21 Chapter 18: Graduation 1/2

Wow, definitely a lot of reactions to the previous chapter. A lot of you liked what I did, especially with Kiseki, as well as Yugito and Iruka. And quite a few of you really liked seeing Jiraiya chewed out, though most of you were angry at him for how he was acting. Don't worry; Jiraiya will get his eventually.

So now, we're finally here, the canon era. Took me a while to get here, so sorry about that. Hopefully what you all will see will be enjoyable. *nods*

Well, let's get this show on the road!

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Assassin's Creed. They are the properties of Masashi Kishimoto and Ubisoft respectively.

Chapter 18

Graduation

Hi no Kuni, four years later

The Buru-Hoshi (Blue Star) was one of the more notorious yakuza gangs found throughout the Elemental Nations. Starting from humble origins in the slums of the capital of Tsuchi no Kuni (Land of Earth), they were now the fourth largest organized crime syndicate in the land, with operations from Tsuchi no Kuni to Kaminari no Kuni (Land of Lightning).

Currently, a group of about twenty men from the Hi no Kuni (Land of Fire) branch were making their way south, towards Nami no Kuni (Land of Waves), where they were to join a profitable venture that would earn them a fair amount of money. They were currently camped in the woods a fair distance from the road, due to night falling before they could reach a town or village with an inn.

The majority of the men were either asleep in their tents or sitting around a couple of campfires, talking and joking while drinking. Only a couple of men stood away from the group, acting as sentries, though they were pretty lax. They didn't think they'd have anything to fear really, and were only put on guard duty as a formality.

Slowly, the crescent moon rose to its apex in the sky, and as it began its long and slow descent, the last of the men around the fires drifted to their tents. The two current sentries were both stifling yawns, their eyes half closed with exhaustion as they stared out into the blackness.

The first sentry never noticed the figure in the tree above him, but he did briefly notice their weight dropping on him and driving him into the ground, as well as the brief, searing pain of something being driven into his neck. The shadowy figure slowly got off the now dead yakuza sentry, and moved against a tree, watching the camp to make sure no one had noticed what they had done.

The other sentry was just starting to yawn when there was a glint of light, and a crossbow bolt suddenly filled his mouth, sticking out the back of his neck and pinning him to the tree he had been leaning against. The second sentry, as life faded from his eyes, was dimly able to make out a shadowy figure pass by them before all was darkness.

The two shadowy figures both watched the camp for several moments, searching for any signs of life or movement. When it was apparent all was still, the first figure slowly raised one hand and let out a whistle that sounded like the call of an owl. A few minutes later, a figure stepped out of one of the smaller tents and quietly made their way to one of the fires, where they stirred it three times with a stick. The first figure quietly moved to the figure by the fire, which looked up.

"The boss is in the big tent," the figure said quietly. Everyone else is dead asleep. You shouldn't have any trouble."

The figure nodded, passing a small stack of ryo to the figure. "Thank you for the help. Now get back to sleep. We don't want anyone thinking you had a part in this," they said.

The Yakuza gangster, now revealed to be a spy for the figure, quietly nodded and slipped back into their tent, while the first figure nodded to the shadows, where the second figure came out, both their identities revealed by the firelight.

Yugito Nii slowly moved towards the largest tent in the camp, which belonged to the leader of this group of yakuza gangsters. She stopped outside the entrance to it and glanced to her partner, who was slowly holstering the crossbow they were carrying into a special sling on their back. Naruto Uzumaki adjust the leather belt running diagonally from his right shoulder to his left hip, so that the crossbow holster and ninjato scabbard secured to the belt rested a bit more comfortably on his back, before nodding to Yugito. The female Assassin slowly opened the entrance of the tent, and the pair slipped in.

A figure was asleep on a bunk, a blanket wrapped around them. There was a pack with some clothes nearby, and a katana resting on a small stand. Lastly, there was a collapsible desk with papers on it. Yugito glanced at the papers, before pointing to Naruto, then the figure.

Naruto hesitated, before nodding quietly as he approached the figure. Standing over them, he looked down at the figure, before taking as quiet a breath as possible and extending a hidden blade from the underside of the bracer on his left arm. And with a quick thrust, drove the blade into the man's throat. The gangster gurgled, their eyes shooting open, before they slumped back, life fading from them, as Naruto slowly retracted the blade, reaching out with his right hand and closing his eyes.

