Chapter 171: The Unrelenting Teacher (5)
"Heh, don't feel bad if you lose to me," Asuma smirks. The slightly darker-skinned youth is matched with Yahiko in a match for ninjutsu and the orange-haired kid snickers, "I won't." Yahiko turns to look at Minato and adds, "I give up."
"Oh, come on!" Tsunade rolls her eyes. She has no hope of winning this bet, that much is clear. But she would love some cool moments of her disciples' disciples yet Mikoto is unfazed by her student's declaration and Minato nods.
"Hey, why the hell did you give up? Don't tell me you don't know any ninjutsu. You graduated months before our batch!" Asuma instantly points out with a furious scowl while Yahiko looks at the 'child' in front of him and shrugs, "I don't care about this competition, and why the hell would I show my skills in a competition where I can't even match with Kakashi? Besides, Sensei told me to go easy on you newbies."
While he does know one or two jutsus, Yahiko's experience does set him apart from the group, and not only that, Mikoto made it clear that victory is not mandatory. Yahiko would rather do things the way he is taught by Mikoto and his previous Senju Jonin— Being a skilled shinobi and not a warrior.
Amongst the old jonins of the Senju clan that were chosen to teach the Ame orphans, all of them were survivors of the warring era. Tsunade did so to make the kids share a bond with the Senju Clan by relating to other victims of war. It worked well. Almost too well, in fact.
Konan had previously decided to stay in the academy for years after her knowledge of the horror of war was deepened by her old caretaker. Nagato took to the hospital to prevent such horrors and develop fuinjutsu alongside Iryo Ninjutsu. And Yahiko... he chose missions. He aspired to return to Amegakure and change it for the better but in doing so, he was also forced to understand the true nature of shinobi.
Not every shinobi is popular. There are two reasons. First, they may lack skills and achievements. Second, they may not want to bring themselves to the spotlight and paint a target on their backs.
All prominent shinobi have bounties on their heads and sometimes this reputation itself becomes one's greatest enemy. Yahiko... wanted to work towards his objective without being distracted by 'games' spun by others even if they are someone he respects and care for deeply.
As Yahiko left, the second match started and a silent youth stepped up.
Raido Namiashi.
This youth wore a red scarf over the bridge of his nose that covered a good section of his cheeks. At a glance, the youth looked reserved. His body language is 'meek' and the reason for it is known soon after as Asuma smirks and loses his aggression, "Heh, look. A freak!"
Others raise an eyebrow at the comment while Minato looks at his student reassuringly.
"A freak?" Orochimaru smiles and looks at Nawaki inquisitively only for the latter to frown, too.
"What did I say about calling others names?" Nawaki keeps a stern disposition as Asuma sticks out his tongue.
"Isn't it fine?" Kai chuckles, "They aren't academy students anymore but Genins. If they have problems, better to use this competition as a way to solve them right now."
"Don't encourage them," Mikoto rolls her eyes.
"Take your position."
Minato orders and the duo put a bit of distance between them.
Asuma takes out a shuriken while Raido quietly forms a seal.
"Start!" Minato prompts.
'Shuriken Clone Jutsu!' Asuma throws a shuriken and it divides into multiple shurikens. These aren't physical clones of the shuriken but simpler ones taught in the academy used to distract the enemy from the real shuriken.
Raido panics and takes out a Kunai to parry them away as his blade passes through a phantom of shuriken while a hand catches the real shuriken before it can pierce Raido's shoulder.
Raido's breath eases but then he looks up with guilt, "Sensei... I—"
"It's alright," Minato grins, "We'll just train more. Nobody is perfect, right?"
"Excuse you?" Kai stares at Minato with offense clear in his expression.
"Give it a rest," Orochimaru narrows her eyes and gives Kai a look, "Being imperfect is a compliment. You should be lucky about the improvements you can make instead of stagnating at 'perfection.'"
Kai crosses his arms and snorts quietly while Minato shakes his head with a wry chuckle and sends Raido back.
