12 Academy Arc 4

After every other student were done with their respective runs, we were released for lunch break, which I had spent with Kaori and Kiba, who were both, in their own ways, competing for my attention. While Kaori had initially been somewhat wary of the loudmouthed Inuzuka and his brash and blunt demeanour, she relented when she saw me frown. I was much more interested in getting to know and strike up a friendship with one of the 'Rookie 9' than the girl.

Kiba spent the time talking about himself and his clan, and I listened with interest, ah-ing with understanding when he mentioned he was going to be partnered with a ninken as soon as the next batch of pups were delivered.

We also compared some notes on our physical training regimen; mine a word-for-word routine from the basic body conditioning guide book, while his was personalized and Inuzuka clan specific. He explained that since his clan's fighting style leaned towards speed and at times fighting on all fours, their training methods revolved around developing an almost animalistic way of moving.

Kaori, not one for training herself, could only listen on quietly, being unable to contribute much to the conversation, and only interjecting when she scoffed at the Inuzuka clan's fighting style. Which of course ticked off the heir of the very clan she just insulted to launch into a verbal tirade that naturally sparked a bickering reminiscent of her argument with Naruto earlier.

I could only sigh disapprovingly as I considered the merits of continuing to hang out with her versus the damage she was doing to my reputation by association. I couldn't stop myself from assessing the 'value' of any public relationship or friendship that I had. It was how I was raised.

Since I was young, I had always been taught to only befriend people of a certain family background and judge those around me primarily by how I could benefit from them. It was a habit I was trying to kick and constantly reminded myself I was no longer under the domineering umbrella of my family, but old habits and all that.

When the lunch break ended, we gathered back at the academy training ground and was led to the throwing range where six wood panels, presumably our targets, and a corresponding number of shuriken sets had been set up for us.

"For ease of organization, stay with the group that you had been running with." Iruka announced, "For this portion of the test, you have to try and hit the targets by throwing the shuriken at them. It is only counted as a hit if the shuriken lands and sticks into the wood. If you hit it but it fails to stick, it won't count. Each of you will get ten tries. Reminder: no pressure trying to land all of the shuriken. It's perfectly fine even if none hits. This exercise is not to demean you, it is for us to see how to best train every one of you into great shinobi."

Some of the students who were initially worried calmed down slightly, but was still slightly apprehensive.

"But before we begin, we will first show you how to hold the shuriken properly and how to throw them towards where you're aiming. Mizuki, if you would."

The blue haired chunin stepped up, holding the four pointed throwing star at us. He slowly demonstrated where to grip the shuriken, and went through the motions of actually throwing it, while Iruka explained to us.

We were then given the opportunity to practice with wooden throwing stars while the instructors went around correcting the students' grip and shurikenjutsu form. After some time, we broke into our groups to begin the exercise.

Soon, the first group, which incidentally had Sasuke and Shino amongst their members, started launching shuriken at their targets. Both of the clan members evidently had plenty of practice before entering the academy as they both achieved perfect scores.

To be fair, the wood panels were rather wide, and we were supposed to throw them from a distance of 10 meters. So it would instead be pretty difficult for anyone with some training to miss any.

The other kids in their group, even ones without any prior training at all, were able to land at least two or three, by chance or otherwise, with the rest either flying way off or deflected off the stationary targets.

My group went next after the students collected and handed the shuriken to us.

I took a moment to fiddle with the shuriken. The first time I had held an actually sharpened weapon was when Hiroki loaned me his to train with when my three senpais were tutoring me in shurikenjutsu. After a moment of amusing myself with the throwing star, I readied my stance and cocked back my throwing arm.

Once Iruka gave the go ahead, I flung the shuriken and hit it dead center. I smirked, but reminded myself it wasn't such a great feat since the distance was shorter than what I usually practiced with but aim small, miss small right?

After my first shuriken landed, I could again hear Kaori cheering for me from the back. I suppressed a groan. I was getting kind of embarrassed by her antics. It wasn't even flattering since she was literally a 7 year old child. Or 8 year old, I couldn't remember if her birthday had gone by yet.

Regardless, I consecutively landed all ten of the shuriken, although only three hit dead center. Once done, I turned to examine Kiba's and Naruto's progress.

Kiba had performed the worst of the clan heirs so far, only landing seven of the ten shuriken provided. One hit too shallow and fell from the target after a moment, the second barely grazed the edge of the target but still failed to hit the mark, and the last unluckily hit one of the embedded shuriken and bounced off with a large ding.

Naruto on the other hand did as badly as the civilian kids, only hitting three but had the cheek to complain loudly that there must have been something wrong with the shuriken or something. Which shouldn't have been the case since Shino had been using the same set of throwing stars before the blonde.

The results of the rest of the groups remained somewhat consistent, although there was one girl in the last group who failed to land a single shuriken on the target and as a result broke down crying. It was odd to remember that although we were learning how to become deadly ninja, these were still a bunch of 8 year old children who undoubtedly still acted like children at times.

Iruka had motioned for Mizuki to comfort the girl before tallying our scores. He smiled widely once he was done before announcing the end of the shurikenjutsu exercise and praised the ones who managed to land quite a few shuriken, especially so for those who were able to get a perfect score, namely: Sasuke, Shino, Shikamaru, Hinata and yours truly. Shikamaru had been exceptionally motivated to avoid the supplementary after class lessons.

The rest of the clan heirs mostly managed 8s and 9s, while Choji had scored the worst with only 6 shuriken embedded in his target.