"Rest in peace," he whispered quietly, before backing up. He glanced at Yugito, who was sorting through the papers on the desk. "He's done," he said quietly.

Yugito nodded as she gathered up the papers. "I've got the information," she said, stepping back. "We should leave, and quickly. They'll head back to their base tomorrow, after finding their commander dead."

Naruto gave a nod of agreement, and the pair slipped out of the tents, and quickly disappeared into the trees. As they did, Yugito glanced at Naruto, who seemed to be a bit distant. When they were a fair distance from the camp, she spoke. "You did good back there," she said.

Naruto just nodded distractedly, and she let out a soft sigh. "It's still hard to do it, isn't it? The killing," she said softly.

The young Uzumaki glanced at her, before slowly nodding. "I keep trying to remind myself that the people we kill…that we do it to protect others. But still…each time I kill someone…I feel…sick inside," he said.

"That's good Naruto," Yugito responded. "That feeling is something you need to hold onto. It's what keeps you human."

Naruto let out a soft sigh, before nodded to her. "I will. It's just…tough to handle. You'd think after the lesson at the Academy and…well what happened to me…it'd be somewhat easier to deal with. But…" he trailed off, sighing.

At the beginning of their current and final year at the Academy, each of the students had been given a young chicken to take home and care for a month. And at the end of the month, they brought the chickens back to class, where they were ordered to slaughter it. It was a test, in essence, to see who would have the stomach to kill, and thus continue the final year at the Academy. Almost a third of the class was unable to do it, and so had left the Academy. The remaining two thirds killed their chicken, but at least five of the students couldn't handle the aftermath, and left the Academy as well, leaving fifteen students in their year group.

For Naruto and Hinata however, this was something they had done already. Naruto had killed once before, the man who had attacked him the night the Uchiha coup was ended. That had been accidental though. Since he and Hinata were both Assassins, and would need to undertake missions to test their abilities as Assassins, Anko had suggested the same training method. The pair had been given a chicken each that they had raised and then had been forced to kill. Hinata had done so, and then burst into tears afterwards, leading to Naruto comforting her. Anko apologized to them for what she made them do, but things remained tense between Hinata and Anko for months following that.

Since then, Naruto and Hinata had continued their training, until they reached a point where Raphael had felt comfortable assigning them to take part in missions alongside Anko, Yugito, and their then fellow recruit Kiseki. Naruto had been a bit wary of Kiseki at first, considering a member of her clan had tried to kill him. But time spent with her showed him she wasn't someone to fear. She had lost something that night as well.

Of course Sarutobi had not been entirely pleased at Naruto and Hinata being outside the village while still being Academy students, but considering Raphael had promised that they would always be accompanied by himself, Yugito, or Anko, the aged Hokage had eventually relented, so long as the missions never took place outside the borders of Hi no Kuni.

This mission that he and Yugito had been assigned was the latest in a series of missions targeting small groups of bandits travelling through Hi no Kuni down towards the southeast, in the direction of Nami no Kuni. When combined with reports that Gato Shipping Incorporated had started making inroads to that same country, it had obtained the interest of both the Assassins and Sarutobi, given their past interactions with associates of the shipping mogul.

Yugito just sighed as she stopped Naruto, turning to move in front of him and crouched down to look him in the face. "Hey. You know you can talk to us about this, right? We're here to help you. And if you need some time off, just say so," she said softly.

Naruto nodded at her, giving her a small smile. "Thanks Yugito nee-chan," he said.

Yugito grinned, patting his shoulder. "Now let's get going. Need to be back in Konoha before tomorrow evening if you're going to have time to rest and get ready. You know what next week is, right?"

The young blond grinned at her. "Graduation week. Me and Hinata will finally be genin," he said.

"Ah-ah, if you pass your finals," Yugito reminded. "Now c'mon, let's get going," she said, heading off, only to blink as Naruto spoke up.

"Of course, you could just be in a hurry to get back to Iruka-sensei," Naruto teased, causing the Nibi jinchuuriki to blush, thankful her hood was hiding her face.