"Heh, easy! Did you see that, Kurenai?" Asuma looks at the girl who still had a numb expression as she frowns and looks at the boy but makes no effort to complain or compliment as she would usually and drifts into her thoughts once more.
'The hell is wrong with her today?' Asuma shrugs and then awaits his next challenger and Konan steps out as the final contender.
The bluenette unzips her pouch while Asuma takes out another shuriken with a confident smirk.
"Start!"
As Asuma throws another shuriken and forms them into clones, multiple origami shurikens shoot out of Konan's pouch. While her paper shuriken easily deflects the real shuriken, the other meat grinders made out of paper come to a stop dangerously close to Asuma with Minato already standing beside the youth in case things went wrong.
"Huh?" Asuma's eyes widen while the paper shurikens return to Konan as if they had a will of their own!
Jiraiya and Orochimaru look at each other before staring at Tsunade together.
"Don't look at me like that," Tsunade shrugs, "You have snakes and toads. I got slugs. The kid has a paper. It's not that strange."
"Awesome!" Yahiko claps and cheers from the side with a wide grin but this only makes the gnawing feeling in Konan's being more prominent. Returning to Kai's side, she is met by a rather proud visage of her teacher as he pats her head for once after such a long time and claims, "Well done."
But to be honest...
'I would have rather... gotten praised without removing the ankle weights.'
It's not the fact they cheated that has started to get to them but the realization of the fact that it wasn't even... worth it.
But the competition doesn't wait for the inner turmoil felt by Team 6. Instead, Shizune and Kinju Uchiha are called forward quickly while Nawaki steps out as the examiner.
When both the genins take their positions, Kinju mutters under his breath, "Traitor."
Shizune flinches while Nawaki frowns and looks at Kai who shrugs and shakes his head in return.
"Start!"
Kinju and Shizune step forward at once as the broad-nosed Uchiha keeps an aggressive stance and starts throwing short and snappy punches that Shizune is quick to dodge and with relative ease.
Konan and Kurenai suddenly think of something as they observe how quickly Shizune moved and looked at Kai only for their Sensei to keep an eye on the competition.
While a part of them is relieved, Shizune, too, realizes her 'mistake.'
Instead of dodging constantly, she starts to stay in a place more and more while deflecting Kinju's blows instead of evading them.
"That's weird... I expected more from Kai's team," Jiraiya raises an eyebrow and whispers. After all, no matter how strong Shizune had gotten physically, others won't stay weak. And some clans just sport better physical qualities. Compared to clans like Senju and Uzumaki, the Uchiha's bodies are certainly weaker but it's nothing to scoff at!
Biting her bottom lip, Shizune grabs Kinju's wrist and proceeds to tackle him down only for the youth to raise his arm and entirely raise Shizune in the air, too.
"Was that all, Traitor?" He growls, "You're light!" And then he crouches down while smashing his hand alongside Shizune into the ground. With breath knocked out of the girl, she still reels from the previous comment about her weight.
Light.
It's such an obvious clue.
Kurenai and Konan look at Kai but again, they fail to see any reaction from him.
"Alright, that's enough," Nawaki frowns harder and picks Kinju from the back of his collars, "And I'll make sure you and Asuma learn to stop being little jerks."
"Sensei!" Kinju pouts, "Asuma is the jerk. Raido is really good. He always shared his bento and stuff so calling him a freak for his scar is just stupid. SHE did betray the village!" The Uchiha emphasizes and points at the girl who slowly sits up while coughing lightly.
"Enough!" Nawaki knocks his knuckle into Kinju's head while Kai speaks up, "Let's continue already. If Shizune has a problem with how she's called, she will just ambush the boy in front of the gates of the Uchiha compound. I know I beat many of the little pricks there."
"Remember?" Kai grins at Mikoto who scoffs but fails to suppress her smile. After all, for some reason, those boys were challenging Kai for her. And as they say— play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
"Fine, Genma Shiranui, come forward."
