17 Chapter 17: Survival camp

17 July- 12 years AK

I let Kakashi be the one to begin the fight, I needed him to set the pace since I had no idea how to go around a non-lethal encounter. Sure, I knew submission holds, but when I had to capture someone I had no qualms about fracturing the spine and keeping the target alive with medical chakra until he spilled his guts.

That kind of tactic could not be applied in the circumstances I was in.

His swiping kick targeted my head, I had all the time to dodge, but knowing that he knew that too, I chose to do the opposite.

I stepped forward, my right hand clamping around his ankle and my left punch targeted his knee.

His hand came in simply jabbing my punch. A jolt ran through my forearm. Raiton?

His other kick caught me in the chest and thew me back.

I landed lightly on my feet and shook my left hand, trying to disperse the tingling. Incorporating nature manipulation in taijutsu? I wondered.

My surprise must have been obvious since the fucker had the gall to eye-smile at me.

It was something that I had never encountered before, and that I never thought about. It had several interesting applications.

I had thought we would go at taijutsu first, but it was clear that even in a spar, jonin meshed their techniques together, and the control he had exercised on it was... well perfect.

Trusting in his skill to survive, I spat a seal-less Teppodama at him and moved in a clockwise circle, pelting him with kunai.

He slashed at the incoming mass of water with a hand encased in lightning, disrupting the chakra that was holding it together, and for a single instant the arena was filled with the sound of one thousand chirping birds. He then proceeded to parry every kunai I threw at him with one of his own.

But I had not been idle, my water natured chakra took control of the mass of water and with nary a flick of my wrist, and a quarter of my current reserves, the mist encased the arena. I brought my hands in a famous cross-shaped seal whispering: "Kage bunshin no jutsu."

Without a sound or smoke, my clone appeared briefly at my side before jumping on the wall, cloaking himself into several layered camouflage techniques.

I moved silently into the mist, following the feedback the improved version of the 'line of water' was feeding me.

I cross blocked an axe kick and followed with a flurry of punches and countering his attempted holds, leaned back to avoid a punch that would have broken my nose and jabbed at his wrist. He violently disrupted the flow of his chakra, letting it out in a wave that dissipated the mist.

I jumped back, my hands blurring through hand seals.

I let my chakra free himself into his wind nature, shaping it with Boar, Monkey and Dragon. I pushed it aside, storing it in the tenketsu at the base of my throat, carefully keeping it from exploding and as such taking my neck away with it, before going through the following set of hand seals: Boar, Horse, Tiger.

I blew my Katon technique while letting go of my fūton one, molding them together, for Kakashi's benefit, I shouted: "Ninpō: Shiroi honō!"

(White blaze) and I let the wall of white-hot fire sweep the ground in front of me.

I felt Kakashi disappear from inside the mist a split second before my jutsu scorched the ground.

I turned on myself, staring pointedly at the ground. "Come on, I know you were going to hide underground, but making me wait is pointless."

I kicked sharply at the hand that tried to grab my ankle and stared blankly at Kakashi, who had climbed out of a hole in the ground.

His lone eye widened taking in the scorched ground we were standing on. I tilted my head with a smirk and shot forward.

He disrupted violently his own chakra flow, breaking a genjutsu my clone had placed him into and met my attack head-on.

We evenly exchanged a flurry of blows for several seconds, our speed mostly matched, then he made a mistake. Without any apparent reason he ducked like he had heard a kunai coming at him.

The merit of my clone's genjutsu, no doubt.

My knee shot up to hit his masked face, catching his crossed arms and breaking his guard. Before I could capitalize on the opening, he flickered on the other side of the arena, lifting his headband.

The Sharingan gleamed red, and even from that distance it was intimidating.

"I was wondering if you were going to give me the pink eye." I taunted.

He blinked, unraveling the genjutsus my clone was casting on him. One after another, with every single blink of his borrowed eye, they crumbled.