"W-whatever," she said, trying not to smile at the thought of her boyfriend of four years now, as the pair headed off.

Konoha, the Next Day

In one of Konoha's training grounds, Anko sat peacefully under a tree, sighing as she quietly snacked on some dango. It was a beautiful day with the sun shining, a gentle breeze blowing, and not a cloud in the sky.

And then the peace was disturbed by a whistling noise followed by a thud of something smacking into a target dummy set up a ways from her. Anko glanced up a bit, seeing the target in the distance that now had a new arrow sticking out of it, joining the ten or so other's sticking out of different parts of the dummy. She narrowed her eyes a bit, before glancing up at the branches above her. "I think you were off target a little that time," she called up.

Above her, Hinata was crouched on a branch, the recurve bow she had gotten from Ganzo in her left hand as she had her Byakugan activated, studying the target. "Depends on your definition," she said, Byakugan deactivating as she looked down at Anko. "I missed the bull's-eye, but I put an arrow through where his heart would be."

Anko grinned as she watched Hinata hop down. "And that's what really matters, if you ask me," she said, watching the young ex-Hyuuga collapse the bow and put it back into the sling on her back. As Hinata lowered her hood, Anko studied the young girl.

Hinata had come a long way from that shy, broken girl she had become the guardian of almost five years ago. She now carried herself with an air of quiet confidence, and was now often smiling or laughing, usually at Naruto or Anko's antics. She had started to grow her hair out, and it now reached to her shoulders, though Hinata had mentioned thinking about growing it longer. When she wasn't wearing her recruit uniform, she had taken to now wearing a pair of black shorts that stopped right above her knees with a shorter purple skirt over them, along with a lavender short sleeved shirt over a long-sleeved mesh armor top. She also wore an open purple and white hoodie that had Konoha's emblem on the back, and calf high boots. She also still wore bandana's covering the top of her head.

Anko's grin continued, thinking about the past few years. She admitted that she greatly enjoyed having Hinata living with her. There had been some tough times, like recently when Hinata had been distant because of the chicken killing. But the worst parts had been when Hinata would break down, due mostly to seeing her mother and sister. They were the only members of her clan she had a good relationship with. Her mother had always been so kind and helpful and supportive to her. And Hanabi…Hanabi had wanted to spend with her big sister. To play and train with her. Even when they had to spar against each other, Hanabi had never done it out of spite. She wanted to prove she was as good as her older sister. Sadly, she had proven that point a little too well; since Hinata had lost more than a few times later on, making Hiashi believe Hinata was weak and worthless.

Things had been going well for Anko as well. She and Kurenai had both taken the jounin exams, and had passed, being promoted to full jounin. Anko originally had been thinking of applying only for Special Jounin status, but after talking it over with Raphael and Kurenai, she decided to go the extra mile. She had applied for a position as a jounin sensei of one of the future genin teams, while Kurenai had become, instead, a mentor to the heiress of the Kurama clan. The Kurama clan was one of Konoha's less well known clans, made up primarily of highly skilled genjutsu users. Their greatest prodigy to date was the current heiress, a young girl named Yakumo who was roughly around the same age as Naruto and Hinata. Yakumo's genjutsu were so powerful, they were capable of turning illusion into reality, bending the world around her. The problem was her skill in genjutsu came at a cost, of her body and chakra coils being too weak for her to properly use ninjutsu and taijutsu.

Despite this, Yakumo had been determined to become a kunoichi, drawing inspiration from Rock Lee, a boy a year ahead of Hinata and Naruto, who had already graduated from the Academy. Said boy was incapable of utilizing ninjutsu or genjutsu due to a problem with his chakra coils, but had vowed to become a shinobi with taijutsu alone. Yakumo had made that same promise, only with genjutsu rather than taijutsu. Her parents, wanting to help her fulfill that dream, had turned to Kurenai for help, seeing as how Kurenai was one of the foremost genjutsu wielders in the village outside of their clan.

Initially, Kurenai had felt like she couldn't succeed, and after a couple months of training, she feared that she would simply get Yakumo killed, and so tried to dissuade Yakumo from her dreams. Anko however had been overhearing a heated argument between the two, and confronted Kurenai about it afterwards.