Once the girl stopped crying, we returned back to the training grounds.

"For the final exercise, like I mentioned at the start, we will be pairing up every student and you will be engaging in a mock duel with each other. We understand that there will be many of you who have never been taught how to fight or been in one before. And that is perfectly fine. You were not expected to have learned prior to the academy. But you can also treat this exercise as a wakeup call. Being a shinobi means you will at times have to get your hands dirty and find yourself fighting enemies. Not knowing how to fight properly will only get yourself injured, or worse."

Iruka once again announced. Before adding a disclaimer, "You are not expected to perform admirably, nor are you expected to display brilliant taijutsu. The purpose of this exercise is not for us to evaluate your fighting styles, but more towards letting us get a better sense of things like your reflexes, instinct and ability to react in a fight. So don't worry about winning or losing. Just do your best and you'll be fine."

The instructor fished out a piece of paper from his pocket and unrolled them, he scanned it for a moment before speaking, "Now all of you take a seat on the ground. When I call out your name and your sparring partner, stand up and let each other know who you are then move over here in your pairs. Form a straight line and that will be the order of your mock duels. First pair, Aburame Shino and Inuzuka Kiba."

As Iruka called out the pairings, it was evident that they had intentionally paired up the clan members together while the clanless, shinobi born students were partnered and similarly for the civilian born students. I myself was paired with a student who came from a civilian background.

The only exception was Sasuke who was paired with Naruto, which was unfortunate for the blonde who immediately exclaimed he was going to kick his ass. Which the Uchiha did not receive as light heartedly as I previously did, immediately scowling.

I wasn't sure whether that particular pairing, putting Naruto up against the strongest of the batch, was an intentional measure by either Iruka or Mizuki.

"Now that you are in your pairs, you can start stretching first to warm up your bodies like how we taught you in the morning. While doing so, listen up."

"The rules are simple, no eye-gouging, no scratching, stop attacking when your opponent is on the ground, and for the boys, no hitting below the belt. Your goal is to knock down your sparring partner. Do it three times, and you win. You are allowed to yield at any point of the fight if you don't feel like carrying on but try your best first before doing so. You are allowed to submit your opponent with any jiujitsu holds if you know how to, but you have to release them once they yield or tap out."

"There shouldn't be any hard feelings after the duel regardless if you win or lose. Whatever happens in the ring, leave it in there once the fight is over. Remember, this exercise is for training purposes only – do not walk away from this nursing a grudge if you lose, nor should you get cocky and be a bad winner if you win."

Iruka paused then put on a stern look, "Mizuki and I will be refereeing while two pairs fight concurrently. If you break the rules, you will be punished. If we notice any excessive cruelty, you will be punished. I am not telling you to hold back, but ruthlessness should be directed at the enemies outside these walls, not towards our fellow Konoha comrades within. Any questions?"

One girl put up her hands, "Sensei, is there a time limit or do we just keep going until one of us wins?"

"There usually isn't, but for this exercise we will call off the fight once we have gathered what we need to see." Iruka responded. "Anyone else? No? Then the first pair, Shino and Kiba, go to Mizuki-sensei; the second pair, Shikamaru and Choji, come to me. The rest of you pay attention and try to learn from the duels while you are waiting for your turn."

The two pairs went over their respective instructors who moved them towards some distance apart and quickly went over the rules with them again. The clan members were no stranger to the procedure, even if Shikamaru looked as lethargic as could be while Choiji seemed reluctant to hurt his friend.

On the other side, Kiba and Shino were already adopting their respective family's fighting stances. After a moment of silence, both Iruka and Mizuki called out at the same time, signalling the start of their fights.

Kiba immediately rushed towards Shino, swiping and swinging with a controlled ferocity. But the cold and calculating Aburame was patient with his defence and seemed to have been expecting the Inuzuka to come out swinging. They quickly exchanged blows with Kiba on the offensive while Shino calmly deflecting the hits that he could and absorbing the ones he couldn't.

A well placed kick landed on Kiba's thigh, but he was not deterred as he managed to slip past Shino's defence and threw a punch at the opening. However, it had been a trap laid out by Shino as he managed to grab the outstretched arm and pull him off balance while simultaneously tripping the Inuzuka and throwing him to the ground.

"1 to 0, Shino. Don't fall for obvious openings, Kiba."

Kiba growled as he picked himself up.

While Kiba and Shino's spar was firing up, the situation with Shikamaru and Choji was the exact opposite.

They had been exchanging moves half-heartedly from the beginning, and it was obvious they were both just going through the motions while play acting. Iruka had been annoyed but kept watching. However when the lazy Nara 'accidentally' took an unenthusiastic punch and fell to the ground in an exaggerated motion, the instructor's temper flared, "OI! Take this seriously, Shikamaru! And Choji! Don't just go along with it!"

Shikamaru merely turned to the chunin while still laying on the ground and muttered, "Troublesome…"

"What was that? Did you say you want to stay back after class for supplementary lessons?"

The Nara heir flinched and withheld a sigh. He slowly pulled himself up and dusted off his trousers, "Can't help it I guess. Choji, you don't have to hold back. It's fine."

His friend squirmed, "Eh? Is that okay? I don't want to hurt you though."

Shikamaru lazily waved him off, "It's fine. Staying back after class would hurt even more."

Choji still looked unsure, "But… but you're my friend."

"If you win, I will get you a bag of chips."

The Akimichi's eyes sharpened. "Shikamaru! Prepare yourself! I'm going all out!"