Naruto Chapter 110

Naruto's question to Shikamaru and Choji was overheard by Ino, who was delivering a package from her mother to Shikamaru's mother and therefore she was invited as well, which led to all the ones from their class that weren't out on missions being gathered at Choji's favourite barbecue place.

They had a fun evening, talking about missions, training, interesting people they had met and their families while roasting pieces of meat or vegetables on the grill.

Some of the others had got missions where they needed to repair houses inside the village and talked about how much work it was. None of them liked to think how much worse things could have been hadn't they known beforehand what would come.

Naruto enjoyed the easy atmosphere, even if he stayed on guard. It was simply part of his personality. You didn't simply change after having to rely on these abilities your whole life. Then the conversation switched to a new program that they had heard about, one that had specialists of a field hold seminars at the academy for the students with the goal to spot talented students early on to teach them more in that field.

"I know about that one," Naruto said, and all eyes turned towards him, "I'm part of the group that will teach, my field being fuinjutsu."

"Makes sense, you're one of the few seal masters in the village and Jiraiya is constantly out maintaining his spy network and I doubt they will let Dark Phoenix teach," Shikamaru nodded.

"I still can't believe that you and Hinata got to go on a mission with that mysterious person," Ino commented.

"Well, I got the impression that he's a normal guy," Shikamaru replied, "Highly skilled and very intelligent for sure, but not too different to any other ninja."

"I thought the same. He treated us like all other higher ranked ninjas that I worked with since my promotion to chunin did. Professionally, but a bit distanced," Hinata agreed.

"The biggest surprise was probably that he was younger than I assumed. I would guess he's perhaps one or two years older than us at most," Shikamaru stated.

"Naruto, do you know who he is?" Sakura asked, "I mean, you did some work together with him."

"No, I'm not privy to S-rank secrets in general," Naruto shook his head, which was true, as a special jonin his clearance was officially B-rank secrets and A-rank pertaining to certain missions, outside of the Kyubi of course.

"And everybody outside of Konoha would pay a fortune to find out the identity of our new seal supplier. While I help out with that as well, ever since Jiraiya Sama confirmed my mastery, it would hit the village hard if our main seal master was taken out."

"That's true. The new seals have made success rates of the missions Konoha took since Dark Phoenix took over the job rise a distinct margin," Sakura nodded.

"Tsunade sensei has told me how the seals helped the teams to have an easier time to get the missions done, with less losses and injuries as well.

If people like Orochimaru got that information, they would stop at nothing either to capture him and force him to work for them, or kill him to deprive Konoha of that resource."

The others nodded. Thanks to their intensive training since they had graduated, they had learned that the less people knew a secret, the better it was kept. Especially in the ninja world. Something like this would only be known to the highest-ranking ninjas in the village, the Hokage, his advisors, probably Lord Jiraiya and a select few others.

"Which other areas will be part of the seminar program?" Choji asked, bringing the topic back to that.

"Well, there is of course the already initiated medic program under the leadership of Tsunade sensei," Sakura answered, "Then I think weapons outside of kunai and shuriken will be taught and a class on tracking."

"The last one is correct, my older sister Hana told Mum about her being asked to teach it," Kiba threw in, "She also mentioned that a friend of hers that is specialised in infiltration will hold a seminar on that as well."

"Definitely a much better curriculum than what we went through," Naruto commented.

"I still can't believe how far behind we were when we started out. Those first months under Kakashi sensei were hell on earth," Sakura shook her head, "I should never have listened to the rubbish my Mum told me about being a ninja. I wasted so much time.

And I'm ever so glad that Kakashi sensei cured me of the stupid dieting idea before I got to train under Tsunade sensei. The way she laid into the beginner class in medical jutsus for thinking that dieting at their age was a good idea," She shuddered at the memory.

"You're right, Sakura, I felt pity for the girls. But they will never get that idea again," Hinata nodded.

"No, they would have to have a death wish," Sakura agreed.

"What did Lady Tsunade do?" Ino asked curiously, as she hadn't gone into the medical program like the other two girls, as she wanted to specialise in poisons, which was only a small part of the knowledge covered in the program.

"First she destroyed a thick desk with her fist when half the class raised their hands when asked if they were dieting, then she let us all assemble out on the grounds behind the medical training centre and started bombarding everybody with exploding lead balls.

