Chapitre 36: Chapter 36: Road to Chunin
The cute blonde-haired girl, one year younger than him, clung to him, holding him in an iron grip. "Good to see you too, Ino," greeted Tekku awkwardly, feeling the warm body against him. What was it with all the girls close to him hugging him recently? Did Haruto's death really shake them up so much? Wasn't death a normal part of being a Shinobi?
Before Ino could say something else, a voice resounded from the back of the store. "Let him go, Ino. He just returned," said Inoichi as he came into view from the storage area. "It's good to see that you are healthy, Tekku," greeted his sensei with a sad look in his eyes.
"Thank you, Sensei. I am happy to be back," nodded Tekku.
"Hana is already in the backyard. Come, let's have a talk," said Inoichi before turning to Ino, who had released Tekku from her hug. "Ino-chan, keep an eye on the store. Your mom will be here any moment."
In the backyard of the Yamanaka compound, where multiple fields were filled with flowers, herbs, and other useful plants, Hana sat on a bench while the three Haimaru Brothers played on the grass.
"Tekku! You are finally here," greeted Hana with a feral grin, looking much better than during her mission. It seemed seeing her family again helped her a lot to recover from the mental shock.
"Hmm," said Tekku in greeting as he was once again hugged by the girl.
Seeing that the remaining members of Team 10 grew closer brought a small smile to Inoichi's face before he addressed them seriously. "It's good to have both of you back. I am sorry that I couldn't be there for you. It was my task to protect and prepare you, and I failed," he said, bowing his head in shame.
Hana instantly stood up. "It isn't your fault, Sensei. No kind of training you could have put us under in the half-year we spent together could have prepared us for such a surprise attack."
"Yes, Sensei, we were attacked by a Jonin, a Tokubetsu Jonin, and two Chunin. No preparation for a Genin team could have us prepared for such a sudden attack. The fact that both of us are still alive is rather a credit to your good training," added Tekku. He strongly believed that Inoichi had no fault in this situation. He was a much better teacher from what he could see in canon. Well, that wasn't hard as his only reference was Kakashi, who only taught teamwork and tree walking early on.
But Inoichi really minded each of their progress, working on their Taijutsu and teamwork while also focusing on each of their chosen specializations, supporting them as best as he could.
"Thank you," said the man who clearly had been blaming himself. "Also, we will be a team again from now on. For now, we will remain a three-man team. There weren't any Genin who could keep up with the two of you, which would strongly imbalance our team synergy."
Both of them nodded, clearly following the logic, as they had already been Genin for over a year with solid training, had killed and survived life-and-death situations. A freshly graduated Genin wouldn't be able to keep up. All the others were usually in teams.
"We will do higher-ranked missions with an additional Chunin, while for any D-Ranks or low-level C-Ranks with unlikely combat situations, it will only be the three of us," explained their teacher, as they still needed a fourth member for more dangerous missions. "But our next goal as a team is to make you Chunin. The next Chunin Exams are in 5 months, and they will be held here in Konoha. We have enough time to prepare you for them."
This instantly raised a question in Hana. "Don't we need three team members to participate in them? That's at least what I heard from other clan members," she asked, confused.
"Usually, yes, but there can be exceptions with special permission from the Hokage, which luckily you have received. I already discussed this with Sandaime-sama," replied Inoichi.
Tekku only nodded, as he knew that already. Itachi, for example, participated alone in the Chunin Exams, even though he had a team, but his sensei was a jealous prick, trying to prevent the genius Itachi from progressing. He was just happy that he received a good teacher with Inoichi.
"So what's the plan, Sensei?" asked Tekku, interested in the training Inoichi had in mind.
"My plan is split into three parts. We will keep up your regular Taijutsu practice. I will even invite some other Chunin or Jonin for a spar from time to time, and we'll do our missions in our regular rhythm. The second part will be after sparring when we don't have missions. I will fill in the gaps in your education, teaching you the basics of Shinobi life like first aid, poisons, trapping, some basic weapon skills, survival skills, and so on. We will also do some life survival training for a few days in the Forest of Death."
"Perfect! What is the Forest of Death?" asked Tekku, internally smirking as he now had the perfect excuse to regularly visit one of the places he determined as a perfect location for his secret laboratory inside the borders of Konoha.
"The Forest of Death is the 44th Training Ground. It's pretty much a survival training ground consisting of a fenced forest with a radius of 10 kilometers, filled with deadly creatures like tigers, bears, but also venomous ones like snakes and leeches. It's also filled with all kinds of plant life, from poisonous to medical. Shinobi use that place for survival training but also to collect materials for their own poisons if they are short on cash. And for us, it's the perfect place to work on these survival skills of yours and expand the basics," explained Inoichi, as it was often used for Chunin Exams.
"Sounds dangerous but exciting," nodded Hana. "What about the third part of our training?"
"For the third part, we will work on each of your specializations. I will do my best to help you expand in it and even try to guide you to develop your own technique. For you, Hana, that would be your Clan Jutsu where we could try to work on your own technique, or also your medical jutsu. While for you, Tekku, we could think about ways to improve your puppeteering or try to learn some more powerful Earth Style techniques. I am open to your ideas."
"Hmm, I think my mother would allow me to learn some of the higher-level Inuzuka techniques. But I don't really have any ideas to develop my own ones. As for medical Ninjutsu, my progress is solid, but it simply takes time to develop these skills," replied Hana awkwardly.
"Oh, I have an idea for how Hana could improve her Clan ability. If it works, it would be a pretty powerful technique," injected Tekku excitedly since he had spent a lot of time thinking about possible Jutsus. "This is actually something I was thinking to build a puppet around."
"Go on," nodded Inoichi, interested.
"This could work with either her Gatsuga or Gatenga. Her Fire Element is perfect for the Inuzuka Clan. She could use a modified fire Jutsu to surround herself with flames while using either of the two techniques. The natural wind of the rotation should help her create a powerful firestorm. Meanwhile, her fast rotation and the rotational force pulling the fire away from her should protect her from being harmed by it herself," explained Tekku, sharing his idea.
This was one of the ideas for elemental Jutsu in his puppets since creating a rotating puppet wasn't hard. His only problem was the fire release technique since he didn't practice fire nature Chakra yet.
"That's genius. Such a firestorm should be a really powerful technique. Sensei, I want to try working on that," asked Hana excitedly.
"Sure, we can focus on your fire element training. I will even ask a friend of mine to teach you from time to time. But to work out the technique, you will have to do it yourself since this is based on your clan technique," nodded Inoichi proudly. "And what about you, Tekku?"
"Well, I have an idea of what I want to work on, and you could theoretically help me. But it would be really impolite to ask," said Tekku, as he had an idea for a while in what direction he wanted his Green Secret Technique to develop. He was just missing one basic element that Inoichi could provide for him.
"Just say it. I promise I won't be offended. At worst, I will say no," replied Inoichi calmly.
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