Oh, this is bullshit. I thought. Goddamn plot armor. What the fuck were you thinking Kishimoto? That thing is way too overpowered.

I broke through the genjutsu he had cast on me before it could affect my balance and stopped looking him in the eye. Bloody annoying.

I was about to envelop us in mist once again when I stopped. How many friendly spars against a Sharingan will I have before I have to fight an enemy with a doujutsu? I considered. And so, perhaps foolishly, I engaged Kakashi in hand to hand combat.

It was utter bullshit. He could see where, how and what I was doing before I actually did it. That was without even taking his Sharingan' genjutsus that he blinked on me. Without the gates I couldn't go faster than him, so the confrontation quickly earned me bruised ribs and a cut on my forearm. Son of a bitch.

I wasn't going to use any other combination technique, I didn't think he could copy those, but I wasn't going to risk it. I didn't even see it coming, he hit my head out of nowhere, and the world went black.

I awoke from my lucid dream with a start, my arms raising to parry a blow that wasn't coming. When I realized that I was safe in my yurt, I sighed.

"I need to come up with a way to face the Sharingan." I muttered to myself. And thinking about my options, I added: "Well, a not lethal way." I didn't want to kill Itachi or Shishui after all.

I was in a bad mood. Thinking about my shiny new genins, and the decision I pushed them into, I smiled. I could take it out on them. But how?

TEAM 10

At 6:30 am, Ino was surprised to hear her father calling for her, warning that she had someone waiting for her.

Her surprise could only rise further when she identified who were the ones waiting for her.

Shikamaru and Choji (who was still rubbing his sleep-addled eyes) were looking at her with a strange look.

Ino blushed, she had risen from her sleep an hour before, beauty didn't come on its own after all, but seeing Shikamaru, of all people presenting himself ahead of schedule, was mind-blogging.

"Shikamaru? What are you doing here? Do you feel unwell?" She asked the last question teasingly, and by the tired sigh that escaped her lazy teammate' lips, it was clear that he didn't miss the joke.

"I didn't sleep." Came the blank answer.

That awoke even Choji, who was now staring at his friend with wide eyes.

"Yesterday I thought about what choice ... sensei... wanted us to make."

And on those words, Ino gestured them both in the kitchen, where she offered them some breakfast. Looking at Shikamaru with an interested expression. She might not have particularly liked him, but she knew how to evaluate people, daddy had taught her that much, and with her talent for gossip, she could tell that he was about to say something huge.

"Daddy doesn't like him much." She said, hoping to gain a reaction from the aloof kid, who just nodded without revealing too much.

"Pops said that he owns the Pizzeria chain of restaurants." Choji butted in, eager to share what he had discovered.

When he became the object of two deadpan stares he shifted uncomfortably on his seat, but Shikamaru patted his shoulder calming him. "I traded a favor with my father to access his records, the public ones at least, I only know that he made chunin at fifteen without a scratch, then he went and became one of the Twelve Fire Guardians. Only for three years, but they are supposed to be among the best, so very skillful jonin. And he came back around the beginning of this year."

"Is that normal?" Choji asked, catching up on what Shikamaru was hinting at.

The Nara shook his head, and seeing the confused frown on Ino he chose to elaborate: "He technically was still a chunin once he came back, to be a jonin sensei one has to be a full jonin, meaning he went through two promotions in less than six months."

Ino was impressed, grudgingly, but impressed. If he only was black haired with dark eyes... No. She shook her head. She would conquer Sasuke-kun! And that was it!

"I want to be strong." Choji said, bringing everyone back on topic.

Ino's hand instinctively went to her throat, her eyes widening in fear for a second, before nodding her assent.

"We all remember Failure." Shikamaru said. And the whole team shivered at the memory of the monster inside of the genjutsu who single-handedly destroyed the academy, their friends, and the self-esteem of Ino, Shikamaru and Choji.

"Then there's nothing else to be said." the Nara drawled, and just like that, he fell asleep, with drool and snore, on her kitchen table.

