Chapter 22

Naruto strode into his training clearing while humming a happy little tune. His happy mood is attributed to the fact he got his paycheck plus his stipend today so he had quite a bit of extra money at his house for this week. He did have some set aside for a rainy day. Although he couldn't keep the smile off his face at the prospect of starting two different types of training today, his speed training and possibly making some Genjutsu. His smile threatened to break his face in two as he looked at a spot within the clearing and spoke, "Heya Kurenai-sensei!"

Kurenai appeared a second later, within her shunshin, and looked at Naruto with a puzzled expression, "How did you know I was going to arrive here?"

"Sensor, Sensei." Naruto deadpanned as he looked at her. Kurenai at least had the decency to look sheepish as she was reminded about his bloodline.

A slightly awkward silence filled the clearing as Kurenai wondered how she had forgotten her student's, potentially, greatest asset, and Naruto simply stared at her with a deadpan expression from her question. It was broken when Naruto's face broke into a wide smile as he almost bounced on the tips of his feet while speaking loudly, "So, what are we going to do today?" he asked.

Kurenai smiled slightly at how eager he was, "Well, today we are going to start with..." she said as she looked at him through the corner of her eye. She noted he was leaning forward in excitement at what he was about to learn, a small smirk found its way onto her face, "stretching." Naruto faceplanted and looked up at his sensei with an expression of disbelief while Kurenai giggled at how he looked.

"Stretching?" Naruto asked dubiously.

Kurenai nodded and Naruto stood up as she positioned herself in front of him. "Stretching is an important part of working out Naruto. Stretching your muscles allows your blood to flow before you start any strenuous activity while simultaneously allowing you to bend yourself during a battle in ways others won't expect." Kurenai stated as she set her legs together so she looked like a tower and motioned for him to mimic her. He looked doubtful but he followed her lead and she spoke, "Stretching will also allow your muscles to remain taut and not become too cumbersome which would weigh you down while hindering your movements."

As Kurenai finished speaking, she bent down at her waist and touched her toes. "For this pose, you will lean down and attempt to touch your toes while keeping your knees locked. Stop when you feel a slight burning in your lower leg muscles and hold it for as long as you can before standing up." Kurenai said as she returned to her full height. Naruto nodded and bent down, his fingertips reaching to his ankles but not quite able to reach his toes. "Good," Kurenai said as he held the pose, "you already seem a bit flexible Naruto, if we continue this it shouldn't take long for you to become limber." she appraised. Naruto seemed to brighten and held the pose for a good thirty seconds before Kurenai had him stand back up, "Don't spend too long on any certain stretch, we don't want you to strain one set of muscles too much."

Kurenai then set her feet about shoulder-width apart and leaned down to her right side as Naruto mimicked her action, "This will stretch your right leg. Just like before, stretch until you start to feel a slight burn then stop and hold it for about 45 seconds before releasing it, then we switch to the left leg." After forty-five seconds had passed, Naruto and Kurenai switched legs and continued their stretching as Kurenai exhibited a few more leg stretches for him.

Kurenai finally stood up and shook herself out to feel how her legs were stretched as Naruto did the same. "Next I will show you a few arm stretches, these will mainly just allow you a wider range of movement with your arms. Now, grab both your hands and raise them above your head like you are making a platform with your palms facing away from your head." As Kurenai exhibited how it should be done, Naruto's eyes were drawn to her impressive bust as the way her arms were put together emphasized her assets. His head swam and a flash of how they had looked when he had first seen her flashed across his mind before noticing that Kurenai was looking at him expectantly. He hurriedly followed her example, hopeful she hadn't noticed his staring.

After a few more stretches, all of which seemed to have emphasized her impressive bust and made it much harder for Naruto to concentrate for some reason he couldn't understand. "Why the hell do I keep seeing her naked breasts?" Naruto screamed to himself, "I should be training not thinking these perverted things, only perverts do that." he told himself as he shook his head clearly and paid closer attention to Kurenai.

Kurenai nodded to him as he stood up, "That is all the stretches for now. Let's begin conditioning your muscles." she said. Naruto nodded and Kurenai led him to one side of the clearing, "Okay, I want you to run from one side of the clearing to the other as fast as you can and we will see where to go from there." Kurenai said. From there on, Naruto was drilled into conditioning for his speed training. Many different techniques were used to target certain parts of his muscles. One such training method had been for him to run up a hill to target his calf muscles. Every day, he would train until he could feel his legs could go no more. Luckily, his bloodline seemed to improve his downtime and he increased by leaps and bounds in comparison to how Kurenai had expected him to.