The youth wearing a bandana on top of his head with the knot fashioned forward steps out while chewing on a wooden senbon.
"Sensei," Kinju recovers from the moment of fear that Kai instead would beat him up later on and points at Genma, "Tell him to spit that senbon out. He uses it as a weapon!"
"Caught," Genma snickers and spits out the senbon before walking up and taking his position.
"Start!"
Genma performs much better as he easily dodged and even counter-attacked constantly to keep Kinju on his toes. Yet, as Kinju begins to get an upper hand, Genmai steps back and reveals a 'gap' in his defense to which Kinju steps in.
"Got you—" Kinju grins yet...
*Spit*
A globule of saliva catches the Uchiha by surprise in his left eye as the youth steps back with a yelp before feeling his feet swept away and his back touching the ground after a moment of weightlessness!
The entire crowd is momentarily stunned with Minato already blushing in embarrassment due to his student's antic.
"Pfft," Kai snickers.
"That was good... would have caught me off guard when I was their age," Tsunade shakes her head with a smile.
"What the hell?" Kinju sits up with a disgusted expression while rubbing his eye as Genma shrugs, "That's my secret taijutsu... Spitwork!"
"No, it's not!" Kinju retorts with a furious expression.
"Your word against mine," Genma smiles with casualness oozing from the boy.
"Alright, alright. Genma won. The competition ends." Nawaki rolls his eyes as Jiraiya coughs.
"Ehm, so... Team Mikoto has 0 victories. Team Kai has 1 victory. Team Minato has 1 victory. And Team Nawaki has 6 victories... So Orochimaru won..." Jiraiya looked genuinely dispirited as the Snake Sannin looks at Nawaki, "Good job. Just a bit more obedience training and you have a good team on your hand."
Nawaki sighs and nods with a smile as Tsunade looks at Mikoto and Kai with an aggrieved expression. Jiraiya and Minato, however, share a look of understanding.
"Since I won, I get to pick a mission of my liking and employ the two of you as I see fit, yes?" Orochimaru smiles and looks at the other two, "I already have something in mind. Sensei will call the two of you soon enough."
"Whatever... I lost. Big surprise," Tsunade spoke flatly and questioned, "Who's up for a drink?"
"Me!" Kai volunteers but Tsunade scoffs in anger, "No drinks for you! Lost for no goddamn reason..." She huffs and flickers away. Orochimaru is the same while Jiraiya disappears after trying to sell his book to other boys but fails with Mikoto standing guard.
---
"Don't be so glum," Kai smiles and looks at his team, "So what you lost? Now you know what to work on, right? And you three were obviously restricted by the ankle weights. Cheer up. I have special training planned for tomorrow. Make sure to be on time, alright?"
Kai doesn't linger and leaves the trio.
"He knew..." Konan affirms.
"Of course, he did... Our performance was spectacularly worst." Kurenai bites her lower lip.
"I'm sorry. I should have been more careful," Shizune apologizes.
"No... it's not your fault. It's all our fault," Kurenai unstraps the ankle weights as they feel as light as a... paper.
"And I still don't know how I lost to Hikari!" The aspiring Genjutsu Mistress scowls while Konan and Shizune take off their fake ankle weights made out of paper by Konan, too. The fake item was designed to absorb chakra. That's how all of Konan's paper jutsu works in the first place.
"Let's just stop being stupid already," Konan groans, "I just feel that we wasted our entire day."
"Agreed," Kurenai nods.
"Hmm." Shizune, too, nods.
"And when we get used to the ankle weights, let's go and beat Kinju together," Kurenai suddenly balls her fists.
"Yes, that, too," Konan nods.
"W-What?" Shizune gasps as the other duo look at the girl and smile viciously. Today... they just discovered their appetite for strength which they would have if they stop skimming their training!
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Alternate Title: Forbidden Taijutsu— Spitwork; The Lingering Traitorous Reputation; Hidden Talents (2); The Snake Wins!; No Drunk Tsunade for Kai!
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