21 TSoL Chapter 19 - Unusual practice

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Sitting on the grass in the shade of a tree against which she leaned, Tenten studied the Fuinjutsu scroll while waiting for Naruto and his friend from the academy to arrive. Thanks to this scroll, the wait felt brief, and before long, a group of three people arrived at the square, one of whom immediately called out to Tenten:

"Hey, Tenten, we're here! I brought another classmate, sorry for not discussing this with you beforehand, but I hope you don't mind?"

Looking up, Tenten blinked in shock as she saw two girls, one of whom was very beautiful and the other looked extremely delicate and cute, standing very close to Naruto, practically leaning against him. Meanwhile, both girls were looking at Tenten with such an appraising gaze that she even felt a little embarrassed.

But Tenten quickly pushed aside all these feelings and got up from the ground, approaching the newcomers with a smile and looking at Naruto:

"Hey, Naruto. Nice to see you," then she turned her gaze to the girls and confidently introduced herself, "It's nice to meet you. My name is Tenten. Although this is partially an unexpected meeting, I hope we'll get along and our training will be productive."

Looking at this girl, Ino and Hinata immediately understood that she was very different from the girls in their class. It was all in the atmosphere around her. It wasn't an atmosphere of confidence in her femininity or appearance, which dominates in their class, not at all. It was a different kind of confidence, namely confidence in her abilities and skills.

Looking at her, they immediately realized that she was definitely not weak and she knew it perfectly well. This was a truly strong contrast compared to their class, where almost all the girls only do the minimum necessary in class, paying more attention to their appearance, so their ninja skills simply elicit laughter.

The only girls capable of demonstrating some level of ability were Hinata, Ino, and Sakura, in that order of strength.

Finally, gathering her thoughts, Ino was the first to reply:

"Um, yes, nice to meet you," quickly returning to her elevated manner, Ino put one hand on her hip and the other on her chest, introducing herself, "My name is Ino Yamanaka, pleased to meet you. I also hope we'll get along."

Nodding her head, Tenten turned to Hinata and, finally examining her more closely, she noticed her white eyes and asked in surprise:

"Are you... by any chance from the Hyuga clan?"

Slightly startled by the question, Hinata looked at the girl and awkwardly introduced herself:

"Y-yes, that's correct. My name is Hinata Hyuga. Nice to meet you," Hinata made a slight bow, as is customary in their clan, and then looked with interest at the brown-haired girl and asked, "Um... have you met anyone from my clan before?"

Smiling, Tenten replied:

"Even more, I study with one of them in the same class. He's quite a character, if you ask me. His name is Neji, are you familiar with him?"

At the mention of his name, Hinata seemed to freeze, then with a slight sadness, she replied:

"Y-yes... I'm familiar with him. He's my... brother."

Not only Tenten, but also Naruto, who had already learned a little about the difficult relationships in her clan, was surprised by this information. For this reason, he quickly decided to change the topic:

"So now that we've all met, how about we head to the old training ground and discuss our training plan?"

Smiling at the words of the whiskered boy, Tenten nodded and replied:

"Okay, I suppose our usual routine won't work, considering the presence of newcomers, so we'll need to make some changes."

After that, everyone headed towards the training ground, while Ino asked a question that interested her:

"So... how long have you been friends with Naruto and when did you start training together?"

Hearing the blonde's question, Hinata also perked up her ears, as she was curious about when Naruto managed to become friends with this girl. Looking up at the sky, Tenten thought for a moment, then replied:

"Hmm... I suppose it's been over a month now. And we started practicing together from the very first day we met, you could say."

With a mischievous grin, Naruto said:

"It was a really explosive meeting. She was studying storage seals at the time and couldn't decipher the mass storage formula. And since I also study fuinjutsu, I offered to help her. So, one word led to another, and we became friends and started helping each other with our strengths."

Watching Tenten nervously rub her cheek with her finger, Ino blinked in surprise and said to Naruto:

"So you really study seals? It's strange that you decided to start studying them so early, since soon the academy will also start teaching sealing techniques."