(Scene Break)

Timeskip 2 and a half weeks

Naruto panted as he finished his daily workout his legs shaky from the intense workout he had put them through. He reached down and rubbed his ankles through the weight that was strapped onto them. His body adapted quite quickly to his workout so he had become much quicker much faster than even he had ever dreamed of, Kurenai even said that he was as fast as a Jounin when he could take his weights off. He had almost preened from the praise Kurenai had been giving him and, as a result, he had trained even harder than ever before. His progress grew at an astonishing rate with a personalized teacher that was capable of working with his every need. It helped that he trusted her with every aspect of his training and told her anything that she might ask in the hopes it might help her train him better. He had already shown her a few Genjutsu ideas and she had praised each of their basics as the two worked together to fine-tune them and make them battle capable. Though he had already succeeded in creating 3 of his own, they all required extremely long hand sign sequences to activate and he would have to work on them to be able to use them in combat. Naruto had learned that, though the process for creating Genjutsu was relatively simple when put on paper, just as Ninjutsu creation seemed easy when first introduced, putting it into practice would have been nigh impossible without Kurenai's help. He wouldn't have even had an idea of where to begin much less how to complete it. Despite how hard it was in practice, he had still managed to complete those techniques with Kurenai so he was quite proud of himself in that area.

Naruto had added up to three leaves to his personal control exercises and he had mastered the Surface Clinging technique while moving onto the water walking exercise. He could already walk on water, which had been much easier for him to master, something he attributed to his larger chakra pool. He had yet to master it but his chakra control had never been better. Now, when he attempted to make one shadow clone, he would make 2 instead of the normal 5. The amount of chakra that a shadow clone takes, that was very impressive, according to Kurenai.

All this time, Naruto had only walked Kurenai to the edge of the training grounds before she would shunshin away to keep their master/apprentice relationship a secret as Naruto and Kurenai had agreed that hiding Naruto's true strength would be in his own best interest. Ignoring the general populous, it wouldn't be good for Kurenai to be found teaching another jounin's student without his permission, either. True, nothing could technically be done for it, but it would look bad on Kurenai so Naruto agreed with that in mind along with the idea of hiding it from his opponents at large.

There was one snag in Naruto's training though. He had completed making the Genjutsus; however, he still couldn't seem to cast a single one. His control was seemingly inadequate for casting Genjutsu even despite his huge leap in his control. It frustrated him that he still could not cast a Genjutsu even though that was what he had been working for. When he cast the jutsu, it might catch for a short period, but he would lose control of his chakra right near the end as if a flux of chakra from outside his pathways disrupted his jutsus. He and Kurenai were both at their wit's end on how to solve this dilemma.

Team Seven's teamwork, on the other hand, had never been better. Their mission record was flawless and they never had anyone complain about them as they finished their job quickly, quietly, and efficiently. Kakashi had begun teaching Sasuke about chakra detection and even Sakura had been getting help from their sensei as her aptitude with medical jutsu was discovered. She couldn't heal anything beyond a small cut but she was becoming useful in her way. Naruto had been surprised to learn that she was learning such a thing since he didn't know what that was. He had seen his chakra books talk about control for medics but he hadn't thought ninjas were the medics. Though, she would be useless during a fight as her Taijutsu remained subpar and she had no Genjutsu or Ninjutsu to speak of besides the Academy Three.

Sasuke had been mollified when Kakashi started to train him in chakra detection. Though the going seemed slow, from what Naruto could tell, Sasuke was pleased he was receiving training in something other than teamwork exercises and becoming stronger. Naruto was pleased that Sasuke's recent change from going into an even more introverted teammate to, not necessarily active, but still would now work with Naruto more likely than ignore him as he had been doing. Even Kakashi had said that their teamwork was now back to what it was before Sasuke became jealous, he just said it a different way.

Naruto had improved his Kunai and Shuriken accuracy though, something Kurenai had thought would be useful in distracting opponents along with his sash to allow for some more room to be put between him and his opponent when he managed to cast a Genjutsu. She had taught him the hand signs for a few of the Genjutsu that Konoha had acquired over the years but they weren't very effective against anyone who was used to Genjutsu. He was ecstatic upon learning them though so he was not bothered by their little usefulness at all, he had even suggested a few uses that Kurenai hadn't thought of, something she praised him for.