we all used them the second day of our training." Naruto said, not giving out too much information.

Then Ino stood up and faced Sakura. She was sure she could beat her, especially if she was slower than before thanks to the seals Naruto spoke about.

What followed was a surprise for Ino and Sakura. While the pinkette had mostly stood in the shadow of the blond in the past and tried to show her up in the fight over Sasuke, Ino had had the advantage of clan training.

Now, even if she was slower than before, Sakura found it was easier for her to react to Ino's attacks. She wasn't good enough in taijutsu yet, after all she had only trained a week under Kakashi sensei, but she noticed improvement.

In the end, Ino tricked Sakura with a replacement jutsu and hit her with shuriken in the arm from behind. The resulting short lapse in concentration was enough for the blond girl to secure her win.

Both senseis had watched their students intently, memorizing the points where they needed to improve their students.

"Okay, take ten minutes break, Kakashi and I will discuss a few things and then return." Asuma said.

Sakura let out a relieved breath.

"Hey, forehead, too weak to stand ninja training?" Ino asked mocking.

"You don't have any clue how much training I have already done today and today was a fairly easy one." Sakura shot back.

"Oh, did you have to run a few laps around the training field and do a few exercises?" Ino continued, knowing that physical exercises were a weakness of Sakura. This was such a good opportunity to show Sasuke how much better she was than forehead girl.

"Just so you know, Ino-pig. Our team starts training at six in the morning. We have to run laps around the village while we are wearing resistance seals that make you feel like wading through water the whole day. Then we have to do physical exercises for two hours before we can eat a small snack.

Then follows whatever Kakashi sensei has thought up for that day and it is always hard work. Even today, when we worked on survival techniques I had to gut two fishes that Sasuke caught; otherwise I would only have had some berries, nuts, eggs, mushrooms and apples for lunch."

Sakura loved rubbing into her rival's face that she had got fishes that Sasuke had caught.

"So what? That's normal for a ninja to know. My mum taught me how to gut fishes that dad caught on some trips with his old team-mates when I was nine.

I also know how to cook the fish so that it tastes great." Ino replied scoffing. "And if you start that early you only have more free time in the afternoons, what's so hard about that?"

"That we don't have the afternoons free. We never finish before six, mostly it's later, especially now with the missions.

We do one each day, today is an exception because we had this sparring session with your team, which my team was better in than yours. And I only lost to you, because the resistance seals made me slower." Sakura stated.

"You wouldn't have a chance against me even if they were off. Why don't we prove that right now?" Ino challenged Sakura.

"I can't. Kakashi sensei is the only one who can release them at the moment. He says until we go on C-rank missions outside the village he won't let us have control over our seals.

The only one who can turn them on or off on his own is Naruto, but he had them before our team was even built. I don't know why, he is just trying to look better than Sasuke." She complained.

Shikamaru heard what Sakura had said and put it into his file of clues about the blond. What exactly had Naruto done to train during his academy time? The image of the talentless idiot was made up to throw somebody off, but whom?

Naruto just ignored the complaints his so called team-mate brought up with Ino. Both needed to realize that being a ninja was no game. You could die on a mission.

Even a C-rank if you weren't prepared. After all, even bandits knew how to use poison and if they got close enough, or just mixed it under the food in a restaurant, things were over. It was improbable, but still possible.

And if the girls didn't improve their fighting abilities, the occasional rogue ninja that led bandits could be a massive problem for them if they were ever separated from their teams or had bad luck in a fight. It had happened often enough in the past. And the things bandits did to girls were sometimes worse than death.

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