To this, Naruto just shrugged and said:

"Well, if that's all they're going to teach us, then there's nothing strange about it, because the seal of storage is just a small onion slice in the whole bowl of ramen, which is a fuin."

Laughing at his odd comparison, Tenten added:

"Hehe, he's right. Based solely on the knowledge from the academy, I wouldn't have been able to achieve what I have with additional literature and help from Naruto."

Finally, Hinata also joined the conversation:

"I would also like to... study fuinjutsu with Naruto-kun..." Suddenly catching everyone's attention and realizing that she said it out loud, the girl blushed and hid behind the surprised blonde.

Seeing her behavior, Ino inwardly chuckled. Tenten, on the other hand, realized just how different Hinata was from her classmate Neji - they were literally like day and night in terms of their personalities.

But what really bothered her was Hinata's obvious infatuation with Naruto, which for some reason caused her a slight feeling of danger that she couldn't understand. Although Naruto's blindness to the girl's feelings slightly calmed her down, she understood that it wouldn't be for long, as Naruto is far from a fool and is likely to understand everything sooner or later.

Here, Tenten glanced at another girl and thought to herself:

"At least Ino doesn't seem to have any plans for Naruto..." She realized what she was thinking and blushed slightly, shaking her head. "What the hell am I thinking? I need to focus for the upcoming training!"

Finally reaching the polygon, Naruto and Tenten discussed the plan of action with the newcomers and suggested starting with warm-up exercises. After they all agreed, everyone began to warm up their bodies.

And it was torture for Naruto because now there were three girls around him, whose bodies bent in different and ambiguous positions, which captured most of his attention. Fortunately, the warm-up was short, and Naruto was able to contain his thoughts.

After the warm-up, full-fledged training began, and it was a real hell for Ino and Hinata, who until this moment had never put so much time and effort into anything like this. Even just the physical exercises squeezed all the juices from the young Yamanaka and greatly tired the white-eyed Hyuuga.

Seeing how Hinata coped with it much better than she did, Ino was not weakly annoyed, but tried not to show it, continuing to put herself out to the full in order not to look like a failure among these training maniacs.

When the physical exercises were over, a happy and energetic Naruto declared:

"Great, now let's move on to sparring, and after that we'll practice our specialties!"

Round-eyed with shock, Ino exclaimed:

"There's also sparring!? Naruto, you want to bring us to death?"

"Oh... Ino-chan, Hinata-chan, I completely forgot that this is your first training session, and you're not used to our usual routine yet."

Placing her hand on the blond's shoulder, Tenten said:

"Don't worry, it's obvious they haven't trained at this pace before, so it will definitely be beneficial for them to give their bodies a few tests," she looked at the girls, "but since this is your first time, you can take a break and watch our sparring with Naruto first. After that, we'll start discussing our specialties together."

Ino and Hinata nodded in agreement and sat off to the side, watching Naruto and Tenten.

The girls watched as Naruto and Tenten faced each other and prepared for battle. Suddenly Naruto froze strangely and began looking into space, after which he sighed hopelessly and said:

"Tenten-chan, I want to try something, so don't be surprised and attack me as usual, okay?"

Blinking in surprise, the girl only nodded and checked all her scrolls on her waist and legs, focusing on the blond. After a few tense seconds of waiting, Ino and Hinata watched as Tenten jumped sharply, reaching a good height, and breaking the distance. Then she opened one of the scrolls, made one turn around her axis, releasing several throwing weapons, and collected them all during the second turn, throwing them all in Naruto's direction.

When the girls looked back at the blond, they were extremely surprised to see him with his eyes closed, standing still, as if he didn't know that half a dozen sharp weapons were flying towards him.

But suddenly, at the very last moment, Naruto turned his body to the left and avoided the first projectile, then tilted his head to the right, avoiding the second projectile. After that, he briskly squatted, and the third projectile just scratched his shoulder, and then he rolled to the right, barely avoiding the rest of the projectiles.

All of this happened within one second and looked impressive enough to leave the watching girls with their mouths agape in amazement. Putting themselves in his place, they knew for sure that they wouldn't be able to avoid being hit by throwing weapons with their eyes closed, and they couldn't even imagine how Naruto was able to accomplish this.