While throwing the balls at incredible speed she gave a lecture on how those on a diet were too weak to even dodge a large object like the balls and that if they ever wanted to have a good-looking body like her and Shizune, they better stopped the idiocy at once, or she would spar with them in person.

Needless to say that I never was as grateful for Kakashi sensei's lessons on dodging at the beginning of our training as at that time," Sakura reported.

"We had to avoid the balls for fifteen minutes on end, all twenty students in our class at once. It was a disaster. The dieting girls were on the ground before five minutes were over and Tsunade sensei kept throwing the balls.

About three quarters of our class needed medical treatment afterwards and the ones that had got away lightly got to work on practical examples. While the explosions were only low-level ones, and mostly released paint, it was still very effective in teaching the ones that didn't have as hard training as we did what they quickly needed to do," Hinata added.

"And really, Kurenai sensei's physical training prepared me well enough for the level Tsunade sensei started out with. They really have neglected their training. And the academy students are in a different class than we are, meaning they don't have the excuse of being used to lesser training than a genin."

The others nodded. It was clear that things were changing rapidly in Konoha and they all considered it an improvement to before.

...

It was strange, Naruto decided, to be back at the academy as somebody that would teach a class. His time off had been quite relaxing and he had decided to actually do nothing in concerns of training for a whole week.

He had gone to the movies, spent time at a lake, going swimming, cooking over a campfire and watching the stars at night. It had been really peaceful. Many of his old classmates had gone on one mission or the other during that time and he had occasionally spent some time with those that were at the village.

The second week he had started setting up his lesson plans and continued his training, as there were still more jutsus that he was interested in learning. Currently he was working on a water jutsu that allowed the user to cover the victim in a cocoon of water that then drained the prisoner of his chakra.

A great jutsu to capture targets alive. It was based on the water prison jutsu, but more complicated and higher ranked.

Where the water prison jutsu was a B-rank jutsu, the water cocoon jutsu was an A-rank jutsu. He spent three hours each day working out the mechanics behind the jutsu and he was coming close to mastering it. Shadow clones were incredibly useful for jutsu training after all.

When he had been a student at the academy, he had dumbed down his abilities to not be sabotaged by the civilian council. Things had changed for the better since then, but he still didn't trust them as far as he could throw them.

He knew that if they saw a chance to regain some of their former influence, they would take it immediately. And they hated him with a passion, no matter his heritage. They saw him as the reason why they had lost their previous influence in the village.

None of them acknowledged that they hadn't ever had a right to wield the power they had, but like always, if somebody got power, he tried as hard as possible to not lose the power again.

Now, as a special jonin, he had worked for the respect he got. His classmates knew about his true level and trusted him to lead them on missions properly.

His opinion was valued in discussions about how a mission could be fulfilled efficiently and the higher ups in the military supported him in his wish to grow stronger. It helped that his jonin sensei had become the new Hokage and the village flourished under Kakashi's rule.

He stood in front of the class, which hadn't noticed him yet. He had used a camouflage seal on the sleeve of his shirt to blend in with his surroundings. It was fun to see how the children were discussing the new specialist lessons and wondered which one they would have today and who the teacher would be.

Naruto had decided to let his prankster persona out again and had trapped the chairs in each row with sticky glitter bomb seals. The most atrocious colours he could find at that. From neon pink to shocking orange.

It should get the children's attention fairly quickly. He made the snake seal and activated the tags, which caused the children to scream and the glitter fall down everywhere, sticking to anybody it hit, which was the whole class, as none of them had been prepared for something like this.

Naruto deactivated the camouflage seal and phased into view when the children tried to get rid of the glitter. It was good for two lessons.

"Well, I'm a little disappointed that you didn't even try to check for traps inside the classroom. Lesson Number One: A ninja is always prepared for the unexpected.

Lesson Number Two: Never underestimate what a creative mind can do with fuinjutsu," Naruto spoke loudly, making the children all turn towards him, the only person in the classroom to not be covered in sticky glitter.

...

Hey guys I really need some power stones to Elevate the ranking :)

...

if you want to read ahead of the public release you can join my p atreon :

 p atreon.com/CarriePoppins