Flashback

"You're really going to just abandon her like that?" Anko asked Kurenai, as the genjutsu mistress sat on a bench, head in her hands.

"What do you want me to do? Give her false hopes and let her get killed? She's not cut out to be a kunoichi," Kurenai said, before looking up at her. "I'm not cut out to be a sensei."

"And how would you know? This is your first time being one and you only gave it three months before deciding to give up. Is this really the kunoichi who vowed at the Academy to be a strong, capable ninja of Konoha? Who wanted to show the boys at the Academy that kunoichi could be just as good if not better than them? Huh?"Kurenai was taken aback at the look on Anko's face and the steel in her voice.

Kurenai took a deep breath. "Anko…I don't know if I can do this. Mentoring a student is such a big responsibility and I-," she started, only to be interrupted by Anko.

"I know it's a big responsibility. I've been essentially mentoring three people for a few years now, remember? Teaching Raphael-san, as well as Naruto and Hinata? I know what it's like to teach people Kurenai. And if me, the over active surge junkie goofball can do it, then surely one of the top kunoichi of our class can do so as well." Anko crouched down till she was face to face with Kurenai. "Nai-chan, you can't destroy that girl's dreams because of your own self doubts. Is that fair to her? To have her hopes and dreams destroyed because of you?"

Kurenai looked away, feeling guilty. "No…it's not. But…I…I don't want to be responsible for her death."

"It's the chance we take as sensei and mentors. All we can do is teach them to be as strong and skilled as we possibly can, and hope they take our lessons to heart. That's all we can do," Anko said.

The genjutsu mistress blinked at her, before shaking her head. "Since when did you get so smart?"

Anko just stuck a tongue out at her. "I've always been smart! Just like being sexy instead," she said with a smirk, as Kurenai rolled her eyes, while standing up. She smiled as Anko stood, before hugging her.

"Thanks Anko," she said softly.

Flashback Ends

Afterwards, Kurenai had apologized to Yakumo, and the two of them had begun working again on fulfilling Yakumo's dream. There had been a complication involving a side effect of Yakumo's powers, which had begun manifesting a dark creature in her mind, an Ido built upon the id of Yakumo's psyche. But with Kurenai's support and help from Inoichi Yamanaka, head of the Yamanaka clan, the Ido had been successfully suppressed, and Yakumo regained control of her powers. Even now, Kurenai and Yakumo occasionally joined Anko, Hinata, and Naruto for training (1).

She grinned as Hinata joined her after retrieving her arrows. "So, ready to head back to the warehouse? Naruto and Yugito might be back," she said.

Hinata blushed lightly, averting her gaze. "T-That might be a good idea," she said, as Anko grinned more.

"You've so got a crush on the gaki, don't you?" She asked, making Hinata's eyes widened.

"What?! N-No I don't!" Hinata said, waving her arms, only for Anko to giggle and start to chant in a sing-song voice.

"You wanna hug him, you wanna kiss him, you wanna date him," she said, before laughing as Hinata shoved her while blushing.

"Anko nee-chan, stop it!" She whined, as Anko kept laughing while they left the training ground.

As they were heading away from the training grounds, Hinata let out a sigh, thinking about the upcoming graduation exams. She was nervous, but she did think she was ready for it.

The Academy had been quite an experience. The first few years had been spent learning history and basics, focusing on things like understanding what chakra was, teamwork, the history of the villages, weapons and taijutsu. But three years ago, that had change. The history lessons and theoretical work shrank, and the more practical lessons began. Lessons like surviving in the wild, utilizing the weapons they had learned about in combat, setting traps and ambushes on unsuspecting enemies. Occasionally, the class would be divided into two or more 'armies' and engage in mock battles or operations, with those battles sometimes being between different classes and even year groups. They had all been armed with dull training weapons tipped in red paint to signify wounds and 'kills'.

Their current year, they had delved into some of the shadier things shinobi were required to do. Spying, stealing information, and assassinations. That last one had been of particular interest to Hinata and Naruto, who had paid very close attention to the lessons in this particular class.