When they reached the training ground 10 they saw their sensei performing a handstand on a pond. No, they weren't quite correct, he was balancing himself on the tips of his right-hand fingers, while a leaf was fluttering in a smooth pattern around his other hand.

When he saw them closing down on him their sensei sighed noticing that Shikamaru was being carried piggyback by Choji.

Not the most encouraging of the beginnings. Daiki thought.

"Have you made your decision?" he asked cutting the pleasantries.

Choji set down Shikamaru and shook him awake, he was immediately aware and his eyes zeroed in on their sensei, who didn't change his position.

"We'll give you our best." Ino said, and looking at his other two charges the sensei could see the determination in their expressions.

The genins were looking at their sensei when he suddenly was no longer on the pond. Without a blur, a twitch, or even a ripple on the water, the man disappeared only to reappear seated cross-legged on the top of a wooden post as he had always been there. He looked at them questioningly, nodding to himself after a while. Like he had found confirmation of some kind.

"Traditionally, on the first meeting, a sensei introduces himself, and the genins do the same. Name, hobbies, likes and dislikes, even dreams." He started.

"I will bother with it if you survive the next three months. No reason to waste time."

He hopped down the wooden post holding out a piece of paper for each of the genin.

They took it with raised eyebrows.

"Channel some chakra into it." Daiki-sensei ordered, fishing out a cigarette from somewhere on his person and lighting it up with a flare of fire natured chakra.

With skeptical looks the kids obeyed.

All three of their papers ignited and turned to ash. We are truly in the land of fire. The sensei thought.

With a passionate tone, the sensei started explaining: " Nature Transformation is an advanced form of chakra control that entails the molding and defining of the nature of one's chakra, altering its properties and characteristics for use in techniques. Nature transformation is one of two necessary components for creating or modifying a technique, the second component being shape transformation. While nature transformation changes the properties of the chakra, shape transformation changes the actual form and movement, altering its abilities."

Noticing that the genins were keeping their promise of giving him their best and were listening attentively, he kept going.

"There are five elemental chakra natures, which are the foundation of all elemental ninjutsu. They are so vital to the shinobi lifestyle that each of the Five Great Shinobi Countries is named after one of the five. And in each country the people usually share their chakra nature. Suna is famous for its wind users just as Konoha has a vast majority of fire natured ninja, as you three have just demonstrated."

He saw them perk up at that nugget of information.

"Each element is naturally weaker than and stronger than another: Fire (火, Hi) is strong against Wind but weak against Water. Wind(風, Kaze) is strong against Lightning but weak against Fire. Lightning(雷, Kaminari) is strong against Earth but weak against Wind. Earth(土, Tsuchi) is strong against Water but weak against Lightning. Water(水, Mizu) is strong against Fire but weak against Earth."

And when the sensei started talking about fire, the smoke he had exhaled assumed a 火 shape, before cycling through the other four.

"Basically, if an elemental technique is put against another elemental technique of the same level, but of a stronger nature, then the technique with the superior nature will prevail. However, a technique with a weaker nature can overpower a technique with a stronger nature if the former is of a higher level. For example, fire can overpower a water technique if it is first strengthened by a wind technique. A similar principle applies in how the technique of the same element interact, what is called counterbalancing. If two techniques of the same nature and the same level are used against each other, they will cancel each other out. But make no mistake, the skill of the ninja is the one that dictates the outcome of a clash between ninjutsu. If you three were to spit a fireball at me, I would blow it out as it was a candle."

He waited for objections of any kind, but surprisingly there were none.

Maybe I scared them a little too much? The sensei wondered. Naaah.