On the other hand, Tenten looked only slightly surprised, as she had already seen Naruto avoid some of her attacks several times without looking.

Naruto himself didn't look very pleased, thinking to himself:

"Damn, it's the first time I've failed a mission... Now I'll have to endure the punishment."

[New mission: Avoid the attack of a bukijutsu master with closed eyes.]

[Status: Failed]

[Punishment: Until the end of the sparring, the strength of the resistance seals carried by the bearer will triple, and the visual range will be reduced by half.]

Feeling the effects of the punishment, Naruto smiled knowingly and said:

"Alright, it's nothing for me, dattebayo!"

Taking his words to heart, Tenten was filled with excitement and decided to continue the attack, determined to get the blond this time.

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After ten minutes of sparring, Naruto, despite his best efforts, lost to Tenten. Fighting with such restrictions was too much even for him. Although, even so, he showed good enough skills to impress Hinata and Ino who were watching the sparring.

Happily smiling, Tenten ran up to the exhausted-looking Naruto and said:

"Wow, normally we end up with a draw, but this time I managed to catch you," she glanced at the tired-looking blonde and added, "although, I have to point out that after my first attack, your movements and observation noticeably dropped, even your endurance. Are you feeling okay?"

Finally relieved of the negative effects of the System's punishment, Naruto sighed with relief and, getting up from the ground, answered with a crooked smile:

"No, everything's okay, I just... decided to make the training more difficult by using the resistance seals." Naruto quickly came up with an excuse.

Surprised, Tenten asked:

"The resistance seals? What is that?"

"It's pretty cool, I'll show you later," Naruto replied with his typical bright smile.

Meanwhile, Ino was thoughtful on the side and said:

"Well, even though Naruto lost, he's definitely getting better. At this rate, he'll even fix his bad reputation in the academy."

On the other hand, Hinata quietly said, hypnotically staring at the blue-eyed blonde:

"N-Naruto-kun works so hard during training and sparring... I, too, will try my best..."

Seeing her loving gaze and rising determination, Ino just rolled her eyes, but she agreed with some things. Watching Naruto's efforts and progress really slightly inspired her to make a little more effort in her own training. Ino didn't plan to spend as much time on them as these crazies, like Naruto and his friend, but at least she planned to increase the practice time in her clan, going at her own pace.

Finally returning to the onlookers, Naruto spoke:

"Sorry for the wait. Now, we can start practicing our specialties."

Hinata and Ino exchanged uncertain glances, and as the more confident one, Ino asked for both of them:

"What do you mean by specialty?"

"Oh, that's simple," Ten Ten replied with a raised finger, "as you may have noticed in our sparring with Naruto, I only used Bukijutsu and preparation seals for throwing weapons. So it's clear that my specialty is fighting at medium range and Fuinjutsu. Although the latter is more on the surface, "she turned her gaze to Naruto," as for Naruto, well, you could say that he is a close-range fighter with quite deep knowledge of Fuin, which is far beyond my own."

"To be honest, I'm trying to develop myself in all aspects, but in a situation of limited knowledge sources and sparring partners, I'm only focusing on this."

Looking at the newcomers, Ten Ten asked, "So, what are your strongest strengths or characteristics?"

Strangely, both Ino and Hinata pointed to themselves and said, "I'm a Yamanaka," from Ino and "I'm a Hyuga..." from Hinata.

Blinking in surprise, Naruto and Tenten slapped their foreheads with their palms, and said:

"Right, they're from clans. Obviously, their clan abilities are their characteristics!"

Naruto was really embarrassed, because despite all his progress, training, and improved thinking with memory, he still missed such an obvious detail.

Tenten was also a little embarrassed, but quickly recovered from it, and then looked towards Yamanaka and asked, "Thanks to my classmate Neji, I can roughly imagine what Hinata is capable of, so I would like to know what you have."

Since the abilities of her clan were well-known, Ino was not against telling those insignificant skills that she managed to master so far. In particular, her mind transfer technique.

After listening to her explanations, Naruto asked a question:

"Can you use it on him?" With these words, he created a clone of himself.

Puff!

