19 Break in the Routine

"Alright you guys. I've already seen enough of your crappy tailing skills, stop defiling my eyes already!" Said Shiki with ruthless savagery.

All the kids following them came out of their hiding spots slightly embarrassed and irked by Shiki's comment.

"Hey Shiki just wanted to train with you tebayo! It has been a while you know!" Explained Naruto.

"That doesn't really explain why you were trying to follow in hiding, or why you have such a big entourage. Unless all of you want to train?"

Ino said she was curious, Sakura just kept glancing at Sasuke and he merely kept quiet.

"So in short, Naruto wanted to train with me, Ino was jealous of me spending time with Hinata and Sakura just followed Emo-kun like a fangirl! What about you Emo-kun? What are you doing here?"

Hearing Shiki's words, Ino and Sakura froze while Sasuke's cool expression started twitching due to the nickname before he simply said in a low volume.

"Training."

"Fine! How about this? Hinata and I will have our spar first, then while she rests I'll take on Naruto then Sasuke. If anyone wants seconds I'll be up for it too." Suggested Shiki.

"I'm okay with that!" Answered Hinata.

"Cool with me tebayo!" Seconded Naruto.

"What about if someone beats you?" Asked Sasuke out of tune with the other two.

Naruto looked at Sasuke as if he were an idiot while Hinata simply looked away. As for Shiki's reaction . . .

"Bwahahahaha! Haaaaa! Well Emo-kun, I'll be surprised if someone actually managed to touch me but we shall see."

And so it began, Hinata opened with an Eight Trigrams: Air Palm which Shiki may have inconspicuously gave her some ideas that led to her reproducing techniques she hadn't been taught yet.

Shiki smoothly dodged and countered with Wind Style: Gale Palm without weaving any signs.

Hinata moved out of the way but Shiki took the opportunity that she was out of balance to move in with body flicker and land a powerful blow. Hinata blocked it but was blown back.

Shiki struck once again like before but Hinata escaped with substitution and stuck at Shiki's back, but he sensed her so he delivered a back kick counter without looking following it up with a palm strike to her abdomen making her cough out some blood and shocking the spectators that never saw Shiki's training before.

Shiki went for a third strike but Hinata recovered her stance and fought back. Unfortunately for her, Shiki gracefully dodged all her blows while she couldn't avoid or guard all of his. Shiki's continued close range assault sealed any of her means of fighting back so eventually, Hinata fell.

Shiki delivered Hinata to Kurenai after healing her and then turned to Naruto with a sadistic smile that sent shivers down the Academy students' spines.

"Next vict-I mean sparring partner!"

'H-He was just about to say victim wasn't he!?' Thought everyone, even Kurenai.

Naruto, having been down this road before, simply gathered his resolved and stepped fully prepared to get thrashed.

"Let's go tebayo! Shadow Clone Jutsu!" Naruto made six shadow clones. Shiki had taught him the jutsu while emphasising its uses and beating onto the blonde idiot not to simply use them to try and overwhelm opponents with sheer numbers.

Now, Naruto actually took advantage of the shadow clones to train and used them more effectively in spars.

The seven Naruto's charged in an arrow formation. Shiki used a Shisui style body flicker to make afterimage clones engaging Naruto and his clones in taijutsu. Naruto smartly protected himself and kept making more clones as he looked for an opening to strike.

Shiki jumped high as his afterimages disappeared. 'Wind Style: Air Bullets' Using the air bullets for impact damage rather than vacuum bullets as he didn't want to kill Naruto. Shiki quickly struck down all the Narutos beneath him with a barrage.

But they were all clones and the real Naruto was above him delivering a powerful kick to Shiki's back however, it was just a substitution and as the blonde kicked down a log, the real Shiki weaved hand signs on the ground.

'Wind Style: Great Breakthrough'

The jutsu violently blew Naruto against a the trees breaking the first one he hit. Clearly Shiki hit him harder than Hinata to compensate for his stronger constitution.