"Every person's chakra has an affinity towards one of the five basic nature transformations. Affinity can at times be genetic, or at least common to a particular family. That paper you just channeled chakra into, is made from a special type of tree that is grown and fed with chakra. When this so-called Chakra Induction Paper is exposed to even the slightest hint of chakra, it reacts according to the chakra's latent element. Fire: the paper will ignite and turn to ash. Wind: the paper will split in two. Lightning: the paper will wrinkle. Earth: the paper will turn to dirt and crumble away. Water: the paper will become wet/damp. Shinobi have an easier time learning to create and control a chakra nature that matches their affinity, although even then it may take several years. Shinobi are not limited to the nature they have an affinity for, and it is in fact required for jōnin to have mastered their own nature and be at least proficient with another. Although Hashirama Senju, Tobirama Senju, Hiruzen Sarutobi and Orochimaru of the Sannin, have been able to master all five, and I am on my way to do the same."

He waited for an instant for the surprised expressions of his students, no, his soldiers to subside before completing his explanation.

"Aside from the five elemental nature transformations, there are two natural transformations that are the source of all non-elemental techniques, Shadow Imitation Technique, in the same way as genjutsu and the Mind transfer Technique is a Yin manipulation, while the Multi-Size Technique instead, plays with Yang chakra. Medical ninjutsu works with both. There is Yin Release(陰遁, Inton), based on the imagination and spiritual energy of a shinobi, and Yang Release(陽遁, Yōton), based on the vitality and physical energy of a shinobi."

When the sensei saw that he had managed to capture their imagination and make his students dream of the things they would be able to do (even Shikamaru had looked honestly curious) he chose to shot them down: "Unfortunately, you are years too early to even get started on it. Since both your chakra capacity and chakra control are comparable to those of a particularly stupid flea."

Sadistically enjoying the dismay on their faces, Daiki-sensei clapped his hands loudly.

"Now." He said "For today, your aim, purpose, and dream, is to kill me." and while he said that, a half ram seal distorted his features until once more the three genins found themselves facing Failure.

The enemy shinobi opened with a kick to Shikamaru's face. The kid didn't have time to react and was hurled back.

"Shikamaru!" Choji shouted turning to look at his teammate.

"Don't let the enemy out of your sight." Failure said while kicking the Akimichi in the gut, making him wheeze on the ground.

"Tense your muscles before being hit." Failure said, his blank tone made more to freak out Ino than anything else.

The towering man slowly walked towards the last genin still standing: "There are two kinds of humans in the world, predator, and prey. So tell me, little kunoichi." And Failure leaned forward, his purple, unreal eyes making her feel little and insignificant, while his manic grin made her throat tighten. "Which are you?"

The following day

DAIKI

I looked at the kids under my care hiding the pity I was feeling, they were bruised and more than likely hurting everywhere, since the day before I had forced them to showcase everything they knew to get hurt a little less.

Every time Shikamaru looked for cover to come out with a plan, I engaged him, every time Ino tried her Mind Switching shit I grabbed one of her teammates and placed him on the trajectory of the jutsu before hitting him, and by proxy, her. When Choji tried his clan techniques I would sidestep his enlarged limb and slash at it with a kunai. The wound was negligible once the arm returned to his usual size, but I hoped that I got my point across.

I did so using only taijutsu, and moving at a snail pace, matching their speed. So in a sense, I too had showcased my skills. In hand to hand combat only, but still.

What would have been the point of running circles around them so fast that they couldn't see me? No, I demonstrated that moving at the right time and in the right way, one did not need outstanding physical skills.

I had pushed them, but they got in the way of each other most of the time, the problems were smoothed down somewhat by Shikamaru calling the shots, but he wasn't able to direct his teammates like puppets and do something else at the same time.

Teamwork was something that built itself with time, but there was some personality clash. Choji would sooner trust Shikamaru if he said that the sky was green than checking himself, Ino despised taking orders and actively disliked Choji, while Shikamaru tried to trick her into compliance, sure of the brilliance of his mind.

They were all stubborn to a fault in their own way. Choji had a loyalty which ran so deep that it left no space for self-confidence, Ino was all the latter and Shikamaru knew that he was smarter and as such he tended to lead the other two with an almost patronizing attitude. He also clearly cared more about Choji than Ino, but they had been friends for a long time, so it was to be expected.