They had also delved deeper into the chakra related arts. During their time in the Academy, they had learned how to perform ninjutsu, starting with the three basic ninjutsu known to practically every shinobi across the continent: the henge, the bunshin, and the kawarimi (2). The henge no jutsu was utilized by shinobi to create an illusion around themselves, making themselves appear as someone or something else the bunshin no jutsu was used to create illusionary clones of one self, which were excellent for distractions, but had little application beyond that. While the kawarimi no jutsu was a defensive jutsu, used by shinobi to replace themselves with a log or other inanimate object that would take an enemy's attack, rather than the shinobi themselves. Their instructor, Iruka Umino, had even said that it could be used against enemy shinobi, causing them to hurt or kill each other.

Unfortunately for Naruto, he found himself having a lot of trouble in the ninjutsu department. While he was able to perform the kawarimi, he was having trouble with both the henge and the bunshin. Every time he tried the henge, it would come out deformed. With the bunshin, his clones would often look pale, sickly, and completely fake looking.

Eventually, Hinata had used her Byakugan to watch Naruto when he performed these techniques, and found the answer. Naruto simply had too much chakra to properly perform such basic, low level techniques. Essentially, he was overloading the techniques with chakra. Anko and Yugito both immediately came to Naruto's help, providing solutions to his problems.

The first was to work on his chakra control. He had already been learning the tree walking exercise that Anko had been teaching to Raphael when he was first learning to control his chakra. The tree walking exercise taught a shinobi how to focus his chakra to use it to stick to walls, ceilings, buildings, and of course, trees. This also was how shinobi learned to hop great distances while running, using chakra in their feet to propel themselves through the air.

Yugito had also taught Naruto a trick she had learned in Kumo that helped her deal with her own, similar problems she had with the henge. Essentially, Kumo had developed a way to turn the illusion into a semi 'true' transformation. Rather than simply create an illusion, the jutsu created a shell of chakra around the caster that looked, felt, and smelled exactly like the real deal. The problem was this version of the henge was more chakra intensive, so fewer shinobi could use it for extended periods of time.

For the bunshin, it seemed like a lost cause. Naruto would never refine his control enough to make passable bunshin before they graduated, and Anko had hinted that bunshin would be part of what was needed to pass the graduation exam. So instead, Anko had taught Naruto a different type of clone based jutsu, one created in Konoha, but accessible only to jounin rank shinobi: the Kage Bunshin no jutsu (Shadow Clone jutsu). Unlike the normal bunshin, kage bunshin were physical constructs of chakra that could fight alongside their caster, but required an enormous amount of chakra to create. However, Naruto's large chakra reserves allowed him to easily summon a dozen shadow clones at a time, after he had managed to get the jutsu down.

In the Academy, after they had learned about the three basic ninjutsu, they had begun to learn about other different ninjutsu, primarily nature manipulation ninjutsu. These ninjutsu were generally the bread and butter of most shinobi jutsu arsenals. They learned about how each shinobi has one or possibly more elemental affinity, meaning that they could use ninjutsu of a particular element a lot more easily than other elements, though they could use all elemental based ninjutsu. Their instructor had given them each a slip of paper, to test their elemental affinities, telling them that the paper was chakra paper, made from the bark of a special tree, and that it reacted to chakra, being destroyed in a manner that revealed the person's elemental affinity. Naruto's was split in two, before the two pieces blackened a bit, becoming singed. Iruka had revealed that this meant Naruto had an affinity for wind, with a lesser affinity for fire (3). Hinata's in turn became soaked, falling apart, revealing an affinity for water. However, they had also learned that with few exceptions, most genin did not have the chakra reserves to perform truly combat worth elemental ninjutsu. So while they did take lessons in how to best feel and manipulate their respective elements, they weren't taught any actual elemental ninjutsu, which instead would be left to the jounin sensei.

They had also learned about shape manipulation of chakra, in which rather than use chakra to manipulate elements into jutsu, a ninja manipulated chakra itself, to perform a jutsu. The henge, bunshin, kawarimi, and most other non element based ninjutsu fell into this category. Again though, they were not taught anything more serious then the basic three ninjutsu, due to most of the genin not having enough chakra capacity or control to successful pull off combat capable ninjutsu. They were however taught how they could increase both their capacity and control of their chakra, so that hopefully upon their graduation from the Academy, they would be able to easily begin learning more combat capable techniques from their sensei.