Meanwhile, Ino, Sakura, and even Sasuke were gobsmacked at the level of the fight they never thought Naruto could use the Shadow Clone Jutsu and fight so effectively. And they were even more impressed at how Shiki flawlessly dealt with attack and countered with finesse as well as his mastery of wind style.

'Look at how amazed they are! If only they knew what I can actually do. Mere frogs at the bottom of the well.' Thought Shiki smugly after bully-training two children. He gave Naruto some first aid and left him to Kurenai as well.

"Well then, Emo-kun! You're next!" Announced Shiki as Sasuke stood up and positioned himself across the field from him.

'It looks like he specializes in wind style so I'll back step and open up with fire style!' Planned Sasuke in his mind. Poor Emo-kun, he had no idea what was coming to him.

The spar started and Sasuke immediately backstepped to increase distance as he weaved signs.

"Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu!"

'Why do they feel the need to shout their jutsu?' Though Shiki as he countered by weaving one hand sign.

'Water Style: Raging Wave'

The jet of water coming from Shiki's mouth extinguished the fireball and washed away Sasuke, leaving him on the ground.

As he opened his eyes, Sasuke saw Shiki falling straight towards him to deliver a heel kick. He panickedly rolled out of the way with Shiki's heel cracking the ground on impact.

Sasuke regained his stance and prepared to counterattack but suddenly hands came out of the ground grabbing his ankles.

'Earth Style: Headhunter Jutsu'

Shiki then came out of the ground and released the shadow clone he left as a distraction.

"Looks like I'm still untouched! You three still have a long way to go!"

The only injury Sasuke had was on his pride so Shiki just dug him out. After the three spars everybody went out to eat together and as they parted afterwards, Shiki pulled Sasuke to the side.

'Although I can't say I like him he is a central character in this world so there's nothing wrong with getting some good will while it's easy!' Thought Shiki to himself.

"What is it?" Asked Sasuke with an impatient face.

Shiki didn't talk and instead merely activated his sharingan for a brief moment shocking the Uchiha.

"S-Sharingan! A-Are you"

"Who knows? My father was an Uzumaki but maybe my mother was an Uchiha? I don't remember them so I don't really know."

"I-I see." Sasuke mulled over the surprising information as Shiki prepared to perform his bootleg version of the Talk no Jutsu. The Bullshit no Jutsu.

"I noticed before that you already possess the Sharingan so why didn't you use it?" 'Well actually I just know it from the series I have no idea if there is way to tell.'

"W-What do you mean!?" Asked Sasuke dumbfounded by Shiki's question.

Shiki then explained that he could tell Sasuke had already awakened the sharingan and perhaps he merely didn't remember it since it is normally awakened in moments of intense emotional distress.

After a few more words the two agreed to train together and see if they could shock Sasuke into activating his Sharingan again. A few training sessions down the line and a lot of royal beatdowns later, Sasuke could finally activate his One Tomoe Sharingan.

"Finally!" Exclaimed Shiki. "Now that you have awakened it, we must step up the training!" He continued.

"S-Step up!? Why!? Wasn't the purpose of the training already accomplished?" Asked Sasuke fearfully. Over the last few days he had learned the meaning of the hellish in hellish training.

"There are two reasons! The first is to get you used to the sharingan's increased perception. When someone first awakens the sharingan they overstress their bodies from trying to keep up with the increased reaction time, forcing themselves to adjust to properly move with it."

"The second reason is to fully take advantage of the sharingan's abilities. So long as you properly master it, you'll be able to deal with ninjutsu and genjutsu effectively but to take advantage of the sharingan's enhanced perception when it comes to taijutsu, you'll need adequate physical ability. Not to mention that sharingan users benefit much more from high speeds than regular shinobi."

And so, Sasuke's hell began anew. What started as a way to garner so goodwill turned into Shiki's pet project as he loved to observe development brought about by himself whether in his own abilities or that of others.

A couple of days later, Shiki was called to the Hokage's office. He thought it strange since although he talked with the old man quite frequently as he visited the Senju compound often, he was never officially called to the office.

As he arrived he saw the hokage, Tsunade and Shizune waiting for him causing further doubt.

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