Seeing Naruto's clone again, Ino was a little intrigued as if he were a real physical clone, she was interested in whether her mind transfer technique would work on him.

Nodding, she formed a sign that was unknown to others, and directed her gaze through it at the clone, who looked a little nervous.

After concentrating, Ino pronounced the name of the technique:

"Mind Transfer Jutsu!"

Immediately after that, Ino's eyes half-closed, and it seemed like she was about to lose consciousness. As for Naruto's clone, he suddenly froze in place and then disappeared a second later.

Immediately after that, Ino, who almost collapsed to the ground, suddenly opened her eyes and regained control of her body, keeping it in a sitting position and looking around in surprise.

Everyone watched this with interest, after which Naruto asked with curiosity:

"The sensations of the returned clone were quite strange. What happened?"

Fixing her gaze on the boy, Ino replied:

"I'm not sure, but I think I damaged his mind a little before I took control of him. It was like I was possessing a civilian. How much chakra did you use to create him?"

Scratching his head, Naruto answered uncertainly:

"I don't know, but it was the absolute minimum I'm capable of. I didn't want to waste it for no reason."

Ino nodded, but then tensed up a little when she saw a strange smile on Naruto's face as he said:

"But now, I have a great idea for how to improve your technique."

True to his words, Naruto crossed his fingers and said:

"Shadow Clone justu!"

Puff...puff-puff...puff...puff!

The space was filled with smoke, and behind Naruto, five clones appeared, looking at Ino with a smirk. Naruto himself grinned and said, looking at Ino:

"So, your practice will be to dispel all these clones with your technique. But it won't be that simple, as they won't just sit still, constantly moving at some distance from you."

Looking at the five clones, Ino was amazed because she had never before thought about training her ability against moving targets, and of all the possible people from whom she could receive such a lesson, it turned out to be Naruto. If someone had told her a week ago that this would happen, she would have thought they were an idiot.

Looking at Hinata, Ino raised her eyebrow as the white-eyed girl's enchanted gaze was fixed on Naruto and his clones, and a bit of drool dripped from the corner of her mouth. At the same time, she was quietly murmuring:

"So many… Naruto-kuns..."

Looking at this, Ino didn't know what to think. Even Sakura didn't drool over Sasuke literally, which says something. Deciding not to dwell on such thoughts, Ino focused on her task and went with the clones to finally test her technique on moving targets. After all, such an opportunity doesn't come every day, especially with techniques like hers.

When Ino left, Naruto and Tenten looked at Hinata, who finally regained her senses after the clones were gone. Seeing that she noticed their looks, Tenten asked:

"So, Hinata-san, given that you're from the Hyuga clan, should I assume that your specialty is combat? How much do your and Neji's strengths differ?"

Slightly shrugging her shoulders, Hinata replied:

"M-my abilities are much less than what Neji-nii-san is capable of."

"Oh, I see. Interesting," said Tenten, raising her hand to her chin, wondering what to do with Hinata.

Looking at Tenten and then at Naruto, Hinata replied shyly:

"I-I would also like to study seals with Naruto-kun," she said, clapping her fingers together and looking at the blonde hopefully.

Surprised by her words, Naruto was pleased and replied:

"Of course, you can join our training with Tenten. It will be much more interesting and fun, dattebayo!"

Thus, from that moment on, Hinata joined their joint classes and constant training. Occasionally, Ino dropped by to visit them. This is how the next few months passed for them.

Despite Naruto's growing knowledge and skills, his academic performance was greatly averaged as he often skipped school days at the academy, which didn't sit well with many teachers. Despite satisfactory answers from Naruto in tests, they lowered his final grades.

During all this time, Naruto didn't forget about his training with his parents, and with the incidental assignments from the system, which sometimes reached absurdity. For example, there was a moment when the system required him to travel to and from the academy for a week without being noticed by anyone. This was extremely difficult to do in a city full of people and experienced ninja. Fortunately, unnoticed movement was one of his main skills, so although the task was difficult, it was quite feasible.

As for what changed in the academy during this time, it is all ambiguous, but certainly much more interesting than before - at least for Naruto and a few other students.

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Author's Note:

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