They had also been taught about genjutsu as well, the art of utilizing chakra to manipulate a target's senses, making them believe illusions were real. Raphael had taken an interest in this field, due to the applications it could have for Assassins. However, genjutsu was a somewhat more specialized field then ninjutsu or taijutsu. Genjutsu required incredible chakra control, as well as being able to notice and remember many details that would be needed to help maintain the reality of the illusion, to prevent the target from realizing something was wrong and thus trying to break out of said illusion. The Academy had taught them that in order to break out of an illusion; one had to be able to stop their flow of chakra through their body, before surging it, creating a type of pulse that could dissipate the opponent's chakra manipulating their senses. Failing that, if a shinobi could cause themselves pain not created by the illusion, it would bring their own senses back into reality.

Their instructor had also talked about far more specialized fields that shinobi could utilize, such as fuinjutsu (sealing jutsu), iryō ninjutsu (medical ninja techniques), and others. Though their teachers had told them most of those fields were something that only chuunin or jounin started truly training in.

All in all, the Academy had confirmed something the Assassins had already been helping her to understand: that the Hyuuga were stifling themselves, and becoming stagnant because of it. In the clan, they were taught that because of their bloodline and their taijutsu style, a Hyuuga needed nothing else. They utilized the basic weapons and equipment every shinobi from genin to jounin carried, but even these were treated as disdainful, a last resort. And yet, there were so many possibilities that they could incorporate into their fighting style. Lightning could be used to enhance the Jyuuken, creating an ability to not only disrupt the opponent's chakra system, but their nervous system as well. Ganzo had proven right, that with training, Hinata was becoming quite skilled with the bow, especially with her Byakugan allowing her to zoom in on far away targets. Their Byakugan could make them incredibly skilled medics, allowing them to access internal injuries, and even use the Jyuuken to stop or increase the flow of chakra to damaged parts of a person's body, to aid in healing injuries or curing poisons. But none of this had been available to any Hyuuga, because they believed they didn't need it. And it was such a waste of potential.

Hinata looked up, drawn from her thoughts, as they arrived at the warehouse. Anko grinned, entering first, with Hinata behind, only for her eyes to widen and a smile to appear on her face as she saw Naruto and Yugito talking to Raphael. "Naruto!" She said happily.

Naruto glanced up and grinned, waving at her as she and Anko joined them. "Hey Hinata, Anko nee-chan," he said with a grin. Anko just grinned, ruffling his hair and making him whine.

"Back from your mission, huh? How did it go?" She asked, as Naruto waved her hand off.

"Everything went according to plan," Naruto said, his smile fading a bit as he thought again of the sleeping man dying at the end of his blade. He lightly shook his head to rid himself of the thoughts. "We got some information from them too, concerning both their group's operations in Hi no Kuni, as well as their orders in Nami no Kuni."

"Gato's becoming quite desperate on hiring street muscle," Raphael said, setting aside one of the papers Yugito had handed him. "He was willing to pay the Buru-Hoshi close to three times the amount he's paid some of the other groups we've intercepted. I think he's feeling the pressure from what we've been doing."

"So are we going to move against him then?" Anko asked, only for Raphael to shake his head.

"At the moment, no. we don't even have confirmation that he is in Nami no Kuni. And even if we did, we'd be making a martyr out of him currently. No, if we're going to take him down, we need to do so in a way that makes people see him for what he really was, and thus make others like him more afraid to keep operating. Besides…I want to find out what exactly he's doing," Raphael said quietly. "His actions almost seem to be directed towards disrupting the shinobi villages. His men moving into Suna, helping to sell weapons to both sides of the Kiri Civil War, that business recently where his men were driven out of Iwa after attempting to start up a casino and brothel in the village. He's trying to get footholds into the villages, and we need to find out why."

"Is it not possible he's just a greedy pig trying to make money?" Anko asked.

"It's possible, but it's not likely. Why try these things in the shinobi villages? There are dozens of towns and cities and villages all over he could do these in, where he'd have a much easier time. So why go for the shinobi villages? He's after something," Raphael said, before sighing. "You did excellent work you two. Well done. I'll need to take these reports to Sarutobi, so for now, rest and relax," he said, standing up while gathering the reports.