Which wasn't bad in itself, but being patronizing and seeing oneself as superior were two closely correlated things, and well, pride before the fall and all that. Each one of them had kept going, without uttering a single sound of protest, which was a good sign. Choji would never be a finesse fighter, his clan prevented that, while both Ino and Shikamaru clans were not built to be frontline fighters. I'll have to change that.

This was why I had come up with survival training. Well, mostly it was something for them to do while I came out with a plan to properly train them.

I was sitting in front of the gates, going over the genjutsu I learned in the library the night before, it was brilliant, I had no idea why I had never thought of anything of the sort. It wasn't quite 'animal hypnosis' but I could tweak the senses of an animal enough to make it attack my target, making the animal I cast the genjutsu on seeing it as mouth-watering prey. However I knew that any jutsu was only as effective as the one that wielded it.

I can already see the most interesting applications.

When my little genins arrived, on time for two days in a row, I tossed to each of them a backpack and forming a cross-shaped seal, I carefully molded my chakra, finding the balance necessary and withdrawing as much yin chakra from the lumps of chakra that were going to become bushings as I could.

A second later, three modified Kage bunshin popped into existence around me. Without warning, each of them grabbed a backpack and the respective genin, before flickering inside the training ground 44, also known as the Forest of Death.

SHIKAMARU

I crumbled on the ground thinking about my situation, I let my eyes trail over the endless, gloomy giant trunks disappearing under the moss, the canopy so thick that the sun barely reached the ground.

I opened my backpack with a defeated sigh. I knew why I had made that choice, the sharp reminder of Failure on the day before didn't allow me even to pretend to forget. But still, I came to understand why Daiki-sensei had warned us that we would want to die.

I made an inventory of what I had. A scroll that explained the tree walking technique, with a pencil made annotation that stated 'Usable on every kind of surface bar lava' Apparently it would build up both chakra control and reserves. Another scroll that explained an E ranked doton technique, a single paper bomb, a blank scroll, a brush, and some ink.

I noticed that on the back of the paper bomb a second note had been written with a pencil: If you need hand signs for your jutsus, you are not ready to use them in battle.

It was then that I realized that I hated Daiki-sensei. And he had been right on that too.

CHOJI

Sensei had dropped me in a stream. A stream.

Why did he need to be so mean?

I opened my backpack to check on what I had to work with. A scroll that explained something called the tree walking exercise, and one with an E rank raiton technique. Wasn't I fire natured? I wondered.

That was it. I looked better, looking for rations if any kind. The pack was empty. What to do, what to do...

My stomach growled. I was hungry.

"Shikamaru would know what I should do." I muttered to myself.

And I realized that Daiki-sensei had been right. I hated him.

INO

I had been walking for hours, and the only thing that remained constant was the unnatural silence.

We had spent several days in field trips into forests inside if Konoha for survival lessons, but the complete absence of birds chirping or animals moving in the underbrush made me feel like there was someone or something watching me.

I had no idea of what Daiki-sensei had hoped to accomplish, dropping me in the middle of a forest without one lick of instruction.

Then I whirled on myself, staring unblinkingly in one direction, I narrowed my eyes, I could have sworn there had been something moving in the underbrush.

I rolled my eyes at the blatant attempt of sensei to scare me and sat down, opening the backpack and taking out the two scrolls it held within.

Wait, only two scrolls? That's like... horrible. What was he thinking? I pocketed one scroll and started unraveling the other when a whistling noise made me jump away. If there was one thing the academy had hammered them on was escaping springing traps or ambushes.

And I had moved not a moment too soon. Where my head was just a moment before, a tiger had swept her paw.

I didn't think. I didn't even consider another option, I turned tail and started running. The bloody tiger can have the other scroll, it's not like I need it.

And while I ducked under a low branch and a bush tore into my beautiful purple dress, my brain, otherwise overcome with sheer terror, managed to conjure a single thought.

I hate you Daiki-sensei.